Black Magic Woman (Morris and Chastain Investigations)
Page 27
He went around to his car and got in. After starting up, he looked back and saw that she was still standing there, staring at him. She wasn’t smiling now.
He rolled down the window and with forced cheerfulness said, “You have a good trip now, hear?”
Her voice didn’t seem very loud, but it carried well enough for him to hear clearly. “She’s going to kill you, you dickless bastard. She’ll tear your guts out and tie them around your neck in a bow tie. She’s going to make you—”
Morris put the car in gear and accelerated away. After a while, he couldn’t hear her voice anymore.
Except inside his head.
He drove on for another forty minutes or so and reached his exit without further incident.
He was on I-91 heading toward Hartford when he noticed a hitchhiker up ahead who looked vaguely familiar. As Morris drew closer, he realized it was the Nazi demon from Barry Love’s building, the one with the boar’s face. The creature was holding a hand-printed sign that read, “Going to Hell?” Its porcine head swiveled to stare at Morris’s car as he drove by.
It was half an hour later that he encountered the motorcycle gang.
He wasn’t sure where they’d come from, but suddenly the choppers were in his mirror, coming up fast. There were at least twenty of them, and, as Morris watched, the customized Harleys began to drift left into the passing lane.
Morris thought briefly about trying to outrun them, but realized how futile that would be—this was an Oldsmobile he was driving here, not a Porsche Carrera. And, besides, the bikers hadn’t made any hostile moves so far. Could be they were just another bunch of macho louts on their way to a beer blast somewhere.
And if it came to trouble, Morris had one big advantage. The Harleys had speed, but the Olds had weight. In the event of any kind of collision between a bike and a car, the bike was going to be the loser—and that held true for whoever was riding it, too.
The lead motorcycle in the pack began to pull even with the Oldsmobile. At highway speeds, you can’t safely take your eyes off the road for very long, but Morris figured he couldn’t afford to be ambushed, either. He risked a glance to his left, to get a better idea what he was dealing with. After a couple of seconds, he returned his gaze to the road in front of him. His normally mobile face bore no expression, none at all.
What he’d seen atop the Harley was in many ways a standard-issue outlaw biker type: stocky body clad in boots, filthy blue jeans, and a sleeveless denim jacket with some kind of club insignia sewn on the back, the whole ensemble topped by an imitation Nazi coal-scuttle helmet, complete with swastika insignia on the side. The only thing that didn’t conform to the stereotype was the face.
Because there wasn’t one.
Even with his hurried look, Morris had seen that the biker’s helmet topped a naked skull, without a scrap of flesh or hair left on it. After a moment, Morris risked another glance, and this time the biker was staring back, his black, empty eye sockets seeming to contain endless night. The skull-face still had all its teeth, though, and they seemed to grin at Morris as the biker waved in a friendly way, then accelerated and pulled ahead, followed by the rest of his too-dead crew.
As they passed, Morris could see that each denim jacket bore the same emblem: a stylized skull with blood dripping from the eye sockets. Atop the image, gothic-style lettering spelled out “Hell’s Angels,” and underneath the skull was added: “For Fuckin’ Real.”
As the last skeletal biker rode by, he turned a fleshless face toward Morris and yelled, “See ya in Salem, motherfucker!”
Then, almost casually, he tossed an open can of beer at Morris’s windshield.
The almost-full can hit the glass with a sharp “crack” and bounced off, spewing foaming Budweiser all over Morris’s field of vision. He swerved the car instinctively to the right, which caused it to skid. Morris took his foot off the gas, but had the sense not to touch the brake pedal. The Olds veered off the road, onto the shoulder, and hit the guardrail a glancing blow. Morris overcorrected, which brought the car back across the road and into the left lane. He still did not brake, but inertia and engine compression were slowing the car now, and he was able to regain control, thanking his stars that no other traffic had been coming up right behind him.
He eased the Olds into the right lane and then finally applied the brake, bringing the car to a gentle stop on the right shoulder.
He sat there for several minutes, waiting for his heart to return to something like its normal rate. He did not bother to look down the road to see if there was actually a pack of outlaw bikers receding in the distance. It didn’t matter, really. If he needed evidence that he hadn’t imagined it all, the thin crack in the windshield would do nicely, along with the splattered film of beer that was already drying across its surface.
After a while, he got out and went around to the passenger’s side. Sure enough, the impact with the guardrail had left a good-sized dent in the door and messed up the paint badly. Morris found himself wondering how he was going to explain this to the folks at Avis, but then gave a mental shrug. In his situation, worrying about cosmetic damage to the Olds was like Custer at Little Big Horn fretting about grass stains on his buckskins.
CHAPTER 30
IT WAS DARK by the time Morris reached I-90 and noticed that the gas gauge had fallen below a quarter of a tank. He was getting close to Boston, and signs at every exit offered gas, food, and lodging in some form. Morris took the next off-ramp and followed the sign to a nearby Mobil station.
A few minutes later, he was waiting in the station’s convenience store to pay for his gas when a nearby rack of newspapers caught his eye. It held not only the Boston papers but the Providence Journal, the Hartford Courant, and even the New York Times.
Since the customer ahead of him seemed to be having some trouble getting his credit card approved, Morris reached over and plucked the Times from the rack, wondering if it had a story about the attack that morning that had nearly cost him and Libby Chastain their lives.
He didn’t find any mention of what he was looking for. Instead, on the front page of the Metro section, he saw: “Patient Raped, Murdered in Hospital ICU.”
Morris felt his heart start to thud against his chest wall even before he read, “Elizabeth Chastain, 34, of Washington Square, was sexually assaulted and murdered in the Intensive Care Unit of Cedar Sinai Medical Center earlier today. A hospital spokesman confirmed that Ms. Chastain had been brought into the hospital as an emergency room patient several hours—”
FENTON AND VAN Dreenan, tearing north on Route 95, an hour after sunset.
“Damn, I wish this was an official car,” Fenton said. “I could take it up to ninety or so, and if a state cop gave chase, I could get on the radio, find his frequency, and explain I’m on official business and in pursuit of suspects. Hell, he might even give us an escort.”
“But if we’re stopped, you still have your FBI credentials to show,” Van Dreenan said. “That should get us out of trouble.” He held the locator steady on the lid of his briefcase, and it was pointing straight ahead.
“Yeah, but getting cleared would take time. He’d want to know why I’m in a civilian car for starters. Then, after I explained that, he’d have to radio my name and badge number in to his barracks, who would call the local FBI field office, Boston I suppose, who might well decide to contact Behavioral Science at Quantico to make sure I was legit. Christ only knows how long all that palaver would delay us.”
“Well, we could always just shoot him.”
Fenton looked at Van Dreenan without turning his head. “I’m going to have to watch out for that sense of humor of yours.”
“Always assuming I was joking,” Van Dreenan said with a tiny smile.
“Yeah, assuming that. No, we’re better off keeping it at seventy, which is more or less within the legal limit. Just let me know as soon as that pointer starts moving again.”
They were approaching the exit for someplace called Peabod
y when it did.
“Pointer’s moved!” Van Dreenan said. It’s at two o’clock now. Best take this exit coming up.”
“Right, got it.” Fenton put on his turn signal and began to move into the right lane.
As they made the turn off Route 95, Fenton said, “What do we do when we hit the end of the ramp?”
“Let us hope the device will answer that for us,” Van Dreenan said. His voice had grown tight with tension, and he kept fiddling with the clasps of his briefcase.
“Well, it fuckin’ well better.”
It did. The sharpened stick moved smoothly to the left, sending them north along Route 128. Fenton brought the speed down to forty-five, out of concern for both safety and the local cops.
They had just passed the Northshore Mall on their left when the indicator turned to the right again.
“Take the next exit,” Van Dreenan said.
“Gotcha.”
A few minutes later, van Dreenan muttered, “Gott!”
“What? What’s up?”
“Did you see the sign?”
“Which one?”
“Salem, 3 miles.”
“Well, fuck me,” Fenton said softly. Then, more loudly: “You don’t suppose—”
“Yes, I do suppose. I suppose very much that this is not mere chance.”
They were on something called Peabody Avenue now, but soon the indicator moved again, sending them on a turn into Marlborough Road. The indicator continued to point ahead, but now it was vibrating softly.
Fenton glanced over and noticed the sudden oscillation. “What’s it doing that for?”
“It means they’re close,” Van Dreenan said, and flicked open the clasps of his briefcase. Putting the locator aside for a moment, he raised the lid and rummaged inside. He removed several objects, closed the case up again, and put the locator back in place.
Van Dreenan suddenly leaned toward Fenton. “Hold still!” he said, and raised his hands over Fenton’s head. A moment later, he withdrew and Fenton realized that Van Dreenan had placed around his neck a leather thong with something hanging from it. He grasped the small object now resting against his chest and raised it to eye level.
It was the tooth of a large animal, the tip still sharp. Some odd-looking symbols were painted on it in red. Fenton looked over at Van Dreenan, and saw that the South African had just put on what appeared to be an identical necklace.
“What the fuck is this?” Fenton asked.
“An amulet, made of a lion’s tooth. Blessed by a very powerful sangoma.”
“What’s the point?”
“It will protect us from her magic. Maybe.”
“Oh, man, for Christ’s sake—”
“Just leave it in place, will you? It is no more insane than chasing all over creation because a magical stick tells you to, is it?”
“Well, when you put it like that...”
“We’re coming to an intersection,” Van Dreenan said. “Be ready to turn.”
“Which way?”
“I’ll tell you. Wait for it.”
As soon as they reached the end of Marlborough Road, the pointer moved again. “Left!” Van Dreenan said. “Turn left here!”
Fenton made the turn, then picked up speed. The area appeared to be semi-rural, the houses they passed few and far apart. Soon, he could see another vehicle ahead of them. They were gaining on it, and Fenton hoped the road would remain straight enough to let him pass them when the time came.
“Fenton! Does that car ahead look familiar to you? From a certain videotape?”
Fenton flicked on the high beams. “Sweet Christ, it’s a fucking Continental! Can you make out the color?”
Van Dreenan spoke again a few seconds later, but this time his voice was quiet and calm. “Unless I am very much mistaken,” he said, “it is British racing green.”
“MISTER, YOU GET gas?”
Morris tore his eyes away from the newspaper. “What?”
The teenager behind the counter had finally finished with his other customer. “Gas,” he said again. “Ain’t that blue Olds yours? The one at number four?”
Morris stepped forward, trying to focus on what he was supposed to be doing. “Uh, yeah, sure. That’s me. What do I owe you?”
“Thirty-two eighty-five. Plus another dollar for that paper, if you’re plannin’ on buyin’ it.”
Morris ignored the sarcasm and reached for his wallet with an unsteady hand. Libby, oh dear Jesus, I’m sorry. It’s all my fault for dragging you into this fucking mess in the first place.
Then the small part of his mind that was not reeling with shock and grief came up with an interesting fact and presented it to his forebrain for inspection:
The New York Times is a morning paper.
Which meant that something newsworthy happening in mid-afternoon, which was when Morris left Libby Chastain’s bedside, is not going to show up in the Times until the next day’s edition. It just wasn’t possible.
Morris pocketed his change and looked at the teenage attendant. “Listen, could you do me a favor real quick?” He folded the Metro section in half and held it out. “Could you just read me the headline on this story right here? Just this one.”
The attendant glanced at the paper, then looked up suspiciously. “You can’t read, then what the hell you buyin’ the paper for?”
“I can read. It’s just that I’m dyslexic.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I have trouble understanding what I read sometimes, that’s all.”
“Look, man, I’m tryin’ to run a business here, ya know?”
Morris glanced around the store. They were the only two people in the place.
He pulled out his wallet again and tossed a twenty on the counter. “That ought to make it worth your time.”
The bill disappeared so fast it might never have been there at all. “This story right here, you mean?”
Morris nodded.
“It says, ‘Mayor Opposes New Bond Initiative, Threatens Veto.’” He had trouble pronouncing “initiative.”
Morris let out the breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. “Thanks,” he said, and turned away.
“Hey,” the attendant called, “don’t you want your paper?”
“Keep it,” Morris said from the door. “Maybe there’s comics in there somewhere.”
CHAPTER 31
SNAKE PERKINS WAS silently listening to the Rolling Stones doing “Brown Sugar” when he saw the headlights in his mirror, coming up fast. He looked for the flashing light of a police car, but saw none. Then the guy back there turned on his brights.
“Jesus, what the fuck is that?” he said.
Cecelia Mbwato turned and looked back, but only for a moment. “Trouble,” she said, and reached down for her bag.
“NOW I KNOW how the guy felt who had a tiger by the tail,” Fenton said. “I mean, now that we’ve found ’em, how do we stop ’em? I can’t call for backup, because we’ve got no fucking radio! And if we chase these bastards into Salem at high speed, civilians are gonna get killed, maybe a whole bunch of ’em.”
“Can you run them off the road?”
“That Connie’s way heavier than we are, man. I try that, he’ll most likely run us off the road.”
“Just bring us as close as you can, then,” Van Dreenan said, his voice icily calm. “Let us see what develops.”
CECELIA MBWATO WAS chanting something in the same language Snake Perkins had heard her use during the rituals for preparing the fetishes. She had removed a small leather pouch from her voluminous carpetbag. From the corner of his eye, Snake watched as she poured some of its contents, which looked like a coarse powder, into her cupped hand, chanting all the while.
Then she dropped the pouch back in her bag and used her free hand to lower the window next to her.
“Jesus, what are you doing?”
“Just drive!” she snapped, and flung the handful of powder out straight up into the night air.
“Was that her?” Fenton asked. “Mbwato?”
“Very likely,” Van Dreenan said, “but I do not know—”
Something flickered in the air between the two cars. There, and gone. Then it reappeared again for an instant and winked out again. Fenton thought, crazily, that it looked like the face of George McDougall, a serial murderer who had almost killed Fenton during an arrest attempt eighteen months earlier. Fenton still had nightmares about George McDougall, and about what they had found in his basement once the man had been shot dead.
Beside him, Van Dreenan started in surprise. Fenton didn’t know that the South African was seeing brief images of a black mamba, the deadliest snake in Africa. The bite of one of these reptiles had almost ended Van Dreenan’s life when he was a young policeman.
“You’re seeing something, aren’t you?” Van Dreenan said. “Something you’re afraid of?”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“It’s a common trick among African sorcerers. The spell brings up visions of whatever you fear the most, causing panic. It would be far worse, for both of us, were it not for the amulets we are wearing. Ignore what you think you see—there is nothing there. Remember that!”
“Yeah, okay.” Fenton found the brief apparitions unsettling, but he was a long way from panic.
Van Dreenan had produced a small bottle and was pouring liquid from it all over the pointer of the locator device.
The pointer that was covered with the hair of Cecelia Mbwato.
Fenton glanced over before returning his gaze to the road. “What’s that?”
“Something else I brought from Africa, courtesy of the same sangoma. I’m going to try a little sympathetic magic. Elizabeth would be angry with me for using this, but desperate times...”