by Cave, Hugh
"And?"
"We came up with a live-in maid who said she worked next door to a house in which lived a man with no legs. She had seen him but twice. On each occasion he had been carried into the yard by a very large woman and deposited on a chair there for several hours. She thought it remarkable that she had seen him outdoors only twice in the heat of the summer, when the interior of an old house such as his, without air conditioning, must have been all but unendurable."
Ken could only nod.
"We investigated and found the house empty," the captain went on. "But ah, the things in that house! We found a man's clothing cut down to be comfortable to a wearer with no legs. We found other clothing to fit the very large woman described by the maid next door. And"—the dramatic pause was typically Haitian—"we found all sorts of paraphernalia used by sorcerers, including black candles of a kind not to be found in any shop. Without a shadow of doubt, mon ami, the man was our thought-to-be-dead Margal."
"But what does it prove, except that a man thought to be dead is not dead?"
"He left that house the night the child disappeared."
"You know this, Roger? How can you, if no one except this maid ever saw him, and she saw him only a couple of times all summer?"
"We know it." Smiling, Labrousse became the basketball player who had personally scored the winning point in a game of great importance. "You are looking at the man responsible. Across the street from this house we have been talking about is one occupied by a lawyer named Claude Etienne, whom I know well. He and his wife are in Europe this summer. The day I went to the house occupied by our sorcerer, the Etiennes' yard boy was trimming their hedge, and I talked to him. He knew nothing of the Dawson child's disappearance, he said. He worked at the Etiennes' only an hour each day. But I felt he was concealing something, so I questioned him more—ah—thoroughly and learned that he also slept on their veranda every night without their permission. They have a sofa that swings—you know the type?—which he adored. And on the night the little girl disappeared, he was there and saw something."
"What did he see, Roger?"
"Voices across the street awoke him, and he saw a car in front of that house, and people talking. One was a man with no legs, seated on the sidewalk. A large, fat woman was leading a small child to the car. The woman went back to the man with no legs and picked him up and put him in the car. Then she herself got in, and the car was driven off."
The captain's penchant for histrionics was no longer amusing. Leaning across the table, Ken said in a low voice, "For God's sake, Roger, that was a kidnapping! Where did they take her?"
"That we do not know. Not yet."
"Did he get the car's number, this boy?"
"Unfortunately, no. But we know for certain that Margal is alive, that he lived for months in that house undetected, that he disappeared when the child did, and—if we are to believe our frightened yard boy—it was Margal who took her."
"Why haven't you told Mrs. Dawson this?"
Labrousse shrugged. "We are not keen to have a hysterical woman on our hands in addition to our other problems, mon ami. Can you imagine the consequences if we tell her that her child is in the hands of Haiti's most feared bocor?"
"But this Margal—what will he do?"
"Who knows? The file we have on him is not one I enjoy looking at. The last time he was involved with a child, he turned her into a zombie."
"The living dead? You believe that?"
Labrousse chose not to reply.
"All right, you believe it. What are you doing to find the man?"
"Everything humanly possible." The Haitian aimed a scowl at Ken's pleading face. "And what about you? Are you a special friend of the Dawsons? Until you phoned, I wasn't aware you even knew them."
"I almost married Sandy Dawson, Roger."
"Really? You do keep things to yourself."
"I'm supposed to go to Miami tomorrow on company business. But if there's any way I can help her, I'll postpone it."
"Your company would permit that?"
"They'll understand. On the other hand, Sandy's husband is in Miami, or is supposed to be, and she hasn't been able to reach him. He should be here, damn him!"
"Acting like an indignant Embassy shit-ass?"
"Or just sharing the burden with his wife. Their daughter is missing, Roger."
"Go to Miami," Labrousse advised. "We are doing everything that can be done here."
"You're sure?"
"I give you my word. When will you return?"
"A day or two."
"Come see me then. I may have something more to tell you." The captain rose and offered his hand. "So you nearly married her, did you? Interesting. I have met her husband a few times; that's why I used the term 'Embassy shit-ass.' Women do have their stupid moments, don't they, mon ami?"
How much should he tell Sandy? Ken wondered as he drove her car back to the house. Not everything. Not what Labrousse had told him about Margal's background. Yet any attempt to tell only part of the truth might trap him in a bog of lies, with Sandy demanding to know what he was hiding.
"I've learned something," he said when she opened the door. He could not have lied to her anyway. "Can we sit down?"
She led him to the dining room, where the table was set for two. He was expected to stay for lunch, then. They sat, and he told her the story much as Roger Labrousse had told it to him.
While he did so, the cook put sandwiches and an avocado salad before them, but he saw no need to interrupt the story on her account. A bright-eyed young woman whom Sandy addressed as Edita, she appeared to be a peasant who spoke only a few words of English.
When he finished, Sandy was more in control of herself. "What, exactly, is a bocor, Ken? I know I've been in this country longer than you, but you're closer to the real Haiti. Does he have something to do with voodoo?"
"I asked Roger, and he said no."
"It would be for money, then, that Margal took Merry?"
"He must know Brian works at the Embassy and assumes you're wealthy."
"I wonder how he got her out of the house." Sandy seemed to be forcing herself to think about it calmly. "I mean, someone must have come here for her. She didn't just walk up the street to where they were waiting."
How was he to answer that? Unless the concept of sorcery here were merely superstition, a bocor had real powers. But what powers?
She did not wait for a reply. "What will you do now?" she asked.
"Well, Labrousse said to have faith in him."
"I don't mean that. What will you do?"
"I?"
"For the rest of today. Tonight. You don't leave for Miami till tomorrow."
"Oh. I usually go to the Etoile."
"Stay here, why don't you?"
He hesitated. It was not the kind of invitation it might seem to be, of course.
"Well . . . all right. I'd like that, Sandy. We can talk."
Chapter Twelve
At six o'clock the Dawsons' cook, Edita, stepped into the living room, where her mistress and M'sieu Forrest were talking.
"Madame est servi," she announced.
Six o'clock was an early hour for dinner in this part of Port-au-Prince, but Madame would not object, she was fairly certain. Not in front of a handsome guest like the pilot from Plantation Margot.
Edita had something special to do this evening and wished to depart early.
Leaving the house soon after seven, she walked home by way of Avenue José Marti and went into the Eglise Sacré Coeur. There were but two others in the church at this hour: a young couple seated near the front with their heads together. Entering a pew near the back, Edita sank to her knees and closed her eyes in prayer.
What she had done was a terrible thing, she knew now, though of course she had not been aware of that while doing it. The fat woman from up the street had deceived her. The child's panty had not been for the laundress at all, but for that awful man with no legs, the sorcerer Margal.
And eve
ryone in Haiti who knew anything about him had thought him dead!
So Margal was not dead. He had somehow survived the fire that was said to have destroyed him. And now for reasons of his own—wholly evil ones, no doubt—he had found a way to kidnap Madame Dawson's lovely little daughter.
As she thought about it and mentally reviewed the part she had innocently played in it, Edita wept. She truly loved the child. Not for anything in the world would she knowingly have done a thing that might cause Merry harm.
What, oh God, was she to do now? Confess and lose her job, when jobs were so hard to find and she had children of her own to feed?
For half an hour she knelt in the church, weeping and praying. The young couple from the front pew looked at her with curiosity as they walked out.
When she herself departed, she stood for a time on the sidewalk, undecided. Should she obey her conscience and return to the house in Rue Printemps to confess what she had done? Or should she follow her instinct for self-preservation and go home with her lips sealed?
In the end she went home.
"If you're to catch a plane in the morning, I suppose we ought to stop talking," Sandy said much later to Ken Forrest. Ken never flew the company's small plane to Florida. He took commercial flights.
He glanced at his watch. "After midnight. We have talked, haven't we?"
Mostly about themselves, he realized. After, of course, discussing the disappearance of her daughter until they were only repeating themselves.
At first Sandy had seemed reluctant to discuss her marriage. Had, in fact, tried to ward off questions by asking about himself and his work. But with that subject exhausted, she had come around to being honest.
So now he knew. This woman he had loved in college was about ready to throw in the towel. Would probably, in fact, have done so already but for their child. Brian Dawson was a womanizer. A snob. A boor.
"He loves Merry, though," she insisted. "He really does."
She had not meant to say all these things, he guessed. Mostly she had just wanted to stop being afraid for a while.
And what had he told her about himself? The truth, for what it was worth. He liked his plantation job. He was grateful to her for recommending him for it. He thought Haiti exciting. He hadn't found another woman to take her place.
So much for that.
"Just let me lock up and I'll show you your room," she said.
He followed her about while she checked the shutters and doors. "Most people around here have a live-in housekeeper or house boy," she said. "I told Brian I didn't want one. Maybe if I'd listened to him, this wouldn't have happened."
"Stop blaming yourself."
"Is that what I'm doing?"
He took her hand. "I think you are, for a lot of things. And you're wrong."
At the foot of the stairs she turned to face him. "I'm to blame for one thing, at least. You didn't leave me."
No, he thought, I didn't.
As they climbed the stairs together, he found himself remembering what might have happened. He had known she was seeing a lot of Dawson. She hadn't kept that from him. But the cutoff had been a real thunderbolt all the same—just a phone call to say she wouldn't be seeing him again because she was going to marry Brian. It was the one night of his life he'd got blind drunk.
At the top of the stairs she halted. "That's your room at the end of the hall."
"Okay."
"I'm glad you could stay. I haven't said all I wanted to, I guess you know."
"Both of us."
She turned to face him. Touched his hand. "Maybe it's best, no? Good night, Ken."
He was aware of the stillness. It was a big house, they were the only ones in it, and except for the hall light it was now dark. It seemed to be holding its breath, waiting to find out what they would do.
He drew her close and touched his lips to her forehead. With her six-year-old daughter in the hands of a kidnapper, how could he do more?
"'Night, pal. Try to sleep."
She nodded. He waited for her to go into her room and close the door, then went down the hall and switched on the light in the room he was to occupy. Edita had brought up his bag earlier.
The room had its own bathroom. Undressed, he decided he could use a shower and took one, then put out the light and got into bed.
He was not too surprised when Sandy came to him a few minutes later in her pajamas. What really startled him was that, after touching her lips to his, she stepped back, said, "Thank you—oh, thank you!" in a whisper, and then fled from the room like a frightened ghost.
Chapter Thirteen
Elie Jumel was not a man Clarisse felt inclined to trust. About forty, with beady eyes and a dark-roast coffee complexion, he made her think of a small, hungry mouse.
He worked, he had told them, for a company that looked after the maintenance of certain citrus groves in the area. Mostly he drove trucks and tractors. For a modest rent the company allowed him to use this house he lived in. But they, M'sieu Margal and M'selle Clarisse, must not judge all Florida citrus by the sad-looking orange trees surrounding it. These had grown old and been abandoned. One day they would be removed and new ones planted.
"I have lived here six years," the mouse told them, "and you can see how I have fixed this old place up. In Haiti I was an electrician and a mason, and I came to this country legally and am a citizen now. Which is not to say you are not welcome as Haitians," he quickly added with a glance at Margal. "I am totally at your service!"
His shrillness indicated that he was also more than a little apprehensive. Sizing him up, Clarisse wondered what was in the letter from his cousin Polivien, handed to him by Margal when they arrived.
But, yes, the house was not bad. The unpainted cypress of which it was constructed was the color of silver and not unattractive. Jumel also had two large, ugly, coal-black dogs to guard it, but after getting it through their heads that the intruders were present with their master's approval, they suspended their growling and merely prowled about like sooty ghosts.
Margal and she, with the child, shared a large bedroom. Jumel had a smaller one, separated from theirs by a bathroom. The kitchen would be adequate after she had given it a thorough cleaning. The mouse did not have a wife to attend to such things.
And—a point that pleased Margal immensely—the house was equipped with a telephone. "The company had it installed because I am sometimes needed quickly," Jumel explained. "For instance, when the weather becomes suddenly cold in winter and there is danger of the citrus freezing, I am wanted in a hurry to help with the heaters in the groves."
So then, good. They had arrived in this country without being detected. They had a roof over their heads. Their host dared not be other than eager to accommodate them.
Still, something appeared to have gone wrong.
They had arrived yesterday evening. On awakening this morning, Margal had ordered her to place him on the floor and had sent her and the child out of their bedroom, saying he wished to be alone. It was now seven in the evening and he was still there with the door shut, refusing to allow her to enter even to feed him.
It was time, she decided, to put an end to such dangerous nonsense.
Bearing a tray with his supper on it, the third lot of food she had prepared since morning, she hesitated before his door, then dared to turn the knob and shoulder the door open.
"Why are you behaving this way?" she demanded. "Don't you know you must eat?"
"Go away. I am not hungry."
"You must be hungry. You haven't touched food all day!"
He turned his head to scowl at her. From the look of him, he had been sitting there in the center of his three circles since daybreak. The black candle burning before him was not the same one, of course. Many must have contributed to the mound of wax in which this one stood. "I am not able to reach him," he said in sullen anger. "We are too far from where he is."
She placed the tray of food beside him. "Reach whom?"
"The child'
s father, of course. Who else?"
"Don't growl at me as if I'm stupid. You haven't yet told me why we are here, you know. It's as if I'm not worth talking to."
He sat there quizzically gazing at her, the way he sometimes did when she worked up the courage to remind him that she was a human being. Not that he ever remembered it for long. This evening she had on a dress he liked—a red one she had worn often in their mountain village before he lost his legs. Perhaps that mellowed him a little.
"I must reach the child's father." Beckoning her to come closer, he reached up and took hold of her hand. "I foresaw a problem when that fellow on the boat said we would be so far from Miami. To reach Dawson at that distance I must have something he has worn or had in his possession. Something that is a part of him."
She took her hand back and buried her fists in the fat above her hips. "And you have nothing that is a part of him?"
"No. When I told you to get something that belonged to the child, I should have—"
"Margal, where is your mind today? You have the child herself!"
"What?"
"Is she not a part of him? Where did she come from, if not from his seed?"
He looked at her long and hard. "You know, Clarisse, I underestimate you sometimes. Yes. Bring the child here!"
Merry was in the front room, looking at pictures in old magazines with which Jumel had enlarged his English. Or so he claimed. She did not protest when told that Margal wished to see her. She was a classic example, Clarisse reflected, of the way he was able to control a mind. Just as he controls mine, she thought.
When they entered the bedroom together, Margal held out his arms and Merry went to him. "Sit here, ti-fi," he said, patting the floor.
Guided by his hands, she sat with her back to him. "Put the candle in front of her, Clarisse."
Clarisse did so, dripping some wax to secure it.
"Now," he said to Merry, leaning forward to touch his face to hers, "you may sleep if you wish. Watch the candle burning. It will help you."
"Do I have to sleep?"
"No, but watch the candle flame for me, eh? And if you do sleep, it will be all right." Coiling his arms around her, he put his hands on her infant breasts and pressed her against him. "Are you comfortable?"