by Eric Wilder
“Nothing much better than a pull of MD 20-20,”
Taj took the bottle, laughing before he took a swig. As wine dribbled down Taj’s chin, it was Sam’s turn to laugh.
“Haven’t had any Mad Dog since I was a freshman in college,” Taj said.
“Good for what ails you,” Sam said. “Have another taste.”
Taj waved off the offer as he handed the jug of wine back to Sam.
“One pull was all I needed.”
“Suit yourself,” Sam said.
The rain had begun falling in sheets, humid air flooding through the partly open door.
“How’d you know my question was about voodoo?” Taj asked.
“Hell, boy, your silk shirt is open to the waist. Even in the dark, and half covered by that big old gold chain around your neck, I can see the veve tattooed on your chest.”
Sam chuckled again when Taj said, “You know what it means?”
“Only the houngan or mambo that put it there knows the answer to that. And maybe the loa they’re attempting to influence.”
“That’s what I heard,” Taj said. “How do you know so much about voodoo?”
“Who says I do?” Sam said.
“Do you?”
“Ain’t no one from Nawlins that don’t know something about voodoo.”
Taj reached into his coat for the voodoo doll. “What can you tell me about this?” he asked.
Sam, unmindful of the blood, took the doll. “Somebody got it in for you.”
“Because?”
“Cause this is your doll.”
“How do you know that?”
Sam removed a hair from the doll and handed it to Taj. “Looks like it came from your beard.”
“That’s crazy talk. It probably stuck to the doll when I was handling it,” Taj said.
“What about this?”
Rain continued falling outside the little room as Sam dropped something into Taj’s palm.
“A fingernail. What makes you think it’s mine?” Taj asked.
“Is it?”
A sliver of purplish skin hung from the fingernail. Taj glanced at the ring finger on his left hand at the blackened nail he’d damaged in a recent basketball game.
“If it is mine, how would anyone have gotten it?”
“Voodoo practitioners have long arms. Might surprise you who could have got it for them. For a price.”
Taj recalled the woman he’d met in a bar after the game that night. An overly friendly young woman with a southern accent.
“I’m having trouble believing all of this,” he said.
“You believed it enough to come looking for answers,” Sam said.
“You think someone’s trying to kill me?”
“Getting hexed with a voodoo doll don’t always mean a person’s trying to kill you.”
“Then what does it mean?”
“Somebody is trying to control your actions.”
“A voodoo witch doctor?”
“Practitioners make their living casting spells. More than likely, someone hired them to do it.”
“And why on earth would they do that?”
Sam shook his head. “You wronged anyone lately? Screwed someone else’s wife, or took something that didn’t belong to you? Hell, man! It could be almost anything.”
“I’m not a perfect person, though I can’t think of anyone I’ve wronged lately,” Taj said.
“Then search your soul. You did something to somebody, and they’re pissed off about it. That, I can promise you,” Sam said. “Or . . .”
“Or what?”
“Somebody might be trying to send you a message,” Sam said.
The heavy door banged against the wall as a gust of wind blew it open. Sucking the air out of the room, it extinguished all the candles as it slammed shut again. Sam padded across the dirt floor, relighting the candles with what looked like a flame coming directly from his fingers. Taj waited until he’d returned to his perch on the cot.
“I need help,” Taj said. “I’ll pay you well if you can help me.”
“I don’t need your money, and I’ve already told you a bunch. What you need is the right person to help you,” Sam said. “A smart houngan or mambo.”
“Can you refer me to one?”
“There’s a powerful mambo I’ve dealt with,” Sam said. “I’m betting she can help you.”
“Please tell me who she is.”
“Her name is Mama Mulate.”
Chapter 4
Clouds had turned an angry shade of gray, rain having ceased as Taj left Sam’s shack. Two seagulls floated in lazy circles above him as he pulled the leather coat around his neck and hurried up the sidewalk.
Except for a wino looking for shelter from the weather, the streets were deserted. Taj handed the derelict a twenty as he walked past. He saw someone he recognized when he reached Dr. Voodoo’s Spells and Hexes. It was Amy, shivering as she stood on one leg against the wall.
“What the hell!” he said. “You could get killed out here all alone. Where’s your boyfriend?”
“The little prick left me here.”
“You gotta be kidding? Why in the world would he do that?”
“It wasn’t his idea to spend Christmas in New Orleans. It was mine.”
“So?”
“Brian comes from a wealthy Long Island family that always celebrates Christmas together. His mother called and told him to get his ass home.”
“Why didn’t you just go with him?”
“Because he hasn’t bothered telling his mother about me yet. He offered to drop me at the airport.”
She smiled for the first time when Taj said, “That was mighty white of him.”
“He gave me a hundred bucks. Probably not even enough for a bus ticket to Ann Arbor.”
“I have money,” Taj said. “I’ll cover you for a plane ticket home.”
“I’m not going home. I was drawn here for a reason. I’m staying until I find out what that reason is.”
Taj removed his leather coat, draping it around the young woman’s shoulders.
“Don’t want you to catch a cold,” he said. “Why are you still at the voodoo shop?”
“Waiting on you. The first time I saw you I knew we had a cosmic connection. Can I stay the night with you? I have no other place to go.”
Taj took a step backward. He was an attractive big man who had wielded an almost hypnotic attraction on women since he was in his teens. Even so, Amy’s words caught him by surprise.
“You’re moving way too fast,” he said. “I’m not looking to shack up with anyone tonight.”
She grabbed his wrist and pulled him closer. “Neither am I,” she said. “I have something you need to see.”
A rush of adrenaline warmed Taj’s neck when Amy raised her University of Michigan tee shirt. She was braless, though it was something other than her breasts that caught his attention. The veve situated between them, though smaller, was identical to the one on his own chest. After lowering her tee shirt, she stared at him.
“That’s the same mark I have on my chest,” he said. “Were you born with it?”
“Yes, and my name isn’t Amy. It’s Adelajda. My relatives and friends call me Adela.”
“Then why did you introduce yourself as Amy?”
“Because Brian thought Adelajda sounded too ethnic.”
“What a jerk,” Taj said.
“It’s not the reason I encouraged him to drive off without me. When I saw the symbol on your chest, I knew I had to talk to you about it. Did you come to New Orleans for the same reason as me?”
“Not exactly,” he said. “You hungry?”
“Starved,” she said. “And I was freezing until you lent me your coat. Thank you.”
“What are you hungry for?”
“Anything. I haven’t eaten since we got here. Brian was a stickler for staying on schedule. If you missed a meal, you just went hungry until the next one rolled around.”
“Jerk,”
Taj said. “My hotel isn’t far away. Their food is pretty damn good. We can warm up, talk, and get something to eat and drink.”
A damp chill permeated the air around them, the sound of tourists growing louder as they approached Bourbon Street. Flashing neon failed to mask the pink pastels of the winter sky as the sun disappeared behind old French Quarter buildings.
Except for a few half-drunk college students, the chilly weather had kept most of the tourists in their hotel rooms. A strip show barker standing in an open doorway called to them, trying to attract some business.
“Naked ladies. Gotta come see. First drink, half price.”
“Next time,” Taj said, clutching Adela’s arm as they hurried past.
Music poured from the doors, vibrating the fine mist that was wafting up from the street. Adela pulled Taj to a halt, turned around and stared at the blocks of neon-lighted antiquity.
“Bourbon Street’s like an adult fantasyland,” she said.
“I hear that,” Taj said. “Let’s hurry. It’s starting to rain again.”
Rain began dampening their shoulders, lights of the hotel casting a welcome glow through the gloom as they followed a side street to Royal. A stretch limo was dropping off people in front of the hotel. Festively dressed in holiday colors, they looked as if they were on their way to a Christmas party. Tommy was back on duty and spotted them as soon as they entered the bustling lobby.
“Tommy, my man,” Taj said. “This is Adela. She’s my sister.”
“Sure she is,” Tommy said. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Adela.”
“We need your help,” Taj said. “When you get a minute, can you come upstairs?”
“Sure,” Tommy said. “Got an errand I need to run first.”
“No hurry,” Taj said.
Everyone in the lobby turned to watch the tall black man and the young woman with long, red hair, disappear into the elevator. Five minutes after arriving at the room, Tommy, carrying two menus and a bottle of red wine, joined them.
“Figured you might need these,” he said.
“Same as last night for me,” Taj said. “Steak, baked, and another bottle of your finest red wine. I’ve had a tough day.”
“You got it, Mr. Taj. What about you, ma’am?” Tommy said. “We got some of the best gumbo in town.”
“I’ve never eaten gumbo,” she said.
“Then you’re in for a treat,” he said. “It’s like ambrosia of the gods.”
“That sounds lovely, Tommy. I can’t wait to taste it.”
“You like Cajun food?” Tommy said.
“I’ve never eaten any.”
“You like seafood?”
“Love seafood,” she said.
Beaming, Tommy said, “Then you’ll love Cajun food. I’ll have the chef prepare a sampler plate for you. What to drink?”
“Red wine for now, though Chardonnay sounds good with the seafood.”
“You bet it is. You’ll have a bottle of our best,” Tommy said. “What else?”
Taj began peeling hundred dollar bills from his roll of cash.
“Adela is from out of town. She didn’t come dressed for December in New Orleans and needs jeans, blouses, boots, socks, underwear, and a suitable coat. You get the picture?”
“Keep your money,” Tommy said. “The concierge has someone on staff who shops for our rich clients. I’ll send her up to get Miss Adela’s sizes and have the hotel put it on your tab. Let the Pels pay for it.”
“We’ll also need another bed for Adela. Can you handle it for me?” Taj asked.
“Course I can. Guess you forget who took care of you last night.”
Taj handed Tommy two twenties. “I won’t forget about that. I predict there’ll be front-row tickets waiting for you next time you want to see a Pel’s game.”
Tommy’s eyes grew large. “You mean it?”
“You bet I do,” Taj said.
“My man,” Tommy said, giving Taj a high-five before exiting the room.
***
The extra bed was in place, the shopping lady having come and gone, as Adela finished the last morsel of her bread pudding. Taj topped up their wine glasses before speaking.
“Feel better?”
“Wonderful,” she said.
“We have things to discuss. Seems like an unbelievable coincidence both of us have identical voodoo marks on our chests and that we arrived in New Orleans at more or less the same time. I have no memory of how I got whatever this thing is. What about you?”
Adela shook her head. “No idea. My parents are good Christians. I feel certain they didn’t put it there.”
“I was adopted as a baby,” Taj said. “I grew up in New Jersey.”
“Michigan for me,” she said. “I got a full academic scholarship after high school. I’m studying to be a botanist though I have no clue if it’s what I want to do for the rest of my life. How about you?”
“I also got a full ride out of high school, though mine was by way of an athletic scholarship. I’m thirty-four. You have to be in your twenties.”
“Twenty-five,” she said. “I bummed around a few years before starting college.”
“You’re white, and I’m black. We’re obviously not related.”
“Then why do we have identical symbols on our chests?” she asked.
“Wish I knew,” he said. “What’s your last name?”
“Kowalski,” Adela said. “Very Polish.”
“You don’t look Polish,” Taj said.
“How’s a Pole supposed to look?”
“With your red hair, freckles, and light colored skin, you look more Irish to me,” Taj said.
“Adelajda is Polish, just like my last name. Is Davis your real name?”
“Real to me, though I’m sure it’s not my birth name,” Taj said.
Adela gazed out an open window at the lights filtering up from the French Quarter.
“The colors from up here are mesmerizing,” she said. “I knew I had a connection to this city the moment I walked into that old cemetery. My head was all abuzz. It was as if I could hear the moans of the spirits. It was deafening.”
“I feel the same way about New Orleans.”
“Why were you on the cemetery tour?” Adela asked.
“Because of this,” he said.
He reached inside his trench coat Adela had thrown across the bed and showed her the voodoo doll.
“What the hell is it?” she asked.
“Voodoo doll,” he said.
“Is the blood on that grotesque thing yours?”
“Afraid so,” he said. “The hotel was crowded when I arrived yesterday. They put me in a room on the thirteenth floor that hasn’t been used for decades. I drank a bottle of wine and fell asleep in the bathtub. A demon from hell woke me.”
“You’re making this up.”
“It chased me out the door.”
“Were you frightened?”
“I’m not afraid of much. The demon I saw scared the hell out of me. Enough so, I didn’t bother getting dressed. I stepped on glass when I got out of the tub and was naked and bleeding when Tommy found me. I had this in my hand. I went to the voodoo shop to try and find out what it means.”
“Did you?” she asked.
“Both the shop owner and a man I met at the cemetery said someone had made it especially for me.”
“How on earth would they have known that?” she asked.
“The doll had a hair from my beard and a fingernail I’d lost in a basketball game.”
“Are you sure?”
“The nail from the doll fit my finger like a missing puzzle piece. I have no doubt it was mine.”
“You’re saying someone made a voodoo doll that’s supposed to be you? Why would they do that?”
“The cemetery caretaker seemed to know a bunch about voodoo. He said it could mean almost anything. One thing he was sure of. Somebody has put a hex on me.”
“A cemetery caretaker told you that? Sounds crazy to me.”
“Pretty much what I thought, at least until you showed me the veve on your chest,” he said.
“What should we do?” Adela asked.
“The cemetery man gave me the name of a voodoo woman named Mama Mulate.”
“This is too weird,” Adela said. “I’ve had an urge to visit New Orleans, and I have no idea where the notion came from.”
“Maybe you’re part of the hex,” Taj said.
“But that’s just crazy,” she said.
“It is crazy,” Taj said.
“What happens if we do nothing?” Adela asked.
“Either find out the hex means nothing, or else suffer the results of it,” Taj said. “My career is already affected. I have a cut foot, and now I’ve met someone with an identical mark on their chest as the one I have. I don’t want to worry when I go to sleep at night I’ll wake up with a demon in my face. We need to get to the bottom of this hex. The only way I know how to proceed is to contact the woman Sam told me about.”
Distant thunder rattled the old building, the steady drumming of rain beginning to beat a tympani on the windows. Adela’s vivid eyes flashed when the electricity failed for just a moment.
“How do we find her?” Adela asked.
“Maybe Tommy can help us.”
Chapter 5
December had arrived in the French Quarter. I realized as much when I walked downstairs from my apartment above Bertram Picou’s on Rue Chartres and saw him hanging Christmas lights over the bar.
“About time you got your ass out of bed, Wyatt Thomas,” he said. “You so rich now you don’t need to work?”
Bertram was of French Acadian descent. One-hundred percent coonass and he played it to the hilt for his visitors from out of town. After mopping his forehead and thinning hair with his trapper’s hat, he pulled up a stool beside me.
“I work for myself, and it’s Saturday,” I said. “I can sleep late if I feel like it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Bertram said. “Sleep all damn day for all I care. Just as long as you pay your rent.”
I’d recently won lots of money betting on the ponies at the local racetrack. First thing I’d done was prepay the rent for twelve months in advance.
“Business slow?” I said, not taking his bait.