Possessed (11 page)

An unidentified woman, Jim Carroll, and Ana in 2010

(Courtesy of Jim Carroll)

On some of those afternoons when they talked, Ana told Carroll, who'd had a rough past, about her spiritual powers. At the time, Carroll was reading the Bible and rekindling his belief in Christianity. Describing herself as an atheist, Ana said she saw things other people didn't, things she interpreted as symbols from spirits, including pyramids rising from the Londale's carpeting. Carroll didn't know what to make of her claims but shrugged them off. When she told him that she felt a connection to the spiritual world, he did have a response, however, describing a room tucked between the hotel's first and second floors, the entrance plastered over and only accessible through a staircase in a storage closet.
“I call it the ghost room. The place gives me the creeps,” he said.

The ghost room

(Courtesy of Jim Carroll)

That Sunday morning, about eleven, he took her there, and he leaned against a wall while Ana walked around talking, but not to him. “Hello. I'm Ana,” she said. “You already know Jim. Are you here?”

At first quiet, then they heard a
ping
, like a fingernail tapping a crystal glass.

“Can you understand what I'm saying?” she said, then another
ping
.

When Ana asked if the spirit wanted anything, Jim heard a woman's voice answer, “Yes. Leave.” Moments later, Carroll thought he heard the word, “Water.”

Shaken, Carroll urged Ana from the room. Only later did
he return alone with a glass of water he left sitting on the floor.

I
n downtown Houston that year, there'd been a rash of killings in the area, and three women were found dead over a period of months. At times, the men Ana showed up with at night bothered Carroll. One brought her home after the bars closed, in the early-morning hours, and Carroll saw them on the surveillance camera. The man walked a nearly unconscious Ana upstairs. He propped her in a chair, while he unlocked her room, then took her inside. Moments later, Carroll heard a loud
thunk
from her room. He called 9-1-1, and police dispatched officers and a paramedic. When they knocked on Ana's door, she appeared unhurt.

Not long after, she and Carroll talked on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, Ana telling Carroll about a confrontation she'd had late one night with a man outside the Rice Lofts. “I'm worried about you,” Carroll told her. “You should buy some pepper spray or something if you're going to be walking around downtown alone at night.”

“No one is going to fuck with me,” Ana said, frowning. Then she bent down and pulled off one of her shoes, a black stiletto with a thick platform and a long, slender heel. In a statement that would later seem prophetic, she said, “If they do, I'll get them in the eye with this.”

W
hile Ana's situation continued to decline, a new opportunity opened up for her that summer. Her TV producer friend, Christi Suarez, had noticed Ana's enjoyment of being the center of attention and that the camera liked her. Off and on, Suarez began using Ana to host public-access programs, mainly local festivals and events. It paid nothing, but Ana enjoyed the notoriety. The two women had become friends, going out together some evenings, calling back and forth during the day. At times, Suarez, who believed in Ana's powers, still asked her to interpret dreams.

While living at the Londale, Ana happened upon a homeless man on the street, one who'd been badly beaten. Later, she called Suarez to tell her about the meeting, describing the man as an artist, bemoaning his circumstances, and wishing she could help. Suarez suggested they throw an art show as a fund-raiser, to help the man get off the street.

That evening, at a swank downtown club, Suarez brought together a wide-ranging group of Latino artists. On the handbills she circulated announcing the event she'd dubbed “Unscripted Thursdays,” she promised live music, art, a happening of sorts that would continue on into the night. The background was a painting of Eve handing Adam the forbidden apple.

The club hopped the night of the fund-raiser, artists spreading their canvases out across the vast, opulent space, music pounding, and crowds circulating. When Teresa Montoya arrived, she found Ana lying naked on a table, a body artist transforming her. When the man asked Ana what she wanted to be, she said, “Make me a snake.”

Ana painted as a snake, 2010

Embarrassed at seeing her friend exposed in front of hundreds of strangers, Montoya asked, “Why didn't you tell me?”

“What?” Ana responded, not at all self-conscious.

Wearing only white bikini briefs and bandages over her nipples, streaked with a saurian pattern of green, black, white, and red paint, Ana pranced through the crowd,
stopping to talk to partygoers. At times, she introduced herself to the artists, talking about her own work, her installations, and spontaneously formulating suggestions for other events they could throw to promote the Houston art scene. “That would take money,” one artist told her.

“I know a lot of people at Coca-Cola,” Ana responded, excited. “The people at the top. I'll get them to do it!” From there she went on to claim that she knew people high up in the corporate world who controlled funds that could be funneled into large-scale art events. “We could start an artists' collective. I have experience in marketing.”

“Ana was the wild child at the events,” said one of the artists. “She was out there, brazen, showing off, full of ideas.”

The fund-raiser a success, Suarez planned a similar event for that October, this time to take place in the Rice Lofts, billed as Haunted Hollywood. The placard had black-and-white photos from
Psycho
of Janet Leigh screaming, Peter Lorre, Vincent Price, and John Kennedy, fitting since his spirit was rumored to be one of those that occupied the old hotel. “Art Exhibition and Live Body Art,” the handbill read. It began at six and ended at midnight, with a twenty-five-dollar open bar.

The venue was jammed that night when Ana showed up looking retro in a burgundy-satin bustier, a black-lace skirt, black-patent stilettos, and dark makeup under her eyes that gave her a ghostly appearance Not long after she arrived, she stripped and again was painted; this time she wore only a short black ruffle around her waist over a thong. The burgundy bustier discarded, the artist painted a black bustier that laced up, and laces climbing her bare calves from the stilettos. In photos taken that night, Ana stood proudly, her head thrown back, exposing herself to the world, defiant.

In the weeks that followed, enthused by her entry into the Houston art scene, Ana spent more time with Suarez, who'd been told by a psychic she knew that Ana was indeed
gifted. “But she doesn't use her powers for good,” the seer said. “She uses them for her own purposes. She knows how to manipulate you, and she finds her way into your dreams.”

Ana at the Haunted Hollywood party

(Courtesy of James Jimenez)

A rift developed between the two women, Ana pushing to become more involved in Suarez's work, something the producer resented after she'd heard Ana presenting herself to patrons at the events as if she were the coordinator. “She took credit for all my work,” said Suarez. “I told her no, that I didn't need her help. Ana was furious, and she slapped me, twice.”

Suddenly silent, Suarez thought back to that day. “I tried to help Ana, to give her a chance. I felt sorry for her. But from that point on, I kept a distance. I'd see her on the street,
and I'd feel bad about how things had gone for her. Sometimes I'd have her host off and on, but for the most part, I stayed away.”

To friends, Suarez described Ana as a wolf in sheep's clothing, saying that she looked like a kind, warm woman but could quickly become something very different, a woman capable of violence.

T
hat Christmas, for her annual party at the salon, Teresa Montoya asked Ana to dress as Santa Claus. The outfit wasn't as Montoya imagined, when Ana arrived scantily clad in red velvet and white fur, wearing a garter belt. “I told you to wear a costume, not come as a stripper,” Montoya said to Ana, who appeared pleased with the way the other guests stared.

At the end of 2010, two and a half years after her divorce, Ana's fortunes had sunk so low she had difficulty paying the Londale's $600 rent. Over her months there, she'd befriended another of the tenants, Frank Moore, seventeen years older, who worked in the oil business. The two of them went out as friends in the evenings, Moore giving Ana rides since she no longer had a vehicle of her own. The first time their paths crossed, Ana carried files to the attorney's office, where she still worked off and on as a translator. “She seemed like a really nice person,” said Moore. “She was a pretty lady, and I liked being seen with a pretty lady.”

Spending time with Ana, Moore's drinking escalated, and although they were just friends, they slept together. Ana suggested they share a room at the Londale and that he pay. Moore agreed, but the hotel's owners turned down the idea, and instead Moore rented an apartment in Montrose, a quaint and eclectic section of Houston near the Museum District.

Once they lived together, Moore offered to bankroll Ana, putting her back in business as a masseuse by securing a nearby storefront for a studio. She agreed, and he moved
her in. She had a new set of cards printed with photos of her in scrubs giving massages, but before long, Moore understood that she rarely worked, preferring to sleep late, then wander the streets during the day and circulate to the downtown bars at night. “We'd spend three to four hundred on a weekend on booze,” he said, recalling those months. “I'd call her beautiful, and she'd laugh, and at night, she'd dress up and wear those stiletto heels. She looked great, and I'd pay the bills.”

When Ana drank, Moore noticed she changed. One night, Ana threw a beer at a waitress when she decided the woman didn't serve her fast enough. “Ana just turned evil at times,” said Moore. “Sober, she was fun and giggly, but after a few drinks, she could turn mean in a snap. When she was angry, her eyes got dark and cold, and she looked like she was possessed.”