The Curse of Jacob Tracy: A Novel (16 page)

Miss Deirdre let Trace and Boz into the house through the kitchen, just after seven in the evening. Mr. and Mrs. Roth were out visiting friends, she said, and the young misters were alone in the back laying-out room.

“Been there about half an hour,” Deirdre said through disapproving lips. She had big pansy-brown eyes and a voice like dark honey. “Tole me to go away and close the door, not to bring ’em coffee or nothin. Mr. Levy brought more of his
photographs
with him.” A grimace over the word made it sound sinister.

Trace and Boz exchanged glances. They had already discussed what Daniel Levy might be doing with those pictures he took—whether, for instance, he might be capturing the souls of the dead, the way the Indians suspected white men of doing with their cameras. Or taking them as trophies, instead of scalps.

Deirdre led them into the back servants’ hall and pointed to a door at the end. “It ain’t locked,” she said. “Don’t be breakin anything in there, or I’m in for it.”

“Much obliged, Miss Deirdre.” Boz gave her a melting look.

The girl tossed her head. “Oh, go on,” she said, but there was a gleam of pleasure in her eye.

Trace waited until she was out of sight before laying a hand on the knob. He opened it quietly but not too slowly, the way Deirdre might if she had to enter unobtrusively. As he had hoped, the two young men were bent over their work, backs to the door. Danny Levy was reading aloud in Hebrew.

Boz slipped into the room behind him and Trace closed the door.

“Deidre, I told you we didn’t want any—” The Roth boy turned around and squawked in alarm. “Who are you?”

Danny Levy twisted, a book in one hand and a smoldering twig in the other. He yelped and fell back against the table. “It’s them—they’re the ones—” He shook the smoking bundle of brush at them and proclaimed in Hebrew.

Trace advanced on them, digging in his pocket for the red pepper. The Roth boy backed away behind Danny, his hands linked together into a lump of knuckles, which he shook at Trace.

Trace threw the pepper at them. They flinched and Danny waved the smelly fagot menacingly.

“Ana becho’ach,” he sang in a high, ululating voice. “G’dulat yemincha, tatir tz’rura!”

He threw the bundle at Trace. It struck him in the chest and fell to the floor. Trace noticed that the carpet had been rolled back, and there was a circle drawn on the boards, surrounding the table where the boys worked.

“Is it working?” the Roth boy asked frantically.

“It can’t cross over the circle,” Danny Levy said. “Get the bowl and the candle.”

“Are you boys trying to
exorcise
me?” Trace demanded.

*   *   *

O
NCE
T
RACE GOT
the boys calmed down enough to believe he wasn’t a demon—and got Boz to quit laughing like a damn coyote—Solomon Roth rang for Deirdre to bring them all coffee and they sat down to trade stories.

Danny Levy looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “I haven’t been back to the print shop since you saw me there Wednesday. It drove me out. Or rather, Mr. Avery drove me out with a fire iron. I think it rearranged the type he was setting. That’s how it possesses people—it makes messages to them with the ink.”

“We know,” Boz said.

Trace related the story of the boarding-house notice with the bad message on it. Danny started shaking his head halfway through. “When you showed up here I thought you were possessed, too. It
knows
I’m trying to trap it. And I guess it knows you are, too. I printed those notices myself, but I promise you, that type said nothing about you shooting anybody before I ran it through the press.”

“Which press?” Trace asked. “If it’s just in the machine, maybe we could destroy it.”

“I thought of that, but I’ve taken apart every piece of both those presses in the last five months. I’ve purified, prayed over, replaced, done everything but burn the place down—”

“Maybe we should do that,” Boz said.

Danny turned as green as cheese. “I tried that, too. I went there one night when I knew Mr. Avery wouldn’t be there. I figured I could make it look like some sparks jumped out of the stove—there’s so much paper and kerosene sitting around anyway. Next thing I knew I was pouring kerosene on myself. If Sol hadn’t been standing watch I’d be dead, too.”

“He was sick for days,” Sol said. “It got all down his clothes.”

“And I think,” Danny said, “that’s what happened to my brother. I think he tried to stop it, and it made him kill himself.”

“Did he say anything to you about the demon before he died?”

Danny drew a short, hard breath. “He said he’d made a deal … to make the
Carondelet Citizen
the biggest paper in St. Louis.” He looked Trace in the eye. “My brother wasn’t the most righteous of fellows, Mr. Tracy. Our father said he was always looking for the quick way to do things.”

“So how did you learn there was a demon in the shop?”

“I went to Mr. Avery first because I needed the job, and I knew a bit about the business. My father was a bookbinder. But as soon as I set foot in the place, I knew.”

“How?” Trace asked.

“A feeling of evil,” Danny said bluntly.

“Describe it to me.”

“Cold. Stabbing into you. Like it wants to eat you and fu—er, fornicate with you at the same time. Like all the bad habits you ever had, all the wicked desires you’d never—” Danny shivered. “All these months, every time I was in there, I could feel it watching me. I don’t think it could get to me directly, because I always wore this.” He touched the star around his neck. “But it was always
whispering
to me. And watching the customers. That was how it picked new victims. People who came into the office for printing, or ads.”

“And you’re tryin to stop it,” Boz said. “That’s what the sage and the white wax is for, right? Voudou, for bindin evil spirits.”

The boys looked sheepishly at each other. “We were running out of ideas,” Danny admitted.

“It was Deirdre gave us the idea,” Sol said. “She’d sprinkle salt in the doorway to keep out evil. Said her grandmother swore by it.”

“And I had an old dybbuk bowl belonged to
my
grandmother,” Danny added.

“So you just took a pinch of hoodoo from everybody,” Boz said.

“Not as much as you’d think,” Sol said earnestly. “The old Kabbalah texts contain a lot of writings about demons and how to banish them. Many of the principles are the same—making an image of the demon and then binding it in a vessel. And then Danny found that he could capture it in a photograph for a time—”

“Is
that
what you were doin?” Trace said, and Danny nodded. “Show me.”

Danny fetched a stack of prints from under the bench. They were all about the size of a hand, and the contrast wasn’t great, but Trace recognized the body of Judd Herschel as he’d seen it two days ago. There were strange white blotches, in the shape of tears or tadpoles, leaking from the face.

“They show up white on the photograph,” Trace said, half to himself.

“You can see them, can’t you?” Danny said. “I mean, you saw them on the body that day.”

Trace nodded. “Do you?”

Danny shook his head. “Only through the camera. But sometimes in the shop, I’ve seen things, at the corner of my eye. It’s getting worse, the longer I’m there. Sometimes I feel as if the platen press is waiting for me to slip, to get my hand or my head in there…” He spread out several more prints, of the pressroom. They were dark, having been taken indoors, but there was a strange cloudy white aura in all of them—around the iron joints of the job press, hovering over the longer cylinder press, clotting on the type in the cases.

“It’s
everywhere,
” Boz said.

“In all the empty spaces,” Trace agreed. “So when you capture it in the image, does it hold it for a while?”

“At first, it did,” Danny said. “These are the first pictures I took, when I was trying to see what I couldn’t see with my eyes. Then I noticed the pictures would change if I stared at them too long. So I put them in a box, with some scrolls and white sage, and buried them. Things were quiet for a month or so, but then I guess it got out. I tried it a few more times, but every time it escaped faster and came back stronger.”

“Have you tried to exorcise it?” Trace asked.

The two young men looked at each other.

“We don’t know how, exactly,” Sol said. “The texts that describe actual exorcisms are … well, Rabbi Ernst says they’re not for foolish boys.”

“
If
he even has them,” Danny said. “He says they’re deep mysteries that we’re not ready for.”

“Supposin you told him there was a demon in the print shop?” Boz said, half-seriously.

Danny’s mouth soured. “I
told
him I thought there was an evil spirit in the place. He said it was the influence of worldly things and I should be spending more time on my Torah.”

That speech sounded familiar to Trace, excepting the
Torah
part. Meanwhile this talk of mysteries and Hebrew had jogged his memory. He felt in his pockets and fetched out the creased page of Miss Fairweather’s instructions. “Take a look at this. Does that mean anything to you?”

Sol craned his neck, then grabbed for it. “This is Kabbalah! Where’d you get this?”

“Can you read it?”

“Yes!” Sol’s lips moved as he felt his way through the archaic words. “I’ve been looking for this rite for weeks!” He spread the page on the table so Danny could see it too, and read aloud, “‘Sprinkle salt or ash or earth into the vessel…’ Did we bring that graveyard dirt?”

“Here.” Trace threw his packets of salt and mummy on the table. “Use that.”

“‘Make a trail of blood leading to the vessel,’” Sol muttered, still reading, “‘and half-fill with blood, and surround with lights to draw the spirit…’”

“Can you get us into the print shop?” Trace said to Danny.

“Sure,” Danny said. “At least I got a key. But Mr. Avery will be working there and he may come after us with a fire iron.”

“I reckon
I
can handle Mr. Avery,” Boz said. “And no offense, Trace, but are you
sure
you wanna try this again?”

“Yup,” Trace said.

“Just cuz you got lucky once—”

Danny and Sol looked at Trace in some surprise. “You’ve done this before?” Sol said.

In answer, Trace drew the wax-sealed whiskey bottle from his vest pocket. He hadn’t dared leave it behind in the boarding-room.

Danny leaned close to the bottle and its clotted-looking contents. “What
is
that?”

“That’s the demon I bottled last night,” Trace said. “Why’n’t you show me this dybbuk bowl of your grandmother’s?”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Trace and Boz marched through the front door of the
Carondelet Citizen,
guns and crucifixes at the ready, to find the place quiet and still: a clock ticking on the wall, lamps burning warmly on the desk and counter.

Avery looked at them over his spectacles. “Office is closed, boys.”

Trace walked up to him and threw a pinch of pepper at him. The old man’s brows knit together. He set down the type fence, took off his spectacles and rubbed them, looking at Trace with faint contempt.

“It’s not in him anymore.” Danny came in with the dybbuk bowl in his hands, and Sol behind him carrying a whole parcel. “If he’s looking at you like a bug, he’s safe. When the demon’s in him he’ll come after you instead of talking.”

“Mister, I’m gonna ask you to step away from the bench,” Boz said. “Come stand over here,” he indicated the rail that separated the customer entrance from the workspace, “and, uh—don’t read anything.”

Avery obeyed, without much urgency. “This is a waste of time if you think there’s cash money in here. Danny should’ve told you that.”

“Not after your money, mister,” Trace said. “Just gonna have a little prayer service and then we’ll be on our way.” He pulled out a tangle of silver chains and tossed them to Boz. “Put one of those on him.” He pointed at Avery and then at the two young Jews. “You still wearing yours?”

Danny popped his collar to show the Shield of Solomon he wore. Sol did the same.

“Good lads. Let’s do this fast and get out of here.”

“What is this, some kind of Jewish ceremony?” Avery asked, eyeing the pendant Boz gave him.

“Let’s use the white cloth,” Sol suggested, consulting his notes, “and the white sage, and the candles, and put the bowl in the middle.”

Sol’s notes were unclear on how exactly the bowl was supposed to work. Danny claimed it was to trap the demon; Sol argued it was more likely a place to “feed” the spirit in order to placate it, to keep it from harming people inside a dwelling. Privately, Trace reckoned whatever they got up to would hold the demon’s attention long enough to let him grab it and stuff it in a bottle.

Danny unrolled a bundle of pale tallow candles and wedged them into holders. “There’s a box of safety matches under the front counter there,” he said to Trace.

Trace went around the rail and squatted, scanning the shelves. When he stood up again, Boz said quietly, “Trace,” and nodded out the front window.

In the falling sunlight, a small parade was coming up the street: ten or twelve men with a determined slant to their walk. A larger group, mostly women, followed more slowly, but with their arms folded in that way women have when they are bolstering their menfolk to do the right thing.

Trace swore under his breath. “You think they read somethin in the paper disagreed with them?”

“I don’t think they’re the welcomin committee. Whatever you’re doin, do it fast—I don’t wanna be the darky with a gun in my hand when the neighborhood watch rolls around.”

Trace locked the front door, then pointed at Avery. “Get him back behind the rail.”

“Look, boys, this really is a waste of time,” Avery said, but he ambled where Boz steered him, to his chair behind the type desk.

“Do you remember takin after that kid with a fire iron?” Boz asked him.

Avery looked nonplussed. “How do you know he didn’t deserve it?”

“Where are we going to get the blood?” Danny asked, but abruptly his gaze shifted beyond Trace’s shoulder and his mouth fell open.