Game Changer

by J K Nen

  She poured the heated coconut oil on her hair. As the warm oil cascaded from her head, there was a distinct “pop” as her “ears’ opened. Reflexively her body gyrated to the sound of distant drums in the spirit world, each movement a coded message to the spirits. While she summoned her ancestors, the details Oma taught her fell into place. The volume of the drums plateaued. Jamie increased the tempo, leaping over the blazing flames in a frenzy, chanting louder and louder. The drums got closer, beating at the heart rate of a marathon runner. The ancients were coming.

  To aid her entry into the spirit realm, she recited another spell, then blew powdered white coral ash into the air above the flames. Gravity lost its power as the lime powder remained suspended in the air. Jamie whirled and pirouetted under the suspended ashes, binding the physical realm to allow her quicker entry into the spirit world.

  With the third recital, the suspended ashes began to fall on her body, throwing her into a hysterical dance, like one possessed. Invisible hands unravelled the twine. The bone levitated. She leaped and touched the bone. As her finger connected with the bone, a jolt of electricity shot through her. She was lifted off her feet and thrown across the room. The last thing she saw before descending into unconsciousness was the twine transforming into a blinding white light.

  Jamie slipped in and out of consciousness, sometimes in a room in Oma’s house in the deep jungle, a clay pot bubbling merrily on an open fire. Another time she woke to find the room filled with shadowy figures. She smiled with satisfaction. The ancients had come.

  They were women of old who, though time, passed their wisdom and knowledge to women in their bloodline. Men, with their patriarchal religion, relegated women to the lower echelons of society when in fact, Creation testified of the handiwork of one Woman, the Great Mother. She was life and everything had come from Her. Women were her carriers. They were born with seed to replenish the earth. Women gave life.

  Men who killed women killed life, and the Great Mother had to respond. It would take one of their own to put an end to the sacrilege being committed. Z was now a marked man.

  CHAPTER 21

  The mood at the Command Centre was subdued.

  “The stakeout gave us nothing,” Naidu reported. “Maddox only stepped out once for groceries and didn’t go out again.”

  Surveillance photos pulled up on the screen showed Jamie leave the house in the morning and return with coffee and breakfast. Burns and Spiteri, tasked with tailing Maddox on the ground, were equally gloomy.

  “I think she knows who we are,” Spiteri told them. “She looked at me like she recognised me.”

  “I don’t think she recognised me,” Burns added. “She practically bumped into me but showed absolutely no sign of recognition.”

  “You should have shouted ‘Boo,’” Steele quipped, but quickly shrugged an apology when French and Logan glared at him.

  “The last thing we want to do is frighten her off,” Logan warned. “Don’t forget she’s a flight risk.”

  If Maddox returned to PNG, they would lose a valuable resource to entrap Z. The entire investigation hinged on Maddox falling into Z’s hands.

  Back at the stakeout apartment, Naidu sipped her herbal tea as she studied Jamie Maddox’s apartment through binoculars. This morning, the windows were open. Jamie emerged, dressed in tights, a bandana securing her hair and sunglasses. As she stretched, Naidu and Davidson quickly changed into their exercise gear.

  By the time they got out of the house, Jamie had reached the junction of the local park and the children’s playground. They sprinted after her. When they reached the junction, she turned into another street. They followed her. When they reached the corner, she was running uphill. A slightly winded Naidu turned to look at Davidson in exasperation. Jamie kept a steady pace. At the shoulder of the hill, she ran into hilly reserve parkland.

  “Does that woman ever get tired?” Naidu complained in between heaving gasps.

  “Just a warning to us to get our fitness on,” Davidson grinned cheerfully, although his lungs were at bursting point.

  Naidu flipped him the finger. He laughed good-naturedly and passed her.

  From the top of the hill, Davidson spotted Jamie heading straight for the sand dunes of the isolated beach. He gave chase. She was miles ahead, head bobbing as she manoeuvred the dunes and crests of sand. Behind him, Naidu ran downhill. When Jamie reached the end of the beach, she crossed into the cemetery nearby. By the time he got to the cemetery, Jamie hit the main street. Behind him, Naidu negotiated the dunes. Jamie ran in a straight line. Davidson followed on autopilot. After what seemed like an eternity, she suddenly turned into a street. He sprinted to catch up and found himself on the beach. He skidded to a halt, and scanned the cafes and kiosks. She had disappeared. Then he saw her getting into a taxi. As it pulled away, she caught his eye, smiled and blew him a kiss.

  He cursed and sank to the curb, utterly spent. Jamie had deliberately led them on a wild goose chase, giving them the workout of a lifetime. When Naidu caught up with him fifteen minutes later, he was had bought bottled water for her and was downing his second bottle.

  Back at their lookout, they noticed Jamie pottering around her little patio. The hardly-used patio now had potted plants and an Adirondack chair. Logan’s responded to Davidson’s video-conference report with consternation.

  “Are you sure?” Logan’s tone was tinged with disbelief. “Jamie Maddox’s personality profile would have her quaking in her boots at the sight of cops. I don’t believe she recognised you and that blow kiss doesn’t fit in with what we know about her.”

  He was too exhausted to argue. Naidu drowsily perched near the window as Davidson reviewed case files. Suddenly, Naidu let loose another stream of expletives. Davidson rushed to the window. Jamie was preparing for an afternoon run, it seemed.

  “Since when did that bitch become a fitness freak?” Naidu fumed.

  “We’ll take the car,” Davidson suggested. “And call for backup.”

  Jamie’s stamina astounded the detectives tailing her. She ran from her home to Mascot, ducked into the train station and vanished. A search of the entire station was in vain.

  Crushed, Naidu and Davidson returned to the flat. To their surprise, Jamie was in front of her apartment block, fully focussed on cooling down stretches. Shopping bags lay on the pavement beside her. Naidu was tempted to march over and give her a good shake. Instead she sank onto the couch, exhausted. All she wanted to do was go home and crash. Naidu gladly welcomed the shift end as Shepherd and Chee took over.

  The Jamie Maddox that emerged that evening was unrecognisable in a blue, slinky evening dress that clung in all the right places. With hair styled in a luxurious cut and makeup on point, she oozed sex appeal. Through the binoculars, Shepherd gave a low wolf whistle.

  “Dr French must be mistaken because what I’m seeing ain’t soaked in low esteem,” he murmured.

  Chee took the binoculars from him.

  “Is that Jamie Maddox?”

  “The one and the only.”

  “She looks like Halle Berry,” Chee gawked. “That dress must have cost a fortune.”

  This was no mousy child-like woman. Jamie Maddox was a sex kitten.

  Chee and Shepherd remained behind while the surveillance team tailed Jamie. Surveillance could be boring. Shepherd stifled a yawn, before focussing the night-vision binoculars at Maddox’s house. He caught his breath. The shadowy figure of a man moved about the house, unhurried. Shepherd called Chee over.

  “Who do you think that is?” Chee wondered. “Could it be our guy?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied.

  The detectives racked their brains, trying to recall if Jamie had let anyone in as she was leaving. The cameras they had installed in the lobby and outside Jamie’s door only captured the building’s tenants.

  “I’ll call it in, “Chee said.

  Logan was perplexed. No one had seen Jamie Maddox enter the building with any man. They could do nothin
g without a warrant. She sent officers across to knock on the door. No response.

  “Withdraw from her floor as soon as she is sighted returning to the building,” Logan ordered.

  Then began the long wait. Meanwhile, the shadowy figure moved about the apartment at ease, opening cupboard doors, and even appearing to smoke a cigarette at one stage.

  French puzzled over the surveillance report. It did not fit Jamie’s personality.

  “Is it possible that trauma shocked her into behaving differently?” Logan pressed.

  “It does happen in very rare cases,” French conceded. “But I can’t be certain until I’ve spoken to her.”

  “Check out the pictures Chee sent,” Sedgewick pulled up pictures of a smiling Jamie, jogging without a care in the world.

  “The body language has certainly changed,” French observed thoughtfully.

  “And that’s not all. This is Jamie Maddox one hour ago.”

  Jamie’s evening transformation perplexed French even more.

  “Are they sure it’s Jamie Maddox?”

  CHAPTER 22

  In the taxi, Jamie smiled like the cat that got the canary. The police officers’ reaction was priceless. Her bridge building exercise to reconnect with the ancients had ended at midnight.

  When she woke up 2am to a house filled with items that had not been there before. The house was clean, furniture rearranged, and, baskets, shiny wooden bowls and mats gave the apartment a tropical feel. The aroma of island food filled the room. A steaming clay pot of coconut-creamed reef fish, bananas and taro sat on her kitchen table. A bowl of freshly cooked and creamed hibiscus spinach or ‘aibika’ seasoned with just the right amount of salt smelt divine. A bamboo tube of water propped up in a bucket, vines of freshly harvested betelnuts, pepper and powdery lime in Oma’s carved ceremonial wooden bowl with a roll of cured tobacco. Food cooked on open fires in her island home magically delivered to her living room in Australia. Scientists called it teleporting, a craft Jamie’s ancestors had perfected over several millennia. The witches of Katoomba with their pathetic little stalls would be green with envy if they knew of the powers the women of her lineage had. All the items were blessed with charms Oma would have spoken to activate the dormant powers that had been placed in Jamie from birth. These would protect her from Z and thwart the fate he planned for her. If she was lucky, she would get to finish him off. .

  Jamie, though endowed with the arts, had always been too afraid to use it, seeing how fearsome Oma was. In her defence, Oma believed Jamie’s destiny lay in a good education, and saw to it that Jamie was educated all the way to university. It rankled when Jamie married Vincent and chose his family’s Christian heritage over her legacy. She descended from an ancient bloodline of powerful women who used the arts to protect their people. With the advent of modernisation, fewer women practised it. They inspired fear, and were even tortured or killed when their powers waned. Growing up, Oma taught her most of what she knew. Jamie never fully embraced it, and the power lay dormant within her until she summoned the ancients for her reawakening. That she had returned to her roots delighted Oma no end.

  Teleportation was arduous work and burned energy at an alarming rate. Women who neglected their nutrition aged very quickly. Jamie was famished. She dug into the food. After dinner, she chewed the meaty betelnut with the pepper dipped in the lime powder. As the chemical reaction turned the mixture red, sweat poured off her body. She was missing something. She found the bark and leaves she was looking for in a basket near the door and added them to the betel mixture.

  Immediately, she fell into a trance. She was a young child again, learning the arts under Oma’s tutelage. An ancient chant bubbled from her throat, a strange but wonderful tongue, its meaning known only to the ancients. Jamie chanted as she rolled the tobacco, adding some dried herbs. She lit the tobacco and inhaled. A black hole appeared in the ceiling. As the pungent aroma hit her lungs, she was immediately sucked into the hole. Time stood still as the ancient chorus rose in a crescendo.

  Hands grabbed her. Just when she thought she would be lost in space, her body suctioned her back in. A loud radio-static sound filled the room. Oma shuffled out from the bedroom, holding onto the twine that was now as thick as a chain on a footpath. The crone, shrivelled breasts exposed, a grass skirt around her waist, dozens of shell necklaces hanging from her neck, toothless and almost bald. It would have been a terrifying sight for a newbie. She embraced Jamie, and in her croaky voice, began to chant. Jamie joined in. The duet built the bridge into the world of the unseen. Oma massaged Jamie, removing kinks that prevented her from seamlessly moving between the two worlds. With each touch, Jamie felt lighter. When she moved to Jamie’s temple, an electric current passed through her, knocking her out cold.

  When Jamie woke up the next morning, only the betelnut, its accompanying paraphernalia and the basket of herbs, remained. On her bedside table, she found bundles of fifty and hundred-dollar bills, bound with vine. She tossed it into her bag without bothering to count it. It was emergency money. To count it would be to cap it.

  Never had Jamie felt so free. This time she would do it her way. Then she noticed the wraith, a bare-breasted child-like woman in a grass-skirt. She faded into the woodwork as soon Jamie made eye contact with her. Others like her were also here. She felt their presence. Jamila Maddox had gone into hibernation. Her alter, Bemu emerged, and she was ready for Z and anyone one else who wanted to play.

  Now Bemu with her endless reservoir of energy and charisma went to work, confusing the detectives and Z. She felt him, but could not pinpoint his exact location. He was nearby. She had gone jogging to pick up his scent but was hampered by the police surveillance. Their energies clashed with Z’s vibe. Men who hated women gave off a foul stench, but when mingled with other people’s vibrations in close proximity, it was like trying to locate a lone cricket in a forest awash with birdsong and cicadas. In the end, to throw them off, she went shopping.

  Three blocks down, in a newly leased apartment, the solo tenant watched Jamie Maddox. He had been there all evening, missing her by minutes. She had guests. He knew Jamie had sent her children away. He wondered who was in the house. The low lights were on. He saw shadows moving about, making no move to leave. The male figure poured himself a drink and reclined in an armchair. The woman seemed to be dancing. His listening and video devices would wait another day. The hidden camera in her bedroom was a waste. Jamie rarely spent time in there.

  When she left her home, he raced to his car as her taxi went past. The undercover van followed closely behind. He waited until the van disappeared around the bend. He followed, his mind filled with fantasies of Jamie. Then he heard her low, seductive laugh. It sounded so real, he braked to a sudden stop to check the back of his car. Silence. A little uneasy, he turned up the volume of his radio.

  “William Street,” an almost audible voice said.

  It was so low, he wondered if it had just been a random thought that popped into his head. Z shook his head. He must be coming down with something. The urge to check out William Street grew stronger. At that moment, the Blues Brothers burst into an audio explosion of rock ‘n roll. There was a blues bar on Williams Street, aptly named Blue Stiletto, its neon-blue stiletto moniker visible for miles. They served a mean cordon bleu and the salad was heavenly. Health fanatic that he was, Z usually shunned these foods. Tonight, though, a sudden craving drove him into the Blue Stiletto.

  He took a seat on the second floor balcony, his back to the window so he could watch the stage while waiting for his order. The lead singer called for volunteers to help him sing, “Proud Mary.” The spotlight roamed the room, as patrons nervously prayed it would not rest on them. The spotlight rested on a woman in a blue dress.

  “What’s your name, darlin’?”

  “Jamie, “she purred.

  Z could not believe his luck. Things were falling into place. From the almost-empty balcony, he leaned back in his chair to watch Jamie. The detectives tailing
her took a table near the entrance, doing their best to blend in.

  Jamie could sing. For a tiny woman, she had a powerful, earthy voice. He watched, mesmerised. This would be his ultimate sacrifice. Too bad she had people over. Her performance called for encores. She obliged. She sang two more songs. When she was done, men fawned over her and women complimented her. She truly was the queen of the night.

  It dawned on Z then that he had a problem. She was no longer the helpless maiden in need of rescuing. She was bold, sexy and certainly, no wall flower. For the first time, he was uncertain. He felt another attack coming on. If he hyperventilated now, he would attract unwanted attention. Thrusting his gloved fist into his mouth, he ducked into the alley behind the club.

  When he returned to the club, Jamie was gone. He flagged a waitress.

  “Oh, she left,” she shrugged.

  “What do you mean? How?”

  He had been in the alley and Jamie would have had to pass him to get out.

  “She went home, I think,” she replied, looking him quizzically.

  “Oh, don’t worry about it,” he replied. “Story of my life.”

  She looked at him, disbelief in her baby doll features.

  “We had a thing and I wanted to apologise today, but I lost my nerve,” he said. “Now she’s gone.”