Back in the control room, Willard sat in his chair whistling to himself until Stan’s scream echoing up from the substation’s bowels stopped him cold.
“Jesus,” he said on a sharp intake of breath. “Stan?” he called. And again, “Stan, that you?”
There was no answer.
“Stan?”
Nothing.
Willard knew he should get up. He should grab the lantern and go see what was what. One foot in front of the other and down the stairs. Easy.
He didn’t move.
“Stan? You okay?” he called again, a little quieter this time.
He’d count to five. If Stan didn’t come back by then, he’d go see. Under his breath, Willard counted softly: “One… two… three…” He took a shaking breath. “… Four…” And another. “… Fi—”
A shriek answered him. Up and down the corridor outside the control room, the lights flickered wildly. And then they winked out one by one, as if the electricity were being sucked up through an invisible straw. Still, Willard could not make himself go in the direction of the sound, even as he heard the guttural growls and eerie, breathy screeches crawling closer.
So the nightmares came to him.
And like the people and their dreams, they were hungry for more.
At half past midnight, Memphis paced in front of the Hotsy Totsy, nervously jangling the change in the trousers pocket of his borrowed tuxedo. His stiff shirt collar felt as tight as a tourniquet. He read over the poem he’d written that day, folded the paper again and tucked it back inside his suit jacket, then resumed pacing and occasionally peering down the street.
“Lord, Memphis, you’re about to wear a hole through that pavement,” the doorman, Clarence, said. “Somebody after you?”
“More like I’m after somebody,” Memphis said.
A taxi pulled to the curb. Memphis heard a familiar husky voice calling, “Keep the change,” and turned to see Theta stepping out of the backseat in a black beaded dress and white fox stole. She’d ringed her dark eyes in heavy kohl pencil so that they shone like two dark pearls. Her black bob was sleek and sharp. A smile tugged at the corners of her crimson mouth as she moved toward Memphis like a vision.
“Good evening, Princess,” he said when he found his voice.
“You clean up nice, Poet,” Theta said.
“You are…” He searched for the right word. “Incandescent.”
Theta arched a thin brow. “Remind me to pack my dictionary next time.”
Memphis smiled big. “Next time. I like the sound of that.”
Clarence shot Memphis a look and opened the door, but Memphis waved him off.
“Aren’t we going in?” Theta asked.
“Not here. It’s a surprise, remember?”
Memphis escorted Theta over to Seventh Avenue and 134th Street. A cop walking his beat approached and Memphis hung back, keeping a careful distance from Theta. The cop tipped his hat to her, and Theta managed a tepid smile in response. When the cop moved on, Memphis fell into step with Theta again.
“Next corner,” he said.
“So what’s this big secret you got planned?”
“You’re about to find out. Close your eyes,” he said. “Now. Take three giant steps. Aaand… open.”
Theta blinked up at the bright marquee. “Small’s Paradise? Is this a joke?”
Memphis hooked his thumbs under his lapels. “Do I look like I’m kidding in this getup?”
“Okay, I give: What’s the occasion?”
Memphis grinned. “It’s the eighteenth anniversary of our very first date.”
“This joint is swank. Where’d you get the cabbage for this, Poet?” Theta whispered as a white-gloved doorman ushered them inside with a cool “Good evening.”
“Oh, sold some stock. Made a fortune on Canadian whiskey. Found out I’m actually a Rockefeller. You know how it goes,” Memphis said. In truth, he’d been saving his money for weeks.
Memphis tipped the headwaiter five hard-earned dollars, and they were shown to a decent table—not as nice as the ones occupied by the really rich folks who could afford to tip a lot more than five dollars or the famous folks who could just waltz right in and have a table put down for them beside the dance floor, but it would do. The rule in the nightclub was that you could bring in your own flask, but Memphis wanted to buy bootleg from the waiters. It was expensive, but it kept the money here in Harlem, and it made Memphis feel like a real swell to do it in front of his girl. He wanted Theta to see him not as a struggling poet sharing a bedroom with his little brother in his aunt’s house while running numbers for a Harlem banker, a fella trying to figure himself out as he moved along, but as a man in the know. A somebody. Like the kind of crowd she ran with on the regular.