by Eddy Shah
'Does he?'
'He says he never asks you because of your age.'
'Then he's lying. The only reason he doesn't want me there is because I'm not young like the rest of them. You should see what he gets up to with them. Thinks nobody's watching. He's down in the records area all the time, with one of his little tarts.'
'But he wasn't down there when the fire started.'
'No.'
'We've checked every department in this building. Nearly everyone is accountable for their movements at the time of the fire.'
She suddenly realised her true situation, how her hatred of her superior had allowed her defences to slip. She thought she'd been summoned because he was trying to get rid of her, not because she was the prime suspect.
'Which leaves us with you,' said Rostov, now menacing in his tone.
'Why should I...?' she stopped as she desperately tried to clamber out of this awful predicament.
'I will use every means at my disposal to learn the truth. I don't need to tell you of our ways. You, you have lived through the war with the Nazis and through the Stalin purges. Do I have to show you what this organisation is capable of?'
Rostov saw the spirit start to ebb out of her body. Now was the time to push on, he had her. Her age wasn't important, only what she had done.
'You have been a heroine of the state,' he said coldly. 'And now you are caught with your hands in the till. You will be disgraced. Your past deeds, your medals, your honours, even your pension, will be stripped away as though they never happened.' He saw her start to sob as she put her hands up to cover her face.
'Don't,' he snapped. She looked up sharply. 'To me, you are a traitor. I will break you if I have to. You're an old woman who can be broken easily. Tell me why you started the fire. Tell me everything. And then, maybe, I will allow you to leave this place with your dignity intact. Even your pension.'
When she had finished, when her tale was complete, he flicked the switch on the intercom and called his secretary through.
This time he wanted a record of what was said. Any future action he initiated had to have good reason.
It was time he started to protect his own back.
Ch. 38
New Orleans
Louisiana.
'So much for an evening of excitement,' said Billie, leaning against the Cadillac. They had been waiting for an hour outside Old Number One.
The white wall of the St Louis cemetery stretched the length of the block. Over the top of it, in the harsh winter moonlight, they could see the shaped domes and pitched roofs of the ornate vaults and burial chambers.
'Used to be that the coffins floated to the surface when the rains came,' Frankie had explained. 'Water level's too damn high round here. That's why everyone ended up getting buried on top, in these vaults.'
They were parked by the Basin Street entrance, the high metaled gates closed for the night.
'Come on,' Billie continued. 'Let's get back to the hotel.'
'Give it time,' said Frankie. 'New Orleans folk never do nothing till they're ready.'
Ten minutes later, just as Adam had lit another cigarette, they saw the fat boy walking towards them, his guitar still strapped over his shoulder and the cardboard box in his hand. When he reached them he stopped and held it out to Adam. It was empty.
'You've got to sing before I give you anything,' said the Englishman.
'What you wanna hear?' asked the fat boy, his voice screech high and irritating.
'What've you got?'
'Not a lot.' He put the box down on the sidewalk and swung the guitar over his ample belly. He strummed it twice, hit an A chord and an E, then swung the instrument back over his shoulder. He picked up the box and held it out to Adam. 'How's that?'
Adam reached into his pocket and took out a dollar bill. He dropped it in the box.
'Ain't much,' said the fat boy.
'50 cents a chord. That’s all it’s worth.'
'Hell, you want more than that for heaven. Or you planning on going to hell.' The fat boy tilted his head back and let out the most piercing long scream that brought Billie to her feet and Frankie leaning out of the cab window.
'You promised. You promised,' ranted the excited fat boy at Adam. 'You did. You did.'
'What did I promise?' asked Adam warily.
'A thousand bucks. A thousand bucks.'
Adam started to laugh as the fat boy danced around him, still shrieking 'a thousand bucks, a thousand bucks.'
The metaled gates of the St Louis Number One swung open and Fruit Juice came out to them.
'Cut it out, Arbi,' he shouted at the fat boy. 'Cut it out.'
'But he promised. He promised.'
'And he's as good as his word. Ain't ya?'
Adam grinned and took out some banknotes from his jacket pocket. 'Five hundred now. And five hundred after.'
'He broke his promise. He broke his prom....' shrieked the fat boy.
'I said cut it out,' Fruit Juice snapped at him. He turned to Adam. 'But he's got a point.'
'I just want to make sure.'
'Money. Hell, it's a terrible thing between friends. Okay boy. We do it your way. But don't change your mind. I have friends...in low places.' He turned and led the way back into the cemetery. 'Come on. Voodoo time.'
Adam walked over to Billie and took her by the elbow.
'Okay?' he asked.
She nodded and he sensed her nervousness. He squeezed her gently to reassure her.
'Frankie?' Adam turned to the cabbie.
'No. You guys enjoy yourselves. I'll wait for you. Remember, we need you back at the hotel by eleven. And take it easy. You on someone else’s turf now.'
Frankie watched them pass through the doors, the fat boy behind them. The metaled doors closed and the stillness of the night returned. Frankie closed the door, wound the window up and locked the doors. This wasn't a place to be on your own at this time of the night. He settled down to wait, his hand-gun cocked and cradled in his lap.
There were only six others there, standing by the tomb with the freshly chalked X's marked on it.
Adam had expected more people but his knowledge of voodoo was confined to what he had read or seen at the movies.
The group, away from the main paths that ran through Number One, was clustered together, chattering amongst themselves as they waited. The small clearing was lit by a number of flaming torches, unnecessary in the bright moonlight, but necessary for the right effect.
As they approached, the group fanned out in a welcoming V. Beside them, near the base of the tomb were three large boxes, sealed with their lids on.
'Where are the dancing girls?' asked Adam.
'I thought you wanted to see a real ceremony?' drawled Fruit Juice , stretching out the word 'real'. 'All them dancing girls and jazz bands, that's for the jerks. There's no Baron Samedi here.'
They stopped by the group and Adam saw it consisted of four men and two women. The men were dressed in long black coats and top hats, their faces covered with animal masks, each one different and powerful in its design. They represented a monkey, a goat, a chicken and a pig. Each mask was painted white.
The two women, both short, wore long satin dresses in a style reminiscent of the 1820's. One of them wore a monkey's mask, the other showed her face. It was a striking face, her Creole mixture of African and Spanish heritage bringing a hypnotic beauty that was stunning.
She moved towards Adam and Billie and took their hands. She drew them to the tombstone and beckoned them to sit at its base. One of the men, the goat, picked up a drum and began softly to play on it. It was a steady rhythm, a simple beat, little louder than the ticking of a grandfather clock.
'Voodoo, the real voodoo,' said Fruit Juice, 'ain't like what you see in the movies. The Yoruba, that's where it came from, say that there's a life force that joins the living, the dead and the unborn into one. That's why we wear the masks. 'Cos all life is one, all things are spirit. When we sacrifice, it ain't a ch
icken or goat or snake we killing, it's a life. Like our own.'
The drum beat was joined by a second, this time the man in the monkey mask. The rhythm was intense, the first drum echoing the second, but the softness of the sound continued.
'The mask and the drum are one,' Fruit Juice went on. 'They the language and the image of the spirit. When our forefathers were forced into the Catholic religion, all those years ago in Haiti, they mixed the best of the two religions. They took the High Mass and they turned it to how they wanted it. The blood the Catholic priest drank became the blood of a sacrifice. In that way, we finally linked the dead, the living and the unborn. The spirits were one.'
'The tomb you sitting on is Marie Laveau's. She was black, Indian and white blood. She was the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. Was the first one to stick a pin in a doll and hurt, even kill, the spirit of a person through pain. To her, sex was the union, the passing of a spirit through the energy of the body. When she died, it was her daughter, also Marie, who went on and started the exotic dances and sex orgies that people call voodoo. Hell, you want sex, then go down Bourbon Street. Suit everyone's taste. But if you want the spirit, then this is where it sits. This is where the voodoo lives.'
'At a thousand dollars a throw,' Adam whispered to Billie.
'No, brother,' screamed the fat boy from behind the tomb. 'You wanted to pay for it. It was what you wanted.'
Adam was startled, not aware that he had been overheard.
'That's enough,' ordered Fruit Juice. 'Remember, you privileged to be here,' he yelled at Adam. 'Your money just buy you time. You here to see a ceremony. No point in a ceremony if you ain't involved. We going to find your spirit, boy.'
He came towards them, the Creole beauty next to him, and they took one hand each and pulled him to his feet. Billie moved back nervously, suddenly frightened without Adam in front of her.
In the background the drum beat increased, all four drummers now in a simple harmony.
Adam was led to the front of the tomb and turned round, facing the headstone.
The three of them stood still, the Creole girl, the Fruit Juice and Adam.
'What you carrying armour for, boy?' Fruit Juice asked Adam as he pushed up against his side and felt the gun in his pocket.
'Same reason you have. For my health.'
Fruit Juice laughed, partly surprised that the Englishman had noticed the gun he was carrying. Then he held out his hand to Adam. 'Lemme hold it for you.'
'No.'
'Come on.'
'Why?'
'Just in case. Some people get carried away, don't always know how to handle it. Don't like seeing inside themselves.'
'No. I never let it go.'
'And if you....'
'I never lose control.'
'kay. But if things go wrong...' Fruit Juice looked round at the others. '....we're all carrying.'
'Good. Then we’ll all be safe.'
Fruit Juice stepped away and signalled the Creole girl to do the same. Then he looked up to the moon, bright and high over the city. In the distance you could hear the occasional police siren of a marked car that raced through the streets, but little more.
'Let it begin!' he cried, his arms held out to the moon. 'Let the man meet his spirit. Oh Vadun, let thy summon the loa. Let thy blood of the past mingle with what is yet to come and what is as it is.'
As he chanted upwards to the spirit of the Vadun, the Voodoo God to summon the loa that is the spirit of life, the Creole girl danced in front of Adam, a sensual slow dance. She sprinkled the white gris-gris spell-casting dust over Adam as a symbol of protection.
The woman in the monkey mask joined the Creole girl, but she danced and slid along the ground as a monkey would, kicking her heels upwards, moving her posterior towards the four drummers. As she moved, trying to excite the drummers, pulling her satin hooped skirt up so that she bared her behind and they could see her nakedness, the monkey faced drummer started to moan, moved his body as though possessed.
'Vadun, bring down thy godliness to us here on earth. Vadun. Vadun. Let us hear your word. Let us see your juice. See how we prepare ourselves for your coming. Vadun. Deliver to us thy loa. Give us the juice.'
The others joined the chant. 'The Juice. The Juice. Vadun, Oh great Lord, release thy juice.'
The monkey man, now wildly gyrating his body moved away from the other drummers and approached the girl with the bared behind. He knelt down behind her and unzipped his trousers. Then he lifted her upwards, from the rear and stroked his manhood against her. It grew, long and hard, bigger than anything Adam had ever imagined. Then he pushed it into her and the monkey woman screamed.
'God,' Adam heard Billie gasp, but he ignored her, could not bring himself to believe what he saw in front of him.
The monkey woman had stopped screaming, had her knees braced in the ground to take her assailant, but didn't move. The monkey man had also stopped moving, knelt there, his pelvis nearly twelve inches away from the woman's rear. They were joined by his black penis, rock hard and gross in its texture. Whereas they were now still, the penis moved of its own accord, backward and forward in its own frenzied sex act, driving into her softness in its animal fierceness.
That's when Billie clutched at Adam.
He later swore he saw the penis turn into a snake, twist and bend, and disappear into the monkey woman.
Her partner, with nothing left to protrude from his unzipped trouser opening, groaned and fell to the ground, unconscious.
Vadun had released his juices. The chanting stopped.
He knew it was a trick. Damn it, how the hell had they pulled that off. But there was nothing to see, only the kneeling girl, her naked behind still held high and open, and her now unconscious mating partner.
The drums started again, louder this time.
The Creole girl moved closer to Adam and started to chant, indecipherable to him, but African in its rhythm.
Fruit Juice opened one of the three boxes and took out a large machete, its sharpness highlighted by the way it glinted in the moonlight. He held it up to the night and chanted 'Vadun. Vadun.’ The goat faced drummer left his instrument and opened the second box and dragged out a white chicken by its feet. He held it up high, the bird frantically clucking and flapping its wings, and came towards the Creole girl who had swung round to face him.
The goat man held the bird high over the girl, directly over her face and breasts. Then Fruit Juice slashed at the chicken, the sharp machete slicing its neck off and severing it from its head. The headless bird, now in its death dance, gushed blood over the girl, over her face and over her breasts. Adam saw the blood stain into the satin dress, saw the girl's eyes roll upwards in an emotional trance. She continued to chant, her body moving with the lilting music of her own words as the drums beat behind her.
Then she reached up with both hands and took the chicken and buried her face in its bleeding throat.
Adam saw her gorge herself on the still thrashing bird. Billie had her head bowed still clutching him. The whole thing had become too unbearable. As he comforted her, the fat boy stepped out from behind the tomb.
There was no guitar this time, no cardboard box. The fat boy, in his obesity and rolls of hanging flesh, was disgustingly naked.
He moved past where Billie sat and came to the kneeling monkey girl. He put his arm round her and swung her up, right there in front of Adam, and then, with his two arms round her as he gripped her naked buttock, forced his mouth on to hers through the monkey mask and kissed her long and deep.
'Vadun. Let us see thy juice,' screamed Fruit Juice. 'Vadun, Show us they spirit. Be thee the Lord that we might see ourselves as thee see us.'
As he chanted, and as the couple kissed in their obscene manner, the Creole girl threw away the chicken and came close to Adam, grabbed a handful of gris-gris from her pouch and rubbed it over his cheeks and nose, rubbed it deep into him.
She stepped back and Fruit Juice turned to him.
'See th
yself as the Lord Vadun would see you,' he cried.
The fat boy pulled away from the monkey girl and turned to Adam as Fruit Juice stepped back.
The fat boy opened his mouth and put his hand into it.
Adam watched in fascination as the fat boy pulled the head of a snake out of his mouth, then the rest of it, dragging it out from inside him.
Fruit Juice moved alongside Adam and grabbed his arms, held them tightly.
Adam never flinched, never tried to pull away.
The drumming stopped. Billie started to sob quietly but he never turned towards her.
'See thyself as the Lord Vadun would see you,' Fruit Juice repeated as the fat boy held the snake's head up towards Adam's face, held it tight so it wouldn't strike. The snake was nearly four feet long and at least six inches diameter round its body.
'The water moccasin,' Fruit Juice went on. 'Vadun visits us in the form of the deadliest of the spirits.'
The snake's head, now no more than three inches from Adam's face, flicked its forked tongue at the Englishman.
'Very good. What's it do next?' Adam asked calmly. He hated snakes, but there was no way he would show them his feelings.
The fat boy moved his own face menacingly beside that of the snake and stared closely at Adam.
'There are two,' the fat boy said, his voice now deeper and threatening.
'Two?' asked Fruit Juice from behind.
'Two souls in one pair of eyes. Two spirits. One body.'
'Piss off,' said Adam, suddenly visibly upset.
'Two souls. Of what is and what was. Of what can never be. Two troubled souls. Two. Two. Two faces making one. Two of you.'
Adam tried to turn away, the memory of Marcus and his lonely grave burning through his emotions, bringing tears to his eyes. But Fruit Juice's grip was vice like.
'Two. I see two. Good and bad. Bad and good. Which is which? Is good bad and bad.....'
The snake flicked its tongue again as Adam shouted back. 'Fucking tricksters. Go on you bastard, let's see how real that thing is. Go on you bastard. Bite. Bite me.'
Adam broke free and went to grab the snake, but the fat boy pulled back and, in his surprise, released its head. It lunged for Adam, its fangs drawn.