Decker rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers, as if he were thinking seriously. “You know something, Jonah? There’s an idea.”
Decker crunched across the shattered glass into the restaurant, already crowded with scene-of-crime investigators and photographers and uniformed officers and bewildered looking witnesses. The interior was pungent with soul-food spices and fried chicken, and the walls were covered with sepia photographs of slave cabins and cotton fields and dozens of framed photographs of famous people of color, everybody from Maggie L. Walker, the first woman in America to found a bank, to Denzel Washington and Arthur Ashe Jr.
Cab and Hicks were talking to witnesses. Decker went to join them. Plastic grapevines hung down from the ceilings in such profusion that he had to push them away from his face. “Jesus,” he said, “it’s a jungle in here.”
Cab said, “It sure is. Take a look at this.”
Decker followed him to a booth at the very back of the restaurant, partly enclosed by a carved mahogany screen. In the corner hung a slanty-eyed African voodoo mask with an electric lightbulb shining through its eyes. Underneath the mask sat a skinny man in a shiny black satin shirt and shiny black satin pants, and black alligator moccasins with no socks. Above the man’s collar, all that remained was his lower jaw, like a dental cast. The rest of his head was sprayed up the wall in an ever-widening fan shape of dark red blood and pink glistening lumps. Even as Decker was examining him, one of the lumps started to creep its way surreptitiously down the wallpaper like a garden slug.
“Heck—he was right in the middle of eating,” Hicks said, in disgust. “If you look into his neck, you can still see chewed-up ham and potatoes. Didn’t even have time to swallow them.”
“I’ll take your word for it, sport,” Decker said. “What went down here, Cab? This doesn’t look anything at all like the other two killings.”
“It doesn’t but it does. The story is that Junior Abraham comes here for lunch every Monday regular at one o’clock. Always sits at the same table and always orders the same thing, ham hocks and mixed greens, with candied sweet potatoes. He’s sitting in the first booth right here with his brother Treasure and two of his heavies. A guy in a waiter’s apron comes out of the kitchen door carrying a tray with four bowls of fish chowder.”
Cab took out his handkerchief and slapped it open. “We got nine eyewitnesses, would you believe? They all say that the waiter guy goes up to the booth and throws the chowder into Junior’s lap. Junior jumps up, hands clutching his crotch, natural reaction, and that’s when the waiter guy pulls out a pump-action shotgun from under his apron and blows a respectable part of Junior’s head off. There’s another of Junior’s heavies on the door but the waiter guy doesn’t bother to exit via the door—he simply shoots out the window.”
“Anybody recognize this waiter guy?”
“Nobody says they do. What do you expect? They all want to keep their heads intact.”
“So it was a hit. What makes it anything like the other two killings?”
“The waiter guy was out here, right? In the restaurant. But—and this is the weird bit—he was never in the kitchen.”
Decker blinked. “What do you mean he was never in the kitchen?”
Hicks said, “All the eyewitnesses in the restaurant say that he came out of the kitchen door, but the cooks insist that he was never in there. He just, like, appeared.”
“Ah, come on. The cooks weren’t concentrating, that’s all. They were cooking, they were filling out orders, they were stacking plates. They weren’t going to notice some guy in a waiter’s apron.”
“I’m telling you, Lieutenant. They all swear blind there was nobody there.”
“Blind is probably the right word. Listen—I’ll talk to the cooks in a minute, but I want to have a word with Treasure first. He still here?”
“There—over in the corner,” Hicks said. “But I took a statement already … he doesn’t know from squat.”
Decker went over to a chunky young man with dreadlocks and a sweat-stained Michael Jordan T-shirt. He kept sniffing and blinking and jerking his head, as if he needed a snort of something.
“Hi, Treasure. Sorry about your brother.”
“Yeah,” Treasure said.
“Did you recognize the guy who did it?”
Treasure sniffed and blinked and shook his head. “Never saw him before.”
“Want to tell me what he looked like?”
“I just told the other guy,” Treasure said, jerking his head toward Tim.
“Well, do me a favor, and tell me, too.”
“He was a brother.”
“I see. How tall was he?”
“Kind of like normal height.”
“I see. What about weight?”
“Not too skinny, not too fat.”
Decker nodded. “Any distinguishing marks? Hair? Scars? Moustache? False nose?”
“Nothing. It all happened so quick. Sploosh with the soup, then bang.”
“I see. Sploosh with the soup and then bang.”
“Listen, man,” Treasure said, with a thumping sniff. “If I knew who it was, I’d personally kill him myself.”
Decker turned back to Cab. “Black, average build and height. That sure narrows it down.”
“Yeah, we could hold an identity parade twenty-three miles long.”
Decker pushed his way through the swing door to the kitchen, with Hicks right behind him. Standing by the stove were two anxious cooks and a dim-looking dishwasher with long red rubber gloves and his cap on sideways. The burners were crowded with huge simmering pots of corn chowder and crawfish stew and thick brown gravy going blibble-blobble like a swamp. The senior cook was even fatter than Cab, with a red bandana around his sweat-beaded forehead.
“I’m Lieutenant Martin,” Decker said.
“Louis,” the senior cook said, wiping his hand on a dishcloth and holding it out. “This here is Roy and this here is Toussaint.”
“My partner tells me you didn’t see anybody in the kitchen immediately prior to the shooting.”
“That’s perfectly correct, sir. There was only us and nobody else. Anyhow there’s only two servers, Gina and May, and Gina and May is both women.”
“Really? Gina and May? Women?” Decker circled the kitchen, picking up spoons and spatulas and frowning at them as if he thought they might be circumstantial evidence. “You didn’t see the door open? I mean, nine people saw this guy come out of the kitchen door with a tray of soup. How did he get the soup out of the kitchen if he didn’t open the door? Where’d he get the soup from?”
“I don’t know, sir. I truly can’t say. But I can testify to you on my mother’s life there was no waiter in here.”
The other two men nodded in furious agreement. Decker lifted the lid of one of the pots and sniffed the ham hocks that were nestling in it. “Smells pretty damn good.” Then he looked up and said, “You’re not saying this just to protect your ass, are you, Louis? Because this is a homicide inquiry, and anybody who obstructs such an inquiry by professing, for instance, that nobody was there when they were there—well, they’re almost equally as guilty as whoever pulled the trigger. Junior Abraham’s brains are spattered all over his hands, too.”
Louis quickly looked down at his hands and gave them another wipe with his twisted cloth. “It’s the truth, sir. The absolute truth. There was nobody here in this here kitchen but us.”
“So how do you think he did it? Come out of a door that he hadn’t gone into?”
Louis hesitated for a moment, and then he said, very emphatically, “It was a spell.”
“A spell?” Decker’s eyebrows went up.
“A magic spell, sir. I can’t think of no other explanation.”
“I see. A spell. But that shotgun shell sure wasn’t a spell, was it?”
“Ah, no. But that was a message. Okana obbara.”
“Okana obbara? What does that mean?”
“That means, like, don’t lose your head jus
t because you’re going to die.”
“Pretty sick sense of humor in that case.”
“No other explanation, sir.”
“This is all to do with Santería, right? All this magic spells and obba-wobbas?”
Louis crossed himself. “Yes, sir. Santería, sir.”
“Well, who knows? You may be right. Listen—stick around, will you, Louis? And you, Roy. You too, Toussaint. We may have to talk to you again.”
“Yes, sir.”
Decker pushed his way back out through to the restaurant. Hicks said, “You really think this could have had something to do with Santería?”
“Too soon to say. But it wouldn’t surprise me. Some of the major gangs here are Santeríans, especially the Egun. They think it gives them supernatural power, you know, and protects them from their enemies. Apart from that, it’s very secretive, close-knit. Keeps the outsiders out and the insiders in.”
“Rhoda’s grandmother was all into that. You know, the herbs and the eggs and the seashells. I didn’t think many people practiced it anymore. I mean, not these days.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised what we have here in Richmond. Santería, voodoo, hoodoo. We even have some Episcopalians.”
“You don’t seriously believe that this waiter guy appeared by magic?”
“I don’t seriously believe anything just yet. But I’ve heard stories about santeros who can materialize out of thin air. Don’t ask me how they do it, but who knows? It might have happened here. Maybe Cab’s right, and it happened in the Maitland case and the Drewry case, too—or something similar. Mass hypnotism, a trick of the light. What you might scientifically define as a spell.”
Cab was talking to the two waitresses. One was plump and plain, with bunches, but the other was small and curvy with a lick of a fringe and a criminally short black skirt. “Which one are you?” Decker asked her. “Gina or May?”
“I’m May. This is Gina.”
“Did you see the waiter guy in the kitchen, May?”
“I surely didn’t.”
“You ever see him before, ever?”
“I never did.”
“Okay … look, why don’t you give me your phone number? I might have to ask you some more questions later.”
When the girls had gone, Cab said, “You are seriously incorrigible, Decker. I know what kind of questions you want to ask her.”
“You misjudge me, Captain.”
“Oh yeah? So how come you didn’t ask the homely one?”
“You want me to enjoy my work or not?”
Cab sniffed, and then violently sneezed. “Goddam hay fever. How did you get on with the cooks?”
“They wouldn’t qualify for Mensa, but the funny thing is I think I believe them.”
“So where did the waiter guy come from?”
“The cook thinks it’s a Santería spell.”
“You’re pulling my leg.”
“Waiter guy apparently appears from nowhere at all. How else did he do it?”
“Oh, shit, Santería. You know what this means.”
“Let me have one inspired guess, Captain. Queen Aché.”
Cab nodded and wiped his nose at the same time. “Funny, though. I thought Junior was running most of Queen Aché’s dope business, through the docks.”
“Maybe Junior was helping himself to some unauthorized commission.”
“Well, Martin, I know how much you like to get it on with Queen Aché.”
“Uh-huh. No way. This one’s for somebody else. Give it to Rudisill. Or better yet, Watkins. At least he’s black.”
“Martin, I don’t have any choice. Who else has your experience? You know these people.”
“Oh, sure. And look what happened the last time I got myself involved with Queen Aché.”
Cab laid his hand on Decker’s shoulder. “I’m aware of that, Martin. But it was never proved that Queen Aché was connected with Cathy being killed, and you’re simply the best man I’ve got for the job.”
“I’m not happy with this, Captain. You’d be much better off sending Watkins.”
“Come on. Queen Aché likes honkies.”
“Sure, with barbecue sauce and a side order of curly fries.”
“Be a man, Decker. Besides, it’s high time that young Hicks here met Richmond’s most distinguished Afro-American citizen.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Queen Aché lived in the Jackson Ward, in a fancy red-painted town house with white cast-iron balconies and elaborate white cast-iron railings. The house used to belong to Booker Morrison, the famous turn-of-the-century preacher, who said that “those who are bondsmen on earth will have eternal freedom in heaven; and those who enslaved them will themselves suffer slavery for ever and a day.” For that observation, he was kidnapped by Klansmen, hung up by his heels from a lamppost on the corner of Franklin and Fifth Streets, soaked in paraffin, and set alight.
It was a grillingly hot afternoon, with only a few mares’ tails streaked across a dark blue sky. Two bodyguards were standing on the redbrick sidewalk outside Queen Aché’s front steps, both of them wearing jazzy African shirts, capacious shorts, knee-length socks, and mirror sunglasses. Decker parked directly outside and climbed out of his car, squinting up at the house as if he were interested in buying it.
“Hi, George. Hi, Newton. How’s it going in the heavy business?”
“We generally axes folks not to park in that particular spot, Lieutenant, on account of security.”
“Quite right, too. Is Her Ladyship at homer?”
“She expecting you?”
“Oh, I should think so. You know that Junior Abraham has left the building.”
“Junior Abraham? Didn’t hear nothing about that, Lieutenant.”
“Didn’t think you would have, what with this deaf-and-blind epidemic going around. Now, how about telling Madame that I’d like to ask her a couple of questions?”
Newton took out his cell phone. “Mikey? We got Martin out here. Lieutenant Martin. He says he wants to talk to Queen Aché.”
He waited, and then eventually he said, “Okay,” and dropped his cell phone back into his shirt pocket.
“Well?” Decker asked.
“Queen Aché says the ase isn’t favorable today.”
“The ase? The ase my ass. Get back onto her. Tell her this is a multiple homicide investigation and if she doesn’t want to answer questions here I can arrange for her to come down to Madison and Grace and inspect our nice new shiny headquarters.”
Newton took out his cell phone again. “Mikey? Martin says he needs to talk to Queen Aché about Junior Abraham getting creamed. Yes. That’s right. Okay. That’s right.”
He dropped his cell phone back in his pocket. “Queen Aché says okay but don’t blame her if something seriously untoward happens.”
Newton led Decker and Hicks up the front steps and the door was opened by a loose-jointed young man with protruding ears and an incipient black moustache. Before he went inside, Decker turned back and called, “George! There’s a buck in it if nobody steals my hubcaps!” George flapped his fat hand in disgust.
The young man took them across a wide hallway with gilt antique mirrors and a dark mahogany floor. In the back of the house somebody was playing a Charles Mingus improvization, badly.
“Hey—you’re not Michael, are you?” Decker asked the young man. “Queen Aché’s youngest kid?”
The young man nodded.
“I don’t believe it. You were only knee high to a high knee the last time I saw you. What have they been feeding you on? Giraffe food?”
“I’m fifteen,” Michael said, defensively.
“Fifteen? How about that? Fifteen. God … I was fifteen when I was your age, too. Can you imagine it?”
Decker and Hicks followed Michael through an archway into the living room. Most of the white wooden blinds were closed, so that the sunlight was very subdued in here, and the room was filled with lazy loops of marijuana smoke.
Queen Aché ser
iously regarded herself as royalty, and this was her throne room. The drapes were crimson velvet, with swags and ties and gilded tassels. The chairs and couches were all gilded and upholstered in the same fabric, and a sparkling cut-glass chandelier hung from the ceiling. Yet the room wasn’t all Versailles. On the walls hung dark oil paintings of mythical African beasts, and jungles; and inscrutable ebony figures stood guard on either side of the fireplace, with spears, and attenuated faces like praying mantises. In the far corner of the room there was an elaborate Santería shrine, crowded with statuettes and lighted candles and cowrie shells and painted masks and chicken feathers.
Three men were sprawled in armchairs, all of them wearing black shirts and flappy black Armani pants and carrying half of Schwarzschild’s Jewelry Store around their wrists. Queen Aché herself was reclining next to them on a golden-striped divan. She was smoking a small ivory pipe with a face carved on it.
“What do you expect me to say to you?” she demanded, as Decker and Hicks approached her. “The ase isn’t favorable … how do you expect me to have good aba?”
“It’s up to you. Maybe you’d have better aba downtown.”
“Hey,” warned one of the men, and began to stand up, but Queen Aché waved her hand at him and he sat down again.
She was a remarkable-looking woman. Decker had known her father, King Special, and like King Special she was very tall, over six feet three inches, with long arms and long legs and wide shoulders. But there was no doubt that she had inherited the beauty of her Cuban mother. A high forehead, wide-apart eyes, and a look of sleepy aloofness. Her skin was almost pale enough to pass as white, but her hair was braided and beaded, and she spoke with African-American intonations.
She was wearing a filmy dress of white linen, through which Decker thought he could almost see the heavy curves of her breasts, and dozens of thin gold bangles. Her feet were bare, and she had gold rings on her toes, too.
“So what is all this you say about Junior Abraham?” she asked.
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