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I was tagging alligator
paws in the botanica when Mama Luiz poked her grizzled head
through the doorway. She had a headless chicken in one
hand, a bottle of Jamaican rum in the other, and a deep
frown on her face.
“Lilith,” she
slurred, “there’s a bad storm brewin’.”
I knew this ancient
Haitian woman put more faith in a pool of fresh chicken
blood than all the Doppler radars in New Orleans. However,
she wasn’t concerned with meteorology. Not with her face
crumpled like a brown pumpkin and the morning sky a deep
flawless blue.
“What’s the matter,
Mama-La?” I asked.
“A Mr. Gene Bluming
called while you were practicing your martial arts.” I
followed her into the kitchen. She threw the chicken onto a
platter. “I told him we do what we can. Can’t promise
much, though. Not wit’ this type o’ problem.” She chewed
her bottom lip with worry. “Oh, well.”
She tipped the rum
bottle into her mouth and rubbed garlic, butter and cayenne
pepper into the chicken.
“Bluming.” I
helped her put the chicken in an iron skillet. “I’ve heard
that name before.”
“Sure you have,
child. He owns dat place which makes the honey biscuits I
like. The Pik-a-Chik. He’s waiting at his main restaurant
on Canal Street. You go see what he wants. Mebbe we can
get some money in dis house. Lord knows we need it.”
I washed my hands
and went out to my moped. Mama Luiz banged open a bamboo
shutter and called from the window, “Pick up a dozen of dem
honey biscuits, hokay? They taste good wit’ my chicken and
dirty rice.”
I straddled my
orange Vespa and strapped on my helmet. “Put the rum away,
Mama-La. You’ve had enough for today.”
“It’s my
arthritis,” she complained. “You threw away my opium and my
hookah.” She clutched a shawl around her shoulders. “Old
Mama Luiz, she have more misery than ever. Get my biscuits,
girl, and find out what Mr. Bluming wants from an old vaudau
like mysel’.”
She banged the
shutter closed. Shaking my head, I started my moped and
drove away.
* * *
Gene Bluming opened
the Pik-a-Chik Café ten years ago. It became a local
sensation. Everyone agreed it was the best Creole fried
chicken joint in New Orleans, and that’s saying something.
Before long he opened ten more stores throughout the Deep
South.
I opened the side
door to the family-owned restaurant, wondering what kind of
trouble a fried food king could get into. Especially one
who needed the help of Mama Luiz.
A short hallway led
me to the main dining room. A spicy aroma drifted from the
kitchen. A tall black woman stood behind the counter, doing
last minute paperwork before they opened.
“Hello,” I said. “
My name is Lilith Boddicea. I’m here on behalf of Mama
Luiz.”
The waitress behind
the counter gawked at me. I get that a lot. There aren’t
many sixteen-year old Buddhist nuns with shaved heads
running around New Orleans.
I was in a colorful
robe and skirt with a brown stole. She wore a spotless
black and white uniform with a checkered apron. Her name
tag read “Flonnula”. Her hair was pinned back and her skin
was the color of chicory coffee with a large measure of
cream mixed in.
“Oh, yes, I
remember.” She smiled as if she realized staring might be
considered rude. “I’m Flonnula Pagget. We were expecting
you.” She showed me through a steamy kitchen where chefs
prepped for the lunch rush, and into a cramped office
stacked with metal filing cabinets and ironwork
bookshelves. A fancy saltwater aquarium took up one corner,
but there were no fish inside.
Crouched behind a
cluttered desk, with photographs of his wife and family, sat
a handsome, middle-aged man with clear grey eyes.
Flonnula tapped on
the open door. “Mr. Bluming, your appointment is here.”
“Thank you,
Flonnula. You can go now.” Gene Bluming had been making
out an hourly work schedule. He put it aside and rose to
greet me. A thickset man, his unruly shock of hair curled
around his white collar like corn silk.
“Thank you for
coming on short notice.” He closed the door of his office
for privacy. “I was expecting Mama Luiz. For what she
charges as a private consultant I prefer to deal exclusively
with her.”
I get that a lot,
too. “I assure you, sir, as her private secretary I have
Mama Luiz’s complete confidence.”
“Yes, I
understand.” He coughed delicately. “However, my problem
is of a most unusual nature. Even my employees don’t know
I’m meeting Mama Luiz today. It’s not something you would
ordinarily want to get around.” He motioned towards the
phone. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all.”
He looked for the
number in his Rolodex. “That’s strange,” he muttered. “I
had it here yesterday.”
I gave him the
phone number and he thanked me. I waited while he dialed
the botanica on Dauphine. After a few curt words, Bluming
handed me the receiver.
“Yes, ma’am?”
Mama Luiz’s aged
voice filled my ear: “Lilith, you watch yoursel’.” Her
voice sounded hollow, like she was speaking through a long
tube. “I been examining the entrails of dat hen I killed.
The loas, the bad spirit demons, they thick in the air this
morning.” She paused. “Don’t forget my biscuits.”
“No, ma’am.” I
tried to emphasize my next words. “But I need more time
before I do that. A little help on your end would be nice.”
Mama Luiz
understood my meaning, if not my intent. “Hokay, let me
talk to Mr. Bluming again.”
Gene Bluming took
the phone. I made a motion I needed to find the bathroom.
He pointed the way and promptly forgot about me.
A short ell-shaped
hallway led to the back of the restaurant. A swing door
opened onto a packed storeroom, and beyond that was another
door. I pushed it open and peeked into an employee break
room.
Flonnula was
listening on an extension, her back to me.
That explained how
she knew I was coming this morning, even though Bluming was
explicit none of his employees knew. It also explained the
hollowness of the phone when I was talking to Mama Luiz.
I let the door
swing softly shut, went into the bathroom to wash my face,
and returned to Bluming’s office.
He was putting the
phone back in its cradle. “Well,” he said, “you were
right. It seems I’m to tell you my problem first.”
I nodded. “That’s
how we work, sir. She doesn’t get around much because of
her age.”
He rose from his
desk with a resigned air. “Very well. I don’t have any
choice, really. Follow me and you’ll see what I’m talking
about.”
Before leaving his
office I paused to admire the saltwater aquarium.
“My wife’s hobby,”
Bluming said in passing.
“It’s pretty.”
“There used to be a
globefish inside, but it died last week, poor thing.”
We went through the
break room, now empty. Bluming unlocked a reinforced door
which led to a fenced-in alley with a yellow trash bin and
two metal ones painted olive green.
He tapped the
yellow bin with significance. “Do you know what’s inside?”
I took a wild
guess. “Garbage?”
He smiled briefly.
“This yellow bin holds stale grease and leftover
refrigerated chicken from last night.”
“Yes, sir, I can
see that. And smell it.”
“It’s worth
hundreds of dollars, young lady.”
He didn’t appear to
be insane. “Pardon me?”
“I sell the used
grease from my deep fat fryers to a canned dog food
manufacturer in Houston. Every week he collects from my
restaurant chain. Lately, however, there’s been a hitch.”
He motioned me to
follow him. On the other side of the bin, laying on the
ground, was a circle of red candles with two crossed chicken
feathers in the center of some sprinkled flour. On top of
the feathers was a dead toad with its belly slit open.
Bluming motioned to
the grisly tableau. “Someone keeps performing a cult ritual
behind my restaurants. The man who buys my grease employs
Haitian drivers. When they see this they refuse to take the
containers. I’m losing good money every week and I want it
to stop.”
I glanced around.
The narrow alley was enclosed by an eight-foot chain-link
fence topped with barbed wire. The iron gate was old and
rusted, but the Chubb lock was new and the fittings were
solid.
There was an
ancient pecan tree on the other side of the fence. Someone
could climb and swing down into Bluming’s alley, but it
would be a long drop. I wouldn’t want to try it. Anyone
else who didn’t use the outside gate would have to enter the
alley from within the restaurant. I wondered if that
someone was prone to listen in on private telephone
conversations.
I fingered a broken
seal on the grease bin. “Shouldn’t this be locked, or
something?”
Bluming came
forward with a frown wrinkling his brow. “Yes, as a matter
of fact it should.”
I lifted the top
and peeked inside, holding my nose. I slammed the lid down,
my heart hammering.
Bluming blinked in
surprise at my reaction. “What’s the matter?” He
cautiously opened the bin. “Oh, my God!” He dropped the
lid, his face paling.
I took my cell
phone from my robe and dialed 911. When the dispatcher
asked what I had found, I told her.
On top of the
sludge of smelly grease was a human head.
* * *
Lt. Daubigny asked
pointedly, “Mama Luiz, why do you always show up when there
are dead bodies around?”
She held an
umbrella to keep the hot sun off her head while she paid her
taxi. “Lilith phoned me after she called you, Lieutenant.
Mr. Bluming is my client. Dat’s the truth of it.”
“The hell you say.
And you can drop the phony accent, Domatile. I happen to
know you have a doctorate in cultural anthropology from
Tulane.”
Mama Luiz grinned.
“Can I help it if swamp witch pays better, Lieutenant?”
Thomas Daubigny was
a detective who worked homicide. He had solid shoulders and
a broken nose from his days in Golden Gloves. He was the
kind of man who could make me question my vow of
non-violence.
Mama Luiz once gave
me her homespun views regarding Daubigny, and people in
general. “Some women need to be slapped,” she had said.
“Most men deserve to be hung. That Lieutenant Daubigny, he
often in need of both remedies.”
After the crime
scene was secured the body was dredged from the thick,
greasy slime. Mama Luiz made a small noise of recognition
when she saw the dead man’s facial features. They were
locked in a rictus of death. Well, I didn’t suppose being
drowned in grease was a pleasant way to die.
Daubigny turned to
Gene Bluming who was speaking on a cell phone with his
wife. “Yes, darling, the police are here now. So is Mama
Luiz, though I doubt there’s anything she can do now. Well,
I had to hire her, I didn’t know what else to do. Right.
No need for you to come down, I’ll handle it. ‘Bye.”
“What is this gunk
used for, Mr. Bluming?” Daubigny, tactful as always.
“I sell it to a dog
food plant in Houston.” Bluming gave the address and
contacts.
Daubigny scribbled
in his notebook. He looked up, impassive. “That dead body
might give the recipe a noticeable twang. Who hauls the
grease away?”
“I contract with
Sunrise Trucking Company.”
The cop’s eyes
narrowed. “In Slidell? I thought they went out of business
after Katrina.”
“No, sir. They’re
still working.”
Daubigny made a
note of that, too, before turning on me. “What were you
doing here, kid?”
Mama Luiz answered
for me. “Mr. Bluming called me this morning, Lieutenant.
Someone’s been leaving warning signs to scare the Haitian
drivers who pick up his chicken grease.”
Daubigny rolled his
brown eyes behind his gold spectacles. “Oh, yes, the dead
frog. More than likely the case-breaking clue we’ve all
been hoping for.” He sighed tiredly. “All right, I suppose
it won’t hurt you to have a look, Domatile. This is more
your line of expertise, anyway.”
“I’ve always said
you had good sense to seek help from someone whose knowledge
lay outside ordinary bounds, Lieutenant.”
“Cut the crap.”
Mama Luiz inspected
the crude altar. With permission she picked up a candle and
peered at the strange markings stamped into the red wax. It
looked like some kind of alien writing surrounding a demon
carved in bas-relief.
Her face was set in
stone. “This can be interpreted many different ways, but
it’s probably meant to be literal. ‘Touch the bin and you
end up like de frog.’ No surprise the Haitian drivers balk
when they see this.”
“All right,
Domatile. Thank you for your help.” Daubigny towered over
her small, frail body. “Now, need I remind you this is an
active police investigation? I don’t want you meddling, as
you are always want to do.”
“May I ask one
question, Lieutenant? Who was that man you dragged from the
garbage grease?”
“He’s Jim Bunge, a
known transient who never had the good sense to leave New
Orleans after the hurricane.” His brown eyes cut towards
the yellow bin. “This time it looks like he found himself
in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Mama Luiz’s face
was shadowed under the umbrella. She wrinkled her nose.
“There’s a bad air about this place, Lieutenant.”
“Yeah, well, it is
stale chicken grease, after all.” He swung his attention
back to her. “Go home, Domatile. That’s not a request.”
Mama Luiz cackled
and lapsed back into dialect. “Perfectly understood,
Lieutenant. I always say we should follow de law.” She
took my arm. “Come, Lilith. We have lunch to prepare.”
We made our way
through the crowd of onlookers and TV crews gathering on the
broken sidewalk. It wasn’t everyday a dead body was found
in stale chicken grease.
When we were a fair
distance away, Mama Luiz’s eyes blazed with worry. I had
never seen her so agitated. “We must hurry, child. That
altar, it’s one of the loa temples I seen as a little girl
in Port-au-Prince. The flour is a verve, a ceremonial
drawing of Kalfu.”
“Who?”
“A bad loa who
controls the evil forces of the spirit world. He sits at
the crossroads between worlds. He is a dark counterpart to
Legba. Kalfu’s symbol always means death and misfortune.
His color is red, like dem candles. Someone was trying to
open a gate to contact him. It appears dey were
successful. When Kalfu appears, he must take a life.”
“What are we going
to do?”
“I’m going to the
Sunshine Trucking Company and speak with dose Haitian men.
I expect they will talk to me. I want you to return home
and find my grimoire. You know the one I mean. Bring it to
me in Slidell so I can do some reading on de way back about
this here problem.” She pushed me. “Go on, girl.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I started my Vespa
and rode off while she hailed another cab. Since Katrina
the roads have never been what they used to be in New
Orleans. Not that they were all that great to begin with.
Street crews were working on Canal and had much of it
blocked so I turned on North Rampart to wind my way back to
the Vieux Carre. As I drove through the Quarter a black
Mercedes swung behind me. I swerved to let it pass when all
of a sudden it grew large and fast in my rearview mirror.
I felt the hairs on
the back of my neck stand up. I hit the gas and my little
moped jumped. The big car stayed with me, eating up the
distance and filling my mirror. I took a corner fast,
blowing through the stop sign on Dauphine with the rear
wheel going out from under me. I got my moped straightened
out and went straight as an arrow.
I glanced in my
mirror. The Mercedes was still with me. My little
four-stroke engine was no match for German engineering. I
didn’t know who was behind me but I didn’t want to lead them
back to the botanica. Foolish, perhaps, to think he didn’t
know about my home, but on the one percent chance he didn’t
I wanted to lead him as far away as possible. Anyway, there
was nothing at home that could help me right now, and I felt
I would be able to lose him easily enough in the narrow
streets of the French Quarter if I was given half a chance.
But the car hung in
there amid loud honking from other drivers who found
themselves cut off as we blew through two more
intersections. We were on Chartres when I heard the big
engine race. The Mercedes was moving in for the kill. I
couldn’t get off the road and onto the sidewalk. The street
was lined with cars.
I was in a
killing-bottle and the driver knew it.
Finally, I saw an
opening ahead. I gave a shout of relief. If I popped
through I could reach the sidewalk and lose the driver for
good. I shot for it like a rabbit. The engine in the
Mercedes screamed with power as its front fender tapped my
back wheel, hard. The big car rushed past me with a blast
of air. I had my skid corrected when a boy stepped into the
street ahead of me. I twisted the handlebars violently to
avoid him. I caught a glimpse of his open mouth and wide
eyes as he leaped back out of the way. The front wheel of
my Vespa slammed into the curb. I went flying over the
handlebars and went straight through a plate glass window of
an Italian restaurant and came down in the salad trays.
* * *
“Lilith. Can you
hear me, child?”
I opened my eyes.
I was in a white bed with white sheets and a white cast on
my left arm. “Where am I?”
“What happened,
honey?” Mama Luiz asked.
“Someone tried to
run me down.” I told her everything I remembered. Then:
“My moped.”
“We’ll buy you
another one, child. How are you feeling?”
“Woozy.”
“You’ve been here
for a whole day. But the doctor, he says you can leave
tomorrow morning.”
“Mama-La, I forgot,
there’s something else I have to tell you.”
“No, child, you
rest.”
“Flonnula Pagget
was listening on the extension. She’s spying on Mr.
Bluming. She’s mixed up in this ... whatever it is.
Kalfu. She has to be.”
She touched my
face. “Yes, I’ve already talked to her. We’ll go see her
tomorrow. But not for the reasons you think. Now you
sleep. I be here when you wake up, hokay?”
“All right.”
“Lilith.”
“Yes?”
“I haven’t taken a
drink of rum today.”
I reached for her
gnarled hand. “I love you too, Mama-La.”
* * *
“Legba stands at
the crossroads between life and death,” Mama Luiz said. Her
face was illuminated by a green-shaded lamp in Flonnula’s
two-room apartment. The Venetian blinds were drawn,
blocking out the morning sun. The air inside the room was
still.
“He is a messenger,
and Kalfu is his dark counterpart. They are not one without
the other. Legba controls the spirits of the day, Kalfu
controls the spirits of the night. It is significant
someone was building these altars at night and using red
candles, with the visage of Kalfu cut into de wax.”
Mama Luiz sprinkled
oil and incense on parchment paper taken from her white
leather tote. She gummed a lock of Flonnula’s hair onto the
paper and folded it into thirds. After whispering a prayer
she laid it in a glass ashtray.
Flonnula watched
with fascination.
“They are both
tricksters,” Mama Luiz said. “Even I, at the height of my
powers, do not take the decision to open doors between the
material and spiritual worlds lightly. Yet, someone has
done exactly this. Kalfu is now among us, walking within
our world and spreading death. I must stop him, though it
cost me my life.”
She lighted the
parchment with a kitchen match. It curled into a black ball
with a crackling orange flame tinged with green.
Mama Luiz picked up
the smoking fragments and crushed them between her brown
hands. “This small sacrifice should momentarily appease the
spirit world,” she told Flonnula as she wiped her hands on a
towel. “It is a simple protection, a gris-gris to
safeguard your soul for the moment. But men are much more
dangerous than spirits. They cannot be turned by simple
magic. Their lust for blood is not so easily quenched.”
“Tell me about it,”
I muttered.
Mama Luiz gave a
sage nod. “Lilith survived the attempt on her life with a
broken bone and abrasions. Her martial arts training came
into play, giving her de quickness to duck into a ball when
she hit the window.”
Mama Luiz’s words
had a noticeable effect on Flonnula. “I doubt you will be
so lucky, my dear, when Kalfu targets you for death.”
Flonnula’s waxen
face was full of fear. Mama Luiz had brought me to speed
upon my release from the hospital. Someone had left another
altar and dead frog on Flonnula’s doorstep the day I had my
accident. Knowing Mr. Bluming had hired her, she called
Mama Luiz who told her to stay home and don’t leave under
any circumstance.
“You life, your
very soul, depends on doing exactly what I say.”
Flonnula agreed she
would await our arrival. I was released and we took a taxi
to her apartment complex north of I-10.
Now, desperate and
frightened, she looked to Mama Luiz for answers. “What can
I do? When I came back from work I saw that altar and it
scared me. Does it mean I’m going to be killed like that
drifter? I’ve talked to the police. They don’t seem too
concerned.”
“You talked to
Lieutenant Daubigny?”
“He interviewed
everyone after you left. He told us we were to contact him
if anything unusual happened. Then I decided I should call
you. But you haven’t done anything to reassure me. All
you’ve done is scare me half out of my wits with your talk
of demons and crossroads!”
Mama Luiz gripped
the other woman’s hand. “You must tell me de truth. Time,
he is our enemy. Dawn creeps over the French Quarter in a
red glow. Tonight, Kalfu walks again. If I’m not mistaken,
you will not live past this day. Do you trust me?”
“Y-yes. I think
so.”
“Daubigny, he
thinks this case begins and ends with the dead man found in
the grease bin. He is wrong. This mystery can only be
solved by one who knows of the gate between both worlds.
Only by confronting he who channeled Kalfu can the gate be
closed. There is no other way.”
“I’ll do whatever
you say, Mama Luiz.”
“The enemy we face
is a terrible one. Nothing is more desolate than the
landscape of a human soul drenched with hate. It is there
de bitter winds and ghosts of our past, they live, and it is
upon this which Kalfu feeds. You promise me truth, now is
the time. What winds haunt you, Flonnula Pagget?”
The other woman
dabbed her eyes with a fresh Kleenex. “Love,” she
whispered, her full lips barely moving. “I’m in love with
someone.”
Mama Luiz slapped a
hand against her knee like a thunderclap. “Mon Dieu! I’m
an old woman indeed not to have seen it.” Her dark eyes
narrowed to fierce slits. “You know, don’t you, dat Mr.
Bluming is a married man?”
Flonnula ripped a
fresh Kleenex from the box. Her tears were coming freely.
“Gene throws a party for his employees when he opens a new
store. I met his wife, Almira, at the last one.” She gave
Mama Luiz a desperate look. “Have you ever wanted a man you
knew you could never have? A man you didn’t know you were
falling in love with, but he kept slipping into your
thoughts until you felt you were standing still while the
world whirled around you in a blur? Do you know that
feeling, Mama Luiz?”
“Yes, child, I do.”
The pain in Mama
Luiz’s voice brought me up short. I mean, I had never
considered any other reason why she drank rum or used opium,
other than to alleviate her osteoarthritis.
I had assumed,
naturally, I was the only family she had. She never spoke
of anyone else. It was a shock, though not unpleasant, to
learn there was someone else in her dim past.
Flonnula dabbed her
nose. “I loved Gene. I still do. That’s why I listened on
his phone that morning. At least it was something I could
share with him. But I couldn’t help myself. I’m sorry. I
know it was wrong and I won’t do it, ever again.”
She glanced at me.
“I don’t see how this relates to you, Lilith. Or the murder
of that poor man.”
Mama Luiz smacked
her lips several times, a sign she was deep in thought.
“Mebbe it connects in a way that makes the most sense of
all.”
“How do you mean?”
I asked.
“I was at the
Sunrise Trucking Company when I heard you were hurt,
Lilith. The Haitian truck drivers were eager to talk to an
old mambo from de islands. I calmed their fears, told them
the truth of what I knew. As I rushed to the emergency room
I realized I should have looked closer to the heart of the
problem. Then would I know the ugly truth and how to
confront it. That’s also when I realized someone else was
the key to the whole problem. When I learned of the altar
on her doorstep then I knew. Flonnula’s death is the final
end for the attack on you and the reason behind Bunge’s
murder.”
She stood up.
“Flonnula, I urge you to contact the police once more and
tell them everything you know.”
The other woman
swallowed nervously. “Is that necessary?”
Mama Luiz snapped,
“Our enemy has killed once. The landscape of this soul is
barren and empty. A power like that cannot be easily
conquered.”
“I’m not arguing
the poing. I don’t want Gene to be implicated when
everything comes out. How I feel about him is my personal
business.” She began to cry again.
Mama Luiz patted
her arm. “You are next to die, child, and it will happen
tonight. If you don’t take my advice, I can’t help you.”
Flonnula’s eyes
were red-rimmed. “All right, Mama Luiz. I’ll do as you
ask.” She kissed the old woman’s arthritic hand and pressed
it against her face. “Thank you, for caring about me.”
Mama Luiz stroked
the woman’s hair and motioned to me. “Come, Lilith. We
have another call to make.”
I followed her out
of the apartment block and down a broken sidewalk lined with
banana trees.
Mama Luiz flagged a
taxi. She gave the driver an address in the Garden
District, one I recognized as Gene Bluming’s.
“Mon Dieu, I’m
tired,” she said, resting her head back, eyes closed. “It
been a long two days. The air, it bad with loas. But maybe
we can do what is needed in time.”
“Mama-La?”
“Yes, child?”
“Who did you love
when you were young?”
The cab turned onto
St. Charles Avenue. The houses were stately and grand, but
many of the ancient trees bearded with Spanish moss showed
white scars from Katrina.
“Mama?”
Her answer came
slow, as if she were struggling with the awful weight of her
memory.
“He owned a
sugarcane plantation in Haiti,” she said low. “We were
lovers. I wanted to give my soul to him, but I was already
deep in de island magic, and it wasn’t fated.”
“What happened?”
She looked out the
window. The morning sunlight highlighted the crags of her
face. “He died in a most terrible and tragic way.”
We passed a
clanging streetcar, full of laughing children and tourists.
I thought that was
all I would get out of her when she said, “Ever since I was
three years old I have know of the vaudau. My first ritual
service was of the night of a full moon, at the time of my
first bleeding. I danced the Blood Dance and drank a
mixture of ewe’s blood, gunpowder and grave dirt. I became
mambo to my people. I know the importance of
shadow-taking. I can use an effigy to trap a man’s life
force. And I have seen the zombie lurch across a stubbled
cane field.”
The taxi dropped us
in front of an antebellum house. Mama Luiz clutched her
leather tote as we walked through an open gate onto a white
marble porch. She removed a black candle from her tote and
lighted it. Each time the flame whipped out as if there
were some etheric pressure emanating from the house.
“This be the place
where the evil resides,” she said.
I rang the
doorbell. Hurried footsteps approached from within. The
door opened, revealing a woman in traditional servant
uniform. She eyed us with suspicion. “Yes, how may I help
you?”
“We come to speak
with the missus of de house. My name is Domatile Luiz. I
come on a matter of utmost urgency.”
That sounded
melodramatic to me, seeing as how this servant probably knew
nothing about Kalfu, but it worked because we were admitted
to the parlor and told to wait. Mama Luiz bent to examine
the expensive Persian rug under her feet.
“Hm. Good weave,”
she observed.
“Wouldn’t you
expect Mr. Bluming and his family to live well? He makes a
lot of money frying chicken and selling biscuits.”
“Mebbe,” she
whispered. “And mebbe I want them to live.”
The maid returned.
“Mrs. Bluming is in her workshop. If you’ll come this way,
please.”
We were brought to
an annex filled with shelves of bright coral, sponges,
bubbling filtration systems, and dozens of tanks of
sparkling seawater. There were sea horses, scorpion fish,
and bright blue damsels. The centerpiece was a one hundred
gallon aquarium full of triggerfish. Directly above that
was a smaller tank filled with globefish.
Almira Bluming put
down a trowel used to sculpt gravel. She had moderate good
looks and an air of superiority that often comes with great
wealth. She wiped her hands on her smock and greeted us
with a welcoming smile.
“Mama Luiz,” she
said, “I’ve heard of you. I visited your botanica once,
many months ago. This is indeed a pleasure, meeting one of
New Orleans’ living treasures.”
Mama Luiz ignored
the offered hand, and, quick as a cobra, slapped Almira
before I could move a muscle.
Almira pressed a
hand to her reddening cheek, her mouth open with shock.
“You stupid cow,”
Mama Luiz hissed. “Did you think you could get away with
it?”
Almira swallowed
hard, her eyes wide. “You’re a crazy woman! You get out of
my house right now, both of you, before I call the police.”
“They’re already on
their way, my dear,” Mama Luiz said. “When they read the
toxicology report on Jim Bunge, learn Flonnula secretly
loved Mr. Bluming, and find your car wit’ de damaged fender,
even Daubigny will put two and three together.”
Almira looked at me
wildly. “She’s insane. She should be locked in a rubber
room!”
“You ran Lilith
over. You killed that drifter, Jim Bunge, the one who made
the altars to open the spiritual doors to Kalfu. Altars, I
may add, built with props bought from my own botanica. I
can recognize the markings on my own candles!”
Mama Luiz trembled
with rage. “But you did something even worse. You
subverted my religion by committing murder, and for dat I
will never forgive you.”
Mama Luiz took a
threatening step forward. “Where is de poison, Mrs.
Bluming?”
Backing away she
licked her lips. “What poison?”
“The tetrodotoxin
used to kill Jim Bunge. The poison you were planning to
kill Flonnula with because you were jealous of her love for
your husband.”
Almira’s face went
white. She stumbled against a wooden stool as the strength
was cut from her legs. “My God,” she rasped, “you know,
don’t you?”
“When I saw the
dead man’s face, I knew. I once’t saw a face like dat many
years ago, on a man dear to me. Tetrodotoxin is a globefish
poison used for zombification. An evil anesthetic, but it
can’t be used unless the right doors between worlds are
opened. You opened those doors and then you had to test it
on someone, to find the right dosage. Jim Bunge was a
drifter. He could move like a ghost from city to city
building the altars for you, trying to find the right place
to call Kalfu. It so happened it was also scaring the
Haitian drivers, an unexpected consequence which brought me
into de problem. Only at the place where the secret love
hid, there would Kalfu come. But when Bunge’s usefulness
ran out you removed him as a witness.”
“Then why run me
over?” I asked Mama Luiz. “I didn’t know Jim Bunge. And
why build the altars at the other stores if she already knew
about Flonnula?”
Mama Luiz frowned.
“Murder always begets murder. Gene Bluming had called home
that morning and told Almira what was happening; a
reasonable thing for a husband to do. She knew I would
recognize my own candles, even if I wouldn’t know who bought
them, or when. As for the other Pik-a-Chik stores, the
altars were put there as an alibi.”
“Yes,” Almira
confessed, “I found your number on Gene’s desk the day
before. I was afraid of you. I hoped if I hurt Lilith you
would be so full of sorrow you wouldn’t think clearly.” Her
eyes sought mine. “I’m glad you weren’t killed, Lilith. It
was terrible, following you in that car.”
“Thanks for the
sentiment.”
Mama Luiz
interjected, “What she says is true, child. Her one goal
was Flonnula. Remember the party? I have no doubt Flonnula
was unable to hide her strong feelings for Gene. A woman,
especially a wife, can sense these things, like a spider
senses the trembling of the web.”
“I’ve never lost a
fight in my entire life,” Almira said with stubbornness.
She pushed back a wisp of hair with the back of her hand.
“I wasn’t about to let a younger woman steal my husband from
me.”
“Flonnula loved
your husband, yes, but she was determined to walk away from
it. Like another girl I once had the pleasure of knowing.”
Her face hardened. “Where is dat tetrodotoxin? Lilith has
a broken arm, but she can turn you inside out with her wing
chun skills. Buddhist nun she may be, but she’s not
fanatical about it.”
“Count on that,” I
told Mrs. Bluming.
With trembling
hands Almira unlocked a mahogany cabinet with brass
fittings. She presented a glass phial of grainy powder.
Mama Luiz unstoppered the phial and took a careful sniff.
“Yes, dat’s the drug. The one I remember. Bad stuff.
Worse memories.”
“And Kalfu?” I
asked. “What do we do about him?”
Mama Luiz shrugged
as she pocketed the powder. “We have unmasked his
counterpart during the day. Without de altar, and the
bitterness of the soul upon which to feed, he can no longer
return. Flonnula is safe.”
Almira turned away
as if she didn’t want to face us. She crossed her arms
under her breasts, her fists clenched. “I was going to use
it on her tonight. I was going to make another altar
outside her apartment and draw her out. Then we would see
how Gene liked her. She, stumbling around like a mind-blown
zombie the rest of her life.” Her voice hardened with
resolve. “I would have, too, if you hadn’t interfered, you
old swamp cat.”
Almira spun around
and tore a pair of scissors from a shelf. She rushed at
Mama Luiz. I stepped into her path and brought my right
forearm around her neck. Using my hip as a fulcrum, my palm
under her jaw so I could thumb the bundle of nerves below
her ear, I brought her down on the floor as hard as I
could. I kept the side of my foot against her neck, cocked
with enough pressure to let her know I could break it
anytime I wished.
Almira looked up at
me, her eyes flooding with tears of frustration. She
nodded, beaten. Mama Luiz calmly removed the scissors from
her limp hand and returned them to the shelf.
I helped Almira to
her feet. Her shoulders sagged as she rubbed her sore jaw.
“I had to try,” she mumbled, her dark hair tousled around
her white face. “You can’t blame me for that.”
Before Mama Luiz
could respond the maid rushed into the workshop. “Ma’am,”
she stammered, “the police are here. They say they have a
warrant for your arrest!”
Loud footsteps
pounded down the hallway.
Mama Luiz grinned
at me, gap-toothed. “Well, Lilith, it seems even Lieutenant
Daubigny can put two and three together.” Her face fell
with all seriousness. “But, I never did get my biscuits.” |
