Palace Council Read Online Free

principal lure was probably the ghost of Madame herself, occasionally spotted leaning from the upper windows to shush unruly visitors and, now and then, crossing the hall before your eyes, perhaps searching for the fortune that her second husband was said to have stolen. Most of Harlem pooh-poohed the ghost stories by day, and avoided Roger Morris Park at night.
    Eddie did not think much of the supernatural, considering that more Wesley Senior’s realm.
    He stumbled over the body in the shadow of a dead elm very near the wrought-iron fence, where a passerby would no doubt have spotted it from the sidewalk early the next morning. The stumbling was literal, for Eddie, pained eyes on the townhouse where every moment drew Aurelia further from him, was not looking down. He tripped, and his chest hit crusty mounded snow. He turned and, spotting a man lying behind him, spun, catlike, to his feet, remembering the boys who had mugged him in Newark. Even when he crept closer and took in the elegant suit and watch chain, the lack of an overcoat despite the February chill, the white skin, the well-fed jowly face, the closed eyes, and the unmoving hands, he was certain the man must have tripped him on purpose, because—on this point, years later, he was firm—five minutes ago, on his previous circuit along the fence, the man had not been there.
    â€œHey,” said Eddie, anger fading as he got a good look. He shook the man’s shoulder. “Hey!”
    A fresh night snow was by this time brushing the city, and tiny twirling flakes settled on the stranger’s forehead and lips as well as on the hands folded across his substantial chest. Still the man made no move.
    â€œAre you okay? Hey. Wake up!”
    But by that time Eddie had guessed that the man would not be waking. A white man, dead in Harlem. The press would have a field day. Not afraid but, for once, uncertain of his ground, Eddie knelt on the frozen ground and unfolded the man’s pudgy hands, intending to check the pulse, although he had no idea how it was done. When he separated the fingers, something gold glinted and fell to the snow. Eddie picked it up. A cross, perhaps an inch and a half long, ornately worked, with an inscription on it he could not read in the faint glow of a streetlamp outside the fence. Then he realized that the words were upside down. Inverting the cross, twisting it to catch the light, he could make out “We shall,” and, in the dark, no more. Maybe the next word was “overcome”? But the light was too dim.
    The cross dangled from a gold chain, threaded oddly through an eyelet at the bottom rather than the top, so that, had the dead man been wearing it around his neck, the cross would have been upside down, the words right side up. Eddie wondered why he had been clutching it at all. Seeking protection, perhaps. But from what? Leaning closer, squinting, Eddie had his first hint. Around the plump neck, digging into discolored flesh, was a leather band. The man had been garroted.
    Eddie shot to his feet, senses woozily alert. If the body had not been here five minutes ago, then the killer must be nearby. He listened, but snow crunched in every direction. He peered, but in the trees every shadow swayed. Eddie was no fool. A garrote meant Scarlett, or somebody like Scarlett, and the Scarletts of the world had a thing about witnesses.
    He wiped off the cross, tucked it back into the cold, lifeless hands, and hurried away. Crawling through the gap in the fence gave Eddie more trouble than usual, maybe because he was trembling. Struggling toward the sidewalk, he kept waiting for the garrote to slip around his own neck. He looked up at the townhouse but could not face the humiliation of return. He plunged south. Fat Man’s, the famous bar and grill on 155th Street, was open late, packed as usual with Negro celebrities. If you could get in, Fat Man’s was the place to be seen, and right now Eddie wanted to be seen,