“And the zombies?” I asked.
Papa Williams shook his head. “That is not Vodou. That is necromancy. The bokor use poisons to separate the ti bon ange, the ‘little soul’. You may think of it as one’s personality and will. The poison drives the little soul from the body, while the big soul, gros bon ange, remains. The body still lives, susceptible to the bokor’s control, and a special bottle contains the little soul. We know them as zombie astrals. Bokor use them as fonts for power. Dark magic.”
I sat up. “That’s how they’re powering their spells. Making zombies to make more zombies? Is that what he was trying to tell me?”
“He?”
“One of their zombies attacked me. It seemed he was one of the bokor. I brought him out of his trance, but I couldn’t understand what he was trying to tell me. He chose death over losing control again, and he gave me this.” I produced the flower from my pocket.
Papa Williams nodded. “That is datura, the Devil’s Trumpets. They are very poisonous.”
And I’ve been keeping it in my pocket all day? Yikes. I set it aside. “This is an ingredient in their drugs, then?”
“It is, but they would need more. The flesh of a pufferfish is another ingredient.”
“Someone who was in contact with them said they had tried to purchase aquariums.”
“Very dark magic,” he said.
I nodded. “I’ve told you what I know of the Brothers. What do you know?”
Williams sighed. “The bokor of Haiti have always been insular, by necessity. But their power has been growing over the past decades. More and more of our mages turn away from the Loa every year. Do you know about the earthquake some years ago? One of many disasters to affect my homeland, and one that left many dead. Many of the priesthood argued Haiti was suffering. That we were not doing enough to protect its people and our faith.”
“Mages can’t be expected to protect a nation. We’re barely a part of normal society.”
He looked me in the eye. “Live in a country as poor as mine, and tell me you would ignore its plights, white man.”
I held up my hands. “Fair enough. Go on.”
“We debated what to do for a time, whether it was better to maintain our traditions, or take a more active role in providing for the people. Some considered ending our isolation and joining the Rimbault Society. That abandoning our ways and living was preferable to slowly dying with them. Even if it meant forsaking our bond to the Loa.” He shook his head. “It is a debate we are still having. A debate that has made us more useless than ever. Then one of our own—Samuel Kincaid—said that if we could not provide for Haiti, then it was time for the rest of the world to make its restitution to the nation. For the generations of slavery and exploitation.”
“Drugs?”
He nodded. “How many poor nations have found cruel prosperity exploiting the vices of wealthier ones? He saw it as poetic justice, but it would make Haiti an enemy of the Society. When we refused his plan, he gathered many bokor to his side and fled.”
“Why do the Loa allow them to act this way? Why not strike them down?”
Williams frowned. “The Loa are not weapons for you to wield against your enemies. They offer knowledge. They do not choose how you will use what they give you. That is the balance of things.”
“Can’t you talk to them?” I asked. “The Brothers are here, right now, making an army of zombies from the city’s addicts.”
He shook his head. “Maintaining an army would be impossible. The poison is difficult to make, and the zombie must receive it constantly. Eventually their supplies will dwindle, or they will have too many to drug. Then the people would be free, little souls and all.”
“So he’s not making an army. But he wants them for something.”
“An answer I cannot provide,” Williams said.
I tried again. “Can the Loa? I’m looking for wisdom, Papa Williams. I need to know how to find them, to stop them.”
He frowned. “The Loa are not at the beck and call of the living.”
“Not even to stop the bokor?”
“No,” he said. “I can offer you this advice, Mr. Fossor. The Brothers will need specific equipment to create their drug. Gardens for their flowers, aquariums and seawater for the pufferfish. Find these things, and you will find the Brothers. Bring the Society proof of their deeds, and no force on this planet will protect them from justice.”
I sighed. “Assuming they don’t kill me first.”
Papa Williams shrugged. “I will give your concerns to the Loa. If they deem you worthy, perhaps they will offer an answer. For my part-” He dug into his pockets and produced a metal flask. “All I can offer is something to take the edge off.”
I hesitated, but took the flask. The contents smelled like rum, but when I took a sip, the sweetness turned to fire on my tongue. “Shit,” I coughed. “That has a kick.”
He smiled. “Goat peppers. I would put some milk on that tongue if I were you, white man. You look ready to cry.”
I sealed the flask and offered it back to him. “I’m man enough to cry.”
He shook his head. “Keep it. May it bring you luck.”
He turned and left. I panted through the pain on my tongue, and studied the flask which was decorated with cigar-smoking, top-hatted skulls. As I did, the beginning of an idea brewed.
After a few minutes alone, I heard Luciana clear her throat. She stood in the doorway, which now opened into the Westbank Art Gallery. “I trust your visit was educational?”
“Very.” I tucked the flask and the Devil’s trumpet into my pocket. “Thank you, Luciana.”
“You are welcome. This way, please.”
Aquariums, I thought. That’s all I have to go on? No.
I’d talk to the Loa myself and get my answers.
SEVENTEEN
I returned to the Gallery and breathed the cool, dusty air of the real world. Luciana remained in the Lounge, and when the ‘Employees Only’ door shut, I felt the magic wink out. She may as well have been on the moon, in terms of the metaphysical distance between us. Too bad, too. She was the first Society member I didn’t immediately feel on edge about.
The rain from the Lounge had been prophetic, because a cold, coastal deluge was washing over the city as I exited the gallery. I didn’t see the detectives, but I wasn’t dumb enough to think Lorensdottr had given up. I headed home and hopped on my computer, my web search savvy revitalized, now that I had a better sense of direction.
After an hour of compiling traditional Vodou practices and the various Loa they worshiped, I’d pieced together enough ideas to make a summoning work. It wasn’t a legit religious ceremony, but I was confident my magic could get the intended result. I took a walk to Kent’s, a grocery and liquor store a few blocks north of Sutcliffe, and found everything I needed there. Score one for me.
My last stop there was the butcher’s section in the rear. You should have seen his reaction when I asked for a pint of chicken blood.
“You serious?” He asked. “Is this some kind of hipster thing you got off the internet?”
“Blood sausage,” I lied. “But its gotta be chicken.”
He chewed his lip. “You want beef or pork for blood sausage.”
“Chicken. Can you make it happen?”
“Gimme a minute,” He said, and went into the back.
Some other customers gave me odd looks, but no one questioned the canned peas or bacon-flavored mayo they had in their baskets. A few minutes later, the butcher came out with an opaque plastic tub used to sell pickled sausages. I could see the reddish substance clinging to the inside.
“This stuff is already congealing, so you’d better use it fast. And ah, this ain’t regulation, so if you get sick, you didn’t get it from me.”
By the time I left Kent’s, the afternoon rain was coming down in sheets and I cursed my decision to walk to the grocery store. I was half-way home and soaked through when a blue compact car pulled up alongside me.
<
br /> “Enjoying the weather?” Detected Runner asked.
“Still tailing me, huh?” I asked.
He grinned. “Nah. Lorensdottr left hours ago.”
“What do you want?”
“Need a lift? I’m offering.”
I frowned. “Isn’t this a conflict of interest?”
“A ride home won’t make us friends, Fossor.”
“You’re a weird cop, Runner.”
“You’re a weird suspect,” he said. “So you gonna jump in, or do I reconsider getting my upholstery wet?”
“Fine.” He unlocked the passenger door, and I climbed in.
“So what’s in the bag?”
Already with the interrogating, I thought. These guys don’t quit.
“Dinner,” I told him. I set the bag on the floor, under my legs.
He chuckled. “So, when did you realize we were tailing you?”
“Morning traffic,” I said. “Tell your partner she’s too cute to be inconspicuous.”
He snorted. “She’d pull my nose off. Figured you’d spot us. Loren is a good cop, and she doesn’t miss many details, but she’s a little too-”
“Hostile?”
“Assertive,” he corrected. “And maybe a little stubborn.”
“What about you?”
He shrugged. “I like to think I’m good at this, but hey, I’m still learning.”
“And the coat?”
He chuckled like he got asked about it daily. “After my promotion, some of my friends in the beat squad gave it to me. It was a joke, but hey, I look good in it.”
“You are a bit young for a detective.”
Runner shrugged. “Long story. Short version is I caught a triple homicide suspect while I was a beat cop. A little under a year ago, three dead on the Northeast end?”
“I don’t read the papers.”
“It looked like a murder-suicide. Husband, wife, and her lover. Husband comes home, finds them in bed, he takes them out and then eats a bullet, right? But my gut started bugging me. Not like a stomach problem. The house smelled like hot pastrami.”
“Weird detail to pick out.”
“I was hungry. Or I wanted something to distract me from the bodies on the floor. But I couldn’t find a trace of it in the house. No one else seemed to notice. I went to keep the crowds back. But then I smell it again, and zero in on a man who smells like the house. When he sees me seeing him, he runs.”
I grunted a laugh. “Did his head melt into a sandwich, too?”
Runner smiled. “I must have chased him three blocks before I tackled him. The guy was so spooked I’d sniffed him out that he confessed to everything. He was Man Number Three in the woman’s life, and when he found out, jealousy took its course.”
“Some people, huh?”
“Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “Anyway, it was a field day for the press, ‘cause they were there when I made the arrest. I’ve got the newspaper clippings at home. ‘Cop Sniffs Out Suspect.’ I guess Captain Wright decided it would be good PR to give me an early promotion. They stuck me with Lorensdottr, ‘cause she needed a partner after her last one transferred. ‘Creative differences’.”
“No good deed goes unpunished.”
“Well, it ain’t so bad,” he said. “She’s a good cop. Knows more than anyone at the station. She’d make captain if she was more cooperative with… well, everybody. But I’ve learned a lot.”
“But she gets stuck with a rookie.”
“Like I said, she’s assertive. Honestly, the only reason she doesn’t come at you swinging is because she’s got no evidence, yet.”
“So why am I here, Runner? Getting a ride home from her partner?”
He shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, Fossor. No body means no official investigation. But everything about you? It stinks of a double life, and anyone who knows what they’re doing can see it. Your employer thinks you’re decent, but your buddies, those college guys? They spoke a little too highly, know what I mean?”
I frowned but said nothing.
“All that said, my gut tells me you’re not the bad guy.”
I noticed we had passed my house, and he started circling the block. “Then this isn’t about a non-existent murder investigation then, is it? If your gut tells you I’m not a bad guy, why not just ask me? People have been giving me the sideways approach all week, it’d be refreshing to get asked straight for once.”
Runner shrugged. “You mind if I run something by you? You don’t have to answer but…”
“Please.”
“Okay. So you didn’t hear this from me, but right now Homicide and Narcotics are at each other’s throats. Specifically, Loren and her ex- er, Detective Jefferson, who is working the Stig case.”
“And?”
“And, after four months of investigating, he has zero leads. The junkies he talks to disappear. The pushers they pointed to don’t exist. We know they’re using some kind of disposable injector, but we haven’t been able to get our hands on one. Statistically, we should have something by now, but we don’t have enough Stig to do a proper chemical analysis.”
He drifted by my house again, without slowing.
“So for weeks now, Jefferson has been circling the drain,” Runner continued. “Then he gets an anonymous tip, a truck smuggling out of Lincoln. He jumps at it, the first lead in forever. And we find you with a body in your truck, allegedly dead from a Stig overdose. But then the body walks out of the morgue.”
“Walked?” I asked. I’d suspected, but had to keep appearances.
“Walked. Station security cameras spotted him getting into a white van outside,” Runner said. “Any chance it was yours?”
“We were together when it happened, Detective.”
“Right. Well, after we arrested you, Loren wanted you for murder, and the Captain agreed. Narcotics has to deal with that shit a lot. But the body vanishes, and the Captain makes us let you go.”
“Seems a little odd,” I said.
“There’s more. Did you hear about the Arlington Hotel fire?”
I blinked. “The where now?”
“Downtown,” he said. “It was a drug den, we thought it was owned by the Russians. Jefferson got another tip that Stig was being sold there. Everyone was sort of on-edge after what happened with you, so it was easy for him to get everyone to head out in force. But it was burning down when they got there.”
“Sounds heavy.”
Runner finally stopped the car in front of my house. “So with all this shit happening, my gut tells me you’re a carrot on a stick leading us in a direction we shouldn’t be looking.”
“I don’t suppose you’ll stop, then?”
He smirked. “No. Even if you’re a distraction, my gut tells me you know more than you’re letting on. A lot more.”
I let the statement hover between us for a moment. “Is that so?”
He leaned towards me. “C’mon, man. I’m not looking to arrest you over smuggling or whatever it is you do. I’m after big fish here. I want Jefferson to find something substantial, before it becomes our problem, know what I mean? I want to find these Stig-sellers. The Lincoln Street Mambas won’t talk. I’m guessing you know something.”
“And?”
“Anything,” Runner said. “A name, a place, a breadcrumb. Give me a direction that leads to something substantial, and maybe you won’t have to worry about us following you around anymore.”
I weighed my options. On one hand, Runner could be baiting me. If I implicated myself any further, he would have an excuse to slap the cuffs on me. It was also possible he was struggling for something to show his superiors, desperate to prove himself beyond a single well-publicized but incidental arrest.
On the other hand, he had come to me alone and gave me everything the cops had on the Stig case, which wasn’t a lot. It convinced me he cared more about preventing deaths than making arrests. It was easy for me to dismiss cops, being so much of a crook myself, and seeing cops as just crooks with
badges.
I wanted to believe it was rare to meet one who gave a damn, but I told myself that wasn’t true. There are a lot of good cops. An overwhelming number of them. My mother’s husband was one. And James Runner, however young, however naive, was one, too.
I rubbed my face. “Okay, Jimmy. You didn’t hear this from me, alright?”
He held up a hand. “Scout’s honor.”
“I knew you were a scout,” I muttered. “Some people are saying the guys fighting the Lincoln Street Mambas call themselves the Brothers Midnight. They’re Haitians, or at least their leadership is. And whatever is in Stig, they need two things, gardens and saltwater aquariums.”
“Gardens, so grow op. What are the aquariums for?”
“No idea,” I lied. “But I know they’re important. Look for aquarium purchases. Big ones, and a lot of them.”
“That’s not a lot to go with,” he said.
“No, but it’s more than you had.” I stepped out into the rain with my bag.
“Hey, if this pans out, it could take the pressure off you, but no guarantees. If you think of anything else-” He dug into his coat and produced an embossed white card. It wasn’t as fancy as Jocelyn’s, but it was official. “Call me. The more you give me, the better for everyone. Keep your head low in the meantime, Alex.”
“You’re all heart, Detective.”
I went into the house and unpacked my groceries when someone knocked on my door. Nothing but trouble had come through that door in the past few days, so I grabbed my revolver before I answered it.
Madelyn MacLaith was on the other side. She hugged her skinny arms, drenched from the rain.
“I need help.”
EIGHTEEN
I stepped aside to let Madelyn in, sticking the pistol in my pocket before she could see it. “Lemme grab you a towel.”
She dropped to her knees, all but hugging the terracotta planter in which I’d dumped her gravesoil. I fetched her a towel from the bathroom and she dried herself off. She looked like a sad little goth-rock puppy.
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