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  There were great ocean shots, sunsets, trees and mountains that Dre had taken during the hiatuses Tracie financed for him. There were lots of Harlem community scenes. The shots were bold, brash, and startling in their depiction of the streets of Harlem and its residents.

  He had captured the stark reality of the borough in an ethereal way, a way that made one pause for thought. Dre was a talented photographer. He had managed to capture the soul of the city and its people.

  Every photograph had a grainy, misty quality. The rest of the shots were mostly black-and-whites of family and friends.

  Camera equipment, video cameras, and leather satchel cases filled every available space, along with a ton of computer equipment and all its accessories. A miniature basketball court sat in one corner of the room.

  Dre continued to ponder the airline ticket. Under “Destination” were the words “Los Angeles.” Dre sighed. There was a knock on the bedroom door. He didn’t answer. The knock sounded again, more persistently this time.

  “Come in, Souljah,” Dre called knowing it was him. They were close, so they had it like that at times, each knowing when the other was around.

  Souljah Boy walked in. He closed the door behind him. Souljah Boy’s real name was Daniel Thomas Caldwell. His instincts were razor sharp, and his intuition was not normal. He detected grief, as well as something else, in the air. He couldn’t put his finger on it. His spirit registered it only as something nameless.

  Where had that come from?

  Since Daniel Thomas Caldwell was so formal-sounding, and there was nothing about him to suggest he be called Danny for short, his grandmother had given him the moniker of Souljah Boy, which was a perfect fit, and everyone he knew called him that.

  His grandmother had declared that he was an old soul since the day he was born. She had flipped the Bible open in front of his face hours after he was born, and she told everyone who’d listen that that child had focused his eyes on the word and reached out to touch the Bible like he knew what it was for real.

  From that moment on she had secretly dedicated him to Christ and given him the name Souljah Boy. It fit him like a glove. No one knew for sure if the story was true about Souljah Boy, but he was always walking around with the Bible.

  His knowledge of scripture was astounding. And for sure he was Harlem’s ghetto scribe.

  Consequently, the only place you ever saw the name Daniel Thomas Caldwell was on a legal document.

  Dre hit the ticket against his leg. He looked tired. Souljah Boy sat on the foot of the bed. Dre didn’t bother to move his feet.

  “So, what’s up, Dre?”

  Dre gave Souljah Boy a long look. “I don’t know, man. Somebody flipped the script upside down on me. Threw shade. You know what I’m saying?”

  Souljah Boy nodded. “What about L.A.?” He indicated the ticket Dre held in his hand.

  Dre tossed his head from side to side on the pillow. “I can’t leave my moms now, man. Maybe once things are straight.” Dre held up the ticket. He stared at it as though an illumination to solve all his problems would appear.

  Souljah Boy reached into his pocket and extracted a pocket-size Bible. He flipped to a page and started reading: “ ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . .’ ” Souljah Boy stopped to give Dre a close look.

  Dre leaped off the bed. He went over to the window. “Knock it off, Souljah.”

  “ ‘I shall fear no evil . . .’ ”

  “I said knock it off, yo.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this ain’t the valley of death. It’s Harlem.”

  Souljah Boy snapped the Bible closed. He stared intently at Dre. “Randi’s dead.”

  “And I’m alive. I’m an image maker, Souljah Boy.”

  “All men are made in the image of God,” Souljah Boy said.

  Dre ignored him. He grabbed his camera. The flash exploded in Souljah Boy’s face. Light surrounded his head like a halo. Dre clicked off a rapid succession of deft shots.

  He had difficulty breathing as he turned and aimed the camera at the window. He took a shot of the full moon, hovering like a suspended ball in the sky. “The ultimate shot of all time. That will be me, Souljah. Images come from the living, man.”

  “Evil lives among the living, and legends are made bigger once they’re dead,” Souljah Boy said.

  He rose, picked up the sponge basketball off the floor, and swished a shot into the hoop in the corner of the room. The ball dropped through the hoop in slow motion, in a perfect arc. Souljah Boy glanced at a smiling picture of Randi Burlingame up on Dre’s wall.

  “Men create images, Dre. Some they can’t live with. Out of men’s hearts sprouts evil. But only God can create a man. Only God can truly right a wrong. Remember that.”

  Souljah Boy walked out of the room, clutching his Bible. He closed the door softly behind him as Dre stared at the empty spot he had left behind.

  7

  Anita stood in the middle of her cramped apartment, with yards of colorful fabric draped across her arms. She twined the material across the mannequin that stood before her. It was busy work, and right now she needed to be busy. It had already started, just as she had known it would.

  Sometimes her second sight carried a burden. Sometimes she saw things she didn’t want to see. Disturbed, she worked quickly, wrapping the cloth this way and that way, the design draping itself across the mannequin easily from her experienced fingers.

  She would stay off the streets of Harlem for a while. After all, she had accumulated a small fortune. It was not as though she needed to work every day. She did so because she loved being around people. She loved the streets and the electricity that filled the streets. She was in tune with the special harmony of the people that populated Harlem.

  Nowhere else had she ever found the spirit that surrounded these people. She greatly appreciated being a part of that. However, she had decided she would cool her heels for a bit, stay off the streets and out of sight. Out of sight, out of mind, right? Or so she hoped.

  Something was brewing just beneath the surface of Harlem, like a tidal wave that hadn’t yet reached shore. She didn’t know what it was, but she didn’t like the feeling. It was queer.

  And that Tracie Burlingame was like a magnet, attracting the wrong kind of things. She was a patchwork quilt. Anita didn’t like what she had seen on her. It gave her a bad feeling, as if it were the tip of the iceberg. Yes, she would definitely stay off the streets.

  Her apartment was littered with antiques and fabrics from every continent, and pictures of the famous graced almost every inch of wall space. Models, politicians, composers, musicians, and athletes—you name a famous person, and you would pretty much find them on Anita’s wall.

  All had been given their place, and space along her coveted walls. She loved people who possessed gifts.

  Mannequins sat in every corner of the living room, all draped with their own designs. A rich array of vibrant colored fabrics covered the walls, sofas, and chairs. Silks, velvets, chintz, and soft transparencies littered the room.

  There was also a scattering of Tiffany lamps. She was a collector. Crystal balls sat in brass holders; some dated back as far as the eighteenth century. Decks of cards sat in their designer cases, ready to be used at will. Ready to tell a story. Ready to reveal a secret. Sometimes ready to turn a life upside down. Oh, well. Their job was not to feel, only to tell.

  Anita heard a noise. She looked down to find one of her five rabbits nuzzling an empty bowl next to the couch. She knew what that meant. It was time for them to eat. She had five black rabbits. Their coats were sleek and as shiny as velvet.

  Anita had spoiled them shamelessly. They slept on the couch amid an array of colorful stuffed pillows. She fed them romaine lettuce. The little rascals loved music. They especially liked instrumental jazz, classical, and hip-hop. You name it, they were there. They loved a good beat. They would curl up on a pillow and listen for hours to the music, a contente
d look on their distinct little faces. Their whiskers would pucker in musical peace.

  Anita smiled down at Pesky, the one who had brought her attention to the fact that it was dinnertime. He lived up to his name, because he was the one who kept Anita on the straight and narrow by nipping at her heels when she entered worlds that didn’t include them.

  But, that was all right, because Pesky knew what it took to bring her around. And right now he knew it was time to eat. He had her attention.

  Anita filled the bowls with the fresh lettuce she had acquired from the market. She watched as they scrambled forth.

  She was about to return her attention to the mannequin when the kitchen shutters banged open loudly. “Goodness,” she said.

  She walked toward the kitchen, intending to close the shutters. Something stopped her in her tracks.

  The man standing before her was tall—huge. His eyes gleamed brightly. His bald brown head glistened. It shone as though it had been dipped in floor wax. It looked like a brown, shiny globe.

  He had the sort of disciplined posture of one trained in the military. She could see his biceps bulging beneath the army jacket he wore.

  The strangest thing about him was, he stood silent, not speaking a word. But, Anita could hear voices emanating from him. A symphony of voices was swelling from within him, but he never moved his lips or spoke a word.

  A clammy wetness broke out on Anita’s palms. She rubbed her hands together. Suddenly the voices turned raucous. She recognized the tone. She had heard them before. She had heard those same voices emanate from Tracie Burlingame, the patchwork quilt.

  Astounded, she took a step back without even realizing she had moved. She stared at him. She couldn’t see through him the way she would have liked. For some reason, her sight had been blocked, and she couldn’t dig beneath the layers of this huge thing that stood before her.

  “What are you doing in my house?” she finally asked.

  The bald mountain stared back at her without answering. Anita swallowed past the lump in her throat as she tried to design the next question. “Who are you?” she asked.

  His deep baritone voice shook the room. “I am Me,” he answered.

  “Who is ‘me’?”

  “Me is Me,” he said.

  Anita sighed. She could see they were getting nowhere with this line of questioning. She decided to get straight to the point, although a part of her fearfully tried to hold back.

  “What do you want?” she asked, all the while fearing the answer.

  A voice spoke, but his lips didn’t move. The voice was clear and distinct. “I have come for the gifts. The gifts in Harlem.” His eyes roamed the walls, scanning the pictures of the precious, famed African-Americans.

  Anita gasped, “No.”

  Another, very high-pitched voice spoke, different in tone this time. “We must all be gathered together.” The bald mountain looked into her eyes. His gaze didn’t waver.

  Anita saw a slight movement in his biceps beneath his jacket. Someone sneezed, but it wasn’t either him or her.

  “Okay.” Anita had had enough. “Don’t you be coming in here uninvited, playing no games with me. I’m an old woman and I don’t have time for games. State your business clearly.” The Louisiana spunk she was so well known for found its way to the surface, and although she sensed imminent danger, she decided to face it down.

  It was the only way. People who were too scared could be had. “Gone ahead.” She slipped into her dialect. “State your business, I said.”

  “I came to collect the gifts. You have the sight.” He removed the block to her second sight, allowing her to see. What she saw rocked her world. It rendered her speechless. She shivered in the cozy warmth of the room.

  “I am Me. Do you understand?” he asked.

  Anita nodded.

  “Good. Now you know my name. You will see a great many things come to pass in the time to come.”

  He closed the shutters on the kitchen windows. He walked through the small alcove to the front door, opened it, and was gone. The door shut softly behind him.

  Anita bowed her head in horror. He was the collector.

  8

  The night of the funeral, Rashod Burlingame sat next to the grave that held the remains of his brother Randi. He noticed they had covered the grave since earlier in the day, when Tracie had thrown the first dirt on the casket.

  He dropped the cheap flowers he had gotten from a street vendor on top of the grave. Then he sat cross-legged on the ground with a sketch pad in his hand. He sketched the cemetery and the look of the grave, which held his brother.

  It was hard for him to believe that Randi was lying all by himself in the dark, black hole covered with dirt.

  But encased in the ground in the metallic blue box he was. Sometimes you never knew how things would work out.

  He took a blunt from his pocket, lit it, and inhaled deeply. There. He felt better after taking a toke. The smoke swelled inside his lungs. A feeling of peace stole over him. Hell, the only time he felt peace was when he bought it in a vial or a blunt.

  “Randi, I’m sorry,” he said in the empty darkness.

  There was no answer.

  “I’m telling you, man, I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean a lot of things.”

  Rashod was a highly gifted and talented sketch artist. His fingers flew across the pad, drawing in the eeriness of his surroundings. The charcoal seemed to take flight in his fingers, and magically they weaved the heartbreaking scene, capturing the essence of one having died.

  Of one having been left alone, as Randi was in his patch of ground. His mind soared through the tragic, final event of death. To kill a man was a profound act.

  He stopped sketching. His eyes scanned the grave site. He took another toke on the blunt. Then he stubbed it out in the ground. He’d need to save some for later, especially since he had spent some of his money on flowers for Randi.

  He’d needed to come back that night, once the crowds were gone, because he couldn’t talk to Randi with them there. He couldn’t explain things. Besides, he was tired of looking at that Tracie with her fake face of grief pasted in place.

  Sometimes her phoniness made him want to heave. The witch was a money lover and nothing else. Money was like a religion to Tracie. All she ever thought about was how to get more of it. She was a sleek clotheshorse, so glamorous on the outside and gluttonous on the inside. She made him sick.

  He stood up. Thinking about her felt as if he had summoned her spirit to the place. He definitely could do without that. But he needed to say good-bye. He needed to say it in his own time and in his own way. Tracie didn’t deserve Randi. He was good. Talented. He was too good for her to own. They were all just trophies to her.

  Well, now he was dead. Tracie didn’t own him anymore. She couldn’t own Randi anymore, because now he was gone. That was good. It was over. It was one less son for her to hurt and hide things from.

  Maybe it would be good if they were all gone. If they were all dead, then there wouldn’t be anybody left for her to show off or play with. Bitterness welled up inside Rashod. He spat on the ground.

  Not wanting to say good-bye, because it was too final, he thought for a moment. Finally, he said, “So long, Randi. So long, baby brother. Rest in peace. See ya.”

  He walked out of the growing darkness of the cemetery. Out on the street he relit his blunt and inhaled deeply. The eyes watched him, absorbed him, and swallowed the ghost of his spirit whole.

  Though Randi Burlingame was dead, he had escaped the absorbing of his spirit. He had been spared this particular fate.

  But there was a new kid on the block, and thus the rules of the game had changed. It was now time.

  9

  The day after Randi’s funeral, Tracie was reigning queen at the helm of her empire. Her main place of business was her salon on the corner of 135th Street and Seventh Avenue. Although it was located in an old, worn-out-looking building, the inside of the salon was in stark contra
st to its outside.

  The inside was elegantly decorated. It possessed an air of sleek sophistication. It was one of many salons Tracie owned around Harlem. A sign above the door read, “Tracie’s Place.”

  The salon was full-service. Hairstylists as well as braid stylists, makeup artists, pedicurists, and manicurists filled the place. The other salons Tracie owned were braiding stations only. They were purely cash businesses, where she hired the African girls to run the places and braid hair.

  The African girls were the best in the business, hands down. Some of them had come over directly from Africa. They had skills when it came to braiding hair. The art of braiding was a strictly cash-and-carry business. Tracie had been smart enough to recognize the trend at the right time. It was one of her better investments. Women came to her salons from as far away as D.C. and Philly to get their hair braided in her shops.

  She had hired some of the best African talent in the city. The other thing was, these women were disciplined. They could stand on their feet, braiding for hours without tiring or needing a break. They worked hard, and they were loyal to a fault. Tracie had never met anyone like them. Under their skills, her braiding salons were raking in the cash.

  A huge percentage of the braiding styles parading around the streets of New York City were obtained in her salons. All her salons were named after her: Tracie’s Place One, Two, Three, Four, and so on. She loved it. The shop on 135th and Seventh Avenue was her baby. It was her first shop. This was where her headquarters was located.

  At the Seventh Avenue salon she accepted credit cards as well as checks. In this salon the clientele sometimes tended to be a bit more exclusive. She serviced a lot of professional women with high incomes who worked in Manhattan.

  She had to accommodate them because these weren’t the type of women who walked around with wallets full of cash. Their credit card status was part of their esteem. It was part of their professional package. They expected to flip out titanium, platinum, and gold cards and use them for services rendered.