The Ballad of Black Tom

10

Malone left Harlem quick. He wasn’t returning to the Butler Street police station in Brooklyn, where he’d been detailed for the last six years, but out to Queens, with Mr. Howard, to return the stolen sheet of paper — was it actually paper? — the private detective had been hired to retrieve. The two men watched the Negro guitarist stumble off after being informed of his father’s death, then Malone made a point of thanking the Harlem detectives who called him in one more time.

They’d reached out to Malone as soon as they took Mr. Howard’s statement. It was possible Mr. Howard dropped Malone’s name, and a handful of bills, to make this phone call happen, but Malone made sure not to ask. Malone arrived, and was shown all the courtesy of a fellow New York City detective. He vouched for Mr. Howard’s character, though, in fact, he thought very little of it, and soon enough the four men sat in the Testers’ kitchen sharing tales about Harlem crime versus Brooklyn crime. Mr. Howard relayed stories of his scrapes as a lawman down in Texas long ago. They had a good time. In the back room the body of the old Negro remained facedown on the floor where he’d died. The man had been shot eleven times, propelled off his mattress and into a wall, but his old guitar hadn’t been damaged at all. The only sign it even belonged at this crime scene was the blood that stained the neck of the instrument. As the four men sat in the kitchen, they agreed the guitar didn’t need to be taken as evidence. Everything was settled as casually as that.

Now Malone and Mr. Howard made for the 143rd Street entrance. They found themselves on the same train platform where the Negro — son of the deceased — stood playing his guitar. Even Mr. Howard seemed troubled by the reappearance, so the two men waited at the southern end of the platform. The Negro guitarist never opened his eyes while he performed. Malone couldn’t guess the man was headed back to Suydam’s mansion for a party that night. If he’d known, he would’ve followed him, rather than take the trip out to Ma Att’s home.

Malone and Mr. Howard never spoke on the train ride out to Queens, and on the walk, their conversation remained clipped. Neither liked the other. They worked together because both had been called in on the Suydam affair. Not that they were making much progress. Malone secretly felt a certain sympathy for Robert Suydam, and disgust for a family working so hard to manufacture some pretense for separating the old man from his wealth. If Suydam wanted to spend his money and time seeking the more orphic knowledge of the world, what business was it to them? Perhaps Malone felt special sympathy because he, too, had a certain sensitivity. Ever since childhood, he’d felt sure there was more to this world than what we touch or taste or see. His time as a detective made him surer of this. Hidden motivations, spectral meanings, a certain subset of crime always offered such things. Most of the time his job allowed him to see petty desperation and conniving, but on occasion he bore witness to clues in a greater mystery.

For instance, the enigma waiting behind the front door of a cottage in Flushing, Queens. As he and Mr. Howard approached the place, anxiety assaulted Detective Malone. He became rigid even as Mr. Howard seemed at ease. As they approached the front door of Ma Att’s home, the air became muggy and charged. While Malone pulled at his collar and cleared his throat, Mr. Howard remained roundly ignorant. He seemed to be in a good mood, like an enormous dog, gleeful and wild. Mr. Howard reached the door and instead of knocking, he kicked. The door shook and Malone trembled, too. Be careful there, he wanted to warn, but Mr. Howard wasn’t the sort to heed or heel.

As the sound of footsteps approached, Malone swept a hand through his hair and touched at his collar. Mr. Howard simply kicked the door again. He turned back to Malone, shook his head when he saw Malone looking stricken. He pinched his lips as if he’d like to start kicking the sensitive detective. Then the door opened and an old woman stood at the threshold. Mr. Howard spoke quickly.

“You’re not too fast on your feet,” he said. “I was about to leave.”

Malone nearly gasped. Was it Mr. Howard’s tone, his words, or the glimpse of the woman who’d opened the doorway just enough? Since Malone stood farther back from the house than Mr. Howard, he saw her silhouette inside. At the doorway, a stooped, slim woman had appeared, her nose prominent, hair pulled back tightly. But behind that woman, Malone swore he saw — what? More of her. Some great bulk trailed behind her, off into the distance of the gloomy front hall. Nearly anyone else — ones not so sensitive, so attuned — would’ve dismissed this as a trick of the shadows, a bit of bent light. Insensitive minds always dispel true knowledge. But Malone couldn’t ignore the sense of her length, of largeness, behind the figure of this woman at the door. Not a second presence, but the rest of hers. Malone brushed his hair back again if only to disguise the quivering of his right hand.

Meanwhile Mr. Howard talked to the woman in his standard aggravated tone. But as he spoke, the woman looked over Mr. Howard’s shoulder. When Malone met her gaze, she grinned.

Mr. Howard reached into his coat and revealed the folded sheet of paper. Malone hadn’t asked to see the page this entire time. Not when they met up in Harlem, not when they waited on the platform, not on the train, nor on the walk here. The words of the Negro guitarist remained with him. Don’t you understand why I kept that page from her? Don’t you understand what she can do with that book? What did the Negro know? This question made him join Mr. Howard on his trip. Curiosity had cursed him since youth.

The square of parchment paper came out of Mr. Howard’s pocket, and as soon as sunlight touched it, a faint trace of smoke appeared in the air. Malone smelled it before he saw it. A charcoal scent. Ma Att reached out into the light for it. She had an impossibly thin arm, skin the color of desert sand. She grabbed for the sheet, but Mr. Howard — to Malone’s shock — pulled it back.

“The United States is a country of commerce,” Mr. Howard said. “Remember where you are.”

In the darkness of the house, something enormous rose, then swayed like the tail of a venomous snake. But Ma Att — the face she showed them — only smiled. She gestured for Mr. Howard to check the mailbox, and there he found an envelope. The private detective looked back at Malone proudly. Malone suddenly expected Ma Att to grab the big man with her tail — could it be a tail? — and pull him inside. But that didn’t happen. Instead, Mr. Howard took the envelope from the mailbox and opened the flap to spy the cash. Ma Att leaned forward, her head and shoulders leaning past the threshold. Her lips parted, gray teeth bared, as if to tear into Mr. Howard’s neck.

“Your name,” said Malone. “I know I’ve heard it before.”

The woman, startled, looked at him and pulled back into the doorway. She reached out in a motion too quick for either man to track. She slipped the sheet of parchment paper from between Mr. Howard’s fingers quick.

Mr. Howard turned to her, and in one motion, grabbed the handle of the revolver he wore on his shoulder. The envelope fell from his hand, and the money scattered across the front steps. A breeze carried some of the bills across the house’s lawn. Mr. Howard scurried after the cash. Malone and Ma Att were alone at the threshold.

“It’s an Egyptian name, isn’t it?” Malone said. “From what I understood, the woman with that name lived in Karnak.”

“Oh?” she said. “And how much do you think you truly understand?”

“Not enough,” Malone admitted.

The old woman nodded as if pleased by his answer, the deference in it.

“What is that book?” he asked, so quietly he couldn’t be sure he spoke aloud.

“The Supreme Alphabet,” Ma Att said.

“Now you have every page,” Malone said.

“Come inside my home,” Ma Att cooed. “I’ll show you all the things I can spell with a little spilled blood.”

Malone shuffled backward to the sidewalk. He never turned away from Ma Att. He never blinked. She laughed once and slammed her door. He found Mr. Howard on his knees in the grass counting his money. Malone ran off — actually sprinted — back to Brooklyn, back to his precinct. Mr. Howard shouted something, but Malone didn’t listen, couldn’t hear over the sound of his own panicked breathing.

Malone never expected he’d return to Ma Att’s home again, but he was wrong. He’d be back one more time, but by then it would be too late.

11

The Suydam case came to a close, at least for those litigious relatives. A court date was set and Suydam appeared before the judge, acting as his own legal counsel. The lawyers of the extended family argued that Suydam had become erratic and senile, but Suydam explained he’d become engrossed in his education, the learning a man disdains in his twenties but yearns for in his sixties. There’s no better student than one who’s reached retirement age. The judge, a man in his sixties, found this suggestion flattering and true.

As secondary proof of Suydam’s decline, the family’s lawyers brought affidavits from ten of his neighbors in Flatbush proclaiming the odd hours, and odder characters, coming in and out of Suydam’s mansion. One night, it was attested, he’d entertained a swarthy army in his home. But Suydam explained this away as well. His learning had been in the fields of religion and myth, and New York offered the rare bounty of citizens from fifty different nations — a hundred backward tribes — many recent arrivals to the United States. Who better to interview about the beliefs of their people? He wasn’t a madman, but an amateur anthropologist. If he was too old to travel the world anymore, well, New York brought the world to him.

Malone attended the trial each day, and when Suydam explained his esoteric interests, he felt affection for the old man. In the entire courtroom, Malone felt sure, only Suydam contained a soul as sensitive as his own, as aware of the greater mysteries.

In the end, the judge admitted Suydam’s actions, and his company, might give any member of discreet society pause, but that hardly constituted reason to have the man committed to a hospital or stripped of his means. Suydam won out the day, sent his family, and their lawyers, slinking. Mr. Howard had been in the courtroom to offer testimony, but once the case was decided, the family no longer needed him. He made plans to return to Texas. He and Malone shared no tearful good-byes. A handshake was all, and good riddance. Malone’s superiors returned him to regular duties in Brooklyn, and it was this return to his usual routine that, oddly, brought Malone back into contact with Robert Suydam. It had to, with Malone’s work on the illegal-immigrant beat.

The legal immigrants of Europe — German and English, Scottish and Italian, Jewish, French, Irish, Scandinavian — all were welcomed through the immigration center on Ellis Island. A number of Chinese were permitted through this channel as well. But what about the rest? Malone’s beat in Brooklyn brought him through neighborhoods thick with Syrians and Persians, Africans, too. How did they arrive in Brooklyn in such hordes? There were other, less famous ports for such immigrants, of course, but there was also a third channel, the illegal routes known only to human smugglers. Malone was concerned with this third path. It was his job, in fact. His superiors had him on the illegal-immigrant beat before Suydam’s case and returned him to it afterward. Of the police working at the Butler Street station — perhaps of all the cops in New York City — Malone might’ve been the sole one who didn’t loathe the role. The Negro, Charles Thomas Tester, had been right when he spied Malone’s notebook — all those symbols and sigils — and counted him as a seeker of secrets. What better place to unearth them than the foreigner-filled warrens of Red Hook?

So Malone returned to the neighborhood. He’d missed the place. He doubted there was another white man on earth who would ever think the same. Robert Suydam, perhaps. These people, their superstitions and lowly faiths, were the lead a higher mind might transmute into the pure gold of cosmogonic wisdom. When Malone strolled the streets of Red Hook, he often found himself the one white man in the whole neighborhood. They were used to him there, and in this way, he became invisible. They spoke freely around him, if not always to him, and Malone’s notepad filled with their lore. The denizens knew he was an NYPD detective as well, which brought him protection on even the grimmest block.

He also ignored petty crime. He never rousted the boys smoking fragrant cigarettes; he expended no energy breaking up the rooms where bootleg liquor was sold; why would it matter to him if the men and women in those rooms risked blindness, or death, for inebriation? There were police squads keeping an eye on such activity. Raids came if a local political office was up for auction, and even then, after a few photos and the exchange of many dollars, the criminals were set free. In this way Red Hook ran efficiently, its crimes quarantined — this was all society demanded of such neighborhoods.

After a week back on patrol, Malone making conversation where he could, sitting quietly in diners, eavesdropping on adjacent booths, he heard one name repeated more and more often. Robert Suydam.

Soon enough, Robert Suydam became the sole topic of conversation in the diners of Red Hook, heard from the clusters of clove-scented young men on street corners. Even the women who leaned out tenement windows and spoke to each other across streets and alleyways were invoking the name. Within weeks it seemed as if all of Red Hook were speaking with one voice, repeating a single surname, chanting it.

Suydam. Suydam. Suydam.

12

Malone took the initiative to travel out to Flatbush. A pleasant morning for travel, and a short walk to the Suydam mansion. Malone entered the grounds and climbed the porch steps; he knocked for a time, but no one came. He traveled the perimeter of the home trying to spot a light, an open window, some sign of Suydam. But the mansion had an air of abandonment, a body after the loss of its soul.

Finally Malone found the windows of the great library. Though tall, Malone still had to stretch to peek in. The shelves of the library — every one — sat empty. Nothing in the room save a single great chair, turned so its back faced Malone. His arms strained, pulling himself higher onto the ledge. In the shadow of the chair, on the floor, he saw a pair of shoes. At least he thought he did. Someone sitting there. Or propped up? Malone grunted like some beast, at the exertion of holding himself up. His arms trembling, his back tight. A shadow or the heels of a man’s shoes? He wanted to tap the glass, but he needed both hands to balance. Then the shoes shifted slightly, as if the person in the chair — was someone really there? — was bracing to stand up. Malone throat closed up. He strained but held on. Now the chair in the room jostled — he was sure of it. The body in the chair was rising. Malone threw his elbow on the ledge. How could Robert Suydam not have heard Malone at the window? What proof did he have that it was Robert Suydam at all? Malone heard a man’s voice — or really more of a vibration — rippling through the thick panes of glass. Malone couldn’t decipher the words but sensed a mounting rhythm. An incantation.

Then Detective Thomas F. Malone got grabbed.

One powerful grip on the back of Malone’s coat. He fell from the window and back onto the grass. A pair of very young men in uniform stood over him. One officer kicked Malone in the ribs. The other squatted, brought a knee down on Malone’s chest, thrust a hand through Malone’s pockets. The officer found Malone’s service revolver but, in the rush of discovery, didn’t recognize it as such.

“Gun,” he said to his partner. “What else you got?” he shouted at Malone.

The second officer kicked Malone again, barked about “robbery,” “criminal trespass.” Then the other officer with his knee on Malone’s chest found Malone’s detective badge. This changed the tone of conversation. For instance, a conversation actually began. As did apologies.

The two patrolmen helped Malone to his feet. The one who’d done the kicking continued to apologize. But Malone only demanded a boost. The pair looked confused, but the kicker did as instructed. He hoisted Malone. Malone peered into the library. Not only was the figure in the chair gone, but the chair had disappeared, too.

13

The next morning Malone returned to Red Hook, but now he found only silence. When he showed himself, the streets went mum. A curtain of silence fell between him and the residents. The young men on the corners huddled closer, opened their mouths only when it was their turn to inhale. The women hanging out their windows shut their lips when Malone passed. When he sat at a diner booth, the men, daylong regulars, paid their bills and fled. Seemed like all of Red Hook had been warned away from Malone. Was this because he’d snooped at Suydam’s home?

This meant Malone had to do something he detested. He had to consult the other police who worked Red Hook. Malone liked being a policeman, but he felt himself quite distinct from almost all the other cops. He’d tried, in his first two years on the job, to make friends with the other men, but they cackled when he broached the subjects that mattered most to him. Some even tried to have him thrown off the force. Poets should be dreamers, cops should be rough. That kind of thinking. And so Malone had retreated into himself — a kind of shut-in’s existence — even as he attended roll call meetings, and occasionally shared information with other officers for a case. But after the denizens of Red Hook so clearly turned on him, Malone made his way back to the Butler Street station. He found the officers on foot patrol. He had every expectation they’d make him suffer humiliations before sharing any Red Hook news, but, in fact, the pair he found at the station — starting a shift — had been looking for him.

They looked scared as they spoke with Malone.

Robert Suydam had taken over three tenement buildings on Parker Place, one of the blocks facing the squalid seafront. Had he bought the buildings? Malone asked. And even if so, how could he take ownership so quickly? The patrolmen had no answers, only more startling news to share. In a single night every tenant fled these three buildings, fled or was put out. In their place arrived Robert Suydam, and enough books to fill four libraries. An army came, too, perhaps fifty of the worst Red Hook ever knew. All this moving done without a single truck on the street. Overnight, every window of each building had been blocked with heavy curtains. The property had been overtaken by the local demigods of crime and debauchery. Something worse than the patrolmen ever experienced brewed at those premises. All in the service of Mr. Robert Suydam.

Last, they added word of a second-in-command, Robert Suydam’s sergeant, a Negro heretofore unknown in the crime logs of Brooklyn. He acted as Suydam’s mouthpiece, giving orders when the old man wasn’t around.

“Black Tom is what they all call him,” one of the patrolmen said. “Everywhere he goes, he carries this bloodstained guitar.”

Malone didn’t realize he’d fainted until the patrolmen were helping him up.

14

Malone left the patrolmen and went directly to the waterfront. He knew Parker Place, perched himself on a stoop at the corner. But Malone forgot he was no longer the tall, gaunt detective the denizens of Red Hook tolerated in their crowds. Word had been spread. As soon as he sat on the stoop, took out his notepad, the tenants of that building shut themselves inside. Boys on the nearby corners darted away. The locals evacuated in the time it took for him to take out his ink pen. Nothing could be more conspicuous around here than a lone white man perched on a stoop. He stood, but before he’d even reached the bottom of the stairs, the groan of a wooden door opening played on the emptied street. The Negro from Harlem appeared from one of Suydam’s tenements. Malone leafed through his notepad. Charles Thomas Tester. That was the name.

Despite what the patrolmen said, he did not carry a bloodstained guitar now, and this relieved Malone more fully than he could explain.

“Mr. Suydam asked me to come greet you,” the Negro said. “Do you remember me?”

His demeanor, even his voice, was greatly changed from when they’d last met. The Negro spoke with open disdain and returned Malone’s stare so directly that it was Malone who looked away.

“Your father,” Malone said. “Have you buried him yet?”

“They wouldn’t release the body,” the Negro said. “Not until the investigation is completed.”

“It must be cleared by now,” Malone said. He looked down and realized he held the pen out like a weapon. He did not lower his hand.

“I stopped trying,” the Negro said.

Malone began to speak, but the Negro talked over him.

“Mr. Suydam wants you, and the other members of the police, to know that he has moved to this neighborhood permanently. He won’t be returning to Flatbush.”

Now the Negro watched Malone with the glass-eyed interest of a cat stalking a bird. Malone looked back to his notebook to escape that gaze.

“As he’s doing nothing illegal, he expects to be left alone,” the Negro said.

“We’ll decide when to leave him alone,” Malone said coolly. “And we’ll decide the same about you.”

There were faces in every window, in every building, on this block and the next, watching both men. Malone felt it important to assert his role, his position, for the benefit of the onlookers, if not himself.

“Charles Thomas Tester,” Malone said. “That’s your name. And you belong in Harlem, not Red Hook.”

“They call me something else now,” the Negro said. “And my birth name has no more power over me. It died with my daddy.”

“Black Tom? You expect me to call you that?”

The Negro didn’t respond. He simply watched Malone patiently.

“I don’t want to see you here anymore,” Malone said. “I’ll let the foot patrols know that if you’re found anywhere in Brooklyn, they’re to pick you up. I can’t promise you’ll be in good health by the time they put you down again.”

Black Tom looked up at the buildings on either side of the street.

“Mr. Suydam is in need of a book that can only be found in Queens,” he said, ignoring the detective’s threat. “I’m headed out there right now.”

“I told you where you’re allowed to be,” Malone tried, but his voice faltered.

“You shouldn’t be here when I get back,” Black Tom said.

What happened next was inexplicable, difficult to even remember. Black Tom did something; Malone heard something. A low tone suddenly played loudly, as if Black Tom had hummed a drone note inside Malone’s skull. The detective’s eyes lost focus. Malone became dizzy from the sound, and he lost his footing. He fell onto the nearby stoop as if he’d been slapped. His stomach seized; he was about to throw up. Then a tremendous breeze sent Malone’s hat off his head. The hat tumbled down Parker Place as if trying to escape. When Malone’s eyes finally focused, he was alone on the street. Black Tom had disappeared.

Malone tried to stand but couldn’t. He had to lower his head between his knees and breathe slowly for a count of fifty. When he looked up again, a young woman hung out the third-floor window of the tenement across the street, watching Malone.

“What happened?” Malone shouted. He could stand now, think; he clutched his head, patted his body, checking if he’d been shot or stabbed. He hadn’t. His service revolver remained in its shoulder holster, though the metal felt warmer than it should.

“What did you see?” Malone shouted at the young woman.

She answered, but Malone didn’t understand the language. The young woman continued, shouting really, the words flowing faster but never becoming clear. Why hadn’t he ever learned how to speak with these people? Malone ran from the block, sprinted back to the Butler Street station, stopping only to retrieve his hat. He commandeered a patrolman and a patrol car. Black Tom told him exactly where he was going. Taunted him with the knowledge. Back to Queens, for a special book.

15

When they reached Flushing, Malone leaned out the door of the Model T, one foot on the running board, even as the patrolman went top speed, forty-five miles per hour. Malone kept one hand on his hat so it wouldn’t fly off, the other on the door so he wouldn’t fly out.

But when they reached Ma Att’s block, they found it impossible to continue farther in the patrol car. The streets and sidewalks were too crowded. The morning when they’d put up barricades on 144th Street, the hordes of Harlem had swarmed. Now, instead of black faces, he saw white faces, but the numbers were nearly the same.

The patrolman beeped, shouted for folks to move, but it was like yelling at snow to shovel itself. Malone jumped from the car, pushed into the crowd, men and women bunched so closely together they seemed to be working against him. Malone shouted — he was a detective! — but his voice had a desperate tone. And, worse, it didn’t matter to the crowd. They acted as if under a spell. What held their gaze?

When he broke through the ring of gawkers, he had the urge to cover his eyes. Instead, he fell into a stupor exactly like the rest of the crowd.

“How?” he muttered.

Only a week ago he’d been at this address. He had met Ma Att at the threshold of her home. Mr. Howard had been on his knees counting his money. And now it seemed Ma Att was gone. Her entire cottage, too. The walls, the roof, the windows, the little mailbox that hung by the front door. Gone. The front lawn, too. All of it had been pulled up out of the ground like weeds. Nothing remained but the house’s sewage and water pipes. They peeked out of the soil like a partially unearthed skeleton. The plot resembled an open grave.

“How?” Malone said again, but nothing more.

Malone scanned the area for debris. Perhaps the house exploded. No debris.

The cottage had disappeared.

Malone recovered and realized he was first officer on the scene. He turned to the crowd. What had they seen? he asked. No one replied. They remained mesmerized.

Malone shook a few people at the front of the crowd, but they couldn’t explain what had happened to the house. Instead, each one related a series of sensations — dizziness, nausea, a strange low note playing inside their heads. Most had been in their homes, not out watching the old woman’s place, when these sensations struck. What drew them out to the street were one woman’s screams.

“Which woman?” Malone asked, but none could identify her now.

More police arrived, as well as the fire department, and the crowd was dispersed. As people wandered, one woman approached Malone. It had been her who screamed. She saw the whole event.

“A Negro walked into the house,” she said. “I watched him from my window there.” She pointed across the street. “I was concerned because we have two children. I want them to be safe.”

“Of course you do,” Malone offered. “It’s only right.”

The woman nodded. “He walked right up to the house, and the old woman let him in. That was surprising to me. You see, she’s never been too sociable. Not with anyone around here. But she let that sort in? My girl started crying in the kitchen, but I couldn’t stop watching. I was so curious.”

She caught herself, looked to Malone again.

“No answer you give will seem strange to me,” he said.

She looked to the empty plot.

“That Negro came back out of the house with something in his hand. He tucked it into his coat, then he walked back to the sidewalk, looked at the house, just watching it. Maybe he wasn’t just watching — I saw him from behind. Then the front door opened, I mean, all the way, and that old woman was right there and she was shouting at the man! She came right out onto the front steps, and I actually stepped back from the curtain myself. I had never seen that woman, not for a second, outside her home. Isn’t that strange? But it’s true. She had everything delivered, for years. Then she’s outside. She must’ve been angry. That’s what I thought. She came down the stairs to put that Negro straight!

“Now, I don’t know how else to put this next part, so I’m going to say it like I saw it. Right? She stepped outside, and the Negro stood there patient as you please, and then it was like a door opened. You see, right there where the funeral home gate touches her property? Something opened right there. I say a door, but I don’t mean a real door. Like a hole, or a pocket, and inside that pocket it was empty, black. I don’t know how else to say it. Like the sky at night, but without any stars. And the whole time, my Elizabeth is crying in the kitchen.”

The woman dropped her head, closed her eyes, and held one hand over them.

“Then that nigger, he just. ” Here she looked at the plot of land, extended her left arm. She swept her hand, a brushing gesture. “He goes like that, like someone shooing a cat out of the house. Or when I open the back door of the kitchen, and I use the broom to sweep dirt outside.”

“Outside?” Malone repeated. His lips felt dry.

“And then I couldn’t keep my eyes focused, and I felt quite sick. I heard this sound deep behind my eyes. I’d been letting my daughter cry on and on. Now, why would I do that? I’m not that kind of person. Then, when I could focus again, I mean without being dizzy, I see that man on the sidewalk, but he’s alone now. I mean the house is gone, and the grass is gone, and that old woman. Gone.”

“And the door?” Malone said. “The hole you saw?”

Now she held her chin, looked to the spot. “I guess it was gone, too. I wasn’t thinking straight. I ran outside. Can you believe it? I was going to catch that Negro myself if I had to. But by the time I opened my front door, he’d gone. I stood in the street screaming. It was that or I thought my head would burst with what I saw.”

Black Tom had the book. Which meant Robert Suydam would soon have the book. Even worse, Black Tom had done away with Ma Att, somehow, with the sweep of his hand. If a mere lieutenant could wield that much power, what havoc could Suydam cause? Malone felt suddenly, entirely, small.

“And your daughter?” Malone asked. “Was she all right?”

The woman grinned, shook her head. “Cried herself to sleep right there on the kitchen floor. She’d been trying to reach the jar of peppermints.”

Malone returned to the patrol car. He waved the patrolman over, and the two of them drove back to the Butler Street station. Malone spoke of what happened at Ma Att’s home in vague terms. Property damage. Missing persons. Grand theft. He said nothing of what the woman had witnessed. His superiors would’ve spent hours interrogating the statement, disbelieving for days. And Malone felt sure they did not have days to waste.

Already Black Tom had likely brought the book to his master. Malone must scheme a way to get the entire New York City police force over to Red Hook with him. He went to his superiors. Malone claimed Suydam and Black Tom were bootlegging in the basements of the three tenement apartments and housing illegal immigrants from the most unwanted of nations. Finally, he added, the Negro likely kidnapped the old woman and dragged her back to a dusky tenement basement to commit crimes of a degraded nature. Malone’s bosses were duly motivated. Within the hour, the concentrated forces of three different stations were gathering, an army off to battle.

16

The practical reality of moving nearly seventy-five police officers, and the equipment needed for a full-force raid, meant squadrons didn’t arrive in Red Hook until evening. By then there were reports that three children had been kidnapped and were being held in the tenement buildings overtaken by Robert Suydam. The children were reported as “blue-eyed Norwegians.” Mobs were said to be forming among the Norwegians, in the neighborhoods closer to Gowanus, and the police needed to reach Parker Place first. Ethnic wars would become a problem if they spilled out of Red Hook.

When the force arrived, they cut off access to the street. Three Model Ts parked at angles at either end of the block, just as had been done on 144th Street in Harlem. Two Emergency Services Trucks were parked in front of Suydam’s tenements. The residents in the adjoining buildings needed no warnings, no pleas to leave. They evacuated before the police had pulled their parking brakes. These residents gathered on the other ends of the patrol cars, lining the stoops of the homes on the next blocks. All of Red Hook attended this event. Locals climbed to the roofs of their buildings, or leaned out their windows to bear witness. They all saw what the police were unloading from the Emergency Services Trucks.

Theodore Roosevelt became president of the Board of Police Commissioners in 1895, and, though serving for only two years, he begun the process of modernizing the force. As a result, the officers had a bevy of weapons as they prepared to take the three tenements. Each man wore his department-issue revolver, but now, from the rear of the emergency trucks, an arsenal appeared. M1903 Springfield rifles; M1911 Browning Hi Power pistols for those who wanted to go in with a gun in each hand. Three Browning Model 1921 heavy machine guns were set up on the street. Each required three men to take it down from the trucks. They were set in a row; each one’s long barrel faced the front stoop of a tenement. They looked like a trio of cannons, better for a ground war than breaching the front doors of a building.

When the 1921s were set down, they were so heavy chips of tarmac were thrown in the air. At the sight of the heavy machine guns the whole neighborhood gasped as one. These guns were designed to shoot airplanes out of the sky. Much of the local population had fled countries under siege, in the midst of war, and had not expected to find such artillery used against citizens of the United States.

The 1921s gave Malone pause, but what could he do? He’d called the forces in, and now they were loosed. He took his place and waited for the call to charge. The order came quick.

Malone watched the first wave of officers storm the tenement entrances. The windows of each building, on every floor, remained shaded and dark. Officers entered each building shouting, hoping to cause terror and surprise. In moments, the sounds of interior doors cracking open could be heard. The neighborhood watched the police work. Some looked curious, others sorrowful, but many were excited. The young men, in particular, thrilled at the violence. Boys cheered as the officers tore through the apartments, though the only side they were on was chaos.

Soon the sun set, and then it was night.

Malone finally took the stairs of the leftmost tenement. The one he’d seen Black Tom exit from that morning. While other police searched for illegal immigrants and kidnapped white babies, Malone went to find Robert Suydam. Up the stoop and into the lobby went the detective.

He watched as officers ascended to the higher floors of this tenement, while others milled in the lobby applying handcuffs to sundry, swarthy men who were being cleared from each apartment above. But it instantly struck Malone as strange when not an officer here opened, or even noticed, a door in the far corner of the lobby. It was as if they couldn’t see it there.

Malone approached the door, and upon inspection he could trace, faintly, a letter written on the door. An O. The letter appeared to be little more than dust, but when he tried to wipe it away, the shape refused removal. Even when he scraped with his thumbnail to try breaking the circle, the O was not to be disturbed.

“Cipher,” he said quietly. “Fifteenth letter of the Supreme Alphabet.”

Malone looked to the other cops, but their backs were turned to him. They didn’t even understand they had done it, the letter working as a sigil, influencing them to turn away. They reloaded their weapons, called up to the men on the upper floors, held fast to their prisoners. Malone could’ve shouted to them, but they wouldn’t hear him. If Malone hadn’t spent his life in study of such things, it was likely he wouldn’t have seen the sign, either.

Malone tried the door. It wasn’t locked. Why would it be? No one but Malone could detect it. Feeling anxious, he pulled out his revolver. When he opened the door, he nearly shrieked with shock. Black Tom stood on the other side of the door, but behind the Negro, it was Robert Suydam’s home. Though Malone had only seen the library from the outside, through the grand windows, he recognized the walls with inset shelving. When he’d peeked this morning, those shelves were empty, but now they were quite full. Black Tom returned Malone’s amazed gaze. He looked immeasurably younger, or more innocent, there in the doorway. He held a guitar in one hand, not bloodstained. Malone felt so overwhelmed that by instinct he began to pull his trigger. But before he fired, Robert Suydam ran into view and slammed the door shut from within.

Malone took his finger off the trigger, then looked back to the other cops in the lobby. Even this hadn’t stirred their interest. Powerful magic at play. He grabbed the handle of the door once again. He stepped to the side so he couldn’t be directly in the path if something strange greeted him again. But this time he found only a dark stairwell, leading down into the basement. Malone slipped his revolver back into his holster. He entered, and a rush of heated air came at him like a great beast’s breath. The stench of river water made his face burn. He stood at the top of the basement stairs and squeezed the door handle. Turn around and get out — that was all he had to do.

“Don’t hide your eyes now,” Robert Suydam called from the basement. “If you are indeed a seeker, then come find true sight.”

These words played at Malone like a taunt, and he closed the door behind him.

When he touched the bottom stair, Malone reached inside his coat. One pocket held his revolver, the other his notebook of arcane learning. Malone wasn’t sure which he’d meant to retrieve. Which offered greater protection in this space. He chose the notebook this time.

This tenement’s basement had been expanded. Walls torn through from this building to the next. Rubble remained in piles on the ground, half a dozen sledgehammers in a corner. The basements of all three tenements had been broken through so now they formed a single grand space. Kerosene lamps stood on the ground at intervals, offering Malone a dim impression of the great room. Hadn’t Suydam and his people moved in not even two days ago? This was the work of many men, over many months. The magnitude of the labor alone made him shudder.

He did see one item he recognized. A great chair sat at the farthest end of the basement chamber. Not twelve hours ago that chair had been in the library of Robert Suydam’s mansion. The chair was turned so its back faced Malone, and even from this distance he could see it was elevated somehow, maybe on a mound of dirt, so it resembled a high altar. The basement became a twisted tabernacle, church of a corrupted god.

In the middle distance a shape moved out of the shadows. A man. The detective hadn’t seen this man since his appearances in court, and now here he was, hands in the pockets of the same waistcoat he’d worn to argue his mental capacities.

“Robert Suydam,” Malone said.

He gazed at Malone, but in the semidark, his expression remained unreadable. Then Suydam turned, speaking to someone still hidden in the shadows. Finally Suydam raised his hand, beckoning Malone closer.

Even now Malone had the chance to escape, but he spied words written on the basement wall nearest him, painted, as if with a broad brush, in black paint. The paint dripped so only some of the words remained legible. Malone found his pen, opened his notebook, and transcribed what he could.

Gorgo, Mormo, thousand-faced moon.

There was much more, but in this poor light Malone couldn’t read it all.

“I can explain, if you like,” Robert Suydam said. He’d moved closer — so quietly — stood close enough to touch Malone’s arm, or cut his throat. The smell of river water came strongly, the soiled odor of muck. Malone looked down to see if the basement had flooded at some point, but the ground remained dry. Suydam himself carried the scent. Not on his clothes, but from within. The old man breathed, and a wave of river rot reached Malone.

From here Malone could make out Robert Suydam’s features more clearly, in particular his eyes, which bore a weakened light, as if the man had aged a hundred years since Malone watched him stand before that judge. Suydam reached for Malone’s arm, but the touch was strange. Instead of holding Malone tight, Suydam almost shoved the man away.

“I’m all done in there, sir.”

Black Tom. He stepped out from the middle distance, holding a bucket in one hand and in the other a horsehair brush. The brush dripped with dark paint.

“I’ve done it as you ordered,” Black Tom said. “Spelled out a welcome.”

Suydam let go of Malone and turned to Black Tom. “None of this could have been done without you,” he said.

“I only serve,” Black Tom said quietly.

The smell of the bucket reached Malone, an overpowering odor of wet metal. The bucket was filled with blood. The words on the walls painted with it. This is the moment when Detective Malone might’ve found the revolver in his pocket and killed both these men. Not a soul would’ve blamed him. But he didn’t do that. Why not?

Robert Suydam grinned. “You want to see what more there is.”

Malone nodded once, almost ashamed. “Yes, I do.”

Robert Suydam sighed. “It is the way of men like us. We must know, even if it dooms us.”

Then he turned and bumped into Black Tom, who’d been hovering close behind. Black Tom dropped the bucket; it clanged when it landed. The remaining blood splashed out, leaving a stain across the basement floor. The empty bucket rolled over twice. Black Tom ran after it. In that moment Robert Suydam grasped Malone again, at the elbow.

Black Tom squatted, the horsehair brush still in one hand. He turned the bucket over. “It’s all gone, sir,” Black Tom said.

“Oh yes?” Suydam answered, and his voice broke.

“But I was nearly finished anyway,” Black Tom said, then added, “sir.”

Suydam let go of Malone and dropped his head. “Then I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

“I suppose not,” Black Tom agreed. “No, sir.”

Suydam raised one hand, gesturing for Black Tom to step aside. Malone and the old man walked together, farther along the basement. More words on the walls. Malone read some of them aloud.

“Justice. Queen. Born. Self. ”

Now Suydam spoke the two next words. “Wisdom. Unknown.”

“The Supreme Alphabet,” Malone said.

“Almost,” Suydam answered. “One last letter is all that’s left. And then. ”

The old man’s voice sounded weary where Malone would’ve expected him to be rapturous. From the street — as if from a distance of miles — Malone heard the shouts of his officers, then the unmistakable reports of gunfire. Pistols first, and then rifles.

“It’s beginning, sir,” Black Tom said. His voice, in contrast to his master’s, rippled with glee.

Malone watched Black Tom. When he turned his gaze back to Robert Suydam the old man stared at the detective balefully. The sounds of gunfire on the street escalated, onlookers howled and screamed.

“You should see the rest before all this is over,” Black Tom said. “Go over by that chair.”

Then Black Tom pushed Malone toward the great chair at the far end of the great room. Malone didn’t argue, or take offense; he moved forward eagerly.

Malone moved toward the great chair. His legs became stiffer, his feet heavier, and his mind swam as if through a murky pool. Was this merely fear and curiosity, or had the atmosphere actually changed as he moved farther through the room? Behind him Robert Suydam spoke, but the words were difficult for Malone to hear.

The Sleeping King!

Was that what Robert Suydam had shouted?

From the street, the sounds of heavy machine guns shredded the air. Not one, not two, but all three 1921s, all at once. Malone couldn’t be sure he’d heard anyone shooting from within the tenements, but why else would the police open fire? How long would these tenement buildings stand up to a trio of antiaircraft guns? A cataclysm was happening on Parker Place, and belowground the air here smelled of sewage and smoke and the threat of divination.

“He waits Outside,” Robert Suydam shouted. “Not a distance of miles, but dimensions. The Sleeping King rests on the other side of the door. He will be roused by a man of unwavering intent.”

“I suppose that’s you!” Malone shouted as he approached the chair.

A figure sat in it.

Suddenly a great wind picked up in the basement. As if a window had been thrown open during a hurricane. Malone reached the chair and grabbed at it to steady himself. A figure in the chair, for sure. Someone big. Was this the Sleeping King?

The room filled with a flickering light, and Malone turned to face the source. When it flashed, every corner of the chamber became visible, every shadow dispelled. Malone looked back to see Robert Suydam and his servant Black Tom in the middle of the basement. And behind them? A pocket opened. A door. He no longer saw the basement stairs leading up to sidewalk level. There was, instead, a great bubble of darkness that was not pure darkness. Through this door he peered into the depths of a fathomless sea. And in that sea, the outline of something enormous, impossible to reconcile with his rational mind.

“I tried to warn you!” Robert Suydam shouted. “This plotting pirate means murder! The Black Pharaoh is here!”

The heavy machine-gun fire continued on street level, a thousand rounds, maybe more. The ceiling of the basement fragmented; dust fell. The police were tearing the building down with their Browning 1921s. Not enough to arrest the men inside, the tenements themselves were being razed. Malone clung to the great chair as though it was a dinghy in a storm-tossed sea. The seated figure, still in shadows, troubled him less than what he saw next.

Black Tom raised a hand in the air, and something silver caught the light. He pulled a razor across Robert Suydam’s neck. Black Tom cut the old man’s throat. Suydam collapsed, screaming. Malone hadn’t realized a man could scream with his throat slit, but now he knew it was possible. Behind this murderous scene, the great door continued to open, the deep hole in existence expanded.

Malone moved around the side of the great chair. He dropped his notepad and fumbled for his revolver. He went down on a knee and looked at the profile of the figure in the chair. He knew this man. He almost choked on his words.

“Mr. Howard,” he whispered.

The private detective sat in the great chair; even in death he wore an expression of anguish. The top of Mr. Howard’s head had been torn off. Mr. Howard had been scalped; the skin near the top had curled and slipped. Malone shivered at the gray horror of exposed skull.

Malone’s hand found the revolver in its shoulder holster.

Black Tom stood over Robert Suydam. The razor was still in his right hand, but he raised the left where he clutched the item Malone had taken for a horsehair brush.

“I had to be resourceful!” Black Tom shouted. “Mr. Howard proved quite useful when it came time to paint. At least a part of him did.”

Malone steadied himself and gave a quick pat to Mr. Howard’s knee. A death like this was not deserved by any man.

Malone rose to his feet. Black Tom moved closer to the great chair. Malone willed his hand to bring out the pistol. Above their heads plaster crumbled and fell. Robert Suydam, meanwhile, had yet to die; gone to his knees, stooped forward, clutching his cut throat as his essence spilled between his fingers, he howled in bewilderment more than pain.

“Even now he can’t imagine he won’t triumph,” Black Tom said, gesturing to Suydam. The Negro held the razor loosely, a casual killer now. His fingers were slick with blood. He looked at the ceiling. “They’ll bring this place down on top of both of you.”

“Us,” Malone said, hand still inside his coat. “Down on all three of us.”

The portal remained open and, despite himself, some part of Malone reveled at the sight. His eyes adjusted. He was looking upon a city, lost to the ages, at the bottom of the sea. And in the midst of this decaying metropolis he saw a figure as large as a mountain range.

“Listen now,” Black Tom said, pointing up at the ceiling, the maelstrom of gunfire and shouting on the street. “This is a song my mother and father never taught me. It’s one all my own.”

The heavy machine guns continued to rattle. How much more ammunition could they have left? The screams of the locals combined as if it were a single instrument, playing alongside the 1921s. And Robert Suydam, the poor devil, continued to live. He shrieked and his blood showered through his clutched hands. Each of these sounds were layered, one on top of the other, one with the other. A demented music, evil orchestration.

“It sounds as sweet as a ballad to me,” Black Tom said.

“You killed the old woman,” Malone said. “Ma Att.”

“She can’t be killed,” Black Tom explained. “But she was dispatched.”

“I’m an officer of the law. Don’t you understand the consequences if you hurt me?”

“Guns and badges don’t scare everyone,” Black Tom said.

“How?” Malone asked. “How can you do all this?”

“Suydam showed me such things were possible. But the old man didn’t have the character to see it through. I had to be the one to walk through the doors and greet destiny. Suydam proved to be like any other man. He wanted power, but the Sleeping King doesn’t honor small requests.”

“So why are you doing it?” Malone asked, sounding like a bewildered child. “If not for power, then what could be the point?”

Black Tom slapped one hand firmly on the back of Malone’s neck. Malone had never felt John’s Handshake. It was painful. Black Tom guided him away from the chair. As they moved, Black Tom kicked it over, and Mr. Howard’s body splayed out onto the ground.

“I bear a hell within me,” Black Tom growled. “And finding myself unsympathized with, wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin.”

“You’re a monster, then,” Malone said.

“I was made one.”

They moved toward Robert Suydam, who continued to gasp but had lost so much blood he’d fallen face-first to the floor. He gurgled like a drain. Black Tom marched Malone toward the portal, and Malone felt the sudden conviction Black Tom would throw him in, push him through. Malone feared drowning in that distant sea less than he did being any closer to that murky, doom-drenched, elder city and the being sprawled among its ruins.

“No,” Malone whispered. “Don’t send me there. Don’t send me there.”

“I thought you were a seeker,” Black Tom said. “Well, here it is.”

Black Tom forced Malone down to his knees. They were ten feet from the portal. The great wind that blew through smelled not of the ocean but of deep corruption. It howled and Malone’s senses reeled, pummeled by a repulsive wisdom.

“Words and music,” Black Tom said, speaking right into Malone’s ear. “That’s what’s required for this song. You can hear the music above you, but the words are not all done. One more letter needs writing, but I could use a little more blood. Would you like to help me with that?”

Through the portal, amid the ruins of the sunken city, Malone perceived the figure’s enormous features — a face, or the perversion of one. The upper portions of its visage smooth like the dome of a man’s skull, but below the eyes the face pulsed and curled, tentacles, tendrils. Eyelids the size of unfurled sails remained, blessedly, shut, but they quivered as if to open.

“No more!” Malone wailed, closing his eyes. “I don’t want to see!”

Black Tom brought one arm around Malone’s neck and squeezed tightly.

“My daddy’s name was Otis Tester,” Black Tom whispered. “My mother’s name was Irene Tester. Let me sing you their favorite song.”

Malone pulled at Black Tom’s arm with one hand, but with the other he tried for his gun again. Even as Black Tom choked him, even as Black Tom sang, Malone kept one portion of his mind rational in the midst of so much madness.

Find the pistol.

Use the pistol.

“Don’t you mind people grinning in your face,” Black Tom sang softly.

Find the pistol.

Use the pistol.

“Don’t you mind people grinning in your face.”

Malone’s hand found his coat pocket and slipped inside. He gripped the revolver.

“I said bear this in mind, a true friend is hard to find,” Black Tom cooed.

Malone’s hand came out with the gun. He had only to raise it and pull the trigger as many times as he could. From this close he would be deafened, perhaps permanent damage, but Black Tom would be defeated, and this mattered most.

Black Tom grunted. Suddenly he was doing something to Malone’s face, but Malone couldn’t understand what it could be. As Malone’s hand rose, a new sensation crippled him. He’d been set on fire. So it felt. A burning pain whose cause he couldn’t locate. He only knew it was an agony so bright the world seemed to flare around him. He howled as animals do, and the hand holding the pistol shot out against his will. The pistol fell from Malone’s hand and flew through the portal, into that distant sea.

Malone screamed and screamed and let go of Black Tom’s arm. He batted at his own face as if he might swat away his torment. Black Tom grunted again and Malone’s eyes became wet. Something was being done to Malone’s eyes. A tugging sensation, as if Malone’s face was being yanked off. Black Tom held a straight razor in one hand, and it was slathered in blood.

Black Tom had cut off Malone’s eyelids.

“Try to shut them now,” Black Tom said. “You can’t choose blindness when it suits you. Not anymore.”

Through the portal Malone witnessed — against his wishes — the moment when a mountain turned to face him. Its eyelids opened. In the depths of the sea, a pair of eyes shone as bright as starlight. Malone wept.

Then the vision washed away. Malone’s blood clouded his perspective. For the first time the firing of heavy machine guns was drowned out by new destruction. The middle tenement came down. This caused the other two to topple as well. Collapsed. To Malone the whole world sounded as if it had cracked in two.

Black Tom finally let go of Malone, and Malone fell to the basement floor. He whispered one last thing into the detective’s ear. Robert Suydam lay five feet away, finally dead.

Malone made out the figure of Black Tom crouching beside him, dipping one finger into the detective’s blood, then spelling something on the ground, directly before the portal. When Black Tom finished, the doorway closed.

The basement stairs, leading up to the street, became visible again. The door at the top of the stairs crashed open, and half a dozen police officers stumbled down. They thought they were escaping the worst by moving underground. But those officers must’ve thought they’d entered the bowels of the severest hell. They escaped a collapsing tenement building only to find an abattoir. The corpses of two white men, the tortured form of Brooklyn’s own Detective Malone, the walls and floor smeared in blood, and one Negro standing tall in the middle of it all.

Two of the officers turned to run back up the stairs, but the collapsed mortar and brick above made this impossible. The other four immediately raised their guns — rifles and pistols — taking aim at Black Tom.

Black Tom walked toward them with his straight razor held above his head. Even in his pain and delirium, Malone shouted for the cops to fire. A cry of bloodlust. The last two officers joined their brothers back at the bottom of the stairs, and drew their service revolvers. Those six men fired fifty-seven rounds at Black Tom.

17

Detective Thomas F. Malone survived the horror at Red Hook and received the department’s highest honors once released from the hospital six weeks later. He’d been trapped in the basement for twenty-nine hours while fellow officers, and members of the fire department, worked to dig out survivors. Malone was the only one to make it out alive. The list of the dead removed from the basement was Mr. Robert Suydam, Mr. Ervin Howard, and six patrolmen from the New York City Police Department. Every single body suggested death came at the blade of a sharp instrument, but no matter how closely the basement was inspected, such a weapon was never found.

While in the hospital, Malone was visited by, among others, the president of the Board of Police Commissioners, the chief of staff, and four different deputy commissioners. Mayor Hylan came to speak with Malone, as did Archbishop Patrick Joseph Hayes. A few members of the public wrote to Malone with questions that baffled the president of the Board of Police Commissioners; he vetted all such correspondence and sent none of it on to Malone. A man originally from Rhode Island but now living in Brooklyn with his wife proved so persistent a pair of officers was sent to the man’s place to make clear he wasn’t welcome in New York. Perhaps his constitution was better suited to Providence. The man left the city soon afterward, never to return.

Members of the press did all they could to infiltrate Malone’s room, but the mayor had him in a private wing at New York Methodist Hospital for fear Malone might tell the press anything strange. It was feared he’d spin his outlandish story — clearly the result of horrific shock — but also they didn’t want him photographed. The hideous image of a detective without eyelids would be the front-page story seen round the world.

The raid on Parker Place had generated positive write-ups thus far. Nearly fifty criminals apprehended, half of them illegal immigrants to this country. Those twenty-five would be shipped off, the other half incarcerated for an extended time. The collapse of the tenement buildings was attributed to a storehouse of explosives those criminals were stockpiling. Last, the three “blue-eyed Norwegian” babies were never discovered on the premises. Locals attributed the rumors of abduction to the swamp gas of European anxiety known to flare up within a neighborhood’s proximity to Red Hook.

Malone healed as best he could and, with time, came to understand he must leave the police force. He couldn’t imagine entering another building, another urban block, without collapsing to the ground, shivering with fear. His superiors couldn’t imagine anyone ever trusting a police officer with such a vivid facial deformity.

The specialists at New York Methodist designed a set of goggles that Malone would have to wear for the rest of his life. He was given a solution with which to douse his eyes throughout the day lest they lose their moisture and he suffer pain and, potentially, blindness. The first pair of goggles was clear, but this only created a magnifying effect when Malone wore them. A second pair was fashioned out of darker glass, and this was deemed acceptable. It spared passersby the sight of a man who would never again be able to shut his eyes.

Just before Malone’s release, a police surgeon who’d been called in to consult about Malone’s eyes was ushered into the room. He told Malone about a town called Chepachet, in Rhode Island, where the surgeon had relatives — a quiet place, not urban, about as far as Malone could get from Red Hook but still enjoy the benefits of civilization. A specialist in nearby Woonsocket could meet with Malone, speak with him, as he continued his recovery. The NYPD would cover the costs of his stay, and it was implied this would become the place of his retirement. If he would disappear, New York City would pay the bills. Malone accepted the deal.

And yet, as always happens, the story did get out. What finally made the newspapers was a kind of mishmash of truths. A man named Robert Suydam became acquainted with the rougher elements of Red Hook, Brooklyn. The former member of highborn society, drawn into a culture of crime and terror, found himself corrupted by it, lost in a ring of human smuggling and child abduction. Suydam made his last stand in a tenement on Parker Place, and the police were left with no choice but to storm the building. After a firefight, the poorly constructed buildings collapsed, killing Suydam, one private detective, and six brave members of the New York City Police Department.

That, in its entirety, was the story that made its way into print. And eventually even Malone’s memory changed. As he spent more time in the hamlet of Chepachet, as he met with the specialist in Woonsocket, Malone began to doubt his own memory of the villain known as Black Tom. Hadn’t it really been Robert Suydam all along who’d guided those awful forces? Who else but a man born into wealth and education could be naturally equipped to lead? These were the questions posed by the specialist, and they helped Malone to reshape his understanding of what he’d endured. Who could blame Malone’s mind for wreaking havoc with the truth? Robert Suydam — that arch fiend — had killed Mr. Howard, and six officers, and brought grievous harm to Malone. But as a sign of God’s just nature, Suydam’s own Negro underling turned on him and cut his master’s throat. Wasn’t this, no matter how horrible, more likely to be the truth? Negroes simply weren’t that devious, the specialist explained. Their simplicity was their gift, and their curse.

At the start of his time with the specialist, Malone would counter with the obvious question: Where then was the body of the Negro in the rubble? But the specialist waved such concerns away. Wasn’t the site still being cleared, even two months later? Sooner or later the Negro would appear. And of course that was what Malone feared most.

“You are saved,” the specialist said, during one session. “What has cast such a shadow upon you?”

“The Negro,” Malone replied, but this was not a pleasing answer.

There was a story the specialist wanted, the same one told by the newspapers, and by every official with whom Malone had been in contact. Imagine a universe in which all the powers of the NYPD could not defeat a single Negro with a razor blade. Impossible. Impossible. And soon Malone was willing to be convinced. He began to half remember odd dream states, wherein he went down into the basement in Red Hook and found a portal to some hellish other world, and there he saw all manner of evil, but not a Sleeping King—not a Sleeping King. Robert Suydam was there in the dream, and there was a golden carved pedestal, and wild chaos ensued, and somehow Malone was spared. The specialist seemed pleased by this narrative, much more palatable; he assured officials in the NYPD and the mayor’s office that Malone was making great progress.

Malone settled into his life in Chepachet and slowly rediscovered his interest in the arcane and profound. A handful of items had been shipped to him from the police department, the last effects from his desk at the Butler Street station and one item from the basement at Parker Place. His notepad. When Malone held the pad, it was like the first lightning kiss after a long time away from one’s true love. Dust still coated the cover and the book smelled, faintly, of river water. Looking through the pages Malone felt some older, more certain, part of himself growing stronger. But then, on the very last page, he saw the words he’d scribbled that day in Red Hook. Gorgo, Mormo, thousand-faced moon. But this wasn’t what made him falter. Instead it was a series of words transcribed in the order he’d read them. The Supreme Alphabet.

One more letter needs writing, but I could use a little more blood.

Would you like to help me with that?

Malone squeezed the notepad tightly, an involuntary spasm, and he was transported back to Parker Place, his eyes bleeding and his face burning, and the Negro stooped over him. He whispered something in Malone’s ear. Then he dipped his finger in blood and moved it on the ground. The Supreme Alphabet spelled out in gore. Malone could almost see the last letter, actually three short words, scrawled on the basement floor. The same words had been on the covers of the book Charles Thomas Tester brought to Ma Att long ago.

Even as he became nauseated from the memory, he found himself turning his head, inching his right ear forward, as if to hear the last words Black Tom ever spoke. What was it? Only one line. But there, in the little cabin in Rhode Island, where he’d made his new home, the words would not come to him.

Instead, the modest space began to crowd him as it had never done in the months he’d lived there. He feared the walls of the cabin would collapse and the roof would come down. Along the wall he saw the six officers, lined up as they’d been on the stairwell when they’d fired on Black Tom. The way they’d dropped their guns and clutched at their ears after the tremendous echo of their gunfire. And then Black Tom appeared at the top of the stairs — as if he’d just stepped in from outside — and moved down the line behind them, cutting each man’s throat in turn, all too confused to realize they’d been murdered.

And right afterward, at the bottom of those steps, Black Tom made the strange but now familiar sound — a long, low tone — and a blast of fetid air coursed through the basement. He didn’t even need the protection of Robert Suydam’s library in order to move through time and dimension. He’d become a star traveler in no need of a ship. Then Black Tom, the former Charles Thomas Tester, walked through the portal. He went out.

All this returned to Malone there in the cabin, and he couldn’t stay inside. He ran out but still felt unguarded. He walked down the Chepachet road, out of the hamlet, to the nearby village of Pascoag, slightly more urban with its tiny downtown, a handful of taller buildings. Malone told himself he’d come here to pick up some magazines, maybe eat lunch, but none of this was true. He felt himself hunted, hounded, but couldn’t understand what might be following him. The stories he, and his specialist, had used to paper over the truth had suddenly been torn off.

Thomas J. Malone walked Sayles Avenue, and soon reached Main Street. He made a strange sight to passersby, this tall, anxious man wearing enormous shaded goggles. He became more alien when, on Main Street, he turned and faced the tallest building in all of downtown Pascoag. He looked up once and fell to the ground, screaming so hideously it made a horse drawing a carriage bolt forward; its driver had a terrible time getting the spooked animal to stop. Pedestrians gathered around the odd man, who looked up at the skies. They asked after him — a child was sent to fetch the local sheriff — but the man only gawped at the skyline, such as it was, and his mouth quivered as if he were about to bawl. What had happened? the crowd wondered aloud. What did he see? Many dismissed Malone as a drunk or a madman, but a handful — the more sensitive souls — followed his sightline. For a moment all of them glimpsed an abhorrent face in the looming clouds. Each one saw what Malone had seen, the thing that had brought him to the ground. A pair of inhuman eyes stared down at them from the heavens, shining like starlight. Then and there, Malone finally heard the last words Black Tom whispered down in the basement.

I’ll take Cthulhu over you devils any day.

Then Malone returned to himself and, realizing he’d made a scene, he apologized to the gathered townspeople. After explaining himself to the local constable, he wandered back to his cabin in Chepachet and became, for a short while, an item of lively gossip in Pascoag.

18

Black Tom entered the Victoria Society and took a table in the dining room, one near the windows looking out on 137th Street. As soon as he arrived, he slipped the straight razor into his pocket and removed his jacket and vest. He’d cleaned up a little, but it hardly helped. His pants remained clotted with dirt and dark with blood, and his shirt showed so much perspiration that it clung to his skin. Still he was allowed entrance. The greeter feared him.

Black Tom sat in the dining room, and since it was late afternoon the space remained otherwise empty. He sat with his back to everything and watched the sun glow over Harlem, and he listened to the rumbling hive of life on the sidewalks and the streets.

When Buckeye arrived, a plate of food had been set before Black Tom. He hadn’t eaten anything. Buckeye ordered his own plate — a meal made by a Puerto Rican woman this time — and didn’t really look at Black Tom until he’d eaten two alcapurrias. The greeter had sent out word that Buckeye’s friend was at the Victoria Society, looking decidedly odd.

“I heard about your father,” Buckeye said after he’d swallowed.

“My father?” Black Tom said this as if he’d forgotten he ever had one.

“Where you been, man?” Buckeye asked, setting down his fork. “What happened to you?”

“You’ll hear about it,” Black Tom said calmly. “It’ll be in the papers tomorrow. Probably for a whole week. Then they’ll move on to something else.”

Buckeye watched Black Tom quietly. He’d been hustling long enough to know there are questions you don’t ask if you want to avoid being pulled into a court case later.

Black Tom said, “I did something big, bigger than anyone will understand for a long time. I was just so angry.”

Buckeye nodded, ate another few bites of mofongo, and strenuously did not ask follow-up questions.

“I was a good man, right? I mean I wasn’t like my father, but I never did people wrong. Not truly.”

“No, you didn’t,” Buckeye said, looking his old friend directly in the eye. “You were always good people. Still are.”

Black Tom smiled faintly but shook his head. “Every time I was around them, they acted like I was a monster. So I said goddamnit, I’ll be the worst monster you ever saw!”

Newly arrived diners at nearby tables turned to look at Black Tom, but neither he nor Buckeye noticed.

“But I forgot,” Black Tom said quietly. “I forgot about all this.”

Black Tom scanned the tables of men and women dining at the Victoria Society. He pointed to the row of windows that opened onto 137th Street.

“Nobody here ever called me a monster,” Black Tom said. “So why’d I go running somewhere else, to be treated like a dog? Why couldn’t I see all the good things I already had? Malone said I put my daddy at risk, and he was right. It’s my fault, too. I used him without a second thought.”

Black Tom reached into his pocket and revealed the straight razor. Buckeye gave a quick glance around the room, but Black Tom paid the room no mind. He opened the razor. The blade looked slathered in jelly. Buckeye knew what that was. Black Tom set the strop down on the table and Buckeye tossed his napkin over it.

“We need to get rid of that,” Buckeye cautioned, looking at the shape under the napkin. “You should have done it before you even stepped in here.”

“The seas will rise and our cities will be swallowed by the oceans,” Black Tom said. “The air will grow so hot we won’t be able to breathe. The world will be remade for Him, and His kind. That white man was afraid of indifference; well, now he’s going to find out what it’s like.

“I don’t know how long it’ll take. Our time and their time isn’t counted the same. Maybe a month? Maybe a hundred years? All this will pass. Humanity will be washed away. The globe will be theirs again, and it’s me who did it. Black Tom did it. I gave them the world.”

“Who the fuck is Black Tom?” Buckeye asked.

“Me,” he said.

Buckeye scanned the room once more, then grabbed the napkin and the razor blade as well. He folded the napkin around the blade.

“Your name is Tommy Tester,” Buckeye said. “Charles Thomas Tester. You’re my best friend, and the worst singer I’ve ever heard.”

Both men laughed loudly, and for a brief moment Black Tom appeared as he had been not so long ago: twenty years old and in possession of great joy.

“I wish I’d been more like my father,” Black Tom said. “He didn’t have much, but he never lost his soul.”

Buckeye had slid back from the table, fussed with his right boot, trying to slip the straight razor inside for safekeeping. He’d discard it, into the river, after he walked Tommy home.

“I wonder if I could ever get mine back,” Black Tom whispered.

He rose from the table and walked to a window. He opened it. At 4:13 p.m., Harlemites within a three-block radius reported a strange sound in their heads, and a sudden wave of nausea. Before anyone inside the Victoria Society realized what was happening, Black Tom went out the window. Buckeye turned in time to see him leap, but Tommy Tester’s body was never found. Zig zag zig.