What October Brings Read online

  Feinman rolled his eyes. “For Christ’s sake…”

  “Don’t you go bringing Him into this. Hand it over now, before I get mad.”

  Abel gave a long-suffering groan and opened his suitcase. The marijuana was “cleverly” hidden in a pair of socks—and if those socks were brand new, James was Nancy Sinatra. Abel handed the dime bag over with a show of reluctance, and James shook his head in disgust.

  “Mmm-hmm. Now give me the other one.”

  Feinman looked up into his eyes, startled. James gave his head a long, slow shake.

  “Do. Not. Even. Try.” He made the “gimme” gesture again. “I am not playing with you.”

  Abel hesitated, and James saw a flicker behind his eyes—try to bluff? But it was gone just as quickly, and without another word he reached into the Samsonite bag again and pulled out a Gideon Bible. Inside the book, a hole had been cut through a hundred pages of onionskin paper to make a nest for a meerschaum pipe and another bag of green herb.

  “Yeah. Real smart.” James shook his head, turned on his heel, went to the credenza in the foyer, and unlocked the top drawer. He dropped Abel’s things into it, re-locked the drawer firmly, and then made a show of leaving the key on the moulding above the front door. “It’ll be right here for you when we get back. You can do without that stuff for a few days.”

  Abel rolled his eyes. “Whatever, man.”

  Tommy appeared at the doorway, his smile a little uncertain. Over his shoulder, James could see the brown Chevy Bel-Air double-parked in the street. “Y’all ready?”

  “Ready as we’ll ever be.” As the two white boys clattered down his steps, James locked his front door behind him and spared a final glance at the man who sat at the bus stop, watching them over the top of his morning paper.

  James raised a hand and waved.

  The man did not wave back.

  ***

  Tommy took the George Washington Bridge out of the city and followed the New Jersey Turnpike to connect to I-95. The freeway led them south through Pennsylvania, the motorway ablaze with autumn color in late October. It was a pleasant ride, and James kept the Negro Motorist Green Book in his lap, guiding them unerringly to safe gas stations and diners. At nearly every stop, Abel had to find a lavatory or a pay phone, but he was equally quick about calls of nature and calls to his mother.

  That night they arrived in Richmond late and rented rooms at Slaughter’s Hotel. They ordered sandwiches and ginger ale from room service and ate in Tommy’s room, watching Bonanza on the black-and-white television.

  Despite the pleasant weather and the ease of travel, there was an unspoken tension in the air, and Abel seemed to pick up on it with fine-tuned antennae. He kept silent for most of the trip, reading the books he’d brought in his suitcase, rolling and smoking tobacco cigarettes or folding his arms over his beard for a cat nap when he was bored. Tommy didn’t try to make conversation. Instead he spun the dial on the radio back and forth as he drove, occasionally picking up a snatch of Paul Harvey or hillbilly country songs, dialing it in more slowly when he found black music or a black DJ speaking. He’d looked over at James for a nod of approval when the signal finally came in clear, and sometimes, if Abel’s eyes were closed, James would answer by reaching out to lay a hand on his blue-jeaned thigh.

  On the last night of the trip they listened to Chattie Hattie from WGIV, following a narrow strip of highway up into the Blue Ridge mountains. Solomon Burke sang about sweet lips coming closer to a phone, his mellow croon dissolving more and more frequently into bursts of static with every curve of the road.

  Just as the last of the radio signal was lost, a siren whooped behind them, and the cherry lights of a police car started to flash in the rearview mirror.

  Tommy stiffened and cringed, hands locked on the wheel. He looked down at the speedometer, guilty—no, he had not been speeding—and then gave James a pained look. The Adam’s apple jumped in his throat like a frog on a string as he hit the blinker and pulled over at the side of the road.

  The silence when the engine cut out was deafening. James kept still, his shoulders hunched in the passenger seat, as the doors of the sedan behind them opened and slammed. The crunch of approaching boots was slow and ominous.

  “Get out the car.”

  The highway patrolman stood in the middle of the road, already in a firing position—his pistol drawn, both hands on the grip. James shivered at the sound of that voice, already shaking on the verge of panic.

  White.

  Southern.

  Angry.

  The man raised his voice. Louder now. “Get out the car, boy! Ain’t going to tell you again!”

  Tommy Baird turned in slow motion toward the open window. The black unblinking eye of a .38 met his blue gaze.

  “Whatever you say, Officer.” Tommy’s tone was mild as milk. “We don’t want any trouble.” His hands were parked on the steering wheel at ten and two; now they rose into the air like moths and fluttered gently to the handle of the door. He opened it with exaggerated care and stepped out into the night air. Those same long-fingered hands rose to chest height, offering open palms to the gun.

  James glanced over his shoulder. The second cop was an armed silhouette in the headlights, also holding a pistol—the weapon was pointed down at his side, not at Tommy.

  Abel Feinman slid lower in the back seat, eyes floating behind his thick lenses like pickled eggs. His acne-scarred cheeks were pale as the moon in the strobing blue light. “This is it,” he muttered. “This is it.”

  “This is nothing,” James hissed back. “Hush up.”

  “Turn around and bend over. Right now.”

  “Yes sir.” Tommy was working with the script he’d been given—he and James had rehearsed it a hundred times. He turned slowly, hands in the air. “May I ask what this is about?” His intonation stayed calm and slow, but James could read the fear in his knotted jaw, the set of his shoulders, the way he breathed.

  Fast movement in the dark. Tommy’s torso slammed into the hood, a reverberating boom of meat and bone on Detroit steel. Despite himself he cried out in surprise, and James felt the pain in his chest, as if that cry had pierced him through.

  You can’t protect him. He can’t protect you either.

  “Shut up.” The cop snapped Tommy’s wrists into handcuffs. “Y’all think you can just come down here and—”

  “Careful, Andrew. You are not to damage him.” The second policeman spoke, cutting through his partner’s snarl like a scalpel. It was a very different voice—cool, aristocratic, commanding. A Southern gentleman. The ring of it sent the skin crawling over James in a wave.

  Tommy reacted immediately as well, standing bolt upright, his hands pinioned behind his back.

  “No.” His eyes were wide with horror as he turned toward the glare of the headlights behind them, the shape of the second policeman. “No!”

  Officer Andrew turned his head and nodded. James saw the gun spin and swing back.

  “Tommy—!” He started to cry a warning, but butt of the pistol struck Tommy’s head with a heavy thud. Tommy crumpled into the gravel.

  The gun was pointed at him now.

  “Your turn, nigger. Get out the car.”

  James froze. He moved slowly, as Tommy had, eyes on the cop, hands inching toward the door handle.

  At the last minute he tore his eyes away from the gun and turned to look out the window. It was after midnight. Tommy’s Bel Air was parked on the side of a lonely mountain road, somewhere in the thick woods between Tennessee and North Carolina. If they’d been coming the other way, back toward New York… the passenger side door would have opened onto the guard rail and the depths of a steep gorge.

  Then he might have made a break for it.

  He could see it in his mind. Throw himself out the door. Pray the cop would miss a clear shot at his back. Jump
the rail. Throw himself into the abyss below.

  But the passenger door opened onto a wall of solid Appalachian rock, slick with October dew. There was nowhere to run. He stood up, turning back toward the road like a man facing a firing squad, raising his hands up to his chest.

  “Come around. Nice and slow.”

  James walked. His mind had gone numb. Someone pushed him face down onto the Chevy. The heat of the engine soaked through his shirt as the cop wrestled his wrists into the cuffs. He thought wildly of Tommy’s radiant warmth in the moment before he was slammed to his knees in the road.

  Tommy was lying beside him. He rolled his face up toward the stars and for a moment their eyes met, but Tommy’s gaze slid away, unfocused and confused. Possible concussion.

  “The third gentleman too, Deputy. If you please.”

  James heard rather than saw Abel pulled out of the back seat. “You can’t do this!” he brayed. There was a hollow thump as he was thrown back against the door. “We’re human beings! We have rights!”

  “Shut up.” The cop turned to his partner. “What now? We all done here?”

  There was silence for a moment, and then a chilling chuckle from Officer Shadow. “Yes, I do believe our business is almost concluded.”

  “Good. What you want to do with these other two?”

  “An excellent question.” The man in the shadows paused in deliberation. “A Negro is always useful, of course. If only for brute labor. But I have no use for a Jew. Especially one with poor vision.”

  The pistol cracked in the cold mountain air. Tommy rolled himself up and screamed. And his scream went on, cracking up into sobs as he floundered forward on his belly and knees, arms still buckled behind his back, across the broken asphalt to Abel.

  James was moving forward himself, dragging his knees over the rocks, until he felt a stinging pain in his shoulder. He turned his head and saw a needle flicker away like a sliver of blue light, quick as a dragonfly.

  He looked up directly into the cop’s sallow face in the blazing headlights of the police car. A lumpy white man in his forties, cheeks and jowls decked with stubble, blue eyes rimmed with red.

  “Your name is Andrew,” James told him solemnly. He looked back toward his friends, his vision swimming. Tommy was still crying. Abel Feinman stared up into Appalachian night, his glasses askew and speckled with red. His last three breaths came in tiny quick pants, and the rich bloom of ruptured bowels and blood filled the air.

  James Aaron Locke toppled forward into blackness, listening for a fourth breath that never came.

  ***

  He woke again to voices raised in an adjoining room.

  “You said you’d let him go.”

  James breathed in the thick smell of disinfectant and rubber. His throat hurt. He tried to rise, but there was a tremendous weight bearing down on him. Paper crackled under his back.

  I’m naked.

  He opened his eyes in a pitch black room. His head was pounding, his mouth cotton-dry.

  “I done everything you said.” He recognized Officer Andrew. There a sulky note of protest when he spoke—a boy complaining that adults were unfair. “You told me you’d leave him be if I—”

  “And indeed I shall, Deputy. But your Sheriff weighs over two hundred pounds, and you’re in no condition to carry him far. We wouldn’t want to aggravate that hernia, would we?” Officer Shadow sounded playful—enjoying himself cruelly, a cat toying with a bird.

  “No sir.”

  “I’ll walk him to your car, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “Yes sir.”

  James swallowed and felt a spasm of agony in his throat. He winced and listened to the heavy boots moving away, the whine and wheeze of a door opening and then slowly swinging shut. The rattle of iron and the moan of a hydraulic lift soon followed.

  He tried to sit up again, fighting back a surge of nausea and disorientation, but he was held fast. There was a leather strap across his forehead. Another pulled tight and buckled across his chest. When he tried to flex his hands, he could feel the soft cuffs on his bare wrists and arms as well. More straps and cuffs below, when he tried to kick his feet.

  “Help.” The attempt to use his vocal chords was agony, and the word came out a ragged whisper. Somewhere to his right, he heard a gasp.

  “Aaaaezz…?” Tommy’s questioning voice, broken and shapeless, followed by a wet, gagging cough. He heard Tommy panting for breath and another crackle of paper. “Aaaeez…? Iiizh aa ooo…?”

  “Tommy.” Something was wrong with Tommy’s mouth. Something was wrong with his own throat as well—it hurt terribly, and now he tasted a little blood. He twisted his head toward the right. Tommy was across the room on a long table, naked and strapped down with medical restraints. James could see the glitter of steel, the shine of wet teeth.

  Tommy tried to speak again, tongue flapping helplessly in his gaping mouth. There was machinery holding his jaws open--a dental gag strapped around the back of his head. “Aaez, ai eeeah…”

  “I understand.” He rasped the words out painfully, trying not to swallow too much. Oddly enough, he did understand. He was the son of Aaron Medgers Locke, the finest dentist in Harlem, and he had earned his allowance for years mopping the floor and replacing the lollipops in his father’s office. It was no trouble at all to understand English spoken by someone who couldn’t close his mouth.

  James? Is that you?

  James, I’m here…

  He tried to turn his head the other way. “Where are we…?”

  For answer, Tommy started to cry.

  “Ai oh awe ee…Aaez…” I’m so sorry…James…

  “Don’t be a fool.” James wheezed the words out angrily, despite the pain. “These people are crazy. We have to get out of here.”

  There was a sudden noise in the next room, a wet gurgling like a sink full of sludge pouring down a narrow drain. It was followed by a spastic thump, rattle and squeak—like an animal struggling in a cage, or someone having a three-second seizure.

  A moment of silence.

  The unmistakable noise of someone passing wind, long and slow.

  A scuffle and scratch. Wheels creaked. To his left, beyond his field of vision, a door opened, and a shaft of light sliced across his torso. Someone had thrown an ivory sheet over him like a shroud.

  Tommy huffed silent tears beside him. “—Oooh…” he moaned softly.

  No.

  “Good evening, gentlemen.”

  James jumped. The tone, the accent was unmistakable—it was Officer Shadow. But the vocal chords were no longer those of a strong, middle-aged man. This vocalization came from a much older person--someone whose throat creaked with age, lungs rattling with every breath.

  “Thomas, since you are unable to make a proper introduction, I will have to do the honors myself.” The wheels rolled forward, and fluorescent tubes overhead buzzed and blazed into blinding light.

  James clenched his eyes shut, stabbed with twin spears of new pain. When he could open them a crack, he found himself looking up at a mummy—a human head wrapped in brittle crepe, bald pate sporting a few random strands of grey. The old man had a pug nose, swollen to a red carbuncle with two ugly nostril slits. The eye sockets were mottled with brown bruises, the skin covered with liver spots and lesions. The eyes were milky blue and veined with blood.

  The skull smiled at him, chapped lips peeling back over yellow tusks.

  “How d’you do, Mister Locke?”

  James kept his mouth clamped shut. He stripped us buck naked. Of course he’s seen our wallets and all the cards…

  “My name is Ezekiel Baird.” The skull was speaking in that aristocratic drawl, the one that made his stomach clench. “Ezekiel Abadiah Baird. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  The skull made a show of waiting for his reply, mock-li
stening for words that did not come. The old man cackled merrily. “Cat’s got your tongue, I see! Understandable. You’ve come such a long way. I will confess, it has been many years since I visited New Amsterdam—I hear it is much changed. Harlem Village is now home to the cream of Negro society!” Another chuckle. “I’ve never met a Harlemite of such substantial means before. You must forgive us, Mister Locke, if our country manners here in Carolina seem rough and quaint by comparison.”

  The wheelchair squealed and the skull retreated from view, moving along the length of the table.

  “Where are we?” James grated out the words as the old mummy rolled away, teeth clenched with pain. “Where have you taken us?”

  “Why, this is my home, Mister Locke!” The wheels rolled on toward Tommy. “You may not know it, but the Baird family has run the finest funeral home in Buncombe County since before the Civil War.”

  James turned his head, trying to look over to Tommy. The Baird family? Is this person related to you?

  “This old place was once my residence and my place of business. I have not practiced the mortuary arts since the turn of the century, of course, but… these old rooms still have their uses!”

  Tommy tried to speak. “Eeaz, zuh. Eeeaz zeh ick oh.” Please sir. Please let him go.

  The old man laughed again. “I’m afraid that’s out of the question, young Thomas! But I’ll tell you what. If you’re fond of this one, we’ll keep him. You’ll need a place to stay, after all, when you take me in!”

  Tommy gagged in a deep breath and wailed in denial, flexing and twisting on the table. There was something crazed and mindless about his struggle, like a fish flopping in the dry leaves.

  “Wait,” James rasped, trying to distract the old man. He knew instinctively that whatever he was about to do to Tommy would be horrible. “My family has money. I’ll pay you.” He coughed blood, swallowed it grimly, and tried again. “I’ll give you a thousand dollars to let us go.”