Rudolph Fisher - The Conjure-Man Dies - A Harlem Mystery

‘Good.’ The detective turned to the officer whom Brady had summoned:

‘Hello, Hanks. Listen Hanks, you take Mr Brown there around by the precinct, pick up another man, and then go with Mr Brown and bring the men he identifies here. There’ll be three of ’em. Take my car and make it snappy.’

Jinx, behind a mask of scowling ill-humour, which was always his readiest defence under strain, sat now in the uncomfortably illuminated chair and growled his answers into the darkness whence issued Dart’s voice. This apparently crusty attitude, which long use had made habitual, served only to antagonize his questioner, so that even the simplest of his answers were taken as unsatisfactory. Even in the perfectly routine but obviously important item of establishing his identity, he made a bad beginning.

‘Have you anything with you to prove your identity?’

‘Nothin’ but my tongue.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean I say I’m who I is. Who’d know better?’

‘No one, of course. But it’s possible that you might say who you were not.’

‘Who I ain’t? Sho’ I can say who I ain’t. I ain’t Marcus Garvey, I ain’t Al Capone, I ain’t Cal Coolidge—I ain’t nobody but me—Jinx Jenkins, myself.’

‘Very well, Mr Jenkins. Where do you live? What sort of work do you do?’

‘Any sort I can get. Ain’t doin’ nothin’ right now.’

‘M-m. What time did you get here tonight?’

On this and other similar points, Jinx’s answers, for all their gruffness, checked with those of Bubber and Martha Crouch. He had come with Bubber a little before ten-thirty. They had gone straight to the waiting-room and found three men. The women had come in later. Then the detective asked him to describe in detail what had transpired when he left the others and went in to see Frimbo. And though Jinx’s vocabulary was wholly inadequate, so deeply had that period registered itself upon his mind that he omitted not a single essential item. His imperfections of speech became negligible and were quite ignored; indeed, the more tutored minds of his listeners filled in or substituted automatically, and both the detective and the physician, the latter perhaps more completely, were able to observe the reconstructed scene as if it were even now being played before their eyes.

The black servitor with the yellow headdress and the cast in one eye ushered Jinx to the broad black curtains, saying in a low voice as he bowed him through, ‘Please go in, sit down, say nothing till Frimbo speaks.’ Thereupon the curtains fell to behind him and he was in a small dark passage, whose purpose was obviously to separate the waiting-room from the mystic chamber beyond and thus prevent Frimbo’s voice from reaching the circle of waiting callers. Jinx shuffled forward toward the single bright light that at once attracted and blinded. He sidled in between the chair and table and sat down facing the figure beneath the hanging light. He was unable, because of the blinding glare, to descry any characteristic feature of the man he had come to see; he could only make out a dark shadow with a head that seemed to be enormous, cocked somewhat sidewise as if in a steady contemplation of the visitor.

For a time the shadow made no sound or movement, and Jinx squirmed about impatiently in his seat, trying to obey directions and restrain the impulse to say something. At one moment the figure seemed to fade away altogether and blend with the enveloping blackness beyond. This was the very limit of Jinx’s endurance—but at this moment Frimbo spoke.

‘Please do not shield your eyes. I must study your face.’

The voice changed the atmosphere from one of discomfiture to one of assurance. It was a deep, rich, calm voice, so matter of fact and real, even in that atmosphere, as to dispel doubt and inspire confidence.

‘You see, I must analyse your mind by observing your countenance. Only thus can I learn how to help you.’

Here was a man that knew something. Didn’t talk like an African native certainly. Didn’t talk like any black man Jinx had ever heard. Not a trace of Negro accent, not a suggestion of dialect. He spoke like a white-haired judge on the bench, easily, smoothly, quietly.

‘There are those who claim the power to read men’s lives in crystal spheres. That is utter nonsense. I claim the power to read men’s lives in their faces. That is completely reasonable. Every experience, every thought, leaves its mark. Past and present are written there clearly. He who knows completely the past and the present can deduce the inevitable future, which past and present determine. My crystal sphere, therefore, is your face. By reading correctly what is there I know what is scheduled to follow, and so can predict and guard you against your future.’

‘Yes, suh,’ said Jinx.

‘I notice that you are at present out of work. It is this you wish to consult me about.’

Jinx’s eyes dilated. ‘Yes, suh, that’s right.’

‘You have been without a job several weeks.’

‘Month come Tuesday.’

‘Yes. And now you have reached the point where you must seek the financial aid of your friends. Being of a proud and independent nature, you find this difficult. Yet even the fee which you will pay for the advice I give you is borrowed money.’

There was no tone of question, no implied request for confirmation. The words were a simple statement of fact, presented as a comprehensive résumé of a situation, expressed merely as a basis for more important deductions to follow.

‘So far, you see, my friend, I have done nothing at all mysterious. All this is the process of reason, based on observation. And now, though you may think it a strange power, let me add that there is nothing mysterious either in my being able to tell you that your name is Jenkins, that your friends call you Jinx, that you are twenty-seven years old, and that you are unmarried. All these matters have passed through your mind as you sat there listening to me. This is merely an acuteness of mental receptivity which anyone can learn; it is usually called telepathy. At this point, Mr Jenkins, others whom you might have consulted stop. But at this point—Frimbo begins.’

There was a moment’s silence. The voice resumed with added depth and solemnity:

‘For, in addition to the things that can be learned by anyone, Frimbo inherits the bequest of a hundred centuries, handed from son to son through four hundred unbroken generations of Buwongo kings. It is a profound and dangerous secret, my friend, a secret my fathers knew when the kings of the Nile still thought human flesh a delicacy.’

The voice sank to a lower pitch still, inescapably impressive.

‘Frimbo can change the future.’ He paused, then continued, ‘In the midst of a world of determined, inevitable events, of results rigidly fashioned by the past, Frimbo alone is free. Frimbo not only sees. Frimbo and Frimbo alone can step in at will and change the course of a life. Listen!’

The voice now became intimate, confidential, shading off from low vibrant tones into softly sibilant whispers:

‘Your immediate needs will be taken care of but you will not be content. It is a strange thing that I see. For though food and shelter in abundance are to be your lot sooner than you think, still you will be more unhappy than you are now; and you will rejoice only when this physical security has been withdrawn. You will be overjoyed to return to the uncertain fortunes over which you now despair. I do not see the circumstances, at the moment, that will bring on these situations, because they are outside the present content of your mind which I am contemplating. But these things even now impatiently await you—adequate physical necessaries, but great mental distress.

‘Now then, when you have passed through that paradoxical period, what will you do? Let me see. It is but a short way—a few days ahead—but—’ Into that until now completely self-assured tone crept a quality of puzzlement. It was so unexpected and incongruous a change that Jinx, up to this point completely fascinated, was startled like one rudely awakened from deep sleep. ‘It is very dark—’ There was a long pause. The same voice resumed, ‘What is this, Frimbo?’ Again a pause; then: ‘Strange how suddenly it grows dark. Frimbo—’ Bewilderment dilated into dismay. ‘Frimbo! Frimbo! Why do you not see? ’