Desperate Souls

by Gregory Lamberson

He took a taxi to Twenty-third Street. Facing Laurel’s storefront, he felt tempted to walk into her parlor to ask her for help. But he really wanted to get into the security of his own space and make sure Edgar had disposed of any evidence that AK had been in his suite. Security? He laughed out loud. So what if pedestrians on the street thought him insane? He rode the elevator to the fourth floor. Skipping the stairs was becoming a habit. He crossed the sunlit hallway to his door, which he unlocked. Inside the reception area, he discovered that Edgar had not reset the alarm even though Jake had given him the code. Careless. He passed the kitchen, his attention on the closed door ahead of him.

  “Jake?”

  His heart recoiled in his chest as his entire body flinched. He recognized Carrie’s voice but without his left eye had walked right past the kitchen without seeing her. And she sounded so close. As he spun to his left, she came into view, and when she saw the pressure pad over his eye, she jumped and cried out, which caused Jake to flinch a second time.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  “I’m sorry!” Carrie fanned herself with one hand. “What happened to your eye?”

  Willing his heart to slow down, Jake gasped. “It’s gone. It doesn’t matter why.”

  “What? Jesus! Are you all right?”

  “I will be in a minute. What are you doing here today?”

  “Getting a head start on your quarterly income tax filings.”

  Death and taxes, Jake thought. “Oh, right. Thanks. I have work to do, so I’ll need a little privacy.”

  “Do you want me to leave?”

  “You know what? I think you’d better. In fact, I’d like you to take next week off.”

  “But I’ve got so much—”

  “Let me rephrase it without any bullshit. People are trying to kill me. That makes this office as dangerous for you as it is for me.”

  “Dangerous?”

  Setting his hand on the back of her neck, he guided her into the reception area. She felt so tiny, like a child. “Very. And I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come back.”

  “Do you want me to call Ripper to come over here?”

  “Thank you. But I don’t think your boyfriend can help me with this.”

  “I don’t know. He’s got a bad temper and a real mean streak.”

  “Then why are you with him?”

  “Oh, he’s got a sweet side, too.”

  Jake took out his wallet. “Let me pay you in advance for next week. You’ll be absent with pay.”

  Carrie raised one hand. “No. Thank you. I don’t want money I haven’t earned. Call me when you want me to come back. Call me if you want me to send Ripper to watch your back. Call me if there’s anything I can do to help you with whatever trouble you’re in.”

  Jake smiled. He liked Carrie. Holding out a fifty, he said, “Then at least take this. Buy Ripper a nice dinner.”

  She smiled back. “Okay. Thanks, Jake. Take care of yourself.”

  “You, too.” He watched her leave. Good things come in small packages.

  After the front door closed, he went into his office, sat down, and booted up his computer. He spent half an hour checking news headlines and his e-mail. His eye grew tired, so he took a break, then popped some Tylenols for the pain. He went to the safe and took out the Afterlife laptop. Reviewing the zombies and voodoo sections, he came to a conclusion: those areas were far less comprehensive than others in the file, as if someone had deliberately left out research. But who?

  Not Old Nick. He spent millions of dollars on that research.

  Jake studied the names of the researchers: Dr. Donna Bidel, Ramera Evans, Professor Blake Carlton, and Javier Soueza. One of them hadn’t earned his or her fee.

  Or one of them held back information.

  His fingers danced over the keyboard. Because he didn’t need to look at the keys, he felt like he had found something in his life that hadn’t changed because of his new disability. He Googled each member of the team. Dr. Bidel had died of heart failure four years earlier. Professor Carlton had fallen to his death from the top floor of his San Jose condo three years ago; he had not left a suicide note. And Javier Soueza had died from a brain aneurism two years ago. Following this pattern, Jake fully expected to discover that Ramera Evans had died under mysterious circumstances one year ago, but he found no reference to any such person.

  Curiouser and curiouser.

  Three out of four researchers responsible for a portion of Old Nick’s big research project had met with sudden deaths. Had Tower ordered them killed to protect his secrets? Jake would not put it past the old man. If so, had Ramera Evans’s body simply not been discovered, or had she gone into hiding to escape the fate of her colleagues? Or was she responsible for the deaths?

  The bells on the front door to Laurel’s parlor jingled. Jake stepped down the stairs as Laurel appeared in the shadowy doorway leading to her quarters.

  “What happened to your eye?” she said with apparent alarm.

  “I used it to stop a knife from entering my brain last night.”

  Her eyes widened. “Who did this?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Give me your hand,” she said, offering him hers.

  “Will this one do?” Reaching into his pocket, he took out the severed hand, wrapped in red fabric. “I always wondered when that handkerchief would come in handy.”

  With no sign of disgust, Laurel accepted the hand and carried it over to the round table in the middle of the room. She sat down and unwrapped the handkerchief, revealing the yellowish gray hand, its fingers uncurled. Her own hands rested flat on the tablecloth, as if she was afraid to touch the hand by accident. “Please sit down. You’re making me nervous.”

  Pulling out the chair opposite Laurel, Jake sat. “Show me some of that magic.”

  Sensing the sarcasm in his voice, she glanced at him. “Still doubting me?”

  “Not your ability. I know you really removed that curse from me—or whatever it was.”

  “Then you just doubt my intentions?”

  “You like to play things close to the vest.”

  “But you do want me to read this hand and provide you with some answers?” Just a touch of sarcasm.

  “Yes, please.”

  Returning her attention to the hand, she took a deep breath, then shook her hands in the air as though limbering up. Pumping a small amount of sanitizer into her hands, she rubbed them together. Then she slid her left palm out beneath the back of the severed hand and closed the fingers of her right hand around the dead flesh.

  Jake studied her features, searching for a reaction.

  Massaging the hand, Laurel leaned forward, cocking her head as if listening to a distant voice. Her eyes grew unfocused and glossy, trancelike. Then she blinked, looked down at the hand, and separated her hands from it. She pumped more sanitizer on her hands. “This hand belongs to a zonbi. Zonbies are Creole—Louisiana vodou.”

  “What’s the difference between them and regular zombies?” Regular zombies?

  “A vodou Houngan is a priest, a Mamba a priestess. They’re religious figures, with no more power than a Catholic priest or a Jewish rabbi. But a bokor is a vodou sorcerer or sorceress. The majority of men and women claiming to be bokors are scam artists. A true bokor has forged an alliance with a demon. When a bokor creates a zonbi, the creature’s soul remains in its body, acting as a receiver for its master’s commands. The bokor communicates with its slaves mentally, as if they’re its physical appendages. The spirit, or soul, is trapped inside the body unless the body’s brain is destroyed.”

  “Why the brain?”

  “Because the source of thought is the source of the soul.”

  “And when the brain liquefies …”

  “It still retains the soul.”

  “And if a brain is destroyed …”

  “The soul escapes.”

  “This city is crawling with these zonbies. Are you telling me that every one
of them is walking around with its soul trapped inside?”

  “Yes. They’re unwilling slaves, with no ability to resist the orders they’re given. But inside each one of those corpses is a soul screaming to get out.”

  Oh, Jesus. “Is there a way to set all their souls free without having to destroy their brains individually?”

  “Certainly. All you have to do is kill their master.”

  Jake digested this information. It went down surprisingly easy. “With what, a silver bullet?”

  She gave him a look that suggested she was humoring him. “Any bullet will do. Bokors are still human beings.”

  Rising, Jake drew his Glock and aimed it at Laurel’s head.

  Although she appeared to maintain her cool demeanor, what little color she had drained from her face. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Jake focused his aim on her forehead. “Whatever it takes, lady.”

  “You’re making a serious mistake.”

  “I’m prone to that.”

  “You don’t want innocent blood on your hands.”

  “Did you ever work for Nicholas Tower?”

  “No.”

  “Who are you? What are you?”

  “I’m no bokor. I have nothing to do with Black Magic or the zonbies distributing it.”

  Staring into her eyes, he wished he could squeeze the gun’s trigger and end this nightmare, but he believed everything she said. Lowering the Glock, he said, “If I find out you’re lying, I know where to find you.”

  Then he holstered the gun and exited the parlor.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Sitting behind the wheel of the black SUV he had rented, Jake watched the mailman stuff envelopes into the mailbox of the two-story house on 168th Street in Jamaica, Queens, not far from Sutphin Boulevard. Residents of multiple ethnicities passed his temporary vehicle. Once predominantly African American, the neighborhood had seen a large influx of West Indians, Asians, and Puerto Ricans in recent years.

  As the postman moved on to the next house, Jake slipped on the pair of wraparound sunglasses he had purchased earlier. They obscured the pressure pad over his left eye socket but also cut down the vision in his right eye. He snatched the narrow CD mailer that he had addressed to Occupant from beside him and hopped out of the SUV. Crossing the busy street at a quick pace, he locked his vehicle with a remote control. On the sidewalk, he opened the metal gate and approached the house, which had gray composite siding.

  Not exactly a mansion but expensive enough in this city, especially for a woman with no discernible income source.

  He mounted the concrete steps, and as he reached for the lid of the black metal mailbox, he heard the steel front door unlock. Popping the lid, he snatched out the mail and used it to cover the cardboard CD mailer. The door swung open, and a black woman in her midforties stood there, attractive for her age, with a long, curly black wig. Judging by her toned biceps, she worked out on a regular basis.

  A woman of leisure.

  Alice Morton’s startled expression faded into one of disdain.

  Jake handed her the stack of junk mail with the CD mailer on the bottom. “Here’s your mail, Mrs. Morton.”

  She hesitated, clearly caught off guard by his use of her name, then took the mail from him. “I don’t use that name anymore.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry, Mrs. Reid.” Jake had no trouble projecting his old cop persona.

  “It’s miss. Detective …?”

  “Brown.”

  “Do you mind if I see some ID?”

  “Not at all.” Jake took out his wallet and handed her the business card Gary had given him at One PP.

  Holding the card in her free hand, she scanned the information on it. “What can I do for you on this sunny October day, Detective Brown?”

  “I’m afraid I come bearing bad news. Don’t shoot the messenger.” He waited for a reaction but got none. “Your brother Joe is dead. He was murdered early this morning.”

  She didn’t bat an eye. “I know. One of your people already called me. I guess you didn’t get the memo.”

  I guess you aren’t too broken up by the news. “Did they also tell you that your son murdered him?”

  She froze.

  That got a rise out of her.

  “No, they didn’t. Because it isn’t true.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because Daryl loved his uncle.”

  “Even after Joe threw him out of the family business?”

  “There is no family business. Whatever Joe does, he does on his own.”

  “That’s funny, because with Joe out of the way, Daryl’s the city’s biggest drug kingpin. Everyone in the NYPD and FBI knows it. You’d better get used to seeing strange faces around here. Word is Malachai ordered two cops killed. We’re going to do whatever it takes to bring him down, even if that means going through you.”

  “I’m calling my lawyer,” the woman said, waving Gary’s card at Jake.

  “That’s premature, but you’ll need that lawyer soon enough.”

  She closed the door in his face and locked it.

  Charming family, Jake thought as he returned to the rental SUV. After setting the black radio receiver on the dashboard, he inserted a miniature speaker into his ear and waited. The listening device inside the CD mailer transmitted the bass of a rap song. Then the music cut off.

  That’s it. Call your boy.

  “Hello, Daryl?”

  I wish I could hear the other side of this conversation.

  “I don’t care what you call yourself. I’m your mother, and I’m going to call you by the name I gave you.” A pause. “Never mind that.

  You’ve got big trouble. A man in a blue suit was just here doing a survey. He said my favorite family TV show was canceled. Also said two cop shows were canceled.”

  Jake waited in suspense.

  “How could you be so stupid? Didn’t Joe and I teach you anything?”

  Son of a bitch.

  “I don’t care what Katrina said. How many times have I told you that bitch is bad news? She’s just using your ass.”

  Katrina. A new name for the file. Jake had suspected that Malachai’s bokor had been behind the two detectives’ deaths, and now he was sure of it.

  “What are we going to do about these cops?”

  Good question. And she had dropped her coded language.

  “Gary Brown. Yeah, Gary Brown. That’s what his card says. Detective, Narcotics. He isn’t from credit card fraud.”

  Jake snorted.

  “I don’t want no motherfucking cops sniffing around my motherfucking house; that’s why.”

  Come on. Come on.

  “I need to see you.”

  That a girl!

  “No, not this weekend. Tonight. Where you gonna be at?”

  Repeat the location. Repeat the location …

  “Send a car for me.”

  Shit. Nothing ever came easy.

  “Because I don’t want to take the subway or a cab into the city.”

  Not specific enough.

  “Just have someone here by nine sharp.” Then she snapped her phone closed.

  Sighing, Jake removed the earpiece. Malachai’s mother planned to meet him somewhere in the city, and someone was picking her up at 9:00 p.m. Plenty of time for him to switch vehicles.

  Sitting at the dining room table in Katrina’s apartment, Malachai shut off his phone and stared at it.

  “What is it?” Marcus said from across the table.

  “My mother says a cop just came to see her.”

  Katrina served them each a bottle of cold beer and sat down.

  “So? She’d better get used to it. We’re big time now.”

  Malachai turned the cell phone end over end in the palm of his hand. “She said the cops know we had those two pigs killed.”

  Marcus raised his eyebrows, then glanced in Katrina’s direction. “I thought you said they would never know it was murder.”

  “They neve
r will,” Katrina said in an even tone. “Whoever this cop is, he’s guessing or bluffing.”

  “Why would anyone bluff about that? One of those pigs OD’d, and the other blew his brains out. How could they know we had anything to do with either one of them?”

  “They don’t know a thing.” She looked at Malachai. “I don’t suppose your mother got this guy’s name?”

  Malachai nodded. “Gary Brown.”

  Katrina narrowed her eyes. “That’s the name of one of the two cops I killed. The one with the stomach cancer. Baby, somebody is fucking around with your mother.”

  “And that means they’re fucking around with you,” Marcus said.

  Malachai stared at each of them in turn. “A fake cop.”

  “Or a private eye,” Katrina said.

  “Wait a minute,” Marcus said. “A scarecrow came by my crib last night. He was a small-time coke dealer I supplied before all of this here. He told me this ex-cop who used to shake him down for cash and coke gave him a beat down because he wanted to know where you were at.”

  Malachai closed his fingers into a fist around the cell phone. “What ex-cop?”

  “He said the name, but I don’t remember.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I gave him a handful of Magic and told him there’d be more if he took the guy out.”

  “Was the name Jake Helman?”

  Marcus shrugged. “Yeah, I think so.”

  Malachai turned to Katrina, whose face hardened.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” she said.

  Marcus looked at her in disbelief, trying to keep his anger in check. “Say what?”

  Katrina drummed her long fingernails on the tabletop. “You have no idea what plans we have for Helman.”

  Marcus looked at Malachai for support. Seeing none, he turned back to Katrina. “You’re right; I don’t know. Because I never heard of this cracker before, and you don’t tell me shit.”

  Staring into his eyes, Katrina said in a tight voice, “We tell you what you need to know.”

  “Who are you? I was in this organization long before you. I’m Malachai’s right-hand man. I don’t need your say-so to make a move.”

  “Well, you didn’t serve him very well, then, did you? Because I’m the one who put him on top.”