Tropic of Night (56 page)

Paz ignored the rebuke. He didn’t want to think about his mother just yet.

“There’s stuff I still don’t understand,” he said.

“Really? Gosh, it’s all clear as glass to me.”

“Don’t be sarcastic, Jane. I need some help here.”

“Sorry.” She looked genuinely abashed, and he felt ashamed.

It struck him that what he had gone through that evening was as nothing to what she had endured. Targeted. He said, “In your journal … he met you at that ceremony, but you never wrote down what he said. Any reason for that?”

She shrugged. “I can’t recall. Something about how he still really loved me. Just what a girl wants to hear at a dance.”

“Did you believe him?”

“Yes, I did.”

“In spite of all the shit he pulled on you?”

She met his gaze. “Have you ever been in love, Detective Paz? I mean totally, up to your eyes?”

“All the time,” he said lightly, and immediately regretted his tone.

“You haven’t, or you wouldn’t ask. I guess I was more of a Catholic about marriage than I figured. I thought it was for life. I guess it is. The Gelede priestess had it right: either I’ll kill him or he’ll kill me. You know what’s the worst thing? I keep thinking it’s my fault.”

“He doesn’t seem like such a bargain.”

“You didn’t know him,” she said with a snap to her voice, and then let out a startled laugh. “Christ! I’m still defending him. Yeah, sure, he’s a demon and a serial killer, but aside from that, when you really get to know him, deep inside he’s … I wonder if he has any inside left. You know what real love is, Detective? It’s not what you think. It’s not loving the virtues of the beloved. Anyone can love you for your virtues, that’s no trick. I mean, that’s what virtues are?lovable qualities. It’s the unlovely stuff that makes love. We all have a little nasty wounded place in us, and if you can get someone to find that and love it, then you really have something. And I thought I did. I thought I really saw him, how he saw himself at the core, the baby in the garbage can, the son of the junkie nigger whore and her white trick. I know he saw me. I certainly opened myself enough.”

“What’s your nasty wounded place, Jane?”

She gave him one of her sharp looks. “Is this part of the official interrogation, Detective?”

“No, but I told you mine.”

“Fair enough. Okay, my mother hated me. Boo-hoo. From the cradle. A staple of cheap pop psychology, so banal I can’t even take it seriously myself, but Witt Moore did. He thought I was beautiful, and smart, and perfect. He may still, God help me.” She turned then and looked backward over the rail, to where the creamy wake vanished into the black waters. Paz let her stare for the remainder of the ride.

He dropped the anchor in the shallow waters of Bear Cut and switched off the motor. In the ringing silence afterward they could hear the swishing of the mangroves and the plash of wavelets on the nearby beach. The air was clean and smelled of salt and marshes. The moon was nearly full, frosting each billow, out to the horizon, row on row. They could see the lights of the city, although some parts of it were oddly dark. There was a red glow north of the river, sign of a major fire.

Paz went below and came back with a bottle of Bacardi Ańejo rum and a couple of paper cups. They sat on a cushioned bench at the stern and he poured a generous slug into each cup.

“Happy days,” said Paz, lifting his cup. She smiled faintly and drank. She coughed and pulled a vial from her bag and took a couple of pills.

“So what I don’t get is why the two single killings, if he needs four. I mean that woman in Africa, and your sister.”

“The Olo must have stopped him in Africa. Uluné isn’t the only sorcerer they have. That’s why he came home is my guess. No one believes in that stuff here. My sister … I told you, he wants me to watch him. I’m his audience. He used to tell me that about his writing. Jane, it’s all for you, I think of what you’ll say when you see it. You keep me honest.”

“But he thought you were dead.”

“So I believed. But maybe he wasn’t fooled. Or maybe he was trying to bring me back from the dead.”

Paz drank a big swallow of rum. “Can he do that?”

“Maybe. It’s not unknown. Usually you need the body, though.” She shuddered. “I’m going to have to stay up,” she said. “But feel free to get some rest yourself.”

“No, I’ll stay up with you,” he said. Five minutes later he was snoring softly. She took the cup from his lax hand and went into the cabin. She checked to see that Luz was all right, and then went back on deck. She sat in the swivel chair behind the helm and tried not to think, occasionally taking a sip of rum. Something about Witt leaving Africa buzzed around in her mind, a connection she wasn’t making. They stopped the witch in Africa, and then let the witch’s apprentice come over to the land of the dik, and … and what? Did they mean for him to wreak havoc among the dik ? No, the okunikua was forbidden, so they couldn’t have … she shook her head in frustration. It wouldn’t come. She let it fade and let the sounds of wind and water provide a temporary peace.

She was still sitting there when the sky went violent pink and the sun rose out of the sea. Paz got up a little later and, without comment, went into the cabin. Before long the smell of strong coffee issued from the hatch. He brought her a cup. They had just started to drink it when Paz’s cell phone buzzed.

He hesitated. “Answer it,” she said. “It could be important.”

He held it to his ear, and she saw his face pale. He said, “What!” then “Yeah” a few times, then, “I’m on my boat. No, it’s a long story. No, I’ll be there, ninety minutes tops. Have a car at Northwest Seventh and the river.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“Another disaster. Barlow’s barricaded in the police chief’s office, with his shotgun, the chief, and a secretary. He says the end times are coming and he wants to preach on TV. I have to go in. Shit! What do we do, Jane?”

“There’s some stuff at my place that could help. We could drop Luz off with Polly, too.”

“Will we have to go through another … you know, like last night?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think we have a choice, though.”

As if in answer, Paz started the motor. They headed back to Miami at top speed, barely slapping the waves. Ahead, they saw the pall of smoke, with the white skyline poking through it like stiffened fingers.

Headquarters, when they arrived, was a media zoo. A dozen vans were in place, each one supplied with a handsome person filling the voracious maw of live airtime by talking nonsense in a pool of harsh circus light to a camera and the watching world. Their arrival caused a great stir; the police car escorts, with their sirens uttering short whoops, and Jane’s Buick moved slowly through a lane preserved by cops in riot gear, behind whom jostled and shouted several hundred reporters and photographers.

“Care to make a statement?” asked Paz as they rolled into the underground garage. “Explain on national TV what’s going on in the Magic City?”

She had her head down, and seemed to be mumbling something, a chant of some kind, low and rhythmic. In her hand was a dusty plastic baggie containing an ounce or so of some brown powder. She had her fingers in it, stirring, rubbing. She put two brown-stained fingers in her mouth.

Lieutenant Posada grabbed Paz at the elevator when they got off at the sixth floor. His normally tan face was grayed out like old concrete, and his ordinary expression of genial stupidity was now the mask of a trapped rodent.

“What the fuck is going on, Paz? Where the fuck have you been?”

“Dinner and a boat ride,” said Paz. “With this nice lady. This nice lady says she can solve our problem.”

Posada gaped at Jane. He had clearly been briefed over the radio by the cops he had sent to pick up Paz, but he was paralyzed by the thought of sending a civilian in, someone who could provide another hostage.

“What are you gonna do?” he asked her.

Jane said, “I believe Detective Barlow has been affected by an African psychotropic poison. I believe I have the antidote here. I need to get close to him, though.”

Posada said, “He asked for bread and wine. He’s Jesus or some shit. Maybe you could bring it in to him.” He paused, ass-covering thoughts transparent on his face. “Can we put the … um, antidote in the wine?”

“No, I have to be there.”

“You got to sign a release.”

“I’d be happy to,” said Jane.

It took some time to get the release signed and prepare a tray and to explain to the protesting hostage negotiators that they were going to let this civilian woman walk into an office with an armed madman. While all this was going on, underneath the rustle and hum of the hallway they could hear another sound, muffled by the doors that separated the voice from them, but comprehensible nevertheless: “… and the kings of the earth and the great men and the rich men and the chief captains, Christ fucking son of a bitch, goddamn you all to hell, black bastards, the Lamb, they said, the Lamb, they said to the mountains and the rocks fall on us and hide us from the face of us who sitteth, who sitteth on the fucking throne and from the wrath of the Lamb for the great day of his wrath has come and who shall be able to abide it …”

“He’s been going nonstop like that for hours,” said the chief negotiator. “Take a look at this monitor.” They had run a hair-thin cable in through a ceiling fixture, and the tiny fish-eye lens at the tip of it gave a good view of the chief’s office. Horton was in his chair, behind his desk, his arms taped to the armrests with white medical tape, and the same tape had been used to affix the muzzle of a shotgun to his neck and to seal his mouth. His eyes were closed. Barlow was behind him, holding the shotgun’s stock and waving a revolver around as he ranted. The secretary was not in sight.

Jane refused a bulletproof vest. The chief negotiator started talking at her, telling her what she mustn’t do, giving her a crash course in hostage psychology. As far as Paz could see, she was ignoring him entirely, eyes half closed, her left hand clutched around the little bag of powder. Then she seemed to snap awake. She caught Paz’s eye.

“Detective Paz, listen to me?I may not come out of there. If I don’t, I want you to promise me that you’ll get Luz to my family. She likes you. I don’t want her caught in the bureaucracy, foster homes … There’s a lawyer’s card in my bag. He’ll know what to do, but I want you to take her to Sionnet. Will you promise me that?”

Paz swallowed a large gob of spit and said that he would.

“Thank you. If I do come out, I want you to physically take me to an empty room, put me in, and lock the door. Don’t listen to anything I say, just do that. Oh, and there has to be a flame burning in the room, a candle, a gas burner, anything. It’s critical to have a fire. Can you do that?”

“Sure, no problem,” said Paz, and watched her pick up the tray of bread and wine and walk off down the hallway to the door of Chief Horton’s office. She paused, while the negotiators called Barlow and made sure that he knew that a woman was coming through the door with the delivery. The negotiator said, “Go!” Jane opened the door and walked through it. Paz pulled a fat plumber’s candle out of an emergency box and set it alight on a desk in an empty office. Then he rushed back to the monitors.

Jane was standing by the chief’s desk. She had obviously just put down her tray. Barlow was still ranting, pistol in hand. It was hard to see the expression on his face because of the camera angle. Only the top and back of Jane’s head were visible. Barlow was saying, “… and I will give power unto my two witnesses … power, and if any man, if any man hurt them fire proceedeth out of their mouths and devoureth their enemies …” Paz saw Jane toss some powder in the air and step close to Barlow, who snarled something unintelligible and pointed his pistol at Jane. Jane brushed by the gun and placed her hands on Barlow’s cheeks. Barlow staggered backward and stared up, directly at the camera, a look of surprise on his face. Then his head rolled back on his neck and he fell to the floor. They saw Jane stagger at that moment, cling to the desk for support, and then move shakily toward the door.

Paz moved, but not as fast as the SWAT team, who had already burst into the office. He snatched Jane from the grip of one of the black-clad men and hustled her along. She sagged against him, murmuring, “No no no no …”

Into the empty office with her. He closed the door and stood guard, shaking off the many people who came by and asked him what had really happened and who the woman was and what the flying fuck was going on. She was in there eighteen minutes, by his watch. Then the door opened and she was standing in the doorway, swaying, her face pale and sweaty. The office smelled of snuffed candle and vomit. There were smears of yellowish matter on the bosom of her shirt. She said, “I used the wastebasket. Oh, all your lovely meal! I’m so sorry.”

And pitched forward, into his arms.

Later, having scrubbed her, and scrounged a toothbrush for her, and rested her and distributed the requisite lies to the media, and having sneaked her out down an obscure fire exit, Paz was driving Jane Doe home in an unmarked police car. They had just passed Douglas on Dixie Highway when she said, “Go by Dinner Key, please, I want to check on something.”

He did so. When they got out of the car the sun had cleared Key Biscayne and it was another glowing Miami day. She led him down one of the wooden docks.

“There it is,” she said, looking up at the schooner Guitar . “Oh, good, it’s still for sale.”

“This one? It looks pretty old.”

“It is old. It’s a pinky schooner. Like the one I burned. I’m going to buy it.” She wrote down the phone number posted on the For Sale sign, scribbling on the web of her thumb with a ballpoint.

“You’re planning to stay in Miami?”

“Oh, no, I’m planning to sail away in it. I have to escape by water.”

“Water, uh-huh. This escape is after we nail the witch doctor, right? I hope.”

“The witch. A witch doctor is an entirely different profession. What will they do to your partner?” Changing the subject. He did not care to pursue it, either.

“Medical leave, most likely. He didn’t kill anyone, and he was clearly out of his gourd, along with half the cops in town and about a thousand other people. The death toll is over two hundred and climbing, eleven of them cops. You say it could get worse?”