by Baxter Clare
“Guess who’s back in town,” he said.
“Elvis?”
“Not an Anglo.”
“Hendrix?”
“Not black.”
“Pancho Villa?”
“Not as nice a moustache. Tito Carrillo. Guess the border boys missed him.”
“Did you talk to him?”
Contributing to the conversation, Lewis settled her muscled bulk onto a chair that looked like it was about to become kindling.
“Not yet we haven’t. I stopped at Hernandez’s—”
“She forgot to have him sign his statement,” Noah snickered.
Lewis flushed, nostrils flaring like a bull’s before a charge. Frank wondered what her blood pressure was like. Mad-dogging her partner, Lewis continued.
“I stopped by Hernandez’s place and he told me Carrillo was back in town. He seemed awfully tense and it finally come out that Carrillo still wants to do business with him and Echevarria. I don’t know why,” Lewis snorted. “There ain’t no way I’d want those two backing me. Nuh-uh. But he’s determined to go through with his plan, despite what happened to Duncan and despite all the warnings they got. Hernandez said Carrillo said that he ain’t scared. That some old lady isn’t gonna tell him what to do.”
“Find him,” Frank said. “Talk to him.”
Lewis nodded.
“I went by his crib but he wasn’t home. His old lady said she didn’t know when he’s coming back. I figured I’d drop by again on my way home. But the—”
“Sister Shaft,” Noah rode Lewis. “Don’t you ever sleep?”
Frank backed her rookie, asking Noah where he’d been while Lewis attended the post.
“Now I knew you’d be pissed about that,” Noah defended, “but wait’ll you hear this. Oh God,” he laughed, clutching his stomach, “You’re gonna love this. Johnnie, listen up. This is rich.”
That was all the prompting Johnnie needed to sit back and prop his feet on the desk.
“Okay, so I was going through Belizaro’s murder book this morning—waiting for Smokin’ Joe,” he acknowledged his partner, “to do whatever the hell she was doing in the girls room—and I notice he was busted a couple months ago for jackin’ that butcher shop on 69th. And it dawns on me, I was talking to Mrs. Belizaro a couple days ago, and she mentioned something about how she never knew she had such wonderful neighbors. Even the butcher.”
Noah smiled, rocking his chair back on two legs. A slow grin lit Frank’s face and she shook her head. Noah nodded.
Lewis looked puzzled, prodding, “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Johnnie echoed, “for those of us who aren’t into that Vulcan mind meld shit like you two.”
Noah continued, “Mrs. Belizaro says, ‘I never go to him, but he brought me a bag of meat. Isn’t that sweet?’”
“Nice,” Frank said.
“And,” Noah continued, dropping the chair back down, “that cold case of Nook’s, ‘member, about nine months ago? Male black with his guts emptied out behind the Pik-Rite and chunks carved off of him? Jacked that same carniceria nine days before he was picked off. I called his baby muhvuh and asked if a butcher had come by offering condolences. ‘Yeah, she says. He even brought us a bag of meat.’”
“She-et,” Lewis said, disgusted, and Johnnie laughed. Noah did too, but managed to say, “No wait. This is the best part. The baby muhvuh says”—Noah laughed, wiping his eyes—“she says, ‘He was the nicest man. He knew we were Muslim and he even made it kosher.”’
“Ya’ll sick mothers,” Lewis said, stalking over to her desk. Johnnie was still laughing as Noah said to Frank, “I figured you’d rather I worked on the search warrant.”
“What a fucking job,” Frank said. “Mrs. Belizaro have any of that meat left?”
“Why, you wanna have a barbeque?” Johnnie choked.
“I already got it. Put it on ice. I’ll send it to the lab tomorrow, see what we get.”
Frank said to Lewis, “Heard the post went well.”
“It was all right, I guess. It didn’t tell us much more than we already know. Seems like our boy was still alive when his throat was slit. The doctor didn’t find anything unusual.”
“Did he say much?”
“Naw, he didn’t talk hardly at all. I had to keep asking him things.”
Frank glanced at Noah and he lifted his hands in the air, knowing she was peeved Lewis had to work with Paul Seuter alone.
Seuter was a skilled pathologist, but extremely shy. Talking was as comfortable for him as chewing razors. Because of that, and his pasty skin, the detectives called him Boo Radley. Frank wondered what the novice detective had missed and hoped she could spot it in Seuter’s prelim report.
“Anything else?”
“Yeah,” Noah piped up. “What else did Sister Shaft do today? Close all our opens, catch Jack the Ripper, and still get to soccer practice on time?”
Lewis glared at her partner.
“Do you mind if I finish?”
“A’ight,” Noah rapped, “I’ma head for the door, I’ma give you the floor. Y’all wanna speak, then talk to Le Freek.”
When it came from anyone other than Noah her nickname had a nasty edge, but Frank applauded his rhyming skills.
“Shit,” Lewis whined, “why I gotta work with some crazy-ass O’Malley think he Busta Rhymes?”
“Hey, I ain’t no O’Malley. I’m a Jew.”
“Jewish, Irish, shit, y’all look the same to me,” Lewis zinged back. Frank was pleased to see her holding her own, not getting her back up too much.
“Now let me finish,” Lewis continued. “We leaned on Hernandez some. Jack Lord here,” she said, tilting her head to Noah, “he ran the ‘you’re the best suspect’ number on him again. Hernandez did his crybaby thing then allows as how he was at Carrillo ‘s the night Duncan’s murder went down. Not only was he there,” Lewis gloated, “he and Carrillo saw one of the twins get out of Duncan’s car after parking it and drive off in another car. Looked like a gray Benzo, sedan model.”
“That’s the good news,” Noah interjected. “Now tell her the bad news.”
“Ain’t no way he’s gonna cop to it in court. He knows Mother Love’ll kill him. He messes his pants just thinking about her.”
“Well, at least we’re on the right track,” Frank said. “Keep looking for Carrillo. We need him. I’ll check with Fubar, see about some witness protection for Hernandez. Might be more inclined to turn if we can get the Mother off his back.”
“I doubt it,” Noah said. “He’s a punk ass. And besides? Which twin are you gonna pin? Lewis say’s they’re identical.”
Noah’s pessimism was his way of venting. Frank knew there wasn’t a lead he’d pass up, no matter how improbable. She ignored him, letting Lewis add a few more details, until the phone rang in her office. Frank dashed for it.
“Homicide. Franco.”
“Narcotics. Kennedy.”
“S’up sport?”
“Got the info you requested. There’s a boat load. Want to swing by on your way home?”
“That’d work. Until then, give me the gist of it.”
“Gist of it is this lady’s got some fat pockets and knows how to keep her ass out of a sling. Twenty-three charges, mostly all related to felony possession, and not one conviction. This Betty knows how to fly below the radar. And who to fly with.”
Kennedy named a preeminent L.A. law firm, citing a cadre of attorneys the Mother retained there.
“Another curious thing is that a lot of her associates tend to have ugly accidents. Rico Dali, Honduran coke peddler, fell off a roof in 1983.”
That was Joe Girardi’s frigidaire.
“Jojo Johnson, he was evidently a player in the Rollin 40’s and a turf rival. He apparently electrocuted himself in his bathtub. Billy Daniels hustled for the Mother in the early ‘90s. Somebody doused him with gas and set him on fire in his own bed.”
“Whoa,” Frank said, making furious notes. “Who handled that?”
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Kennedy’s papers whispered together.
“Newton,” she answered, referring to the LAPD division just east of Figueroa. “But wait, there’s more. You get all this for only nineteen ninety-nine, plus, we’ll throw in free, extra, at no charge, a pair—you heard right—a pair of Panamanians also with their throats slit.”
“A double?”
“That’s right. But if you act now, we’ll throw in a pimp and rising ghetto star burned to death inside his car.”
“What year?”
“Looks like ‘88.”
Gough’s cold one.
“Impressive, huh?”
“Back to the Panamanians. Who caught that?”
“That would be …” Her papers rustled again. “County. In ‘89.”
“You done good. I owe you a Cherry coke and fries.”
“That’s all? A coke and fries?”
“I don’t even want to know what else you have in mind.”
“Aw come on, now, I know you’re putting the squeeze on Doc Law, and dang don’t I know you’re a one-woman gal. I was just thinking dinner and maybe some gin afterwards.”
Frank recollected how previous gin games had ended in the bedroom. Darcy leaned into her office, holding up the note she’d left. She waved him in.
“All right. You’re on. But let me get back to you. I gotta go.”
Kennedy talked to air as Frank swung the receiver into its cradle.
“Have a seat,” she told Darcy and closed the door.
“How’d you know about that kid in the dumpster?”
He shrugged.
“It was like the .44.”
Resettling into her old chair, Frank said, “Just another picture in your head?”
“Kind of. This was more like a feeling that there was another kid, but that he was missing.”
“A feeling?”
Darcy nodded without giving anything else up.
“What are we talking here? ESP, premonitions?”
“I can’t bend spoons or make doors slam,” he smiled, “but I guess you could call it that.”
“What do you call it?”
“Just a utilized talent. I think everybody’s capable of receiving extrasensory information, but most people don’t develop the requisite awareness.”
“And you have?”
“Obviously.”
Frank sat back with her hands behind her head.
“What about all this voodoo shit? Do I even want to know?”
Darcy’s smile widened.
“My ex-wife’s a Mambo priestess.”
“A Mambo priestess,” Frank repeated. Darcy’s complexity amazed her once again. “The only thing I know about mambos is the Perry Como song.”
“When you grow up in Louisiana it’s almost impossible to avoid learning something about the culture. History permeates your life as surely as mold. Then when you marry into it…”
Aware she was opening herself up to a dissertation, Frank asked, “So what would it mean if somebody hung a black cat on your porch, left a little sack under your door mat, and sprinkled some kind of dirt all around your house? All this while your two dogs were loose in the yard.”
Darcy smoothed his moustache while Frank tried to imagine him with a Mambo priestess. He was good-looking, short but powerfully built, attractive if one liked the strong, silent type. Brown hair— defiantly past regulation limits—set off baby-blues that didn’t miss much. As Darcy mulled the question, she admired his self-assurance. He radiated a quiet strength and Frank thought he’d be a good man in a crisis. Despite her earlier misgivings about his temper, she was increasingly glad he was on the team. When she’d asked him on his first day if he planned on punching her out like his last supervisor he’d thought it over, answering, “Only if you’re as dumb an asshole as he was.” Frank had checked a smile, deciding Darcy James the Third might fit in well at Figueroa. So far, so good.
“It would appear,” he answered at last, “that someone was fucking with my head. First of all, the black cat, that’s a powerful hoodoo symbol. The thing about a black cat is it’s universally recognized as an ill omen. The term mojo originally meant a bone from a black cat. It’s come to mean a hand, or gris-gris—small bags, traditionally made of red flannel, filled with whatever ingredients the conjurer deems necessary. Mojos are usually worn under the clothing for good luck, but as in this case, they can be filled with bad things and left somewhere near the victim to emit their properties.”
“What sort of bad things?”
“Oh, that’s quite a list. The graveyard dirt you mentioned. Coffin nails. The victim’s own hair or dried skin. Bodily fluids. Snake parts. The list goes on and on.”
“So basically pretty benign stuff.”
Darcy raised a finger. “Benign to you and me, but wonderfully potent to the believer.”
Frank made a concessionary motion.
“Now the graveyard dirt, that’s a large part of what’s called laying down tricks or crossing someone. You sprinkle a prepared powder like Goofer Dust or Crossing Dust where your victim has to step on it. The theory is the powder then imparts its power to the victim and he succumbs to whatever hex the conjurer has placed on the powder.”
Frank interrupted, “A prepared powder? You buy this stuff somewhere?”
“Any good botanica should carry it, yes. It’s probably harder to find out here, but in Louisiana you can find powders in drugstores. I suspect you can order it on-line nowadays.”
“Do you mix it with anything else or just straight powder?”
“That depends on the conjurer. Some of them won’t even use the prepared mixes. They’ll make their own, especially if they need it in quantity, so there can be anything in it.”
“Like what?”
“Well.” Darcy went back to stroking his moustache. “My guess would be you’d start with something like graveyard dust or lodestone dust, add some cayenne, ground up black cat bone, snake skin. Add a little salt, maybe some sulphur. I’m sure it varies depending on the locality.”
Darcy fixed Frank with his pretty blues, asking why she wanted to know all this.
“Just trying to get a handle on the Mother. See where’s she’s coming from so I know what we should be looking for.”
She explained about the powder in Hernandez’ yard and was wondering if it might be traceable back to the Mother.
“You’d have a hard time proving that.”
“I know. Circumstantial at best. But every link helps. Right now she’s our best suspect but how the hell do we prove it?”
“Maybe you’d better get some Just Judge Powder.” He grinned.
“They make something like that?”
“You bet. It’s supposed to get the judge on your side.”
“I’ll be damned. You’re just a walking voodoo compendium.”
“Hoodoo,” Darcy corrected. “Voodoo, that’s something else. But I have to admit, I found it all pretty intriguing.”
“Do you believe in it?”
The moustache pull and pause.
“To some degree, yes. The mind’s a powerful tool. I wouldn’t discount what it can do.”
“So you think it’s all based on power of suggestion.”
“That’s certainly a crucial element but I wouldn’t limit it to that, no.
“What else is there?”
Darcy’s smile was enigmatic.
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”
They exchanged a slow, steady stare, two cops steeped in the realities of blood and bone.
“All right.” She settled back. “Anything else I should know?”
Darcy rose with slow grace. Like a big jungle cat, Frank thought. He paused, seeming to juggle his thoughts before telling her, “I wouldn’t underestimate this Mother Love.”
She stifled her irritation, replying to a memo she’d picked up, “I try to never underestimate anyone.”
Frank had expected more objectivity from Darcy and was fast losing
patience with everyone’s misplaced awe of a conniving old drug dealer. As he was leaving, he added, “I’d appreciate it if it didn’t get out about my ex.”
“Why do you think I closed the door?” she said without looking up.
“And hey,” she called after him.
Darcy popped his head back in.
“Get a haircut.”
19
No longer male or female, sexless, it had even forgotten what it used to be. Once the bones had been fleshed, but now they carried only creased skin. It ate very little and until lately, was always cold. It felt as if it had been cold for generations, but recently the red rage had started a final resurgence through its ravaged, yellow bones. That lovely, self-sustaining anger was the only thing that could warm it anymore and the heat was greatest when it was near either one of them.
After so long a time, it was delirious to feel that warmth again and it tried to stay near one of the two. The dark one was consistently warm, dependably so, but the other one … oh what an intense heat came from that one! A heat so bright, so white-hot, it could feel it sitting here against the brick wall, far from the source. Yet—it cocked its head—that blinding, beautiful sun was getting closer. Its eyes were useless, true, but yet it saw and its mouth cleaved in a toothless, puerile rictus.
They were coming together. At first their heat had touched it as tentatively as a spent wave reaches the shore, but the surges had begun to mount. Hotter and stronger now, deliciously warming, the waves lapped steadily against it, day and night.
No, the storm wasn’t far off. But just as a moth couldn’t think about the outcome of diving into a flame, the relic couldn’t contemplate the inevitable clash of darkness meeting light. It orbited closer and closer to the center of the flame.
20
After talking to Darcy, Frank fired off a quick call to an acquaintance at the County Sheriff’s department. Robbie Harris, a.k.a. Bartlett, wasn’t in. She was just as happy to leave a message and bypass his endless recitation of quotes.
Done with that, she made nice to Lieutenant Tremont at the Newton Division. He assured her Billy Daniel’s murder book would be waiting for her when she came by. But before that, she wanted to drop in on the one person who might know the Mother best.