Roots of Misfortune

by Seth Pevey

  He moved slowly towards her, his broad shoulders tinkling the chimes and scraping the tea leaves down from their shelves.

  “Isadore,” he said.

  She didn’t say his name. Wouldn’t say it.

  “How long has it been since I’ve filled my eyes with you, old woman?”

  She looked at him a long time. Studied him. Listening for the whispers. “Long while,” she said, lighting a candle in between them.

  The grin on his face deepened, glowing in the small little flame. “Do not be afraid.”

  She nodded. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  His eyes bore into her. Cold eyes. Eyes missing something. Then he cast them about the room, sizing up her paltry wares.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “And why would a woman who talks to the spirits need me to tell her that?”

  Isadore tried to breathe. She sipped her tea and looked out at the cracking lightning. She was alone with this man now, the spirits all kept their distance. His presence expanded in the small room, sucking the air right out of it. Something was coming off him like the oil of burnt peppers. But it wasn’t a smell.

  “Someone is hunting you,” she finally said.

  He nodded, looking pleased with her.

  “You know them,” he replied. “They are close.”

  She lit a clove cigarette, something she never did indoors until that moment. “It is the two men from the office down the street. The two men who showed up at the parade today. One is a tired looking old drunk with pain in his eyes, the other a young lad with a jingle in his pocket and a chip on his shoulder.”

  “Ah, my Isadore. So wise and knowing. How has it been so long since we’ve broken bread together?”

  They both looked down at her hands where the clove smoke rose and twisted in the candle light. They shook terribly, visibly, and she didn’t want him to see that. She tucked the hands back under the desk, out of sight.

  “What do you want me to do about them? Because I already know that the answer is no. I’m no man’s goon. At 72 years old, I have seen enough bloodshed, and I do not spill the blood of the living. There are spells, however…”

  She handed him a laminated menu. “Curses are three hundred dollars…four hundred if…”

  He smiled and showed his orogenous teeth. Isadore found her voice stilled by that smile. She stared into the etched gold of them, gazed at the incisors brought down off some far away mountain in a miner’s pouch, melted like butter in a Philadelphia furnace, tracing a dozen other stop-offs before finding their way into this skull, into this smile as wide now as a crescent moon.

  “Do you think I’m some tourist you can pawn off with some of your snake oil, Isadore?”

  She stubbed out the clove and shook a few of the stray braids out of her eyes, watched the dark man reach into the pocket of his black jacket.

  He brought out a little doll, turned it around in his big hands, examining it. A chicken bone, wrapped in burlap and topped with an obsidian, legume shaped head. He stuck out a long arm and let the fetish fall on her desk, where the volcanic head of it rattled against the wood as it came to rest right next to the picture of her late husband.

  She gasped, bit her lip, shook her head at the deep disrespect.

  “What kind of mother would do this? To her own son?” the man said. The gold smile had gone now and his face could not be read. The front door shuddered in the wind and her candle flame flickered and went out. More thunder, a newspaper cartwheeling down the sidewalk.

  “What do you mean?” She said.

  “I have a soldier who cannot fight. A Wildman who is like a flaccid cock. I have a man here that is not who he once was. All because of some curse you put on him.”

  She shook her head, picked up the little bone doll. “This doll…this doll is not a likeness of Landry Ducet…if that is what you’re asking.”

  The man stared at it, a large eyebrow raised now. Isadore turned the picture of her husband around so that the man’s cold eyes could study it.

  “They looked very much alike,” she said, her voice shaking. “My late husband had many of the same features. The strange head shape. The green eyes. The little dark freckles.”

  The man crossed his arms, leaned back in his chair. His brow furrowed in thought.

  Isadore felt slighted. “And you think that this doll represents some kind of a curse? That isn’t how this works. That is simply a Hollywood concoction. No, no. I made that doll in remembrance of my late husband when he died. I buried it out on the island during one of our meetings. That doll was made as a blessing, not a curse.”

  “And so your son is…”

  She cut him off, feeling propelled by the insult “Landry is not my son. He was a bastard, planted in the belly of some whore on some inauspicious night. My husband was a good man, but sometimes liquor got the better of him.”

  “But you raised Landry. I’ve known you both my whole life. You raised him. He shares your name. He is the seed of the man you gave your life to.”

  “That may be true, but I could never stand to look at him. Never stand to see…” She shook her head. “He is not my son. He did not grow in my belly.” Isadore picked up the little doll and examined the head, the freckles.

  She scowled at him. “This doesn’t belong here. It belongs precisely where I left it. Why have you dug up what was not yours to disturb.”

  The man’s confused look faded, and the smile returned. He let out a cruel laugh that filled the little room and seemed to still the wind. “You still don’t understand, Isadore. I’m afraid you aren’t listening.”

  Another roll of thunder, this one much louder than before.

  “These two men…” she said.

  “These two men. These two…diggers. Because that is all they do, Isadore Ducet. They dig and dig and they have no understanding of what soil they dig in, of what seeds they may disturb. They are men who have only spades. And to a man who only knows a spade, the only answer is to dig deeper.”

  She stood up, brushed the wrinkles out of her dress, walked around to the window and looked out onto the flooded street. She put her face close to the cold glass, finally turning her back on the long-armed man. “And you? You come here to stir up an old woman’s pain? To remind her of the past? What is it you want from me?”

  “Undo the curse,” he said.

  “I’ve already told you…there is no…”

  “It doesn’t matter whether the curse is real to you or not. The power of it comes from believing. And Landry believes. While he believes, he is of no use to me. He is weak. He is…a liability. And so, the curse becomes real.”

  “There is nothing I can…”

  He cut her off, his voice rising now in anger. “You heard me old woman. I want you to undo the curse on Landry. On your son.”

  Her eyes narrowed and a swirl of unwelcomed thoughts entered her mind.

  “I don’t know what you want me to do. There is no curse…”

  “The only way to heal an old man’s weakness, is to remind him of the strength he once had.” The long-armed man had stood up, and followed her up to the window. He came closer. Too close now. She could smell the rum on his breath as he pressed up behind her. She felt the bony lump of his nose in her hair, his long bony fingers creeping up the sides of her dress, a shaft pressing into her backside.

  Her stomach turned in revulsion. If only the spirits were here now to protect her. If only her husband were…

  “The spirits,” he whispered, close in her ear. “The spirits have spoken, old woman. They call out for a drink. And we must serve them.”

  “What do you want from me?” she cried.

  He put a hand on the back of her head, pushed it flat against the window pane. Her cheek smashed up against the glass, expanding, and her eyes could see the tiny flecks of water reflecting the streetlights outside into shattered spots of light.

  The expensive window, with its hand painted lettering, bent now in the middle. It m
ade a popping sound in protest. Or was it the sound of her skull?

  “I told you,” the man hissed. “It isn’t about what I want. It is what the spirits want. It is what the lwa demand. They must fill their cups.”

  “What do they want…fill them with what?”

  “Blood,” the man said, and released the pressure.

  And then he was gone.

  She locked the door behind him, quickly regaining her composure. She stood by the glass a long while making sure he was gone. Finally, she went back to sit at her chair and catch her breath, to still the tremble in her bones.

  She found a .45 magnum sitting where the bone doll had been, the picture of her gone husband eying it warily.

  Fourteen

  Scrappy’s tongue hung down the side of his face and his hair was matted by raindrops. Under the weight of his canine form, Felix found himself damp to the knees, having stumbled through a few shin-deep puddles on his way down the aptly-named Basin Street. Scrappy was heavy, and the young man’s wounded right shoulder felt a hot and tingling agony under the strain. But he was propelled on by both love and hate, bearing the sick animal towards the address found slipped under their door, covered in poison though it was. Scrappy had quit his convulsing now, and lay mercifully still. There was life in his eyes, Felix assured himself as he put one foot in front of the other and tried not to falter.

  Melancon followed, disheveled and rained upon, until they arrived in front of the shop. The old man wavered as he pressed his face up to the glass, trying to get the lay of what waited for them on the interior. He had the look of a wet, sick dog himself, standing drunkenly in the rain without his hat. Despite that, he kept a shaky hand hovering over the revolver at his side as he peered through, past the hand painted lettering, and then turned to survey the street as well.

  The rain continued to fall in bulbous drops as the two detectives heard the door unlocking. They hadn’t even yet knocked.

  “Put him there,” she said to Felix, curt, pointing to an empty spot on her carpet.

  An old, fleshy woman with skin the color of milky tea and a dress confused about its own theme. Felix did his best to read her. Tension in her stoop? Anger in the quick, taciturn way she addressed them? Apprehension in those unsmiling jowls?

  Perhaps the reflection of some killer creeping up behind them, flashing through her glassy eyes?

  Felix found nothing definite, but Melancon was already embarked on a diligent inspection of the small, herb-scented room. The old man took to the back of the shop next, his hand rigid on his hip. He turned on lights and peaked into corners.

  “Looks all clear, Felix,” he called, as the young man lay his scrappy friend down on the carpet.

  “You poison my fucking dog lady? You better start talking,” he began, glaring up at her.

  She pulled a small stool from one corner and squat down on it, nearly level with the dog. With her wrinkly right hand she tugged back Scrappy’s lips and studied the color of his gums. She pointed a small flashlight into his eyes, stroked his head and said something in a language that Felix did not understand.

  “It was not me,” she said. “But…I am the only one who could help you now.” Her bones cracked audibly as she lifted herself from her stool, began moving around the room, urgently pulling ingredients off the shelves and putting them into a mortar.

  She whispered to herself as she did so: “Sprig of rosemary. Lavender oil. Pinch of sulfur. Of course, a tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide.”

  Felix tore his suspicious eyes off of her to look down at Scrappy. “So, is he…?”

  “He will be fine,” she said, flashing a look at the older detective where he now stood by the front door. Melancon’s fingers ran over the grip of his gun, and he scanned the street with his legs wobbly and wet beneath him.

  Isadore nodded towards the old man. “Your friend here, I’m not so sure. Is he going to shoot someone? Because he looks and smells far too drunk to be handling that pistol on his hip.”

  Felix looked her in the eyes. “Maybe he thinks dog-poisoners might be around, lady. Maybe he is fully prepared to put a bullet in such a man, drunk or not…or such a woman. The note with the poison had this address on it.” Felix pointed at the ground of the place. “So start talking. Was it Trombone Landry Ducet put you up to this?”

  She continued to look dubiously at the older man. Finally she took up her pestle and began to grind the pungent concoction, which threatened to fizzle over the lip of the mortar.

  “Landry Ducet is no killer,” she said. “Not of dogs or of men. He is just a man who fell out of favor with the spirits. Or believes he has, anyway.”

  Felix felt his anger rising. “Look. I only believe what my eyes see. What my fingers touch. I’m a detective. And all signs are clear that Landry Ducet has been…”

  But Melancon held a hand up to Felix. The old man was right, of course. No need to tell this woman more than she needed to know. Not yet.

  The mixture prepared, Isadore stuck spoonful after spoonful of it down the dog’s gaping maw, deftly avoiding the teeth with her flesh. Then, she went back behind her desk and finished her tea in one long gulp.

  “He will be fine, but be prepared for what is about to happen. You mustn’t wait, he needs to be taken outside immediately. Unless you’d like to pay to have my carpet steam cleaned.”

  “You!” She pointed to Melancon. “Take him across the street there, to that patch of grass. Your young friend and I must speak alone. And see that you aren’t drinking any more poison tonight either, eh? I’m nearly out of rosemary and sulfur.”

  Melancon looked at her, silent. The dog stopped its writhing and in a moment had regained its feet. Scrappy had a spell whining and licking the foam away from his mouth, swaying like a drunk.

  “Stay sharp, Felix,” his partner said. “I’ll be right out front.” The old man patted his thigh at the open doorway, led the dog out onto the sidewalk where it promptly began to vomit into the rain puddles.

  Isadore lit a candle and a stick of incense. “Sit,” she commanded.

  Felix was hesitant. He looked out through the shop window and could see that Melancon was indeed watching over him. Standing in the rain next to a vomiting dog, half drunk and without his hat, his old partner was still entirely attentive to the goings on inside the shop.

  Felix sat, took a breath.

  “We have some trouble, no?” she said.

  “Who are you lady?”

  She sighed, put a hand out and grasped a picture that was resting on her desk. Nodding to it, she slowly turned the frame so that Felix came face to face with the image captured there.

  A black and white shot of a well-dressed man. He held up a thin, delicate glass containing some sort of red liquid. Wine perhaps. A French Quarter pub filled the background.

  It took a minute for Felix to realize. He studied the man more closely—the bean-shaped head, the same little prints under his eyes, the same bushy brows and split teeth.

  “That’s….”

  “My name is Isadore,” she broke in. “Like, on the sign. Isadore…Ducet. I am Landry’s…well, you can call me his mother. But I’m not his mother, really. Because I did not bear him. He was a bastard child of the man you see in this picture, mistakenly put in the belly of some Saturday night whore. He was my husband and a good man, for the most part, but troubled by drink. Just like your partner there.”

  Felix nodded. “He is a bastard, alright. Nearly killed my partner and…”

  But she cut him off yet again. “Felix. Yes, I know your name. Both of your names, in fact. You have been called here by a man. But that man was not Landry Ducet. That man is one whose name I will not speak. He brings you here in the hope that you will come to understand the will of the spirits.”

  “Oh that’s nice. And what is that, lady? What is it your ‘spirits’ want from me?”

  She took the picture back from him, used a silk cloth to wipe off the fingerprints from the glass of the frame. “Stop your dig
ging,” she said. “You are digging in a soil you can’t possibly understand. And in your digging, you will find nothing fruitful. In fact, the deeper you go the worse it will get for you. Forget about what you think you know. Move on with your life. You are young. Many years left. But if you continue with this investigation then old Isadore cannot protect you. And neither can the spirits.”

  He studied her. A moment of tense silence passed between them and the incense smoke curled up and flitted through the candle glow. Felix felt a pressure in his injured shoulder, and thought perhaps he had reinjured it getting Scrappy here, to this odd little shop on Basin. The young man drummed the fingers of one hand on her desk, stuck the others down his pants pocket and placed the contents they’d found in front of the woman.

  “John the Conqueror,” she said, matter-of-factly. Both of them stared down at the two root balls for a moment.

  “Can we be real, Isadore? Drop the spirit stuff. We both know this is all a bunch of bullshit. Everybody knows it. Oh, and don’t think I’m just disrespecting your particular brand of bullshit, either. Christianity isn’t any better. We all know it is really just a series of elaborate games we all play in order for us to feel better about death, right? I mean, can we just come out and say it? You know it. I know it. We all know it. Whether it is mass at St. Patrick’s or it is this stuff, it all serves the same purpose. Making death seem…not so bad. I mean, wouldn’t it be just great if all the people we’ve lost are…are just hanging out and watching us, giving good people good luck and bad people bad luck. That would just be swell. Angels, demons, heaven, hell. Sort of order to the world. A right and wrong that’s clear and consistent and enforced by some…some…ethereal bureaucracy.”

  Felix laughed. She watched him with serious eyes and did not return the smile. He continued, devoted now to making light of the whole thing. Levity was how you took away power from something, from an idea. And that was just what he wanted to do.

  “And then when you die, instead of worm gruel you get to be one of these mysterious puffs of cloud helping everybody out. I get it…I mean I wish I could believe it, trust me lady, I really do. I lost a brother last year. I sure as hell would love to believe that he is in this room right now, helping me to stare you down. But he ain’t. He’s dead. His bones are out in Metairie cemetery right now soaking up this rainwater and probably fertilizing the oak trees. But I’m at peace with that. I made my peace because I’m not scared of death. Not like you. But while I’m here, all I know how to do is help the living. And right now, to help, I need to know about this stupid little root. And I need to know about…Landry Ducet. Because this root ties a missing girl to a murdered girl... and all of it seems to lead back to Landry.”