Falling Angel (18 page)

Epiphany settled against my chest. I brushed my lips across her damp forehead. “It’s better with drums,” she said.

“You do this in public?”

“There are times when spirits possess you. Banda or at a bambouché, times when you can dance and drink all night, yes, and fuck till dawn.”

“What’s banda and bambouché?”

Epiphany smiled and toyed with my nipples. “Banda’s a dance in honor of Guédé. Very savage and wild and sacred, and always done in the hounfort of the société. What you would call the voodoo temple.”

“Toots said ‘humfo.’”

“Different dialect; same word.”

“And bambouché?”

“Bambouché’s just a party. Habitants of the société letting off a little steam.”

“Something like a church social?”

“Uh-huh, but a whole lot more fun.”

We spent the afternoon like naked children, laughing, taking showers, raiding the icebox, conversing with the gods. Epiphany found a Puerto Rican station on the radio, and we danced until our bodies ran with sweat. When I suggested going out for dinner, my giggling mambo led me to the kitchenette and lathered our privates with whipped cream. It was a sweeter feast than Cavanaugh’s ever served Diamond Jim and his buxom Lil.

And as it grew dark, we picked our clothes off the floor and retired to the bedroom, lighting several plumber’s candles discovered in the utility drawer. In the pale light her body glowed like tree-ripened fruit. You wanted to taste her all over.

Between tastes, we talked. I asked Epiphany where she was born.

“The Woman’s Hospital on 110th Street. But I was raised by my grandmother until I was six in Bridgetown, Barbados. What about you?”

“A little place in Wisconsin you’ve never heard of. Just outside Madison. By now it’s probably part of the city.”

“Doesn’t sound like you go back much.”

“I haven’t been back since I went in the army. That was the week after Pearl Harbor.”

“Why not? Can’t be that bad.”

“There was nothing there for me anymore. My parents were both killed when I was in an army hospital. I might have gone home for the funeral but was in no condition to travel. After my discharge it was just a bunch of fading memories.”

“Were you the only child?”

I nodded. “Adopted. But that made them love me all the more.” I said this like a Boy Scout pledging allegiance. Belief in their love was what I had in place of patriotism. It endured the years that have eroded even their features. Try as I might, I remembered only blurred snapshots from the past.

“Wisconsin,” Epiphany said. “No wonder you know ‘ about church socials.”

“Also square dancing, hotrods, bake sales, Four-H, and keggers.”

“Keggers?”

“Kind of a high school bambouché.”

She fell asleep in my arms, and I lay awake for a long time afterward watching her. Her teacup breasts rose and fell with the gentle movement of her breathing, nipples like chocolate candy kisses in the candlelight. Her eyelids fluttered as dream shadows passed behind them. She looked like a little girl. Her innocent expression bore no resemblance to the ecstatic grimace masking her features when she arched howling beneath me like a tigress.

It was madness to have gotten involved with her. Those slender fingers knew how to grip a knife. She sacrificed animals without a qualm. If she killed Toots and Margaret Krusemark, I was in big trouble.

I can’t remember falling asleep. I drifted off trying to contain my feelings of tenderness for a girl whom I had every reason to believe was extremely dangerous. Just like it said on the “Wanted” circulars.

My dreams were a succession of nightmares. Violent, distorted images alternated with scenes of utter desolation. I was lost in a city whose name I did not know. The streets were empty, and when I came to an intersection, the signposts were all blank. None of the buildings seemed familiar. They were windowless and very tall.

I saw a figure in the distance posting a billboard against a blank wall. As he glued the random strips, an image began to form. I walked closer. The face of Louis Cyphre leered down from the billboard, his joker’s smile three yards wide like the grinning Mr. Tilyou at Steeplechase Park. I called to the workman and he turned, gripping his long-handled brush. It was Cyphre. He was laughing.

The billboard parted and opened like a theatre curtain, revealing an unending expanse of rolling wooded hills. Cyphre dropped his brush and gluepot and ran inside. I was close behind, dodging through the underbrush like a panther. Somehow, I lost him and with that came the revelation that I was lost as well.

The game trail I followed meandered past parks and meadows. I stopped to drink from a brook and found a heelprint in the moss along the bank. Moments later, a shrill cry pierced the tranquility.

I heard it a second time and hurried in that direction. A third scream brought me to the edge of a small clearing. At the far side a bear mauled a woman. I ran toward them. The huge carnivore shook his limp victim like a rag doll. I saw the girl’s bleeding face. It was Epiphany.

I hurled myself at the bear without thinking. The beast reared and swatted me head over heels. There was no mistaking those ursine features. In spite of fangs and dripping muzzle, the bear looked exactly like Cyphre.

When I looked again, sprawled yards away, it was Cyphre. He was naked in the tall grass and instead of mauling Epiphany he was making love to her. I lunged forward and caught him by the throat, pulling him off the moaning girl. We wrestled beside her in the grass. Although he was stronger, I had him by the throat. I squeezed until his face darkened with blood. Epiphany screamed behind me. Her screams woke me up.

I was sitting in bed, sheets wound about me like a shroud. My legs straddled Epiphany’s waist. Her eyes were wide with terror and pain. I had her around the throat, my hands locked in a death grip. She was no longer screaming.

“Oh, my God! Are you all right?”

Epiphany gasped for breath, scuttling to a safe corner of the bed when I took my weight off her. “You must be crazy,” she coughed.

“Sometimes I’m afraid I am.”

“What got into you?” Epiphany rubbed her neck where the dark imprints of my fingers marred her flawless complexion.

“I don’t know. Would you like some water?”

“Yes, please.”

I went out to the kitchenette and returned with a cold glass of ice water. “Thanks.” She smiled as I handed it to her. “You treat all your girlfriends like that?”

“Not as a rule. I was having a dream.”

“What kind of dream?”

“Someone was hurting you.”

“Someone you know?”

“Yes. I’ve been dreaming about him every night. Crazy, violent dreams. Nightmares. And the same man keeps turning up, mocking me. Causing pain. Tonight I dreamt he was hurting you.”

Epiphany put down the glass and took my hand. “Sounds like some boko’s put a powerful wanga on you.”

“Speak English, doll.”

Epiphany laughed. “I better educate you fast. A boko is a hungan who is evil. Who deals only in black magic.”

“A hungan?”

“A priest of Obeah. Same as a mambo, like me, only a man. Wanga’s what you’d call an evil curse or charm. You know, a hex, a spell. What you say about your dreams makes me think some sorcerer’s got you in his power.”

I felt my heart beat faster. “Someone’s working magic on me?”

“That’s how it looks.”

“Would the man in my dreams be the one?”

“Most likely. You know him?”

“Sort of. Let’s say I’ve gotten involved with him recently.”

“Is it Johnny Favorite?”

“No, but you’re getting warm.”

Epiphany gripped my arm. “That’s the sort of bad business my father was into. He was a devil worshiper.”

“Aren’t you?” I stroked her hair.

Epiphany pulled away, offended. “Is that what you think?”

“I know you’re a voodoo mambo.”

“I am a high-type mambo. I work for good, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know about evil. When your adversary is potent, it’s best to stay on guard.”

I put my arm around her. “Think you could make a charm that would protect me in my dreams?”

“If you were a believer, I could.”

“I’m gaining faith by the minute. Sorry if I hurt you.”

“That’s all right.” She kissed my ear. “I know a way to make all the pain go away.”

And she did.

THIRTY-FOUR

I opened my eyes to dust motes dancing in a narrow slice of early-morning sunlight. Epiphany lay beside me, the covers thrown back over her slender arm and cinnamon shoulder. I sat up and reached for a cigarette, settling against my pillow. The line of sunlight bisected the bed, traveling the topography of our bodies like a thin, golden highway.

I leaned and kissed Epiphany’s eyelids when the pounding started on the front door. Only a cop announced himself with such a knock. “Come on! Open up in there, Angel!” It was Sterne.

Epiphany’s eyes widened in terror. I held my finger to my lips. “Who is it?” I made my voice sound thick with sleep.

“Lieutenant Sterne. Come on, Angel, we ain’t got all day.”

“Be right there.”

Epiphany sat up, wild-eyed, pleading in silent panic for some explanation. “It’s the law,” I whispered. “I don’t know what they want. Probably just talk. You could stay in here.”

“Hurry it up, Angel!” Sterne bellowed.

Epiphany shook her head, bounding from the room with long-legged strides. I heard the bathroom door close quietly as I stood and kicked most of her scattered clothing under the bed. The pounding continued without a break. I carried her open suitcase over to the closet and shoved it on the top shelf under my own empty luggage.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I called, pulling on a wrinkled bathrobe. “You don’t have to kick it down.”

In the living room, I found one of Epiphany’s stockings draped over the back of the couch. I tied it around my waist under the robe and unlocked the front door.

“About time,” Sterne snorted, shouldering past. Sergeant Deimos was right behind, wearing a drip-dry olive-green suit and a straw hat with a madras band. Sterne had on the same mohair outfit as before, but without the grey raincoat.

“You boys are the breath of springtime,” I said.

“Sleeping late as usual, Angel?” Sterne pushed his sweat-stained hat back on his head and surveyed the disordered room. “Whaddja have, a rumble in here?”

“I ran into an old war buddy, and I guess we tied one on last night.”

“A great life, ain’t it, Deimos?” Sterne said. “Party all night, drinking at the office, sleep in any time you feel like it. We sure were dumb to join the force. What was the name of this war buddy of yours?”

“Pound,” I improvised. “Ezra Pound.”

“Ezra? Sounds like a farmer.”

“Nope. Runs an auto body shop in Hailey, Idaho. He caught an early morning flight out of Idlewild. Went straight from here to the airport at five A.M.”

“Is that a fact?”

“Would I lie to you, Lieutenant? Look, I’m in bad need of coffee. You fellows mind if I put on a pot?”

Sterne sat on the arm of the couch. “Go ahead. We don’t like it, we’ll dump it in the toilet.”

As if on cue, a loud bumping noise came from the bathroom. “Someone in there?” Sergeant Deimos jerked his thumb at the closed door.

The bathroom door opened and Epiphany appeared, carrying the bucket and mop. She was wearing the maid’s grey smock, her hair tied up under a bit of dirty rag, and she shuffled into the room, slouching like an ancient crone.

“I’ze all done wid de bat’room for today, Mistuh Angel,” she whined, her nasal accent pure Amos and Andy. “I sees you got company, so I be back later to finish up, if dat’s okay wid you.”

“That’ll be fine, Ethel.” I swallowed a smile as she shambled past. “I should be going out soon, so just let yourself in when you’ve a mind.”

“Dat I will. Dat I surely will.” She smacked her lips as if her dentures were slipping and headed for the door. “Mo’nin’, gentermans. Hopes I din’ disturb y’all too much.”

Sterne stared at her with his mouth open. Deimos just stood there scratching the back of his head. I wondered if they noticed she was barefoot and held my breath until the front door closed.

“Jungle bunnies,” Sterne muttered. “They should of never let ‘em out of the watermelon patch.”

“Oh, Ethel’s all right,” I said, filling the coffee pot in the kitchenette alcove. “She’s a little dimwitted but keeps the place nice and dean.”

Sergeant Deimos chuckled. “Yeah, Lootenant, somebody’s gotta swab out the john.”

Sterne regarded his partner with weary disgust, as if cleaning toilets might be a task for which the sergeant was best qualified. I adjusted the flame on my two-burner stove. “What was it you fellows wanted to see me about?” I dropped a slice of bread into the toaster.

Sterne got up from the couch and walked into the . foyer, leaning against the alcove wall next to the refrigerator. “Does the name Margaret Krusemark mean anything to you?”

“Not a whole lot.”

“What do you know about her?”

“Only what I read in the papers.”

“Which is?”

“That she was a millionaire’s daughter and got herself murdered the other day.”

“Anything else?”

I said: “I can’t keep up with every murder in town. I’ve got my own work to look after.”

Sterne shifted his weight and looked at a spot on the ceiling above my head. “When do you do that, when you’re sober?”

“What’s this?” Sergeant Deimos called from the other room. I looked down the hallway at him. He was standing by my open attaché case and held up the printed card I found on Margaret Krusemark’s desk.

I smiled. “That? My nephew’s confirmation announcement.”

Deimos looked at the card. “Why is it in a foreign language?”

“It’s Latin,” I said.

“With him everything is Latin,” Sterne said, tight-lipped.

“What’s this gizmo mean up at the top?” Deimos pointed to the inverted pentagram.

“I can tell you guys aren’t Catholic,” I said. “That’s the emblem of the Order of Saint Anthony. My nephew’s an altar boy.”

“Looks like the same gizmo the Krusemark dame was wearing.”

My toast popped up, and I plastered it with butter. “Maybe she was Catholic, too.”