The Devil in Gray

by Graham Masterton

  Decker went over to the window and looked down at Grace Street. It was only a few minutes past noon and—unlike him—nobody had a shadow. The street looked bright and unreal, like a scene from The Bodysnatchers. For all he knew, the So-Scary Man was down there, too, walking right through the crowds, unseen, unnoticed, on his way to murder another victim. On his way to murder him, if Cathy was right.

  He was driving slowly along St. James Street when he saw Junior Abraham’s brother Treasure walking toward him, with three other young men and a girl with cornrow hair and the tightest white jeans that he had ever seen. She looked as if she were naked and her legs had simply been painted white. He pulled into the curb and put down the window.

  “Hi, Treasure,” he said, without taking his eyes off the girl. “How about you and me having a little friendly conversation?”

  Treasure sniffed and jerked his head. He was wearing sloppy brown cargo pants and a green T-shirt with The Big Gig printed on it in red letters. “Kind of busy right now, Lieutenant.”

  “Listen … I’m working my butt off trying to find out who killed your brother. You can spare me a couple of minutes, can’t you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s better if we kind of forget about it, you know? People like that … you don’t want to go upsetting people like that.”

  “People like what?”

  “I don’t know, man. People who come up to you when you’re eating your lunch and blow your fucking head off.”

  Decker reached across and opened the passenger door. “Ten minutes tops. Come on. Junior deserves that much, doesn’t he?”

  The girl winked at Decker and said, “Go on, Treasure. Go talk to the nice policeman. You can catch up with us later.”

  Treasure reluctantly heaved himself into the car. Decker immediately pulled away from the curb with a brisk squeal of tires and headed north.

  “Where are we going, man?” Treasure asked, after they had driven six blocks. “I thought you just wanted to talk.”

  “I do. But I want you to meet a friend of mine. Somebody who can help you remember what happened.”

  “Hey … you’re not going to pull out my toenails or nothing?”

  “Of course not. We want to have a little relaxing chin music, that’s all.”

  “I told you … I don’t remember what the guy looked like. He was just kind of, like, normal. Not too tall, not too short.”

  “We’ll see.” He picked up his cell phone and punched out Hicks’s home number.

  He drove out to Valley Road and parked in front of the Hicks house. As they climbed out, Rhoda opened the front door, wearing a flowery yellow sundress. “Tim not with you?” she asked, looking around.

  “No, poor guy. He had a whole heap of paperwork to finish off. This is Treasure, the young man I was telling you about on the phone. Treasure, meet Rhoda.”

  Treasure sniffed and wiped his hands on his pants.

  “Come along in,” Rhoda said. “Do you want coffee or anything? Maybe a soda?”

  “No, we’re fine, thanks, Rhoda. I promised not to take up too much of Treasure’s time.”

  “Treasure, that’s an unusual name.”

  “My mom always used to call me Mama’s Little Treasure. It stuck even when I grew big.”

  “That’s so sweet.”

  “You think so? I think it’s wholly embarrassing.”

  Rhoda had already spread a neatly pressed white tablecloth on the kitchen table and set up two white candles. She drew the blinds and lit the candles, and then she sat down, her hands pressed together as if she were praying. Treasure looked at Decker and said, “What?”

  Rhoda said, “All you have to do is sit down and try to relax.”

  “Go on,” Decker urged him, and so he dragged out a chair and sat down, sniffing again and jerking his head.

  Rhoda took hold of his hand. “What we’re trying to do today, Treasure, is to talk to Junior.”

  “Say what? Junior had his nut blown off. Junior can’t talk.”

  “Junior’s dead, for sure. He doesn’t have a physical presence anymore. But his spirit lives on, and always will, just as all of our spirits live on. God creates us, Treasure, and you don’t think that God would ever allow His precious creations to die?”

  “Listen, Lieutenant, I thought you and me was going to talk. I didn’t think you was bringing me to no prayer meeting.”

  “This isn’t a prayer meeting, Treasure. This is to help you remember.”

  “I told you. How many times did I told you? I can’t exactly remember what the guy looked like. It all happened so fast, it was like I couldn’t focus my eyes.”

  Rhoda turned her head abruptly to the left and said, “Junior! Junior Abraham! Your brother Treasure’s here.”

  Treasure bobbed up out of his seat and looked around, wide-eyed. When he realized that Junior wasn’t standing right behind him, he blew out his cheeks and said, “Shit, you scared me then. You really scared me.”

  Rhoda closed her eyes. “Junior Abraham, your brother’s here. Your brother wants you to tell him what happened to you.”

  Treasure said, “Come on, this is seriously nuts. I went to Junior’s funeral, I laid a rose on top of his casket. He can’t talk to me.”

  Decker pressed his finger to his lips. “Give it a chance, Treasure. I’ve seen this myself, and it works.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to talk to Junior. I mean, maybe I’m crapping my pants here.”

  “Your brother wouldn’t do anything to harm you. Besides, he deserves justice, doesn’t he?”

  “I don’t know. I guess.”

  Treasure stayed quiet, but he still couldn’t stop himself from twitching and flinching. Rhoda took out her okuele and dropped it onto the table. She made a note of how the medallions had fallen, and then she said, “Junior, listen to me. Your brother’s here. He wants to know who hurt you.”

  Treasure looked more and more unhappy, but Rhoda kept on calling Junior, her voice curiously flat, as if she were speaking from another room.

  “Junior, you haven’t gone far, I know that. You’re still very close to us. Speak to us, Junior.”

  She cast the okuele three more times. More than ten minutes had gone by, and even Decker was beginning to feel that this wasn’t going to work. But then he began to notice that the kitchen appeared to be growing darker, as if clouds were sliding over the sun. One of the candle flames gave a nervous jump, and then the other, and then they both began to burn brighter.

  “I can feel you, Junior. I know you’re here. Talk to your brother, ask him to remember what really happened.”

  The candle flames rose higher and higher, and they began to burn so fiercely that they hissed, like oxyacetylene torches. The light was so dazzling that Treasure had to shield his eyes with his hand. In the very center of the light, Decker thought that he could make out a face, but it was so intense that it was impossible to say for sure.

  It was only when Rhoda began to speak that he knew that she had contacted Junior Abraham, wherever he was, in heaven or hell, or some place in between. Her voice was very harsh and low, and it made Decker feel as if his scalp were being pricked by dozens of sewing needles.

  “We was sitting together, man, and we was talking about the Down Home Family Reunion.”

  Treasure stared at Rhoda openmouthed.

  “You was saying that we ought to be giving protection to the folks who run the food and the craft stalls, you know, in case their stalls got accidentally knocked over or set on fire or something or some kid threw dog shit into their pork’n’beans.”

  “That’s Junior,” Treasure said, in disbelief, turning to Decker with his hand still raised to shield his eyes. “That’s Junior talking. That’s her talking but that’s Junior talking. How does she do that?”

  “You think now, Treasure. You think good. We was sitting there talking about the Down Home Family Reunion and somebody comes walking right up to the table carrying a tray.”

  “I remember,” Treasur
e said, wildly nodding his head. “I remember it exactly.”

  “Try to vis-alize it in your mind’s eye. You see the tray, yes? You see them four bowls of soup?”

  “I see them. I see them.”

  “Now I want you to look up. I want you to raise your eyes, brother, and look directly in the face of the person who’s carrying the tray.”

  Treasure said, “I can’t, Junior. It’s like it’s all blurry. I just can’t see who it is.”

  “Yes, you can. It ain’t going to be easy, because that particular memory has a spell on it. Like a kind of a trick, man, to stop you remembering what you really saw. But you can do it, Treasure. Come on, brother. Show me that you’re not as dumb as people say you are.”

  “Hey—who says I’m dumb?”

  “You ain’t dumb, man. You can raise your eyes and tell me who’s carrying that tray.”

  “I don’t know, Junior. My eyes won’t go up that far.”

  “You remember that tray flying in the air and the bowls of soup flying in the air and then what?”

  “Bang! that’s all. Bang, and your head got blown off.”

  “Think of that very instant when the gun went off. Think hard, Treasure. Who was holding that gun?”

  Treasure squeezed his eyes tight shut and gritted his teeth in concentration. The candles hissed hotter and hotter and the wax was pouring down the candlesticks and onto the tablecloth.

  Suddenly Treasure opened his eyes and stared at Rhoda with his mouth open. “Shee-it!” he exclaimed. “Shee-it, it weren’t no waiter guy at all! Shee-it!”

  “Who was it, Treasure? I want to hear you say the name.”

  “It was her. That Queen Aché ho, that’s who it was! I seen her! I seen her as clear as daytime! She come up to the table and she throw the soup all over us and bang! I turn around and say, ‘Junior, you been hurt?’ but Junior ain’t got no head no more. Queen Aché, shee-it. I’m going to kill that ho, I swear to God! I’m going to kill her!”

  Almost at once, the hissing died down and the candle flames began to gutter. Rhoda stood up and leaned over the table and blew them out. Amidst the curls of acrid smoke, she reached over and took hold of Treasure’s hand, and squeezed it, and smiled at him.

  “Now you remember who killed your brother, don’t you?”

  “Absolutely. I can’t understand how I couldn’t remember it before.”

  “You couldn’t remember it before because Queen Aché cast a Santería spell on everybody in the restaurant, including you. It was very powerful earth-magic. There’s hardly anybody who can work that kind of spell these days, even a babalawo.”

  “But why did she have to do that?” Treasure asked. “She could have whacked him some place private, couldn’t she? She didn’t need no spell.”

  Decker shook his head. “That was Queen Aché all over. She wanted people to know that if you try to double-cross her, you can’t escape from her anywhere, even in a public restaurant.”

  “I’m going to waste her, man, I swear to God.”

  “No, you’re not. But you’re going to go into court and testify against her. You and all the other witnesses, when I can get them to remember what you just remembered.” They heard the key in the front door, and Daisy, from the living room, calling out, “Daddy! Daddy!”

  Rhoda stood up and put up the blind. Hicks came into the kitchen, toting Daisy on his arm, but when he saw Decker and Treasure his smile immediately vanished.

  “What’s happening?” he demanded. “What’s he doing here?”

  Decker coughed and said, “Ah—I can explain.”

  Rhoda turned to Decker in bewilderment. “You mean to say that Tim didn’t know you were coming here?” she asked him. “That’s not what you told me on the phone.”

  “Actually, to be fair, I didn’t tell you that he knew and I didn’t tell you that he didn’t know.”

  “You lied to me, Lieutenant. There’s nothing fair about that!”

  “Well, I truly apologize if you got the wrong impression, Rhoda. But to be honest I don’t think that Tim would have been very happy about your holding another séance, do you? Especially with Treasure here.”

  “I ain’t done nothing,” Treasure said. “I just came along because I was axed.”

  Hicks put Daisy down on the floor. “Can I talk to you in private, please, Lieutenant?”

  “Tim—” Rhoda said.

  “Let me handle this, honey. I’m not going to say anything out of line.”

  “Too right you’re not,” Decker told him. “This is a multiple homicide investigation and I’m in charge of it and it was my decision that we needed Rhoda’s assistance.”

  “Rhoda’s my wife, Lieutenant.”

  “She’s also the only person I know who could help Treasure to remember who killed his brother. And she has. He’s remembered.”

  “If I’d known you were going to pull a stunt like this—”

  “Exactly, that’s why I didn’t tell you.”

  “I’m going to have to make a formal complaint about this. You realize what you’ve done here? You’ve put my family in jeopardy.”

  “Don’t overreact. Nobody has to know about this.”

  “Oh no? What are you going to say to the district attorney when he asks you how Treasure suddenly managed to remember what he saw?”

  “I’m sure as hell not going to say that his dead brother told him, during a séance.”

  “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you did this.”

  “It was Queen Aché herself,” Decker said.

  “What?”

  “There was no waiter. Queen Aché used a Santería spell and shot Junior Abraham herself.”

  “Well, that makes me feel a whole lot better. My wife has been duped into providing incriminating evidence against the single most ruthless racketeer in Richmond. For Pete’s sake, Lieutenant, think what happened to your Cathy!”

  “Your family’s going to be safe, Tim, I promise you. Think about it: We’re never going to have any chance of catching our invisible killer unless we have somebody on our side who can see him, and knows what it takes to corner him.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “We can use Treasure’s evidence as a way of persuading Queen Aché to help us.”

  “You’re prepared to do that? You’re really prepared to do that? I thought you suspected that Queen Aché had your Cathy killed.”

  “I don’t just suspect it, sport. I know it for certain. But there are times in this job when you have to work with people you would happily see dead, because that’s the only way you’re going to get a result. This guy has already killed four people and I’m pretty sure that he’s going to kill a whole lot more. What do you suggest we do? Shrug our shoulders and let him carry on with it?”

  Hicks put his arm around Rhoda and held her close. He was obviously finding it difficult to contain his anger, but Rhoda reached up and touched his lips with her fingertips to keep him silent.

  Decker stood up. “I’m going to take Treasure back to the city. I’ll see you back at headquarters.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  He dropped off Treasure on Clay Street. “Listen—when Queen Aché finds out that we have eyewitnesses you’re going to be in real jeopardy, you understand that?”

  “You think I give a flying fuck about that? That woman blew my brother’s head off.”

  “Is there some place you can go, somewhere safe? If not, I can arrange some protection for you.”

  “I got cousins in Chester.”

  “Okay, then. So long as you let me know where you are.”

  Treasure twitched his head. “That was something else, wasn’t it? Junior talking to me just like he’s still alive?”

  “It surely was. Here’s my number. Call me as soon as you get to Chester.”

  He watched Treasure lope off bandy-legged along the sidewalk, and as he did his cell phone rang.

  “Lieutenant? This is Captain Toni Morello from the Office of the Command Hi
storian. I’ve found something that I think will really interest you.”

  “You want me to come down to Fort Monroe? I can be with you by … say, five o’clock if that’s okay.”

  “No … you don’t have to do that. I have a social evening in Richmond tonight. I can meet you around nineteen hundred hours.”

  “Okay … you know where we are?”

  Hicks said nothing when he returned to headquarters but went directly to his desk and started to sort through the material that he had amassed on the family backgrounds of Jerry and Alison Maitland, George Drewry, and John Mason. After a while Decker went over to him and said, “Listen, Hicks. My humblest apologies. Asking your wife to hold a séance … that was something I decided to do on the spur of the moment, and I just knew that you wouldn’t go for it. But, come on, you have to admit that it worked. We made a serious breakthrough here … and if we can persuade all the other witnesses to remember what they saw—”

  Hicks tossed his pen onto his desk and sat back, looking deeply unhappy.

  Decker said, “If you want me to pull you off this investigation, I’ll understand. Rudisill’s pretty much up to speed on it.”

  Hicks furiously shook his head. “I want to find this sucker as much as you do, Lieutenant. I just don’t want my family compromised. You really think that all of those other witnesses are going to stand up in open court and testify against Queen Aché?”

  Decker said, “That isn’t the point. The point is we need Queen Aché to help us find this So-Scary Guy. You think I want to work with her, after what she did to my Cathy? But life is all about priorities.”

  “My family is my priority, Lieutenant. My Rhoda. My Daisy.”

  “I don’t think your family is in any danger at all. This guy is working to a very specific agenda. In fact I’m pretty sure that the next person on his list may be me.”

  “You? Why you?”

  “He’s not killing people at random. He has a list, and he’s working his way through it one by one.”

  “You have evidence of that?”

  “Nothing substantive. Only more nightmares, more voices, more illusions. I thought I saw Cathy in my bedroom last night and she warned me that Saint Barbara would be coming after me within forty-eight hours.”