Voodoo Eyes (7 page)

He walked in to the smell of cooking and a man in a crisp white shirt sitting at a table by the door eating a plate of country-fried steak, collard greens, grits, yam and white gravy. The man had coppery brown skin, a salt-and-pepper moustache that complimented his greying ’fro, and steady hazel eyes. Max guessed he was the owner or manager because he was trying hard not to give Max the Liberty Clock, in case Max turned out to be a customer.

Max smiled and nodded and the man nodded back.

Inside, the store was a lot bigger than it appeared from the street. And it sold more than books.

Through an arch at the very back was what looked like a photography gallery. The black walls were covered with Polaroids. When Max got closer he saw that these were nearly all of young black men, none older than their mid-twenties. There were a few exceptions – some women, a couple of children, a baby. A banner above the display read ‘Liberty City (1997–present)’.

On a high round table draped with a black cloth, a bundle of purple incense sticks burned. A soothing smell of lavender filled the gallery space. A big board shaped like a T-shirt stood to the right with details of designs, sizes and prices. Costs ranged from $10 for children to $25 for supersize. He thought of the twins he’d seen up the road.

The adjoining bookstore’s shelves ran four high and covered three walls. They were subdivided into autobiography, fiction, history, race relations, self-help guides, diet and exercise, and conspiracy theories – the last, by far the biggest section. There were framed photographs on the walls – Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, Booker T. Washington, Rosa Parks, Maya Angelou, Angela Davis, Muhammad Ali, Jesse Owens, Barack Obama.

He pulled out a book from the conspiracy theory section called
The Melanin Thieves
by Alvin Sheen. It claimed that white scientists were harvesting melanin from the bodies of black people, for use in everyday consumer goods – everything from car tyres to sunglasses. There was even a picture of the top-secret laboratory in Africa where the harvesting was supposedly taking place.

Max laughed out loud as he leafed through the book. Then he saw the man who’d been eating standing in the archway.

‘One of my biggest sellers,’ he said.

‘You believe this crap?’ Max held up the book.

‘There’s something in it, for sure.’ The man smiled. ‘But you’re not here to buy books, right?’

The man had a quiet voice and spoke fairly slowly, someone who thought carefully before he opened his mouth.

‘You’re right. Sorry.’ Max put the book back. ‘I’m here about the shooting at the 7th Avenue gym. You hear anything about that?’

‘You a cop?’

‘Not any more. Private detective. I’m helping out a friend.’

‘Must be a good friend, got you coming out here asking questions ’bout a shooting.’

‘He is,’ said Max.

‘All I know is what I saw on TV. They’re saying it’s some kinda gang initiation. That’s bullshit. This ain’t LA. Gangs round here don’t kill old white men on purpose. They’re too busy wipin’ each other out.’

‘You ever meet the victim – man called Eldon Burns?’

‘No. But I heard ’bout him from time to time. I knew a few of the fighters he trained. They all respected him. Some of them became cops ’cause of him.’

‘Sure they did.’ Max smiled wryly.

‘He was killed Tuesday, right? You know what time?’

‘Around midday, I think. Why?’

‘Someone was shot right outside-a-here at 12.30. Out back in the alley,’ the man said. ‘I was in here. Heard a car brake. Then some shouting. Then a shot. Car pulls off quick. I went outside and saw White Flight lying there.’

‘Who?’

‘White Flight. Guy lives in the alley. He was lying there on the ground. Been shot in the neck. He was still alive. I called an ambulance. They took him to Jackson Memorial.’

‘Did he make it?’

‘Yeah. He’s out of intensive care.’

‘Did you see any of it?’

‘No. Just heard it. You know the cops never came to see me? I even told ’em it might be the same guy killed Eldon Burns – given the time.’ The man shook his head. ‘Were you selective like that, when you were a cop?’

‘I followed every lead.’

Max went outside into the alley behind the store. A few feet in he saw a large comma of dried blood. There were two sets of tyre streaks on the ground nearby – short before the blood, long after it.

He searched around the area adjacent to the patch of blood. Spray pattern on the ground, some spatter on the walls. A broken wine bottle close to the wall, sand all around it, blood in the sand and on the glass. The cap screwed on the bottle.

The bottle, filled with sand, had served as a weapon, a club.

Max walked a little further down the alley. A stench hit him like a clear glass wall. He found where White Flight lived – a makeshift tent of blue plastic sheeting, poles and bricks, a patched-up sleeping bag inside and, nearby, a supermarket cart spilling over with filthy rags and bric-a-brac. A bum’s ideal home.

He went back to the tyre tracks and blood. Roughly working out the angles, he guessed the driver had turned into the alley suddenly and almost hit White Flight. The hobo had tried to swing his bottle at the car. The driver had shot him once.

Back in the store, Max gave the man one of his cards.

‘Did you see the car or anything?’

‘No. A few people I talked to say they saw a brown Sierra come out of the alley. Didn’t get the plate.’

‘You know what White Flight’s real name is?’

‘No. Sometimes I’m not sure he does.’ The man looked at the card and frowned. ‘Max Mingus?’

‘Yeah. I know what you’re going to say. And I’m not related to Charles Mingus. My dad was a jazz musician. Played double bass too. He was such a fan he changed his name to Mingus.’

‘My name’s Lamar Swope.’

They shook hands. Max noticed the Obama-Biden button on his shirt: ‘Vote for Change’.

‘You know, I thought I recognised you from some place, when you walked in,’ Lamar said.

Whenever people told Max they recognised him these days, he either got evasive or defensive, depending on the situation. They were usually one of two kinds – internet-prowling creeps who’d read up about the murders that had landed him in prison or journalists looking to write books or make documentaries. He’d been offered plenty of money to tell his story, but he’d never been tempted. Two reasons: he didn’t want to make money that way and he didn’t want anyone digging too hard into his past.

‘You’re still called Pétion-Mingus Investigations.’ Swope tapped his card. ‘I knew Yolande.’

‘Yeah? How?’

‘I helped her out on a couple of community events at the Miami Book Fair. They ever find the guy who killed her?’

‘No.’

No, they never had.

‘I’ve got something for you. Stay there.’ Lamar Swope went back inside and came back with a small glassine bag containing a single .45 casing. ‘I found this right by where I found White Flight. I didn’t touch it at all. Used a pen to pick it up, like they do on TV.’

‘Thanks.’ Max took the bag and slipped it into his shirt pocket. ‘If you think of anything else give me a call or drop me an email.’

‘Sure will. Think you’ll get the guy killed Eldon Burns?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Then why are you doing this? It’s dangerous work, looking for killers. And – no offence – but at your age, man …’

Max chuckled at that. ‘This isn’t really about getting the shooter, Lamar. This is about putting a stop to something Eldon started way back when. Kind of shit that made Liberty City burn in 1980.’

‘I remember that time. I remember the riots,’ Swope said. ‘My grandparents lost their house then. It burned down. My grandpa liked to read. He was always reading. Read in his sleep. Had books everywhere. Someone threw a petrol bomb through their window. Why, I don’t know. I hope it was an accident. Their house went up real quick, all those books, you know.

‘This store? It’s my tribute to him. He taught me to read and to love books. Hardly anyone comes in here to buy books. I make most of my money on those memorial T-shirts – and the restaurant. But I’m keeping the bookstore open here, in memory of my grandpa.’

‘That’s a noble thing to do,’ said Max.

‘Even if I’m just pissing in the wind, right?’

‘Maybe. But at least you’re pissing with a purpose. Unlike most people.’

5

For someone who’d been shot in the throat, lost half his jaw, part of his tongue and would never speak again, the man people in Liberty City knew as White Flight looked vaguely happy, a smile playing on the small part of his face not covered by bandages. He was on some good painkiller dope, propped up on pillows, plugged into saline and blood drips and hooked into a monitor.

‘He may fall to sleep when you talk to him. Don’t worry. It’s nothing personal. It’s the painkillers,’ the nurse said. Twenty-something Latina called Zulay Garcia. Petite, dark hair, dark eyes. Married or engaged, judging from the tan line around her ring finger.

Max was merely noticing, not lining up. She was way too young for him – like almost every great-looking woman in Miami.

‘Mr Flight? This is a policeman. He wants to talk about what happen to you. I give you paper and pencil. You just write what you can, OK?’

White Flight nodded slowly, his good eye on Max, twinkling.

Max hadn’t identified himself as a cop. He’d just acted the part from the moment he turned up at Jackson Memorial and asked to see the victim. It hadn’t exactly been a stretch. He still had the bearing, the imperious swagger, the stare that overstayed, the procedural, box-ticking diction and the officious, inflexible tone. He was so good at being his old self he didn’t need a badge or a gun to gain leverage.

Nurse Garcia sat next to White Flight holding the pencil in his hand and resting it on the pad.

‘Did you see the person who shot you?’

White Flight gurgled and gasped, his eye straining in its socket, the smile, though, still eerily plastered there.

‘Don’t try to talk,’ the nurse implored him gently but firmly. ‘Write down.’

Max watched as White Flight slowly scratched a single, shaky letter on the page, each element of the letter taking an eternity to form.

A big capital
Y.

‘Male or female?’

The heart monitor began beeping a little faster as the patient started gurgling again and thrashed his legs.

‘Please.’ Nurse Garcia laid a hand on White Flight’s chest. ‘No get angry. Help this man so he help you.’

White Flight snorted derisively before he resumed his slow, scraping writing.

M.

‘Was he black or white?’

B,
written like half a figure 8, the back missing.

‘Anything else you can tell me about him? Did you see his face?’

White Flight wrote
N.

‘What about the car he was driving? Do you remember the colour?’

B R.

‘Brown?’

He circled the
Y.

‘Do you know the make of the car?’

The
N
was circled this time.

‘Did the man who shot you get out of the car?’

N
ringed again.

‘How many people in the car?’

The patient wrote 2.

‘Two? Are you sure?’

He looped the
Y.

The shooter had an accomplice.

‘Was the man who shot you driving the car?’

N.

‘Did you see the driver?’

Y.

‘Male or female?’

?

‘You don’t know?’

White Flight circled the question mark, then wrote
Y.

‘Was the driver black or white?’

W.

‘Anything else you remember about the man who shot you? Did you see his face?’

White Flight wrote two words.

HAREMOUTH.

‘He had a moustache?’

A third ring around
N,
and another around
HARE.

‘He had a hare
lip?’

Y.

A solid lead.

But White Flight hadn’t finished writing.

Max waited.

The heart monitor’s beeping quickened again as the pencil scraped across the paper.

Two more words.

BIRDSHIRT.

‘The gunman had birds on his shirt?’

White Flight nodded.

‘Thank you very much, sir. You’ve been very helpful. I wish you a speedy recovery.’

White Flight snorted again.

Nurse Garcia walked Max out of the room and down the corridor.

‘What’s going to happen to him when he gets out?’ Max asked her.

‘No insurance. No family. No social security number. What you think?’ she said. ‘When he can walk, they put him back out on the street. That’s the way it is in this country. You no interested in people who fall through the cracks.’

‘Where are you from, originally?’

‘Cuba.’

‘I see,’ said Max. ‘And people don’t fall through the cracks there?’

‘They all have free healthcare.’

‘So I heard. I also heard it’s a brutal, repressive dictatorship. Which is probably why you’re here, right?’

He immediately regretted being such a sarcastic prick. It was a cheap shot and a deeply insensitive one. But it was too late for apologies.

‘This is a great country, detective,’ Nurse Garcia said. ‘You just don’t know how to make it better.’

Max called Joe as soon as he was out of the hospital.

Before he could say much of anything, Liston cut him off.

‘You can stop what you’re doing, Max.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There’s been a breakthrough – if you can call it that.’ Joe sounded worried.

‘They get the shooter?’

‘Not exactly, but they think they know who did it.’

‘Who?’

‘Let’s meet tonight. Usual place, usual time,’ said Joe. ‘I’ll tell you all about it.’

6

The usual place was the Mariposa on Lincoln Road – a Cuban restaurant run by the same people who ran the famous Versailles restaurant on Calle Ocho, Little Havana. The menu was identical, and the food tasted just as good, but because it was located in the heart of South Beach’s shopping district, it cost five times more. That didn’t stop people coming. Today it was busier than usual. Halloween night and a Friday – they’d got the last free table.