The Diviners (17 page)

Gabe fell to the floor. “I surrender.”

Memphis helped him up. “Good game.”

Gabe laughed as they walked off the court. “ ’Course it was a good game for you. You won.”

They dressed and headed to the drugstore for a snack.

Gabe cleared his throat. “I hear Jo’s ankle is only sprained.”

“That’s good,” Memphis said. He didn’t want to get into it.

“Still, she’s out of work for another two weeks.”

“That’s a shame.”

“That all you got to say?”

“What else should I say?”

“You ever just try—”

Memphis stopped cold. “I told you. I can’t do it anymore. Not since my mother.”

Gabe put up his hands. “Okay, okay. Don’t get hot. If you can’t, you can’t.”

They walked a block in silence. Memphis saw a crow flitting from post to post, keeping pace. “I swear that bird is following me,” he said.

Gabe laughed and twirled his lucky rabbit’s foot, which hung by its chain from his finger. He swore it was his good-luck charm, and he never played a gig without it. “I told you, Casanova, you’ve got to stop giving those birds candy and flowers. Then they never leave you alone.”

“I’m not kidding. I’ve seen it every day for the past two weeks.”

Gabe raised his eyebrows and his lips pulled into a smile. “And you know it’s the same crow? She got a name? Alice, maybe. Or Berenice! Yes, sir, looks like a Berenice to me.”

Memphis could see that this would be a joke for Gabe for weeks to come.

“Memphis—it’s just a bird. Birds fly around, brother. It’s what they do. It’s not following you, and it’s not a sign. Unless you really did give it candy and flowers, in which case you are one strange brother.”

Memphis laughed, shrugging off the bad feeling like an unneeded coat. Gabe was right—he was letting himself get spooked for nothing. It was that crazy dream that wouldn’t let him alone. No wonder he saw omens around every corner.

They settled into a booth at Mr. Reggie’s and ordered sandwiches and coffee.

“I wrote a new poem last night,” Memphis said.

“When’re you gonna show those poems to somebody other than the dead folks up in the graveyard?”

“They’re not good enough yet.”

Gabe reached across the table and took the pickle from Memphis’s plate. “How do you know, if nobody’s read ’em? One of these days, you just need to walk yourself right up to Miss A’Lelia Walker’s town house and say, ‘How do you do, ma’am? I’m Memphis Campbell, and I’d be much obliged if you’d read my work.’ ” Gabe finished the pickle and wiped his hands on Memphis’s napkin. “Life don’t come to you, Memphis. You gotta take it.
We
have to take it. Because ain’t nobody handing it to us. You understand? Now”—Gabe leaned back against the back of the small booth and spread his arms—“ask me why I’m grinning,”

Memphis rolled his eyes. “Why are you grinning, Gabe?”

“Guess who’s playing trumpet on Mamie Smith’s new record?”

“Hey, brother!”

“Heard from Clarence Williams at Okeh Records last night in the club. They want me to come in tomorrow.” Gabe shook his head. “Me, playing for Miss Mamie Smith.”

“What about Mamie Smith?” Alma dropped into the seat next to Gabe and helped herself to some of his potato salad.

“Did I invite you?” Gabe teased.

“I invited myself. Thought this table needed some class.”

“Mr. Gabriel Rolly Johnson here is now a recording artist for Okeh Records, blowing his horn for none other than Miss Mamie Smith.”

Alma let out a little squeal of excitement and threw her arms around Gabe. “You know what this means, baby?”

“What?”

“It means you can buy my lunch. Hey, Mr. Reggie!” she shouted. “I’ll take a meat-loaf sandwich, and you can put it on Gabe’s tab. And add a milk shake!” She squinted at Memphis. “What’s eating you?”

“Just haven’t been sleeping much.”

“Oh?” Alma said and pursed her lips playfully. “What’s her name?”

“Her name is Berenice, and she’s a very persistent bird,” Gabe joked, breaking himself up. He slapped the table, making the rabbit’s foot jump.

“There’s nobody,” Memphis said quickly.

“That’s your trouble, brother,” Gabe said, wiping his eyes. He doused his sandwich with hot salt-and-pepper pickles that made Memphis’s nose run. “You need to get your head out of that notebook and come with me to the club Saturday night. We’ll find you a girl.”

Alma made a face. “How can you eat that, Gabriel?”

“Helps me keep my pucker, baby.”

Memphis stirred the tiny mound of sugar at the bottom of his coffee cup. “Don’t want
a
girl. I want
the
girl.”

Alma put her pinkie in the air and tilted her chin up. “Oh.
The
girl.”

Gabe matched her imperious tone. “I say, old boy. Do give her my best.”

Alma and Gabe fell into a routine, mocking Memphis like he was high-hat. Memphis knew better than to let on that he was irritated by their teasing, so he put on the big smile and grabbed his knapsack. “Gotta go to San Juan Hill and see about some business for Papa Charles. Oh, and thank you for lunch, Gabriel.”

He could hear Gabe saying, “Hey, now!” as he walked out the door and left him with the check.

“Hey, hey—Mr. Campbell! ’Zat you?” Blind Bill called from a chair in front of Floyd’s Barbershop. Sometimes Floyd put out an old chair and let him sit and play for the customers, or just soak up the sun. “I know it’s you. Don’t play with old Bill now. My number come in today?”

“No, sir. Sorry. Better luck next time.”

“Heard people got them some numbers they playing for that murder down under the bridge.”

“Yes, sir. Some people do have a gig for it.”

“Hmph.” Blind Bill spat. “Nothin’ good can come from that. You don’t play a number on a murder, if you want my opinion.”

“I just write the slips.”

“I keep seeing this number. In my dreams, you know. I see a house, and there’s a number, but I cain’t never make it out.”

Memphis had never thought about the dreams of the blind. How could old Bill see a house and a number if he couldn’t see at all? But there were rumors about Bill: He’d lost his sight when he got some bad whiskey. He’d been beaten and left for dead over an unpaid gambling debt. He’d done a woman wrong and she’d gotten her revenge with a curse. Some people said he’d lost his sight in a card game with the Devil and now he was on the run to keep his soul. People said all kinds of things.

The crow chattered again. Blind Bill angled his ear toward it. “Got ourselves a messenger, seem like. Question is, who’d it come for, you or me?”

Bill laughed his big, gravelly laugh. It threaded with the crow’s insistent caw, a discordant symphony.

Theta blew into the Globe Theatre with her leopard-spot coat hanging from one shoulder and a cigarette dangling from her painted lips. She kept her sunglasses on, feeling her way down the aisle through the rows of seats. The rest of the company was in mid-rehearsal for the Geisha Girl number, which Theta thought was one of the stupidest, most insulting routines they’d ever done—and there had been plenty of stupid, insulting numbers.

The stage manager glared. “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Her Highness, come to grace us with her presence at last. You’re an hour late, Theta!”

“Keep your shirt on, Wally. I’m here.” Theta exchanged a furtive glance with Henry at the piano. He shook his head and she shrugged.

“She thinks she’s better than everybody else,” one of the chorines, a dim little witch named Daisy, griped.

Theta ignored her. She dropped her coat in the front row, doused her cigarette in the stage manager’s cup of coffee, and took her place onstage.

“One of these days, Theta,” he fumed. “You’re going to do something even Flo Ziegfeld won’t tolerate, and it will be my pleasure to toss you out on your—”

“You gonna beat your gums all day, or are we gonna work?” Theta snapped.

Theta executed her steps perfectly. She could do the number in her sleep. For good measure, though, she bumped into Daisy, just to rattle her. Daisy was sore because Theta had gotten a nice write-up in the papers for a number that was supposed to be Daisy’s. “That was my specialty dance,” Daisy had fumed in the dressing room the next night. “And you stole it out from under me.”

“I can’t steal what you don’t own,” Theta had said, and Daisy had hurled a pot of cold cream, missing Theta by a mile—her aim being as questionable as her dancing. As usual, Daisy had gone with her sob story to Flo, who had broken down and given her the spotlight for the Worship of Ba’al number that closed the show. Theta was tired of standing in somebody else’s shadow—especially when that somebody was half the performer Theta was.

They broke for five, and Theta sat on the piano bench next to
Henry. “You look like you ran away from a prep school,” she teased. He was wearing a cardigan and a straw boater.

“It’s all about the style, darlin’.”

“We’re both bigger than this lousy show, Hen.”

Henry played softly, almost reflexively. He was always happiest with his fingers on the keys and some song pouring out of him. “Agreed, darlin’. But we still gotta pay rent.”

Theta adjusted the seam on her stockings so it ran straight. “How’d it go when you gave Flo your new tune?”

Henry’s perpetual smirk turned to a frown. He plunked out a sour chord and stopped. “About how I ’spected it would.”

Theta tugged on the boater’s brim. “The Ziegfeld only likes ’em dumb and hummable, kiddo.”

“ ‘The people pay to be entertained, kid,’ ” Henry said in perfect imitation of the great showman. “ ‘They want to leave happy and humming. Above all, they don’t want to think too hard!’ ” He sighed. “I swear I could write a song about constipation, and as long as it rhymed
girl
with
pearl
, Mr. Ziegfeld would like it.” Henry struck up a jaunty melody on the keys. He sang with exaggerated romantic bravado in his soft, sweet tenor. “Darling girl, I’d be your fool, if I could only pass this stool, oh the curse of CON-STI-PAAAA-TION!”

Theta dissolved into laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Daisy loomed over them.

“I just got a joke Henry told me last Wednesday.” Theta cupped a match to her cigarette and blew the smoke toward Daisy, who didn’t take the hint.

“Whatcha reading?” The chorine sneered at Theta’s copy of
The Weary Blues
, which sat on top of her bag. “Negro poetry?”

“I wouldn’t expect you to get it, Daisy. You don’t look at
anything besides
Photoplay
—and even then somebody’s gotta explain the pictures to you.”

Daisy’s mouth hung open in outrage. “Well, I never!”

“Yeah, that’s what you tell all your fellas, but the rest of us aren’t buying it. Go away, now, Daisy. Shoo, little fly!” Theta flicked her fingers dismissively at Daisy, who stormed off and started dishing out an earful about how high-hat Theta was to any of the dancers who would listen.

Henry’s fingers found their place on the keys again. “You sure know how to make pals, honey.”

“Not interested in making pals. I already got a best pal,” she said, patting his knee. She reached into her brassiere and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill, which she tucked into Henry’s shirt pocket. “Here. For the piano fund.”

“I told you to forget that.”

Theta’s voice went soft. “I never forget a favor. You know that.”

“Where’d you get that kale?”

“Some Wall Street broker with more money than sense. He bought me a fur just to be seen with him at dinner. And that’s all he got—dinner company.”

“They all wanna marry you.”

“Just once I’d like to meet a fella who isn’t a phony. Somebody who doesn’t wanna buy me a fur so he can show me off to his boys.”

“When you meet that fella, see if he’s got a brother,” Henry joked.

“I thought you were carrying a torch for Lionel?” Theta teased.

Henry grimaced. “More like a matchstick. He giggles when I kiss him.”

“So maybe you kiss funny.” Theta smirked. She loved the way Henry always found some picky reason to send his beaus packing.