by Dan Alatorre
“In my dream, the last lion rips into the package. But it turns out not to be a package at all. Is that your dream, too?” Sliding into the chair across from her, I took a deep breath. “What was in the package in your dream?”
She dabbed at her eyes with the bottom of her shirt. “It wasn’t a package.”
I held my breath, waiting.
“It was . . . a baby.” Her head dropped into her arms and she collapsed on the table. “Our baby! It was Sophie! God, what kind of people have dreams about an animal killing their own daughter?” Her shoulders shook with each heavy sob. “My baby was there and the lions were attacking her and . . .”
There were no words, only a low, pained moan that squeezed out between the uncontrollable crying.
I took her hand in mine and stroked it. I wasn’t sure what to do. My heart was thumping away inside me, but—
“Mommy?”
We both looked over at the doorway to the kitchen. Sophie stood there with a terrified expression on her face.
“Oh, no!” Mallory leaped up and ran to our daughter, scooping her up.
Sophie’s cheeks glistened with tears. “Mommy, what's wrong? Why are you crying?”
“No, sweetie,” Mallory lied, hugging our daughter. “Mommy’s not crying. Mommy has a cold.”
“Do you need the nebbalizer?”
“The what, baby?” Mallory sniffled and pushed her hair behind her ears, forcing herself back from the brink.
“When I was sick, I had to take—I have to use the nebbalizer.”
“Nebulizer.” Mallory wiped her eyes, smiling. “No, sweetie, mommy doesn’t have to use the nebulizer. Mommy isn’t sick like that.”
“I wasn’t feeling good before,” I said. “And now Mommy isn’t feeling good. So it would really help a lot if you gave her a hug. A really big hug.”
Sophie complied, burying her face in her mother’s shoulder.
They stood, eyes closed, rocking back and forth for a moment, as if they would never let each other go ever again.
“Mmmm! I love you. You're so sweet.” Mallory cooed to Sophie, kissing her. “I would never let anything happen to you.” Then she turned to me.
“Go!” She ordered. “Go now! See whoever you need to see.” She stood firmly in her kitchen with our daughter in her arms. “You find out whatever you have to find out. We have to figure out how to fix this thing, how to handle this thing, whatever it takes.”
Her voice grew more forceful as she clutched Sophie tighter. “Call the church, get whoever you talked to. Call them right now!”
She’d had enough.
“Call your church guy or find somebody else who can help us.”
Standing amongst the pieces of broken coffee mug, the objective was as clear as the morning light streaming in the windows.
“Find someone who can tell us what the hell is going on.”
Chapter 20
I hadn’t even brushed my teeth yet and I already felt like I was behind schedule.
I convinced my wife I needed to at least get cleaned up and shaven before trying to talk to people. Especially about this.
Shampooing and scrubbing as fast as I could, I kept thinking about how things were getting stranger and stranger. The three tragedies, the dreams—like we were headed for a meltdown or something. I had no real idea where to turn or what to do.
I got dressed and headed downstairs, snatching my laptop off my desk before going into the kitchen. Mallory sat at the table with her chin in her hands, watching Sophie’s every move out of the corner of her eye. Sophie, for her part, did the same, slowly and carefully eating her cereal, her movements stiff and robotic. The TV blathered on with cartoons, but my wife and daughter put on a show of their own for each other, pretending to be relaxed.
That would be good enough for now. I grabbed my keys. “I’m heading out.”
Mallory looked at me. Her eyes were still red and puffy from crying. She would have asked where I was going but she probably figured I didn’t really know. Maybe the church, maybe somewhere else, but I had to at least act like I was doing something.
“I’m taking my computer.” I held up the laptop. “Just in case.”
“Okay,” she said. “Be careful.”
I walked over and gave her a kiss. “I’ll be back in a little while.” Then I kissed my daughter. “You be good for your mother.”
“Okay,” Sophie whispered.
“We’re going to get dressed and run some errands.” Mallory leaned back and sighed, massaging her temples. “I need to get rid of this nervous energy.”
“Sounds good.”
As I pulled my car out of the garage, I thought about where I could go. The rain had been coming and going all morning, and the winds were getting stronger. Leaves were picked up and thrown around with every gust. Our little hurricane off the coast was making an effort to impress everyone.
A few of the websites I saw might have been helpful, but most were complete garbage. Obvious scam operations. Psychic hotlines. Stuff not even worth placing a phone call to. I hadn’t followed up with Our Lady of Mercy, either, because I didn’t feel they could do anything more at the moment. That left my options limited, but I couldn’t convey that to my wife.
A lot of our local restaurants and coffee shops had internet access. I could stop in and continue yesterday’s search. In fact . . .
I pulled over and snapped open my laptop. The screen from the prior day’s searches was still up—Help For The Hopeful, blinking at me.
What was up with that little site? I’d done some bizarre searches yesterday, and it popped up in several of them. I tried to look into the meaning of lion dream, checked into paranormal activity, did some searches on demonic possessions, exorcisms . . . the little black and white ad with the tiny blinking cross was everywhere, but it didn’t seem like it belonged anywhere.
I propped my elbow on the car window, rubbing my chin and watching the rain. The winds batted my car. On the passenger seat, the little ad on my computer continued to flash.
The Wi-Fi signal at a nearby fast food restaurant would be strong enough to use from my car in their parking lot. I didn’t want anyone spying over my shoulder while I searched for bizarre stuff.
I drove to the restaurant and shut off the engine, staring at the little ad. It’s line of text scrolling across the bottom: All problems have answers.
The tiny cross in the ad was like a miniature lighthouse, beckoning me.
I clicked the link. The page was very plain, just a local phone number and the words: Talk with people who understand the isolation and frustration of a problem that seems to have no answers. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
That was all it said. No asking for money, no 900 number to call. Nothing that really said much about anything. No promises of a psychic that has all the answers, or a church that will solve the problem in ten steps. Just the tiny blinking cross and a promise of help.
Right now, that seemed a decent first step.
It would offer help, or it would be BS. There was only one way to find out.
Any internet scammer worth his salt would have a website promising to solve all my problems, that much I knew. What I didn’t know was how I would avoid all the rip off artists and still find somebody who could help. And that didn’t think I was nuts. If nothing panned out, I could always go back to Father Frank and see what else he could suggest.
I pulled out my phone and dialed.
A man answered. “Hello?”
I cleared my throat and sat up straight. “Uh, hello. I saw your ad . . . I was wondering if you could help me with a problem I’m having. Did I call the right place? Is this Help for the Hopeful?”
“It is.” The man said. “What sort of problem do you need help with?”
I sighed. “Well . . . one that will probably make me sound crazy.”
“Okay, well, first—don’t worry about that. And I’m not going to ask you for any credit cards because we don’t accept any money from people we help. So who sounds craz
y now?”
His voice was deep and Texas-y, with a deliberate tone. Unwavering. Unquestioning. Confident. I have to admit, getting the money thing out of the way appealed to me. I leaned back in my seat. “Are you local? It looks like I called a Tampa number.”
“We have an office in Tampa, but right now it’s forwarded to my cell phone and I’m across the state in Melbourne. I’m supposed to be doing a little fishing, but it’s not working out too well.”
“Fishing?” I glanced at the bands of rain thrashing my windshield. “Oh, like fishers of men. That sort of thing. Are you part of a church?”
“No, like fishing for fish,” he said. “The weather’s not cooperating. Way too choppy. Gonna have to call it a day already.”
The sunny days earlier in the week would fool a lot of people into thinking it would be calm seas. It wasn’t. Sunken Spanish galleon 101.
“But, yes, I am what you could consider part of a church. A priest kind of part.”
Interesting. I was tempted to ask what kind of church, but very few churches have clergymen that refer to themselves as priests.
“You never answered my question.” Over the phone came banging around of some sort. He was probably packing up his fishing gear. “What kind of problem do you need help with?”
I ran my hand through my hair and took a deep breath. “I’m not even sure it’s a real problem. I mean, I’m not sure what to call it, but . . . I—my family—we seem to be having a lot of bad luck that’s kind of centered around certain people. And certain dates. Really bad things seem to happen every year, almost like they’re on a schedule.”
I held my breath and waited for the embarrassing laughter or anger—some kind of negative, degrading reaction to an obviously insane statement.
“Well that sure doesn’t sound like your everyday kind of problem,” the man said. “What’s your name?”
“Uh.” I quickly considered giving him a fake name, but my mind blanked. I wiped my hands on my pants. “My name is Doug.”
“Well, Doug, it’s a pleasure. I’m John Reed but my friends call me Tyree. Why don’t you let me pack up my fishing gear and I’ll call you back when I’m on dry land again. That’ll take me about an hour. Sound good?”
An hour? “You must be pretty far out to sea.”
“No, I’ve been visiting at one of those bars where you can pull up in your boat and now I can’t find my keys.”
Great. A drunk. It’s still morning, even on the other side of the state. I shifted on my seat.
“They sell bait and ice, you know?” Tyree said. “I haven’t been drinking. I don’t drink. But with all this on and off rain we’ve been having, it’s messed up the fishing.”
That was a relief—and an immediate dose of shame for thinking bad about him. Heat rose to my cheeks. “Sure, no problem.”
“Besides, they got this cute little bar maid I like to have a look at now and again.”
“A man of the cloth checking out girls?” That didn’t sound like a priest. My defenses rose again.
“Well, you know what they say. Just because you’re on a diet doesn’t mean you can check at the menu.”
That was backwards. I was about to correct him when Tyree cut me off.
“I’m a sinner, Doug.” More equipment noises banged in my ear. “We all are. Even you. Maybe that’s the source of your problems. Wouldn’t be the first time. But I’ll call you back in an hour, okay?”
“Okay, Mr. Tyree,” I said. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. And it’s just ‘Tyree.’”
“Tyree. Got it.”
“Okay. One hour.”
The wind let up so the rain could come straight down now. Leaves and bits of trash littered the parking lot and stuck to my windshield and the hood of my car.
I didn’t know why, but as I ended the call I felt a sense of relief. I suppose getting something like that off my chest and not being laughed at eased my mind. I felt Tyree was genuinely interested in helping us—but a good con man would make a sucker feel that way, wouldn’t he?
He seemed to anticipate my concerns. That was either intuitive and helpful or completely scammy. I shook my head and tapped the steering wheel, staring out at the watery parking lot. Any help is better than no help, right? Or would the wrong sort of person end up hurting my family worse somehow? Lure us in when we’re vulnerable and end up scamming us?
I stared at my computer. When I was fresh out of college, I took a job at a marketing company as an assistant to one of the big producers. The first thing he’d tell new associates was, if your leads are weak, create more leads. I nodded to myself. My options were weak. I needed to create more options. I needed a plan B in case Tyree ended up going nowhere the way Father Frank did.
A gust of wind sent debris flying off the grass by the dumpster. Somebody had left it open and papers came flying out. One landed on my windshield.
It was a glossy flyer for a blues quartet, and some college kid had probably been paid to put these on all the doors in the neighborhood or the cars at the mall. In this crappy weather, the dumpster got them instead. I put down my window and reached around to peel the colorful paper off the wet glass, when the words at the bottom of the flyer lit me up like a neon sign on the Vegas strip.
My heart jumped. I started the car and raced out of the parking lot, grabbing the wheel with both hands and bouncing up and down in my seat. A new option was taking shape.
Chapter 21
If Tampa had a big sister, it would be New Orleans. “’Nawlins,” as the locals there pronounce it, has Mardi Gras, an insane weeklong festival of partying and debauchery. Tampa has Gasparilla.
The Big Easy has the French Quarter, full of restaurants and bars, but also with back alleys with prostitution and drugs, side streets to eerie haunted houses, and a strange, mystical subculture of street performers and magicians.
Tampa—also known as Big Guava at times—has Ybor City.
A smaller version of Mardi Gras, Gasparilla in Ybor, pronounced “ee-bor” is a unique slice of Tampa’s looser side. Like it’s big sister, Ybor was part bar scene, part art district, and part loony bin, catering to the young and restless. New late night party spots stood right next to upscale restaurants that had been local favorites for a hundred years. Ybor had dancing and celebrities. Every time a Super Bowl came to town, Ybor was where you’d find the Who’s Who. When the Tampa Bay Lightning won the Stanley Cup, Ybor partied ‘til dawn, had a cup of Cuban coffee, and kept right on going.
New Orleans may have been the original, but Ybor City was a good local alternative. Both had the reputation of being able to deliver anything and everything a person could dream of. You want it? They have it.
Including voodoo.
If such a thing as voodoo exists, and some believe it does, New Orleans had it in spades. Marie Laveau, maybe the most famous voodoo practitioner ever, was practically the queen of the city’s mystical side way back when. Voodoo was an industry in The Big Easy. The city was full of all kinds of witches and spell spinners, fortune tellers and healers. Some were allegedly legit; others were simply an obvious show for tourists. But a mambo, the real name for a voodoo high priestess, was serious business to believers. If I had prowled the seedy offshoots of New Orleans’ Bourbon Street long enough, I would have found one who could’ve helped me, I’m sure.
And if they had one, we had one.
I wasn’t really in a position to not consider any source I could find. Everybody knew Ybor had some mystical stuff going on late at night. Voodoo and Santeria, it’s darker, uglier cousin, were common there, but not practiced in the light of day. And it was only a twenty minute drive away.
I pulled my cell phone from the cup holder of my car and checked the time. Too early in the day to go now, I could probably find what I was looking for tonight. Late, after midnight.
Besides, I wanted to be sure to consider everything, like Father Frank had suggested. Now I had a second option, even if Frank might not have approved
of it. Just thinking it up made me feel better. Instead of going home, I pulled into a gas station to fill up and wait for Tyree’s call.
Idly watching the numbers roll over as the pump churned and clicked, I laid out my plan. Tonight I could grab my keys and make an excuse to Mallory. It wouldn’t matter what I said. She’d know I wouldn’t have a good reason to go out at midnight, especially in a bad rain, but she seemed upset enough this morning to allow me to do just about anything. The image of her sliding to the floor in tears put a wave of uneasiness through me. I had to make some progress—any progress—and no easy answers were presenting themselves. She would be supportive, to a point.
If I waited for her to get sleepy, I could get out and back before she had time to think about worrying.
I sat in the car scratching my chin. In the meantime, what would I need? Some cash. What else? I couldn’t think of anything. I headed to the bank.
Tyree said he had an office in Tampa somewhere. It might be worthwhile to drive by and check it out—if it could be found. The online county appraisal records would tell me who owed a property, and I could search for the owner’s name online, but if he rented the space his name wouldn’t show up. If his business was incorporated, a records search might give a name and address, but often as not those were the company’s lawyer’s office, not the physical location of the business or it’s owner’s home address. Besides, who says the Help For The Hopeful was even a corporation or a registered entity? Or if John Reed was even a real name?
Damn. Every option had flaws. Major flaws.
Still, talking to him was worth a shot. The safety of my wife and daughter were worth embarrassing myself over meeting with a con man if that’s what he was. So if there was some due diligence I’d later wish I had done, now was the time to try to do it. And I had time to kill.
My cell phone pinged with a text from Mallory. Sophie and I are going shopping. Do u need anything?
Good. She needed to get out of the house for a while and clear her head. Glancing at the road, I tapped out a quick reply. No. Have fun.
The image came again, of her sliding to the kitchen floor. Our daughter crying. I sent another text. Drive safe. I love you.