Tropic of Darkness

by Tony Richards

  Faint, tiny voices.

  It always upset her. But she could only grit her teeth, ignoring them.

  * * *

  She lit the final wick, then stepped back, watching the flames rise until their yellow glow had washed across her face.

  She was in a partial trance by now, brought on by the ritual. Her eyes were barely blinking. Her thin lips were tight. Drops of sweat beaded her cheeks, despite the growing coldness of the room.

  The voices from the jars had grown slightly louder. They were raised in desperation, crying out for help.

  Most of them were Spanish, but there were some other languages thrown in. Italian, she recognized from one jar. English from another. Other tongues she couldn’t place.

  “Help me!”

  “Please, for the love of God, let me out!”

  And there was one, a new voice with a Yanqui accent, which caught Dolores’s attention in particular.

  “What is this place?” it kept on saying.

  It was utterly lost, totally forlorn.

  “Where am I?”

  Such a tone of helplessness that she could not ignore it. She replied mentally, making no actual sound.

  Be quiet. Shouting will not help you.

  The voice paused for an anxious moment. Then it came back to her, redoubled in strength.

  “Is someone out there? My name’s Francis Jackson.”

  Listen to me. Francis, she told him, rather sharply. Stop yelling like that. There is nothing you can do. Simply accept your fate.

  There was another pause, a longer one this time.

  Then, “Who is that? Who are you?”

  “I—”

  Dolores faltered, unsure how to reply.

  I am trapped, just like you. I am helpless, just like you. I am damned. Just like you.

  There was a sudden yell of outrage from the center of the room.

  She whirled around.

  * * *

  As usual, when the twins appeared, Dolores had to squint to make them out.

  There was nothing solid about them when they first came into being. They were like shapes made accidentally by mist, conjured into life by one’s imagination, nothing more.

  All that she could make out were the dim outlines of their identical bodies—she could see the wall behind them perfectly clearly. Two pairs of shallow dimples on the chill air gave away the presence of their eyes.

  “What do you think you’re doing, you fool?” came a voice from one of the shapes. “You know you’re not supposed to talk to them.”

  A second voice, far gentler in tone, broke in from the left-hand side.

  “Leave her be, Lucia. Poor Dolores, she feels sorry for them. She’s just trying to be kind, aren’t you, Dodo?”

  This was Isadora, in one of her short-lived sympathetic moods.

  Smoke from the candles had started drifting to them. Long, oily gray trails, the shapes sucking them in. As they reached the outlines, they curled upward and around, began to fill them. And the twins started to take on proper form.

  Both bodies filled with detail and then color. Supple, slender figures, tall. Undeniably beguiling.

  The eyes were filled out last of all. One pair—on the left-hand side—was a soft, dewy hazel. The other pair—Lucia’s—was a predatory, tigress green.

  Otherwise, the sisters were alike in every detail.

  They both stood at roughly five-foot-nine, except their high heels added to that greatly. Their frames were as sinuous as a pair of willow branches. Their skin was a pale olive, flushed sensually at the cheekbones. Their bare shoulders were satin smooth. Their lips were full and dark in their slim oval faces, and their piled-up hair was black as jet that had been polished to a luster.

  A few vagrant curls of it spilled down their necks and tumbled across their foreheads, stopping just short of their eyes.

  Dolores could still vaguely see the wall behind the twins. This was as solid as they’d ever get without returning fully to this world. They looked rather like figures in an ancient, stained-glass window, the details faded and the pigments muted. But they were still extremely beautiful, even to her jaded gaze.

  They were in long dresses, the same ones—presumably—they’d died in. Each of them wore beaded necklaces of brown and white with red stripes . . . the colors of their orisha, their guardian deity, Oya, Queen of Graveyards.

  Dolores crossed her arms in front of her chest—the traditional greeting of their cult. But it did no good. Lucia scowled at her fiercely, her face twisted with contempt.

  Isadora had on one of her forlorn expressions, but Dolores wasn’t fooled. The sisters might have different temperaments, but when it came down to brass tacks they were each as bad as the other.

  She tore her gaze from them, dropped her hands and stared down at her knuckles.

  “What should your punishment be?” came Lucia’s voice. “Something very bad, I think, for disobeying me this way.”

  Isadora broke in again.

  “Haven’t we all been punished quite enough?”

  Which seemed to make her twin sister remember something. Lucia looked like she was focusing inwardly, her eyes becoming slightly glazed. And then she let it go, emitting a dry grunt.

  Both sisters moved away in the direction of the hallway.

  They could travel so much faster than she could. They could cross the whole house in the blinking of an eye. The twins were not bound by the rules of this world, after all.

  Dolores found them again in the dining room. Lucia was peering around angrily, searching for anything the slightest out of place, as she’d expected. Isadora had settled her misty form down in a high-backed chair and closed her eyes.

  It was merely an illusion, since she had no physical form. But she managed it perfectly.

  Her lashes trembled. She was concentrating hard.

  Trying to find a new man, Dolores understood. Or perhaps she had already found one, and was studying him closer.

  And she had to admit that, however sorry she might feel for the sisters’ victims, she always found herself praying that—this time—it would be the right one.

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  It was evening as well much farther north in Toronto. Doctor Leland Hague—the same doctor who had tried to rescue Frank Jackson and had failed—was lying in his hospital bed, feeling like a tethered animal and bored as all damnation, his left foot and his fractured ankle in a cast. Only the painkillers they’d been giving him had kept things remotely bearable. And this morning they’d reduced the dosage, and a nagging frustration had begun to replace the fuzziness of the last couple of days.

  He’d read the newspaper and magazines his daughter had brought him. Had no desire to listen to the radio, or make friends with any of the other patients. So, what to do?

  He shifted a little, staring at the bare ceiling. Blinked. And saw a blood-smeared Francis Jackson, sitting on the edge of that damned bathtub.

  She’s . . . under my skin . . . she’s . . .

  Christ alive, as horrible and inexplicable a suicide as you could ever imagine. And Frank had been a friend of his. What a sickening thing to happen. He was blinking moisture from the corners of his eyes now, and he wasn’t often given to emotion.

  But there was something else that was eluding him. Not what Frank had done or uttered. Something he himself had said, passing out on the way here. What in the hell had it been? The painkillers had left him with a memory like Swiss cheese.

  I think he was trying to—

  He’d been practically fainting, at that point, and it was a struggle recapturing the exact words.

  Rid himself of something. Just cut something out.

  Hague fastened the words tightly in his thoughts, although they puzzled him. He wasn’t in the least bit sure what he’d meant when he
’d said them, and neither was he certain what to do about it. But there was one route to try out.

  The chief pathologist for Francis Jackson’s district would be Dalton Sokrowitz, a long-time friend of Hague’s. They hadn’t been in touch for practically two months, and he doubted it would lead to anything. But the hell with it, what could it hurt to ask?

  Hague got a phone brought over, dialed the man’s home number. Dalton answered, sounding weary and harassed. There were kids’ voices screeching in the background—he had four under the age of seven, heaven help him.

  “Leland? Hold on a moment while I close the door. . . . Better,” he sighed a short while later. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  “I’m in hospital, Dalt, I’m afraid to say. I’m okay, but I had a fall.”

  “Wow!” The man sounded genuinely startled. “Bad news. They treating you okay?”

  “It makes little difference which way they treat me, to my way of thinking. God, but these are hateful places from the inside.”

  Dalton’s tone transformed into a knowing chuckle. It was that old adage about doctors making the worst patients, and Hague had been expecting it.

  “Just do as the nice consultants tell you—”

  He could feel his blood pressure rising. “They’re all half my age!”

  “And don’t go chasing any of the nurses. They’re a third your age.”

  And then Dalt pulled himself together.

  “Seriously, I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll drop around sometime in the next couple of days. But till then, what can I do you for?”

  Hague suddenly felt awkward. What on earth was he expecting to find out?

  But then he came straight out with it.

  “A friend of mine committed suicide a couple of days back.”

  “Oh, wow. I’m genuinely sorry to hear that, Leland. That’s awful news. But how can I be of any help?”

  “I’m wondering if he wound up on your slab. Guy by the name of Francis Jackson?”

  Dalton’s voice abruptly got a whole lot quieter.

  “Jesus, yeah. Hard to forget.”

  “A hell of a way to kill yourself, for sure. But Dalt, did you find anything unusual apart from the method of dispatch?”

  There was a pause, far longer than seemed necessary. And the man sounded nervous when he finally came back.

  “How private is this conversation?”

  “How private should it be?”

  “It’s . . . I really don’t want word of this getting around. I’ve built up a pretty solid reputation down the last few years, and I’m not inclined to go losing it now.”

  Leland’s pulse started to thump a little harder. “Your secret’s safe with me. So give.”

  “Okay. I looked at the guy shortly after he came in. I checked the body temperature, of course. Except that when I saw the records and the time of death, I realized Jackson was seven degrees cooler than he should have been when I examined him.”

  Under normal circumstances, the human body cooled at a pretty stable rate—they both knew that. There were not too many variables, but Hague tried groping around for an answer. “He was wandering about in the snow in his pajama pants, a short while before he died.”

  Which sounded like a stupid explanation, even as he said it. These things simply didn’t work that way.

  “You know better,” Dalt scolded him. “But there’s worse. I thought the answer might be something chemical, so I took a sample from the little blood that he had left.”

  “And?”

  “No medications. No foreign agents whatsoever. But the sample was cold, too. Actually cooler than his flesh. Another three degrees below what was already an abnormally low temperature.”

  Blood colder than the body that contained it? This was getting crazier by the second. Hague rubbed at his temples.

  “So, what do you think might account for it?”

  “There’s nothing that could. I mean, nothing. It’s scientifically impossible.”

  His friend’s voice had slipped the whole way down to a hoarse whisper. Hague was quiet and still a while.

  “How did you write it up?” he asked.

  “I didn’t. I went through the motions and then passed the whole thing on. I think the corpse is at the tropical disease center by this time. It’s their problem.”

  Leland could fully understand why Dalton would want to do something like that. Medical careers, of whatever kind, were not exactly helped by filing reports from the Twilight Zone.

  Dalt was sounding quite embarrassed by this stage. “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you soon. Behave yourself till then, okay?”

  The line clicked and went dead.

  Hague replaced the handset and let his head settle back. He was staring at the ceiling again, but not bored this time.

  His eyes were glittering fiercely as he tried to think the whole thing through.

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  Walking into the shadow-mottled cantina where they’d arranged to meet this evening, Jack realized Pierre Melville had arrived ahead of him again. As though he couldn’t wait to start the evening’s antics. He could hear the Frenchman’s booming laugh the instant that he stepped in through the door.

  Pierre was at a table at the far end of the room. And—as Jack had guessed he might—had two new girls in tow. Both peach-skinned Latinas this time, each with waist-length hair so black it seemed to have almost a bluish sheen.

  Pierre introduced them, but Jack didn’t take much notice of their names, feeling the same weariness descend on him as last night.

  He still felt a bit cautious of the Frenchman—those mocking remarks about the need for female company he’d made. Scowled a little as he sat down. Okay, they had been pretty drunk but—

  Perhaps, it occurred to him again, the mockery still stung a little because it had approached too closely to the truth.

  Pierre seemed to have forgotten, though. His mood was as jovial as ever.

  “Jackie, boy! Recovered from last night’s excesses? Ready for some more?”

  There was not the smallest hint of irony in his tone. Yesterday was lost into the past, so far as the Frenchman was concerned—which was entirely typical.

  Pierre changed the subject without even waiting for an answer.

  “What did you think of the band?”

  “We got on fine.”

  “I knew you would. Man, I’ll tell you, I should be a manager. I’m great at hooking people up.”

  Jack felt the last of his annoyance subside. This was the way it always was with Pierre. Incidents came and went and then were done with. Life was lived in a purely linear fashion, never clinging onto what had happened or trying to guess what would happen next.

  “Thanks for the introduction,” he conceded.

  “Don’t mention it. That’s what friends are for.”

  Pierre then hugged the girls so hard they squealed. Jack figured out, from their eyes, they’d been sampling his new product.

  “Let’s get the hell out of this dump,” Pierre said, grinning. “There’s a restaurant near here that serves the best lobster you’ve ever tasted. And from there, I think, to the Karibe.”

  And now, Jack was intrigued. Even he had heard of the Karibe club. It was one of the most famous nightspots in Latin America. A place he’d definitely been hoping to visit. So, this was his golden opportunity.

  * * *

  Their cab thrummed through the night. Jack peered out the window. They had left the city center far behind and were driving down a wide, leafy boulevard lined with big old houses.

  But he started to become puzzled, after a little while.

  He had never been in this part of the town. But there was something about it that he recognized. He was probably thinking of somewhere else, he finally decided. There were dis
tricts like this in every major city he had been to in the past decade.

  The cab finally pulled off the road, onto a curving asphalt drive lined densely with foliage. And once again, there was the weirdest sense of déjà vu.

  He peered out through the insect-speckled windshield and then stiffened with alarm.

  Ahead, he could make out flashing lights above the large, arched entrance to the club. He had never been to this place in his life, and knew that perfectly well.

  But he had seen it before.

  When he had been Mario Mantegna, in his dream last night.

  * * *

  By the time they were shown to their table, Jack believed he’d gotten this entire puzzle figured out. It wasn’t déjà vu. It was simply that this place was so famous that he must have seen pictures of it somewhere. Or else it had been in a film, and that had been incorporated in his dream. Right?

  He could not recall precisely where or when, what photographs, which film. But there was no other solution. It just had to be.

  The Karibe turned out to be as topless as a waitress on Bourbon Street. No roof at all except around the edges. That wasn’t recessed lighting above him—those were stars. They looked like part of the decor nonetheless. And the moon, suspended just above the branches of a tall, outspreading tree, might as well have been painted there.

  Rumba music blasted from a nearby speaker, loud enough to make him squint a little. Even Pierre had to bellow to make himself heard.

  “Hottest spot in Cuba! Not bad, huh?”

  A portly compère in a suit of bright red sequins walked onto the stage, and the show began.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  Carlos Esposito flashed his badge at the Karibe’s door staff and was let on through. He’d changed into his day clothes, being officially off-duty, but he still had a revolver strapped around his ankle, just to be on the safe side.

  He’d only ever been inside here twice: once to arrest a violent drunk, back when he’d been a beat cop, and the other time with a party of visiting Russians, way back in the eighties. He’d have liked to have brought his wife along tonight—it would have been a real treat for her. But he decided to come on his own, as he had no idea what he was looking for, or what to expect.