Shadow of Death

Then Cox heard a familiar voice. Even above the full organ and the tumult of the congregation, Cox clearly heard a most familiar voice.

“Let go of me, goddammit! You goddamn sonofabitch mother! Take your filthy rotten hands off me, you male chauvinist pig!”

Pat Lennon was struggling to get to her feet from roughly mid-pile. A hairy male hand was firmly grasping her bottom.

6.

“Didja telex your story?”

“Uh-huh. ‘you?”

“Yeah,” said Joe Cox, “I suppose you wrote it as an eyewitness.”

“Eyewitness, my rear! I wrote it as a victim.”

“Victim! Hell, you were just closer to the action than I was.”

“What do you mean ‘closer’? I was attacked!”

“So the News will award you the Medal of the Purple Butt.

“That English Cardinal was lucky,” Cox continued, returning to the point. “If those cops hadn’t been as fast as they were—”

“Not as fast as Koznicki,” Lennon said. “I didn’t think a man that big could move that fast. And he’s no spring chicken, either.”

“I guess I’d like to have him on my side in a fight. I’d sure as hell hate to see him among the opposition . . .

“By the way, did you tumble that all those altar servers were British cops?”

“Nope,” Lennon admitted. “It got by me completely. Turns out the place was crawling with constables.” She looked thoughtful. “Wouldn’t you say they were providing a little more than ordinary security tonight?”

“Yup!” Cox emphasized. “Tonight’s protection was just about maximum security. They couldn’t have provided better protection for their queen.” He paused. “What do you make of it?”

Lennon ran her index finger across her upper lip. “You want to know what I think? I think they know! Somehow they know who’s on this crazy Rastafarian hit list. That’s the only thing that could possibly explain all those cops in the abbey tonight.”

“But how? How could they know? They couldn’t have gotten it from the Rastafarians . . . could they?”

Lennon pondered. “What about that black deacon . . . what’s his name, Toussaint?”

It was as if a bulb lit above Cox’s head. “Yeah, Toussaint. Of course! Remember when he was in Detroit? He had connections all through the black community. I never saw anyone to beat him—not even Mayor Cobb.”

“Yes, and remember his contacts with fellow Haitians . . . and what I’ve always suspected was a voodoo network.”

“Voodoo!” Cox sounded incredulous. “Come on, Pat; this is the twentieth century and we’re smack in the middle of Western civilization. Voodoo’s part of the past.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Joe. You and I may not be invited to any voodoo rites; honkies seldom are. But the African slaves brought their religion, which happened to be voodoo, with them. And although it may have changed a bit and blended with some of our culture, it’s still alive and healthy. And I’ll just bet that you could find voodoo cults in any metropolitan area where there’s a large concentration of blacks.”

“Maybe so, but I doubt it. Anyway, for the sake of discussion, let’s say Toussaint did somehow come up with this hypothetical Rastafarian hit list. So if he is the police source, wouldn’t you think he’d have been there tonight? I didn’t see him . . . did you?”

“No . . . no, I didn’t. And that’s odd: Now that I think of it, Toussaint is the one who nailed the Rastafarian who tried to knife Boyle in Rome. Which just reinforces my feeling that he did latch onto that list.”

“All that proves is that he’s a little faster than the amazingly quick Koznicki. But, where was he tonight?”

“I haven’t a clue. Maybe we can look into that tomorrow.”

“You’re so right.” Cox reached up and turned off the light. He pulled up the covers and snuggled closer to Lennon.

“You know, you’re right about something else, too,” said Cox.

“And that is . . .?”

“That the News provides better accommodations than the Free Press. But isn’t it nice that the News reporters are so generous.”

“We are generous only to the deserving poor.”

“And am I deserving?”

“Joe, you always deserve everything you get.”

Cox raised himself up on one elbow and kissed her tenderly. It was not the end of the day, only the beginning of the night.

7.

It was almost impossible to see, the smoke was so thick in the small downstairs room of a tenement apartment in the Brixton district of London. It was a stark room, with no furniture but a small wooden desk with a straightback chair behind it.

On one wall hung a large, framed, color portrait of a swarthy, bushy-haired man in uniform with a chestful of ribbons and decorations. Haile Selassie I, late Emperor of Ethiopia, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and unwitting patron of the Rastafarians, was so honored.

Eight men had crowded into the room; none was moving about. Some sat on the floor, others leaned against the wall. Heavy ganja smoke poured from their mouths and nostrils, filling the room.

An air of discouragement, dejection, depression, and gloom was almost tangible.

Occasionally, one or another would speak, though without enthusiasm or spirit.

“Damnation! Hellfire!”

“We and we has failed Selassie I!”

“Shame on our house!”

Finally, one man rose from the floor. In each hand, he bore an imposing, unsheathed knife.

He lurched to the desk, on which rested two effigies, each swathed in cardinal red. He raised both knives over his head and with manifest concentration, drove both into the effigies simultaneously.

“Dread Rasta no dread,” he called out with some air of ritual. “It be de end!”

8.

“Seems t’ me, Charlie, that you’re a fraction away from it, what with the years getting on,” said Commissioner Beauchamp, a bit impishly.

“Oh, I don’t know, guv’nor,” Superintendent Somerset shot back in a combative tone, “I believe I was on our man quick as anyone. Surely, as any man in this room.”

“Maybe, but then neither of us got to him with the speed of lightning like our Inspector friend here.”

“Now, now,” retorted Inspector Koznicki, waving a large paw reprovingly, “free me from the middle of this, if you will. We did our job. We protected our charges.”

Beefeater gin to the contrary notwithstanding, they were sipping Dewar’s White Label Blended Scotch.

Beauchamp, Somerset, Koznicki, and Father Koesler had gathered in Koznicki’s room at the Carburton to celebrate their victory earlier that evening over the Rasta forces. The two assailants had been taken into custody and were presently being interrogated by Scotland Yard specialists.

“Blimey,” Somerset commented, “but I’ve never seen anyone move any faster’n you did tonight. Inspector. Maybe as fast, but no faster. And none of us is of the spring chicken variety, I’d say!”

Koznicki shrugged. “The circumstances were just different. My man raised his knife above his head, and, of course, he was the one who shouted. It was enough of an invitation to act as any I have ever experienced. Your