Evil Eye

by Michael Slade

  Zinc turned back.

  The desk clerk hailed him as he entered reception. "Mr. Chandler, this was left for you." She passed him a sealed envelope.

  "By whom?" Zinc asked.

  "A boy paid a Zim or two to drop it here."

  The Mountie tore open the envelope and withdrew a printed note: Get your bag, walk out the door, and drop this in the car park. Yellow Hertz, bird shit on the boot, key inside, map on the seat. Eight a.m. tomorrow, I'll call.

  He got his bag, walked out the door, dropped the note, and found the car with bird shit on its trunk. The parking lot was a focus of comings and goings: Flight of the Angels, Snake Park, Crocodile Ranch, Big Tree, Craft Village, booze cruise, bungee-jumping, and white-water rafting.

  Zinc drove off.

  The White picked up the note.

  The sun in his eyes, Zinc drove west along Kazungula Road, thirty-odd miles of dry bush through Zambezi National Park to the Botswana border. The Upper Zambezi to the north being one of the longest safe stretches of water between Lake Victoria in East Africa and the Vaal Dam, not long ago Imperial Airways (forerunner of British Airways) landed Solent flying boats here at "Jungle Junction" on its London to South Africa route. Herds of sable antelope grazed by the road, both sexes with two-and-a-half-foot swept-back horns, while a spotty giraffe watched Zinc pass from above the trees. Hard to believe that tall neck had the same number of vertebrae as his own.

  At Kazungula, Zinc crossed the border.

  The area reminded him of an Indian Reserve, as if this lifestyle was foreign to the people. On the other side of the border, the road degenerated, potholes and bumps rocking the car. The customs shed had a stop sign and kudu head on the wall, with an elephant tusk behind the thatched roof. An election poster papered the door: choose your leaders above photos and party banners. The desks inside were remnants from Bechuanaland Colonial days, with no computers, no typewriters, all entries by hand. To counter hoof-and-mouth disease, Zinc drove the car through a trough of disinfectant, then got out and stomped on a pair of shorts soaked with the chemical. A far cry from Heathrow two days ago!

  Driving toward the Chobe River, it began to rain. Sudden dark clouds tore open overhead, pouring water by the gallon down on him. Just as suddenly it stopped and the earth began to steam, images appearing in the malarial mist. Daga huts, reed huts, teepeelike tents. Donkey carts, ox carts, goats in the way. Shacks ramshackle as if ready to fall.

  Africa as he expected.

  Then the unexpected.

  As blue as the sky now pushing back the clouds, as blue as any tropical blue Zinc had ever seen, the northern border of Botswana—the Chobe River—appeared. The floodplains by the water were a mix of vegetation, thickets of bush, open grassland, and islands of packed

  reeds. Glancing right whenever he could as he followed the riverfront, Zinc glimpsed buffalo, waterbuck, roan, and hippo by the dozen. The rain gone, flowers by the road came into bloom. The mist clearing, rainbows arced the Chobe. The flatland beyond was Namibia: the Ca-privi Strip.

  After Kasane, Zinc entered Chobe National Park, a raw and primal wilderness packed with game.

  Barely in, he braked to a halt.

  Crossing the road was a herd of elephants.

  . . . twelve, thirteen, fourteen . . .

  He wondered if he should honk?

  Elephants in the wild seem much bigger than in the zoo: eleven feet high at the shoulder with tusks up to eight feet long, each tusk a hundred pounds driven by a body of seven tons. The ground shook as the herd passed in front of him, amazingly graceful as they lowered each well-placed padded foot . . . eighteen, nineteen, twenty . . . then an old bull stopped.

  Few frights are more compelling than an elephant charge, how that enormous wrinkly gray face comes pounding at you, wide ears flapping to warn you've come too close, high-pitched trumpeting getting the point across admirably, huge eyeball closing in like King Kong at the window of the Empire State Building. Bushmen say an elephant's ashamed of killing a human, so it covers the remains with sticks and grass. Some consolation. Zinc watched the mammoth beast lead with its left tusk— Are elephants left- or right-tusked? his scared-witless mind wondered—imagining that ivory spear smashing through the glass, pinning him to the driver's seat like an entomologist's bug, the trunk then wrapping around his neck to wrench him out through the shards, twirling him over that creased brow like a human bola, before throwing him down with contempt to be trampled by the herd.

  Almost soiling his shorts, he decided not to honk.

  The elephant stopped, then backed away, teaching Zinc the difference between a real and mock charge.

  He was a lawman.

  The law was different here.

  The Law of the Jungle: Ele has the right of way.

  Afternoon's the favored time for elephant herds to congregate at the river. The Chobe elephant population

  exceeds 50,000. Zinc hoped he wouldn't have to wait for all of them to pass. Branches cracking as trunks stripped them of leaves, saplings uprooted by digging tusks, trees trembling as giant heads butted them, slowly the procession moved from left to right. Those by the water completely abandoned themselves, rolling and frolicking like slapstick comedians, some using their trunks as snorkels to swim and submerge. Mothers lined the river with their trunks in a row, like a dance troupe leaning on canes, while calves suckled from the pair of breasts between their front legs.

  The last elephant passed.

  Zinc drove on.

  To a yellow sign with white letters: the eden game lodge.

  Alone in Room 406, Zinc got ready for bed. Weariness washed over him as he brushed his teeth, a fatigue so strong even jet lag couldn't keep him from sleep. He sprayed the room with Doom against malarial mosquitoes, then stepped out onto the dark veranda until the chemical mist settled.

  The southern sky.

  Double? triple? the stars in the north.

  Hippos snorting in the river through the dead of night.

  Then he heard it.

  Nearby.

  A chilling lion roar.

  The Caprivi Strip, Namibia

  Like a finger poking east to prod Zambia and Zimbabwe, Namibia's Caprivi Strip is wedged between Angola and Botswana. The Strip remains from a swap in Colonial times when Britain acquired Zanzibar and Germany netted this corridor named after Chancellor Count von Caprivi. German South-West Africa envisaged an east-west railway like Britain's Cape to Cairo route. Without sufficient colonies, they only got this far.

  In the Rhodesian Bush War, guerrillas hid here. In the Angolan Border War, the Strip provided a focus for battles between SWAPO and South African forces. Buffalo in the Caprivi Strip was headquarters for 32 Battal-

  ion. Warnings by their camp read: is there life after death? trespass and you'll find out. The Eden Game Lodge had to close for several years. The war made the Strip home to the Gray, to the Black & White, to the Garbage Line Spiders.

  Tonight, they had returned.

  Across the river from the lodge, SADF night vision binoculars watched Zinc stretch on the deck, his green-hued yawn inducing the White to stifle a yawn himself. "Him/' he said, passing the field glasses to the Black, who removed his specs and pocketed them, then refo-cused both lenses on Zinc.

  "Kill him quick or kill him slow?" the Black asked the White.

  'The man has jeopardized our cash. Kill him quick and he gets off light."

  The Black nodded. "Kill him slow."

  "Good shoulders. Good chest. He's packing seasoned meat."

  'Hang him naked above the jaws."

  "Meat hook through each palm should get the point across."

  'Teach the fucker to fuck with us."

  "Piece by piece."

  "Let him scream/'

  4< No one to hear."

  "Let him squirm."

  "Piece by piece."

  "Fed alive to crocs."

  PERJURY

  New Westminster

  "Order in Court! All rise!" the sherif
f barked as Chief Justice Morgan Hatchett climbed the four steps to the bench, appearing from behind the sashed red velvet curtain to assume ^her throne. From on high, she gazed

  down on the rabble: robed barristers facing her at the counsel table, and beyond in the prisoner's dock backed by the great unwashed in the public gallery. . . .

  "Mr. Knight, what is the meaning of this?"

  The tall, gaunt man rose from the counsel table. He turned to glance at the dock, then at the jury. "While cross-examining Corporal Kidd, I asked 'Why are you in Red Serge?' She replied T was told to wear it.' When I asked 'Why?', you interrupted to chastise me. The Red Serge is my order. This is my Court and I determine the rules. Now get on with it, and leave the dress code to me.' If your order is Red Serge for Force witnesses, so be it, Judge. The defense calls Corporal Craven. Shall we get on with it?"

  The Hatchet's face turned the color of her scarlet robes. Several jurors wanted to laugh, but feared wrath from the bench. Stetson in hand, Nick stepped down from the dock to cross to the witness stand. His spur caught the oak as he stepped in. "Take the Bible in your right hand," said the clerk. "Do you swear that the evidence you shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"

  "I do."

  "State your full name for the record."

  "Nicholas John Craven."

  "Sit down," Hatchett said.

  "I prefer to stand."

  Knight strode to the podium beside the jury box. A hush fell over the public gallery. Nick swept the faces row by row, picking out Alex Hunt and Rachel Kidd, but missing from the spectators were Gill and the chief. He almost jumped when Knight dropped his thick trial brief onto the podium, the crash focusing every eye in court on the lawyer, then straight off the bat came the all-important question.

  "Corporal Craven, can you tell the judge and jury how your mother's blood came to stain the cuff of your Red Serge tunic?"

  Like spectators at a tennis match, all eyes turned to Nick.

  At five p.m. on December seventh, 1993, as I was about to leave Mom's house for the Red Serge Dinner, she cut herself while dicing vegetables for her meat On seeing the

  blood, I reached out to check the wound, and that's when grabbed my wrist and said, "It's just a nick." She closed rapping a Band-Aid around her finger, and I left Mom alive when I departed from her home.

  That's what Knight wanted him to say.

  And that was a lie.

  Mom wasn't cut while he was there.

  That would be perjury.

  "Do you swear that the evidence you shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, si) help you God?'

  "I do."

  In how many cases had he cursed scumbags who lied under oath to save their skins, decrying the fact that few had ethics anymore?

  Engraved in French on the insignia he now wore was the Force motto "Maintain the Right."

  The day he asked the chief for help, Nick had told DeClercq about the blood, "How that got on my cuff I don't know."

  As if by telepathy, no sooner had he recalled that truth than the doors to the court gallery opened and in came DeClercq.

  The courtroom stirred as seconds ticked by with no answer from Nick.

  "Corporal, did you hear the question?"

  Ten years in jail or freedom? warned the lawyer's eyes. Don't be a fool. You re a cop. Someone will knife you in jail. What's a lie these days, when lying is the norm?

  "I repeat, can you tell the judge and jury how your mother's blood came to stain the cuff of your Red Serge tunic?"

  ZIGZAG

  Robert DeClercq was awakened by the ringing of the phone. This was eight hours ago.

  "DeClercq," he mumbled, coming out of sleep.

  "Robert, it's Eric. Wake up and drive to New West. Bill Tipple was clubbed and gutted in the lot under the Courts. His heart was cut out."

  "I'm wide awake," DeClercq said, throwing back the covers. "When was he killed?"

  "Late yesterday afternoon. Near as we can tell. He was to meet an FBI Agent in Coquitlam at four. The Yank canceled so it was assumed Bill stayed to watch Nick's trial. Then went home."

  "When was he found?"

  "An hour ago. New West Police just called."

  "The body lay in the lot for"—checking the alarm clock—"ten hours without being seen?"

  "Bill's van was parked in a dark stall. He was hit as he opened the back, judging from blood spattered on the roof. The body was hauled into and butchered in the van. The killer probably drove away in another vehicle. The parking lot emptied as courts adjourned, except for cars connected to a rape trial waiting for a jury. When there was no verdict by midnight, the judge sequestered the jurors, and that's when the security guard made his lockup rounds. His flashlight caught the pool of blood seeping from the van."

  "I'm on my way," said DeClercq.

  Gillian Macbeth was awakened by the ringing of the phone.

  This was six hours ago.

  "Uuggh," she mumbled, from a dream about Nick.

  "It's Robert DeClercq. Bill Tipple's dead. Meet me at Royal Columbian morgue as soon as possible. And keep your fingers crossed."

  On double doors between the morgue and chill night air, a handwritten sign in red felt pen warned funeral

  DIRECTOR, PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT

  body. Once burned, twice shy. A body scale attached to a huge hook and chain dangled from the ceiling just inside the doors. Rows of refrigerated crypts lined one wall, with "limbs only" and "stillbirths only" in separate vaults. A typed note taped to one crypt told the staff to clean up messes. Crypt twenty-five across the hall took

  overflow, with bodies under white sheets visible through a glass-paned door. Another room displayed a gurney beneath a draped window, the anteroom beyond where bereaved peered in to identify their loved ones. A brown couch caught those overcome with grief. Taped to the wall of an office was a Far Side cartoon, with When a body meets a body going through the rye captioning bodies on gurneys passing in a field.

  Polished riding boots with spurs and blue breeches with yellow stripes protruded from a crisp white sheet, as the morgue attendant wheeled a gurney from Crypt twenty-five. He pushed it across the faint red line on the floor dividing the realm of the living from the theater of the dead. From the ghetto blaster came Mozart's Concerto for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra. Never again would Robert relish its peaceful strains.

  The morgue attendant removed the uniform from Tipple's body. He covered the hole in the chest where the heart was cut out and the disemboweled intestines with plastic, then helped by DeClercq and the New West cops, flipped the pale, bloody corpse facedown on the autopsy table.

  In hospital greens, plastic apron, gum boots, and visor, Gill bent over the caved-in skull. Two pairs of gloves with soap between to ease removal later covered her hands. To ensure it didn't come off with the gloves, a ring Nick gave her last summer hung on a chain around her neck.

  With a scalpel, Gill shaved the hair from the back of the head.

  "Well?" said DeClercq.

  "Hard to tell. That look like a zigzag to you?"

  Bob George—Ghost Keeper—was awakened by the ringing of the phone.

  This was four hours ago.

  "George," he said, instantly alert.

  "It's Robert DeClercq: Bill Tipple's dead. We need your help. There may or may not be a zigzag impression on his scalp."

  "Where's the body?"

  "Royal Columbian morgue."

  Before heading RFISS ("Ree-fiss" to the Mounties), Ghost Keeper was a Hairs and Fibers tech. Before that, he was a Special Constable under the 3(b) Program on the Duck Lake Reserve. There his uncanny ability in hunting fugitives down earned him the nickname The Tracker and brought him to the attention of the RCMP Forensic (then Crime Detection) Lab. His work with Hairs and Fibers saddled him with the title The Human Vacuum Cleaner, for when he finished with a scene it was ''all in the bag." Now—as if he didn't have enough a
ppellations—George was The Member Who Took Down Schreck.

  RFISS—the Regional Forensic Identification Support Service—provides state-of-the-art backup to cops in the field. Gone are the days of Sherlock Holmes solving cases by triumphs of logic, and plodding Jack Webb seeking "Just the facts, ma'am." The magnifying glass gave way to fingerprint lasers used in conjunction with cyanoacrylate and vacuum metal deposits, to scanning electron microscopes that magnify particles hundreds of thousands of times, to gas chromatographs or mass spectrometers that separate complex compounds into their components, and to DNA analysis. With anthropologists, entomologists, odontologists, and blood spatter physicists on call, scientists often outnumber cops around a corpse. Bob George was the Mountie who marshaled such expertise.

  And so it was three hours ago that Bob reached the morgue, having marshaled himself to photograph Tipple's scalp. After selecting the most crucial plane, he used an ABFO Ruler to bracket the shot. This was an L-shaped angle with two eight-centimeter arms, three circles on which became ellipses if the perspective was wrong. The camera was loaded with Tmax 400 ASA film. Mounted on a tripod, he aimed the lens down at a vertical of ninety degrees, then after fine-focusing on the bruise and the ruler, screwed on an 18A ultraviolet filter. The filter was so black he could not see through. Donning goggles to protect his eyes, George swept a Metz 45 electronic flash around the bruise, bombarding it obliquely with ultraviolet rays. The shots snapped would enhance any marks not visible to the naked eye. That

  done, he asked Gill to cut away the scalp so he could backlight it for shine-through shots.