A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

The door opens again and he sees Johnny Staats (traps and percussion) come in in quite a hurry. He thought Staats was home in bed by now. Staats is feeling himself all over like he was rehearsing the shim-sham and he’s scanning the ground as he goes along. Then suddenly he pounces — and it’s on the very scrap of garbage Eddie just now threw away! And as he straightens up with it, his breath comes out in such a sigh of relief that Eddie can hear it all the way across the still room. All this keeps him from hailing Staats as he was going to a minute ago and suggesting a cup of java. But — “Superstitious,” thinks broadminded Eddie. “It’s his good-luck charm, that’s all, like some people carry a rabbit’s foot. I’m a little that way myself, never walk under a ladder—”

Then again, why should those two mammies go into hysterics when they lamp the same object? And Eddie recalls now that some of the boys have always suspected Staats has colored blood, and tried to tell him so years ago when Staats first came in with them, but he wouldn’t listen to them.

Staats slinks out again as noiselessly as he came in, and Eddie decides he’ll catch up with him and kid him about his chicken-claw on their way home together. (They all roost in the same hotel.) So he takes his music-sheets, some of which are blank, and he leaves. Staats is way down the street — in the wrong direction, away from the hotel! Eddie hesitates for just a minute, and then he starts after Staats on a vague impulse, just to see where he’s going — just to see what he’s up to. Maybe the fright of the scrubwomen and the way Staats pounced on that chicken-claw just now have built up to this, without Eddie’s really knowing it.

And how many times afterward he’s going to pray to his God that he’d never turned down that other way this night — away from his hotel, his Judy, his boys — away from the sunlight and the white man’s world. Such a little thing to decide to do, and afterwards no turning back — ever...

He keeps Staats in sight, and they hit the Vieux Carr6. That’s all right. There are a lot of quaint places here a guy might like to drop in. Or maybe he has some Creole sweetie tucked away, and Eddie thinks: I’m lower than a ditch to spy like this. But then suddenly right before his eyes, halfway up the narrow lane he’s turned into — there isn’t any Staats any more! And no door opened and closed again either. Then when Eddie gets up to where it was, he sees the crevice between the old houses, hidden by an angle in the walls. So that’s where he went! Eddie almost has a peeve on by now at all this hocus-pocus. He slips in himself and feels his way along. He stops every once in awhile and can hear Staats’ quiet footfall somewhere way up in front. Then he goes on again. Once or twice the passage spreads out a little and lets a little green-blue moonlight part way down the walls. Then later, there’s a little flare of orange light from under a window and an elbow jogs him in the appendix. “You’d be happier here. Doan go the rest of the way,” a soft voice breathes. A prophecy if he only knew it!

But hardboiled Eddie just says: “G’wan to bed, y’dirty stay-up!” out of the corner of his mouth, and the light vanishes. Next a tunnel and he bangs the top of his head and his eyes water. But at the other end of it, Staats has finally come to a halt in a patch of clear light and seems to be looking up at a window or something, so Eddie stays where he is, inside the tunnel, and folds the lapels of his black jacket up over his white shirt-front so it won’t show.

Staats just stands there for a spell, with Eddie holding his breath inside the tunnel, and then finally he gives a peculiar, dismal whistle. There’s nothing carefree or casual about it. It’s a hollow swampland sound, not easy to get without practice. Then he just stands there waiting, until without warning, another figure joins him in the gloom. Eddie strains his eyes. A gorilla-like, Negro roustabout. Something passes from Staats’ hand to his — the chicken claw possibly — then they go in, into the house Staats has been facing. Eddie can hear the soft shuffle of feet going up stairs on the inside, and the groaning, squeaking of an old decayed door — and then silence—

— He edges forward to the mouth of the tunnel and peers up. No light shows from any window, the house appears to be untenanted, deserted.