The King of Swords

by Nick Stone

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Carmine said. He hadn’t told her about the waitress. She’d been intended for the other Deck he was building, the one his mother didn’t know about.

  ‘Did you provoke him?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Where did this happen?’

  ‘Out near Coconut Grove.’

  ‘Were you working?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Did he see you working?’

  ‘No. It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘And his name? What is his name?’

  ‘He didn’t tell me that.’ Carmine chuckled at the stupidity of the question. She gave him one of her fierce black-eyed looks, the kind that could cut through walls.

  ‘Was he in uniform?’

  ‘Plainclothes.’

  She came up close to him and touched the heart of the bruise. It smarted and he caught his breath as memories of the pain echoed back through his body. Sam had given him an ice pack for it at the shop, but it hadn’t helped much.

  ‘Did he take the seeds?’

  ‘No. I’ve put them in the kitchen.’ Luckily for him Sam had ordered plenty of extra calabar beans. Failure to bring them back would have provoked the ShitFit to end all ShitFits, because it would have meant they couldn’t go through with tomorrow night’s ceremony.

  She put her nose close to the bruise and breathed in deep and long through flared nostrils. Eyes closed, she held her breath and tilted back her head and rocked it gently from side to side, moving her mouth like she was tasting what she’d inhaled. Then her face turned sour and she opened her eyes and breathed out.

  ‘This cop drinks,’ she said. ‘He will be a problem to us. A big problem.’

  ‘How?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ she said. ‘Now get in the bath.’

  She’d washed him every evening at 6 p.m. sharp since the day of his father’s murder. He knew it was way wrong, that it shouldn’t be happening at his age, but who was he to stop her, to protest or even complain? He’d tried to, in his late teens, but she’d said that because she was his mother she had a right to wash him, even when they were both old. For most of his life he’d gone along with whatever she’d said and done, whatever she’d asked of him without question, not because he’d wanted to but because it was the easiest way. The alternative didn’t bear contemplating. A long long time ago he’d tried his hand at rebellion and the consequences had been disproportionately severe.

  The water was cooking him, as always, but he was used to it now. Just like he was used to the hard scrubbing brush she cleaned him with. Years ago, when she’d first bought the brush, the bristles had been fairly soft, but two decades of calcified soap had turned them into mini stalagmites which tore hairline strips out of his skin, especially around the bonier parts of his body. His back and chest were covered with a latticework of fine interwoven pale scars, which, when they caught the light, made his upper body seem enveloped in a wet gossamer web, like he was a spider’s prey.

  She soaped the brush with Dettol soap and scrubbed his neck, shoulders, arms and upper back first. Then he stood up and she handed him the soap so he could wash his cock, balls and ass with his hands, the only concession to self-administered hygiene she’d permitted him in the past ten years, after allowing him to wash his face and brush his teeth. They didn’t talk at all. The bathroom filled with the sound of the bristles’ shallow scrapings on his skin, almost the noise of a saw inching through a plank of wood, accompanied by her two lockets, the shhhh-put of the lockets clapping together under her blouse, keeping time with her motions and the swing of her heavy pendulous breasts. The bristles dislodged scabs from still tender healing skin and bit deep into old wounds. He stared hard at the aquarium, disassociating his mind from the sparks of pain flying through his nerves. He concentrated on a group of half a dozen oranda goldfish swimming in the middle of the tank. They were graceful fish, like amphibian roosters with their feathery dorsal fins and bushy tails, and traffic-signal-red heads and the metallic orangey-blue of their bodies. He watched them move in single file, equidistant one from the other, simple and perfect. And then, as he stood up, he noticed a flutter at the end of the line as the last oranda collided with the one in front. That goldfish dropped down an inch allowing the last one to take its place in the chain. It hovered without moving for a moment, seemingly confused, before swimming upwards and rejoining the line. It never recovered its pace. It perpetually lagged behind, only following the group in quick spurts, where it would catch up and briefly regain formation before dropping out. When Carmine looked harder at the oranda he thought he noticed an off-coloured patch on its side, a small dull grey mark close to its dorsal fin. But it was gone before he could see for sure.

  She washed his feet and legs last, and then he stepped out of the water and onto the floor. Later he’d have to empty the tub, clean and disinfect it and then dry it before carrying it downstairs to the basement where he lived.

  After washing him, his mother dried him vigorously top to toe with a white towel, except for the parts he’d washed himself, which he did once she’d finished with him.

  ‘The ceremony’s for tonight,’ she said.

  ‘But it’s Friday.’

  ‘It’s happening after midnight.’

  ‘After midnight…’ Carmine knew that meant it would be a sacrifice as opposed to a simple execution–which meant this would be a Saturday Night Barons Club and he’d have to attend in full dress. ‘Who is it?’ But he knew before she told him.

  ‘Jean Assad. You know how Solomon feels about thieves and drug addicts in the organization.’ She fixed him with one of her immobile, cut-through-anything looks. Carmine met her stare but, as usual, found he couldn’t hold it and looked away at the gleaming white bidet. He’d known Jean Assad in Haiti and they’d been on good if distant terms in Miami. Jean had been on the run for six months.

  ‘Where’d they find him?’

  ‘In Canada,’ she said. ‘L’imbécile. Thought he could escape us.’

  9

  The cigar tube of calabar beans was waiting for her in the middle of the kitchen table. The tube reeked of Carmine’s fear, a thin metallic smell of old coins and vinegar that came from him whenever he’d done something wrong. It was so strong she could smell it from the doorway. Eva wondered if he hadn’t momentarily lost the tube on his way over. It would be just like him. Clumsy.

  Eva went to the cupboards under the sink and pulled out one of the brand new, white plastic chopping boards she used for her potions. She then took out a scalpel and a mortar and pestle, also all new, and brought them over to the table. She opened the tube and emptied the contents on the board–oval shaped like American footballs with the ends filed down, their shiny maroon-brown skins the colour of eggplant crossed with chocolate, hard on the outside, deadly on the in, eight like she’d asked for. She put seven back in the tube and closed it.

  After she was done making the potion she’d incinerate everything to make sure it wouldn’t end up getting mixed with food. The beans were poisonous. It took just half a bean to kill a man. She’d once fed one to someone in a fresh salad and watched him croak. It hadn’t been pretty. First he’d salivated uncontrollably, spit bubbling out of his mouth like he’d swallowed a stream, then his eyes and sweat glands had opened up, as the poison had gone into his veins and arteries, gradually constricting them as it flowed, closing down his blood flow and slowing down his heart, beat by beat, until all the life in him was throttled from within. It was said, by people who’d seen someone die of calabar poisoning, that once the poison started closing down the inner circuits, they had heard the flapping of wings. The closer to death the louder the flapping became until the final five minutes, when their faces froze completely and the only movement came from their eyes, which were still fully conscious. Many said they looked upwards, high above them, in mid-space, and their eyes were utterly terrified. Her victim had got that look too.

  She went ove
r to the refrigerator and took out a black clay bottle of holy water and poured it into a metal stewpot, which she then set on the gas hob and lit. As the water began to heat, she quartered the bean, put it into the pestle and ground it to a sticky paste, which was then put to one side of the table.

  She went back to the cupboard under the sink and took out a packet of handmade, specially designed Charles de Villeneuve tarot cards, imported from Switzerland. They were the only ones she ever used. The packet was brand new. The cards came in an elegant dark brown wooden box which contained the cards in a drawer lined with purple baize, which never failed to remind her of a huge matchbox merged with a coffin. The cards were wrapped in a black velvet drawstring bag, closed at the side with a red wax seal bearing the company’s insignia, this time reminding her of the Smith & Wesson logo on the grip of her .38. The cards were thick, high-quality cardboard. The backs were mostly black with a deep crimson border and a small, almost cartoonish image of the sun, rendered, in gold leaf, as a round, slightly cross-eyed face set in the middle of sprouting rays. Without turning them over, she fanned the pack out on the table and counted anti-clockwise from the beginning. The manufacturer always packed the cards in the same order. Minor Arcana last, in suits–first Cups, then Coins, then Swords, then Wands. Fourteen cards in each suit, face cards first, then the numbers: King to Ace. She found the card, turned it over and smiled.

  The King of Swords.

  Depending on the reading she was giving, the King of Swords could either be a powerful and influential ally and friend or a fearsome enemy, one who would stop at nothing and use force if he had to.

  The thing she loved second about the de Villeneuve cards–apart from their magical powers which, if the person using them had the right amount of faith, could turn them into periscopes into the future–was their rich and vibrant colours. They reminded her of the voodoo paintings she’d grown up with in Haiti.

  She put the card on the chopping board, then gathered up the rest and put them in a black refuse bag. She took the scalpel and sliced the card lengthwise into six strips. She then sliced each strip a dozen times, so she had something close to confetti. She added the card to the pestle and mixed it in with the ground calabar beans, before scraping the contents out into the now boiling water.

  Once complete, the potion would have to settle and cool for a few hours before being fed to its recipient.

  Eva was about to begin to speak her spell when she heard Carmine lumber past the door with the tub on his back, heading for the basement where he lived, out of sight and sound. He made as little noise as possible, like he always had, the little creep; even at his age he was still as terrified of her as he had been when he’d been a little boy–terrified of little old her, fifty-four years old, under five feet tall without her lifts and ninety-eight pounds soaking wet. Pathetic.

  Carmine went to the basement and put the tub down on the floor. There were no windows in there and it was pitch black without the light, but that was always comforting to him after the harsh, sterile whiteness of the bathroom. He took off his dressing gown and threw it where the leather armchair was ready to receive it. He knew every inch of the room so well he could find the smallest things in the dark. It was a trick Solomon Boukman had taught him, back when they’d been as close as brothers, before the organization had grown into the multi-tentacled monster it was now and he’d evolved with it and in the process grown cold and distant, even with those he’d come up with, those who knew him best and would do anything for him.

  Still, standing there naked, back in his world, Carmine couldn’t help but smile a little at his cleverness and cunning. He may be pathetic in his mother’s eyes, but he was fooling her this time, and fooling her good. Every tyrant must fall. She was no exception. And her fall would be mighty, all the way back to hell.

  10

  Jean Assad opened his eyes and immediately wished he hadn’t. He’d woken up in the heart of the abattoir, with mere moments left to live. He prayed–no begged–that Solomon would show him mercy and do him quick; that he’d forget all about the bad stuff that had brought him down here and remember the good: their long history together, the way he’d been there with him from the start, always loyal and dependable, always a believer. Yet one look at them all, the diadem of bleak accusatory eyes bearing down on him through the death’s head paint, and he knew it wasn’t to be. He was going out the bad way.

  He’d heard rumours about this place, about the things that went on down here, but he’d never believed any of them, ever. He was as superstitious as any Haitian, but he hadn’t bought into those stories people came out with about the circle of twelve giant Baron Samedis and the man sat in the middle and what happened to him.

  It was all true. So far.

  He couldn’t move at all, not a muscle, except for his eyes. The rest of him was frozen, locked down, paused between heartbeats. His body felt unbelievably heavy, bones made of mercury-filled lead, propping up skin weighted down with cannon balls. He couldn’t open his mouth. His lips and jaw wouldn’t part. So he was breathing through his nose, and that with great difficulty, the air having to scrape its way through tightly blocked nostrils, barely making it into his lungs. And then there was a great painful, immovable mass at the bottom of his stomach, like he’d eaten a huge meal his digestive juices just couldn’t break down; it was hanging around in his gut, going nowhere, slowly festering.

  He looked up and all around him, as far as he could. He met twelve pairs of eyes looking down with interchangeable hatred and contempt. He couldn’t tell old friends from lifelong foes, but he was sure they were both there, side by side–that’s what he’d heard happened. Their faces were completely unrecognizable under the make-up–half pancake-white from forehead to upper lip, then black from there to the lower neck, taking in the mouth, ears, nose and around the eyes. They were dressed identically too, in top hats, tailcoats, pinstriped grey trousers, white ru?ed shirts, black gloves. He couldn’t understand how come they were so tall–at least twelve or fifteen feet high. Or was it just the way he was sat, or the state of mind he was in, or something they’d given him to mess with his head?

  How long had he been here? The last thing he remembered was waking up in bed in Montreal, blinding flashlight in his eyes, gun to his temple, man’s voice: ‘Get up! You gots places to be.’

  He knew they’d find him eventually. He’d known that when he’d gone on the run, the realization that it didn’t matter how far he got, how deep down he hid, sooner or later he’d be caught, sooner or later he’d be made to pay for what he’d done. Still, he’d been real careful at first, moving around a lot, never staying in one place longer than two days, avoiding the ghettos, avoiding all Haitians and Dominicans, staying out of small towns, but what was it he’d heard said time and time again? ‘When Solomon Boukman is after you, the world becomes a small place with glass walls.’ He might have stayed on the run longer if it hadn’t been for his habit. Smack: needle not foil. That had narrowed down their search. The only way a junkie can stay underground is if he’s got a big enough stash, or else if he kicks. He hadn’t done either. A junkie’s got to go out to cop. They’d just pulled on that chain around his arm and reeled him in. Who’d sold him out? The dealer he’d copped his last dose from? That shit had been suspiciously good, so good he’d got a rush just holding the loaded syringe. Before he’d gone under his last thoughts had been paranoid ones. Montreal wasn’t famed for the quality of its smack. The stuff he’d been shooting up until then had been a modest stone, enough to get him under the surface but nowhere near the quality of the dope he’d boosted in Miami. That had sent him all the way down to the warm silk cocoon where time stopped and nothing mattered and he was free of everything. Same as his final hit had done. Right before he’d nodded out, he’d wondered if Solomon hadn’t finally found him, if his people weren’t going to come through the door the moment he’d slipped away from himself, but then the smack had melted his every worry away like hot coffee dissolves sugar
cubes. And then they had come for him. Just like he’d thought. And here he was now, waiting to meet the King of Swords, waiting to die.

  A bright light was trained on him from behind, illuminating his immediate surroundings: a cold grey cement floor with reddish brown markings painted thickly on it–a cross to the left, a star to the right, a long vertical line dividing them. It was a giant vévé, a voodoo symbol used, in part, to invoke gods and spirits in ceremonies. Usually a vévé was drawn in flour, sand or cornmeal, but this one had been painted in what looked like blood. Beyond that stood the barons, facing him. His feet were in a metal fire bucket, filled with water. His hands were resting on his thighs, palms down.

  He saw that he was completely naked and that his arms, legs and what he could see of his chest were completely hairless and oddly shiny. Then he noticed that there were no bindings of any kind on him. He was technically free to stand up.

  He felt ashamed of his nakedness and wanted to cover up, but he couldn’t move his hands that short distance to his crotch. Then he tried to take his feet out of the bucket, but they stayed where they were, without even a suggestion of motion about them. Then he attempted to lift his arms. Nothing happened. He tried again. He heard the command come down from his brain, clearly, urgently and in his own voice, but it had no effect; his authority disappeared into cold meat and bone. His arms and legs stayed exactly where they were. He couldn’t feel a single damn thing. He wasn’t even getting the cold shakes from smack withdrawal. It was as if his being had become completely disconnected from his body and was now imprisoned in it; only death would release it.

  Jean Assad, you poor motherfucker, thought Carmine, looking down at him on the chair, a born again baby; skin greased up and gleaming, frozen out of his body by the potion, his lips sewn tight together, his nose part-stitched so he could still get some air, still alive enough for Solomon to come and snatch his soul. Assad was sat in the middle of the sacrificial vévé–the symbol drawn in his own blood.