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

Eddie hangs onto his coat collar with one hand and strokes his chin with the other. He doesn’t know just what to do. The vague impulse that has brought him this far after Staats begins to peter out now. Staats has some funny associates — something funny is going on in this out-of-the-way place at this unearthly hour of the morning — but after all, a man’s private life is his own. He wonders what made him do this, he wouldn’t want anyone to know he did it. He’ll turn around and go back to his hotel now and get some shut-eye; he’s got to think up some novelty for his routine at the Bataclan between now and Monday or he’ll be out on his ear.

Then just as one heel is off the ground to take the turn that will start him back, a vague, muffled wailing starts from somewhere inside that house. It’s toned down to a mere echo. It has to go through thick doors and wide, empty rooms and down a deep, hollow stairwell before it gets to him. Oh, some sort of a revival meeting, is it? So Staats has got religion, has he? But what a place to come and get it in!

A throbbing like a far-away engine in a machine-shop underscores the wailing, and every once in a while a boom like distant thunder across the bayou tops the whole works. It goes: Boom-putta-putta-boom-putta-putta-boom! And the wailing, way up high at the moon: Eeyah-eeyah-eeyah...

Eddie’s professional instincts suddenly come alive. He tries it out, beats time to it with his arm as if he were holding a baton. His fingers snap like a whip. “My God, that’s grand! That’s gorgeous! Just what I need! I gotta get up there!” So a chicken-foot does it, eh?

He turns and runs back, through the tunnel, through the courtyards, all the way back where he came from, stooping here, stooping there, lighting matches recklessly and throwing them away as he goes. Out in the Vieux Carre again, the refuse hasn’t been collected. He spots a can at the corner of two lanes, topples it over. The smell rises to heaven, but he wades into it ankle-deep like any levee-rat, digs into the stuff with both forearms, scattering it right and left. He’s lucky, finds a verminous carcass, tears off a claw, wipes it on some newspaper. Then he starts back. Wait a minute! The red rag, red strip around it! He feels himself all over, all his pockets. Nothing that color. Have to do without it, but maybe it won’t work without it. He turns and hurries back through the slit between the old houses, doesn’t care how much noise he makes. The flash of light from Old Faithful, the jogging elbow. Eddie stoops, he suddenly snatches in at the red kimono sleeve, his hand comes away with a strip of it. Bad language, words that even Eddie doesn’t know. A five-spot stops it on the syllable, and Eddie’s already way down the passage. If only they haven’t quit until he can get back there!

They haven’t. It was vague, smothered when he went away; it’s louder, more persistent, more frenzied now. He doesn’t bother about giving the whistle, probably couldn’t imitate it exactly anyhow. He dives into the black smudge that is the entrance to the house, feels greasy stone steps under him, takes one or two and then suddenly his collar is four sizes too small for him, gripped by a big ham of a hand at the back. A sharp something that might be anything from a pocket-knife blade to the business edge of a razor is creasing his throat just below the apple and drawing a preliminary drop or two of blood.

“Here it is, I’ve got it here!” gasps Eddie. What kind of religion is this, anyway? The sharp thing stays, but the hand lets go his collar and feels for the chicken-claw. Then the sharp thing goes away, too, but probably not very far away. “Why for you didn’t give the signal?” Eddie’s windpipe gives him the answer. “Sick here, couldn’t.”

“Light up, lemme see yo’ face.” Eddie strikes a match and holds it. “Yo’ face has never been here before.”

Eddie gestures upward. “My friend — up there — he’ll tell you!”

“Mr. Johnny you’ friend? He ax you to come?”

Eddie thinks quickly. The chicken-claw might carry more weight than Staats. “That told me to come.”

“Papa Benjamin sen’ you that?”

“Certainly,” says Eddie stoutly. Probably their deacon, but it’s a hell of a way to. The match stings his fingers and he whips it out.

Blackness and a moment’s uncertainty that might end either way. But a lot of savoir-faire — a thousand years of civilization are backing Eddie up. “You’ll make me late, Papa Benjamin wouldn’t like that!” He gropes his way on up in the pitch-blackness, thinking any minute he’ll feel his back slashed to ribbons. But it’s better than standing still and having it happen, and to back out now would bring it on twice as quickly. However, it works, nothing happens.

“Fust thing y’know, all N’yorleans be cornin’ by,” growls the African watchdog sulkily, and flounders down on the staircase with a sound like a tired seal. There was some other crack about “darkies lookin’ lak pinks,” and then a long period of scratching.