Tropic of Night (50 page)

Paz stayed where he was. “Not right now.” Then he saw the bike, just the front wheel and the handlebars, leaning against something in the bedroom. The front wheel had a smear of dirt on it, which Paz was as sure of as he had ever been of anything would match up with the dirt at the side of Teresa Vargas’s house. Moore said, “It’s better if you have the whole context. Basically, it’s a very long poem about the black experience in America. It’s called Captain Dinwiddie . This part comes when the hero has gone back to Africa after being a slave …”

“Mr. Moore …”

“And he finds a sorcerer there who teaches him how to break free of time and space. Anyway, he gets to travel through the decades, observing, you know, the black experience, and this part I was just working on has him watching two kids in New York in the eighties pull off a store robbery and kill a Korean grocer …”

Paz said in a louder voice, “Mr. Moore, your name’s come up in connection with a series of killings of pregnant women. We’d like you to come down to headquarters and see if you can help us out.”

Moore’s smile got broader. There was something wrong with his eyes, Paz thought. A glassiness? No, but something strange. Maybe a drug …

“Fruit and blood in a shower, the grocer dead among the rolling mandarins, I thought that was pretty good. Of course, usually when you think it’s pretty good, you have to cut it out later.” He chuckled. They both stared at him. “You’ve been talking to Jane,” said Moore. “I’m sure she told you an interesting story. She has a vivid imagination. Doesn’t quite get it, though.”

Paz looked at Barlow. This was funny; Barlow usually took the lead, but he hadn’t said a word. “Doesn’t get what, Mr. Moore?”

“What I’m doing. Jane insists on a certain antique Judeo-Christian worldview; I mean, she takes it seriously, if you can believe that, even though it’s demonstrable that it’s a scam, always has been a scam, always will be a scam, although, of course, incredibly useful for keeping all the assholes down in the mud. Whereas, the only reality is the reality of power. The only point of life is to make people do your bidding, so that you get all the good stuff and they get the shit. Wouldn’t you agree, Detective … Paz, is it? Wouldn’t you, I mean speaking as a man who’s had to eat shit every day of his life from people like your redneck pal there?”

Paz slid his eyes over to glance at Barlow. He was standing there like a phone pole. Moore said, “See, you can’t even answer me without checking with whitey. You got the badge, you got the gun, you got your civil service and your affirmative action, and you’re still a nigger in your own head. You fucked white women? Sure you have. Still a nigger in your head. Isn’t that amazing? It always amazed me. And I thought, What could possibly change that?”

“Witchcraft?”

“Not a word I use. A completely different way of seeing the world. As different as science was from religion in the Middle Ages. And it works, my man! It works.”

“You did those murders. You killed a black girl and cut out her baby.”

Moore was still smiling, like they were having an argument in a dorm room. “Hey, equal opportunity. But, really, man, none of that shit matters anymore. I’m telling you, it’s a whole different world.”

“Terrific, you can tell us all about it downtown. Malcolm DeWitt Moore, I’m arresting you for the murders of Deandra Wallace, Teresa Vargas, and Alice Powers and their infant children,” and he rattled off the Miranda warning, while he handcuffed Moore.

“Look, I have no bitch with you or the city of Miami,” Moore said, “but this is something you don’t want to get on the wrong side of. I tell you that as a brother. You’re over your head here.”

“Yeah, yeah, you have mystic powers,” Paz said. “You’ll tell us all about them downtown.” He grabbed Moore by the elbow and led him toward the door. Then he stopped. Barlow was still standing in the same spot. “Cletis?” Barlow gave him a blank look, then followed.

“You okay, Cletis?”

“Sure, never better,” said Barlow.

They went down in the elevator, standing in a row, Paz holding Moore, and Barlow on the other side. This is real, thought Paz, I am actually holding this guy by the arm. He studied the fake rosewood grain of the car walls, the little nicks and fingerprints, the dim reflections in the brushed stainless of the car door. All were as they should be, the light reflecting or being absorbed according to the immutable laws of physics, the eye capturing the light in its lens, casting it onto his retinas, into his brain, according to the immutable laws of biochemistry: natural. The door opened. They walked from it into the lobby. There were two SWATs there, suited grotesquely, masked, their MP-5s squat and menacing in their hands.

“Everything okay?” asked one of them, his voice distorted by the mask speaker.

“Yeah, we’re good to go here,” said Paz. “You guys can stand down now. We left the door unlocked. CSU can go right in.”

They walked to Paz’s car. It was dark out already, darker than it should have been on a summer’s night at seven-thirty. Paz put Moore in the back, guiding his head in under the roof gutter, as he always did with a prisoner, and felt on the palm of his hand the warm head, with its yielding skin, the prickle of hair. He started the car and drove away. He looked in the rearview. The prisoner was there, the same pleasant smile on his face.

Then in the rearview, Paz also saw flashing lights, red and blue. The SWAT van was pursuing them. Paz pulled over to the curb and got out. The SWAT commander, now in his native blacks, with flak vest and helmet, jumped athletically out of his van.

“What the fuck is going on?” he shouted. “I been trying to get you on the radio. Where’s the guy?”

“In the back,” said Paz. “There was no problem.”

Lieutenant Dickson stared at him, and then meaningfully at the rear seat of Paz’s vehicle. The rear seat was empty. Paz popped the door, dived into the rear, and felt the seat and the floorboard. Stupid. He upended the seat cushions. Nothing. In a panic now, he shouted, “Cletis! Where the hell did he go?”

Barlow swiveled and looked back at Paz. On his face was an expression Paz had never seen there before, brutal and mean, the mouth twisted in a sneer, the eyes filled with icy contempt. In an unfamiliar nasal snarl, Barlow said, “You dumb-ass nigger! Can’t even pick up a fuckin’ prisoner, can you?”

Paz stared in shock at the stranger’s face. Then the lights went out, the streetlamps first and then the lights of the cars. Paz heard Dickson shout, and the sound of car doors opening as the SWATs leaped out. They had flashlights on their weapons and these snapped on, cutting white beams through the blackness. That was wrong, was Paz’s initial thought. It shouldn’t be that dark. The city was never that dark, not even when the power went out in a hurricane, there was always some light source, bouncing against the cloud cover. Even in the middle of the Glades it never got this dark. It only got this dark in a cave. Then the shooting started, automatic fire from the SWATs, lighting the darkness. Paz couldn’t see anything to shoot at. A bullet cracked by his head. He dropped and rolled under the car. He heard men scream, the tinkle of brass falling from the machine guns, the thud of bodies hitting the pavement. He closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears. He listened to his own breathing and the pump of his own heart for a while.

He opened his eyes and took his hands away from his ears. There was dim light, going red blue red. He rolled out from under the car. The streetlights were on again, and so were the top lights of the SWAT vans. Someone groaned, and he heard sirens a long way off. There were ten or so bodies lying on the street, mostly cops, but it looked like they had shot several ordinary pedestrians too. An elderly lady lay across a curb in a blood pool, her rucked-up flowered dress lifted by a faint breeze, a teenage kid was lying nearby, cut nearly in half by a burst of automatic fire. Cletis Barlow was nowhere in sight.

Paz looked at his car. The side window was blown out, the front end bore the marks of a burst. Coolant ran in a thick stream down the gutter. Paz started to run. It was about five miles to Jane’s. He figured it would take a little over an hour if he didn’t stop running at all.

Finnegan is nice enough, for a lawyer. He tells me he’s a partner in Bailey, Lassiter & Phelps, the family’s firm in New York, and he just happened to be taking a meeting in Atlanta when Josey yanked the handle. Being nearest partner to big client, he got tagged and came. I lie back in the leather of his rented Town Car and breathe in air-conditioning; I’m back in the bubble wrap of Doe existence, and I find I am a little sorry, as I never quite fit into it. I’m also nervous, because it means I’ll have to talk to my father again.

Finnegan is giving me lawyerly advice, which I interrupt to tell him about Luz. I give him the whole story straight-up. He purses his lips. He is thin lipped, and it distorts the whole bottom shelf of his face to generate a purse equal to my little problem.

“You say this officer, this detective …”

“Detective Paz.”

“Paz. He knows the whole story?”

“Not the part about the mother’s death, no. But he knows something is fishy about Luz. And if he looks hard, he’ll find out who she is.”

“Yes, but there’s no evidence you had anything to do with the woman’s um … accident. She fell and struck her head. You found the girl, patently abused, and took her home, gave her shelter, cared for her. Irregular, of course; you should have notified the authorities, but … we can play it as a Good Samaritan excess. She calls you ‘Mommy,’ does she?”

“Muffa.”

“Hm. Let me get to work on it. I’ll call the governor’s office, see what can be done. Clearly, you’re the best possible adoptive mother with respect to resources for a child; you’re married, which is to the good. Is there any chance … ?”

He sees my look.

“Sorry, no, of course not. Still, I think we can get you named guardian while we iron out the details.”

Iron on, Finnegan! It’s so easy to love lawyers when one is rich. We drive to the transmission place and I get my clunker, occasioning another massive lip-purse. I shake hands with Finnegan, thank him. He unloads a last smidgen of advice, to keep my mouth shut and avoid associating with my husband. Poor man, he was all set for a task like bailing a rich bitch out of some DUI-like situation and he ends up with me, voodoo, mass murder, Armageddon, and the Last Days. He hands me a bulky manila envelope and bids me good night.

After the chilled car the night is like a warm washrag against my face. Driving home, I’m aware of the sound of sirens, more sirens than usual, even down here in the poor end of the Grove. I hear a flat explosion, too, somewhere to the north, and closer, the firecracker poppings of small-arms fire. I park and hurry across to Dawn’s.

She’s pale and nervous and she chatters a mile a minute: Jeopardy has been interrupted by the news. The Last Days indeed! Some huge and disparate disaster is occurring. An oil truck has crashed on I-95, gunfights have broken out near the Miami River, a riot is brewing in Overtown, a whole family has leaped from the top of a Brickell apartment house, a squadron of cops has run amok with automatic weapons and shot one another and several civilians. What’s happening, is everyone going crazy? What should she do? Her husband is away again. What should she do?

I suggest a soothing cup of herbal tea, which I make, in her messy kitchen. This served, I greet my child with more fervor than I usually show. She feigns indifference, and continues her play with little Eleanor. Dawn and I sit in wicker chairs and watch the TV for a while. The pundits have decided that it is sabotage and a cult riot, although no one is sure about which cult is involved. Then the screen fizzles and goes dark. We wait, and watch the signature static of the Big Bang for a while, before I thumb the thing off. Dawn gets weepy and I comfort her as best I can.

Around eight, I take Luz home. I have a lot of stuff to do tonight. She’s clinging and fretful, however, and I must stay with her, up in her little garret room, until she’s asleep. Downstairs again, I take another amphetamine, no, two, just to make sure I stay up on the plateau, where there is a good view. I can’t fall into the crevasse now, uh-uh.

I haul out the box and remove my divining bag, and some bags and bottles and soiled envelopes containing various organic flakes and fragments? komo?and the jar of kadoul I mixed up the other day, and my Mauser. I arrange these all on the kitchen table. Before starting, I look into the manila envelope that lawyer Finnegan gave me. Inside is my passport, my checkbook, my VISA and Amex cards, my New York driver’s licence, and a minute cellular phone, with a note taped to it, in Josey’s felt-tipped scrawl: Janey?call Dad! auto #1 love J . Oh Josey! How long would you have kept the dead girl’s things had I really done it?

So the crying starts again, and through tears I seek and push the right buttons. The tiny thing reaches out into the wireless nexus and gets my father. By then, of course, I am honking like a walrus in heat, and I say how sorry I am, and he tells me not to think about it, that he never believed that I was dead. I asked him why not, as I thought I had done a pretty good job. He said he knew that if I really wanted to kill myself I would have used a gun. He said he knew I didn’t have anything to do with Mary’s death, and that he knew I really loved her, even though she didn’t love me. I was amazed: we’re always so surprised when our parents can figure us out, we all think we’re so secret and clever. He asked when I was coming home. I said I had some things to take care of here, but not long at all. Then we talked about my mom for a while.

He asked me if he could help. I knew what he meant, and I said, no, he couldn’t. I was going to a place where even the red handle wouldn’t help, and Josey couldn’t track me down for another rescue. He told me to take care and trust in God.

After we hung up, I finished my hysterics, weeping for my family, for Mary, and my poor gorgeous crazy mom, and Dad of course, but I’d always been able to cry for him. Then I washed my face in the tepid water of the kitchen sink and got down to work.

It is strangely the case that a particular arrangement and combination of organic materials, which have been handled in a ritual way, will perform acts definable as magic, or prevent them within a particular area. You can make, for example, a ch’akadoulen and plant it in front of a guy’s house, and he will gradually fade away and die. Or suddenly decide to kill his family and have to be shot. Whether or not he’s a believer. So I carefully compound my scant store of komo into tetechinté, countermagic. I only have enough komo for five of them. They don’t look like much: little bundles of bark and leaves, smeared with oily substances, strong-smelling, each wrapped in an intricate web of red, black, white, and yellow threads.