Evil Returns

by Cave, Hugh

  Ken looked around. The apartment seemed to consist of this room, an even smaller kitchen, and a grubby little bedroom. There were four rickety chairs, a cot, a table for dining.

  More space could be found—certainly more fresh air!—in many of the poorest peasant cailles in Haiti, at least in those out in the country, where most of the people had a bit of land to cultivate as well. So why in God's name did so many Haitians sell everything they owned to buy their way here, sometimes risking their lives on homemade boats held together with bailing wire?

  He had no answer. He himself had found Haiti fascinating, and had liked nothing better than to explore its mountains and mysteries. But he wasn't a peasant with no hope of ever improving his lot, was he? Or a peasant citizen of a country whose leaders cared only for themselves and to hell with the barefoot masses under them.

  There were footsteps outside. Into the room came Monestimé, followed by two middle-aged men and a younger one. Of the older pair, one was stout and grinning, the other reed thin with shifty eyes. The young fellow, in shirt and pants of sweat-stained denim, was no doubt the new arrival.

  At Monestimé's bidding they sat, while their host perched on the edge of the cot. "M'sieu Ken," the carpenter said, "allow me to introduce to you Fortune Boiset"—the smiling, fat one—"and Marcel Odiol"—the one whose eyes would not be still. "They live here in the building."

  The fat man beamed. Shifty eyes nodded.

  "And this young man, m'sieu, is the one who just arrived."

  "You came yesterday?" Ken asked the youth.

  "He speaks only Creole, m'sieu."

  "Ou te vini ici hier, compère?"

  The youth looked frightened enough to leap to his feet and race out the door if anyone made a move toward him. "Oui, m-m-m'sieu," he stammered.

  "Ask him," Ken said to the man on the cot, "if there was a little white girl on the boat that brought him. My Creole comes hard."

  Monestimé and the youth chattered back and forth in the Haitian peasant tongue while the others listened.

  "He says yes. There was a little white girl. Her companions were a very big black woman called Clarisse, and a black man with no legs."

  "Ask him the name of the legless man, Raoul."

  Again an exchange of Creole. "He doesn't know.

  The man stayed in the cabin throughout the voyage. Only the woman came on deck, with the little girl. They didn't talk much."

  "Ask him if he has ever heard of a legless Haitian bocor named Margal."

  Monestimé put the question. "He says yes, but Margal is dead."

  Tired of the three-way dialogue, Ken tried his own Creole again. "Compère, are you saying this man on the boat could not have been Margal?"

  "Well, I don't know," the youth replied. "I mean, I have never seen the terrible Margal. But everyone in Haiti knows he died in a fire in Port-au-Prince many months ago."

  "All right. Tell me what happened when you landed. In Wabasso, was it?"

  "Yes, in Wabasso. And that man with no legs did a wicked thing. The passengers had paid for two cars to meet them and bring them here to Miami. He commandeered one and kept six people waiting there, in danger of being caught, until it returned."

  "How could he do that? Was he armed?"

  The youth wagged his head.

  "How, then?"

  "I don't—well, I don't know. He just did. The driver seemed afraid of him."

  "Let me be sure I understand this." The outrush of Creole had left Ken groping a little. He had a genuine flair for languages, but that strange mixture of corrupted old French, African, and Spanish was far from being one of the easiest to master. Besides, even in Haiti it differed in different regions.

  "You are saying that this man without legs, traveling with the white child and the fat woman, commandeered a car that others were depending on for transportation to Miami?"

  "Yes, m'sieu."

  "But the car did bring them here eventually?"

  "It did. Yes."

  "Is the driver here now?"

  "No, no, m'sieu. He was hired there, not here."

  "Very well, how long did you have to wait at the dock for the car to return after it went off with those three?"

  The youth frowned in thought. "About forty minutes."

  "You're sure?"

  "I am sure, m'sieu."

  So they didn't go far, Ken thought. They've got to be holed up somewhere within twenty minutes of where the boat docked. "Tell me—why did the boat land at Wabasso? Why not closer to Miami?" It was probably a stupid question. Wabasso must be a place where illegal aliens could be brought ashore at less risk.

  The youth surprised him. "Polivien has a cousin near there."

  "Polivien? Who's he?"

  "The owner of the fishing boat that brought us to the Bahamas."

  "And your contact at Wabasso was this cousin?"

  "I understand everything was arranged through him."

  "Do you suppose the three who took the car went to him?"

  "Well, perhaps. Who can say?"

  "Where does he live?"

  "In a place called Gifford, where many black people live."

  Ken's pulse was pounding. "Do you know his name, friend?"

  The youth looked at his companions. Fortune Boiset still smiled happily, as though proud to be part of such a dramatic performance. Marcel Odiol of the shifty eyes stared at Ken as though trying to memorize his face. Finally the boy looked at Monestimé, and the carpenter gave him a nod.

  "His name is Elie Jumel, m'sieu."

  And I'll bet I have part of his phone number, Ken thought, barely suppressing a shout of elation. Sandy, darling, I think I've found your daughter!

  Rising, he thanked Monestimé and the others for their help, and then turned to leave. But the shifty-eyed man, Odiol, stepped in front of him.

  "M'sieu, do you have a cigarette?"

  "I don't smoke. Sorry."

  "The means of buying some, then?"

  "Well, yes." From his billfold Ken extracted a five-dollar bill.

  It was a small price to pay for what he had learned here, he thought as he departed.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It wasn't a very nice house, Merry decided.

  She was especially afraid of Mr. Jumel's big black dogs, who never seemed to stop prowling. She had a feeling they were watching her all the time with their ugly, red-flecked eyes and might decide all of a sudden to leap at her.

  The truth was that she wouldn't want to stay in this house another single minute if Clarisse were not here.

  On the voyage from Haiti, Margal had been the one who talked to her a lot. Clarisse had only done what he told her to. But now that Daddy was here, Margal was too busy.

  Even Daddy was too busy. Ever since his arrival yesterday, he and Margal had been shut up in the big bedroom with the door closed. Even last night they had stayed in there together, making it necessary for Clarisse and herself to sleep on an old mattress that "the mouse," as they secretly called Mr. Jumel, put on the living room floor for them.

  All through the night Merry had kept waking up because the mattress was so hard. And every time she did, she heard the two men talking. They must have talked the whole night through.

  She couldn't hear what they were saying. The bedroom door muffled it. But first Margal would say something, and then Daddy would seem to repeat it. Mumble, mumble, mumble from Margal, then mumble, mumble, mumble from Daddy, just like an echo. On and on and on, as if Margal was a teacher and Daddy was someone being taught.

  She was tired now. It was like Mommy said sometimes: a little girl who didn't get enough sleep would be dopey next day. Seated on the mattress with a magazine, she looked at Clarisse.

  There was a picture in the magazine of a whale on a beach, and that was what Clarisse looked like, lying there on the mattress. She hadn't slept much last night, either, and was making up for it now by taking an afternoon nap. But her eyes were open. "Hello, ti-fi," she said with a smile.

  "
How are you feeling?" Merry asked her.

  "Better, but still full of aches. I hope we get our beds back tonight."

  "Me, too."

  "Has your daddy talked to you yet?"

  Merry wagged her head. "Not even once."

  "I'm sure he will when the two of them finish." If, Clarisse thought, Margal decides to let him.

  Recalling what had happened when the child's father arrived, she frowned in disapproval. First the dogs had begun to bark—a thing they didn't do often, thank heaven, for when they did they bared their fangs and the sound was enough to curdle one's blood. Then the ugly brutes had run to the front door, still barking, and she looked out a window and saw a car stopping by the mailbox.

  Brian Dawson jumped out of it, stumbling in the soft sand in his haste to reach the house. And knowing he was expected, she had shouted at Margal to do something lest the brutes attack him when she opened the door to him.

  "All right," Margal called from the bedroom, where he was busy doing something she was not permitted to watch. And suddenly, like whipped curs, the two brutes put their bellies to the floor and slunk into Jumel's room. So she was able to open the door, and Daddy saw his daughter in the kitchen and ran to her, calling her name and moaning something like, "Oh, thank God, thank God!"

  The little girl had been drinking some milk. When she put the glass down on the counter and ran to him, he fell to his knees and put his arms around her. She kept crying "Daddy!" and he kept sobbing her name while they hugged each other.

  Then Margal called from the bedroom, "Bring him straight here to me, Clarisse! At once!"

  When the legless one spoke in that tone, you didn't disobey him even if you thought him heartless. She had gone to Merry's father, who also had heard the shouted command, of course, and said to him, "It would not be wise to keep him waiting." So he had let her lead him into the bedroom, and there he had been ever since.

  She had gone into that room several times herself, of course, to perform her various duties. After all, Margal had to be taken to the bathroom, he had to be bathed, he had to be fed. Both men ought to have been fed, but the legless one ordered food only for himself, letting the white man go hungry.

  Each time, on entering the room, she had found M'sieu Dawson seated on a chair beside the bed, unmoving, staring at her master as though hypnotized. Or, more accurately, like someone dead who was propped up to participate in his own funeral, as was sometimes done by certain people in the mountains of Haiti.

  No one else had been allowed in that room, however. Not Merry. Not Jumel. Not even the dogs. During the daytime, of course, the mouse worked at his job. He couldn't stop working just because a bocor from his homeland had descended upon him and taken over his home. But on returning from work yesterday he had not even tried to talk to Margal. Hearing the teacher-pupil voices from behind that closed door, he was careful to keep his distance.

  Only once, in fact, had Jumel even allowed himself to display any curiosity about what was happening. "Whose fancy car is that out front?" he asked while eating supper in the kitchen.

  "The child's father came in it."

  "Oh," he replied, and then talked about the food —how it was good, thank you, but he missed the poiset-di-ri, the jonjon, the mirlitons of Haiti. "Of course, one can buy mirlitons here," he said, perhaps to demonstrate how indifferent he was to what Margal and the child's father were doing. "They're called chayotes. But somehow they don't taste the same as those I used to buy from our marchandes."

  Then after supper he had retired to his small bedroom and shut the door, as if to say, "Whatever is going on here, I don't want to know about it."

  "What are you looking at, ti-fi?" Clarisse asked now. Not that she cared. But she had slept awhile, leaving the child with no one to talk to, and felt she ought to make up for it.

  Merry put her magazine back with the others. "Nothing special. Just some pictures of things to eat."

  "Are you hungry?"

  "A little."

  "Let's see what we can find in the kitchen, shall we?"

  "I don't want to bother you."

  "You're not. I have to think about what to fix for supper anyway." Clarisse glanced at the door of Jumel's bedroom. "Is the mouse back from work yet?"

  "He came while you were sleeping. He's in his room."

  Purchasing the food was Jumel's responsibility. Margal paid for it. She cooked it. In the kitchen she spread peanut butter and jelly on some bread for Merry, and then opened the refrigerator to see what the mouse had brought. She found a piece of pork that had not been there before.

  As she began to prepare a Haitian meal of fried pork and rice, she wondered whether Margal was paying the mouse for allowing them to use his home. He could, of course; he was wealthy. But then again, he might feel that whatever he needed or wanted was his by some kind of divine right.

  Her Margal at that moment sat fully clothed on his bed, propped against a pillow which, at his command, the terrified father of Merry Dawson had arranged for him without protest. Brian Dawson no longer sat beside the bed but stood rigid with his back to a wall, as far from his tutor as the dimensions of the room would permit.

  The two stared at each other, the sorcerer's eyes glowing and pulsing like red-hot coals, the other's as empty as frozen spheres of water.

  "What am I commanding you to do?" Margal asked in a voice barely audible.

  "To kneel."

  "Why are you not doing it, then?"

  Still returning the bocor's gaze, Dawson sank to his knees.

  "Now what am I commanding you to do?"

  "To come to you on my knees."

  "Well?"

  As though his whole body had become lead-heavy, Dawson inched himself forward on his knees without letting his hands touch the floor. On reaching the bed he became a kneeling statue, his face oily with sweat.

  Margal leaned forward to look down at him. "You have learned well how to obey. That is good. Those who learn quickly are most often able to teach others. Command me."

  "I don't understand."

  "Command me to do something. Use your eyes as I do. Use your mind, and the power within yourself that I have made you aware of." He watched the other's eyes and waited. But after a moment he shattered the stillness by saying sharply, "No! You are using your lips!"

  "But I said nothing."

  "Nevertheless, your lips moved. You are projecting words instead of thoughts. Use your mind!"

  The learner tried again, and again was harshly reprimanded. For nearly an hour this part of the lesson continued, while the agony of remaining on his knees caused Dawson's once handsome face to age.

  Then came a moment when the man on the bed smiled with satisfaction.

  "You instructed me to lie back and go to sleep, did you not?"

  Dawson seemed startled, then afraid. "Well—yes."

  "Excellent. Of course, had I obeyed you, you would have rushed from this room and fled with your daughter to the car outside. Is that not so?"

  "I—I—,"

  "Never mind. It seems I have taught you well. Be grateful, even though we are both tired now."

  "Tired!" The word was a groan. "For God's sake, can we sleep now?" the kneeling man begged. "We've been at this all night, all day—"

  "One more little test, if you please."

  "Oh, God," Dawson moaned.

  Margal peered down at him. "What am I telling you to do?"

  "To—to go into the kitchen where the others are eating their supper and give Jumel a command to see if he will obey me."

  "Good."

  "But—what shall I tell him to do?"

  "Whatever you wish." A shrug. "Tell him to fondle my Clarisse if that appeals to you. Her reaction might be amusing, and we've earned a little recreation, no?"

  "I—I will think of something."

  "Go, then. If he obeys you, I'll let you sleep for a few hours."

  Dawson rose from his knees and turned his back to the bed. Like a somnambulist he walked to the do
or and opened it. Leaving it open behind him, he paced through the living room into the kitchen, where his daughter sat with Clarisse and Jumel at a plastic-topped table.

  With a happy cry of "Daddy!" the child scrambled from her chair and ran to him.

  He knelt and put his arms around her, but not for long. Whispering into her ear, "Stay with me! Hold on to my hand!" he lurched to his feet. The other two watched from the table.

  Ignoring Clarisse, Dawson focused his gaze on Jumel, concentrating fiercely on the little man's eyes. His own took on a tinge of red as he did so. Not the unearthly glow achieved by Margal at such times, but at least a hint of it.

  The mouse gazed back at him like a mesmerized bird responding to the death stare of a snake. Merry looked up at her father in bewilderment.

  A moment passed. No one had spoken—not even Clarisse, who was not involved in what was happening. Then Jumel murmured, "Yes, yes, I understand," and slid from his chair.

  Crossing the kitchen, he drew open a drawer beside the sink and took out a knife with a six-inch blade. The blade caught the light and glistened as he turned with it. As he glided through the living room to the door of Margal's bedroom, he held the weapon behind his back.

  Clarisse at this point sucked in a noisy breath and staggered to her feet, struggling to cry out. But Brian Dawson had by then focused his gaze on her, and the cry died on her lips.

  He had the power to command, she realized, and was commanding her to be silent. Even the two black dogs were silently cringing. They, of course, belonged to Jumel and perhaps would not have tried to intercept the mouse anyway, but they appeared to be helpless.

  As he neared the bedroom door, Jumel slowed his pace. He had been commanded to approach that door with great stealth, then rush to the bed and plunge his knife into Margal's heart. The command had burned its way into his brain, leaving him no power to think of anything else.

  Kill Margal. Rush to the bed and stab him. Stab him again and again until he is dead!