“But not magic, Mr. Moriceau. Merely a parlor trick. Which, upon closer examination, I have always found the supernatural to be.”
Moriceau takes the card and glances at Mercedes. He finds no quarter there.
Paris continues: “If you remember anything else, or if you have any customers who request paraphernalia relating specifically to this Ochosi, please give me a call.”
Moriceau examines the card, remains silent.
“One last question,” Paris says. “Is there a Santerian term for ‘white chalk’?”
“Ofun,” Moriceau says. “It is a chalk made from eggshells.”
Mr. Church, the weirdo who had phoned about the missing woman, had said: “You will take her place in ofun.”
The chalk outline.
This prick had called him.
“Thanks for your time,” Paris says, and turns for the exit, the nag champa filling his senses.
As Paris opens the door for Mercedes, and an icy wind greets them, he shudders for a moment. Not from the cold, but rather from the irony of Edward Moriceau’s words.
Brujo, Paris thinks.
It might be a witch he is hunting after all.
27
The back room of La Botanica Macumba is a shambles, littered with wooden packing crates bearing seashell candles, Indian incense, and cheap T-shirts from Korea bearing African incantations. Amid the mess sits a slight brown man with graying hair, a rainbow skullcap on his head, his fingers and thumbs adorned with gaudy paste jewelry.
His name is Moriceau. He trembles before me.
Edward Moriceau is a man who, perhaps, once wielded some power in this life, once seduced young women with a flex of his back muscles or a wink at closing time. A man now reduced to a shuddering clerk amid a minefield of cheap trinkets and brightly colored trash.
“It is not something so easily obtained,” Moriceau says.
“I understand this,” I say. “But I have faith.”
“And you want it within three days?”
“No. I will have it within three days.”
I can see the resistance flare for a moment in Moriceau’s eyes. “And what is to stop me from calling the police?” he says. “They were just here, you know.”
“I know.”
“Then why me? Why here? Go talk to Babalwe Oro.”
“The Mystic Realm? They are bigger charlatans than even you. The truth is, I am here and I am talking to you. I am asking you to perform a service for me, to obtain an item within your grasp, just like all the other items you have obtained for me over the past year. I am not asking for this thing for free. I intend to pay full price for it, as well as some reasonable surcharge for the rush service. Each day you stand there and you sell love potions to lonely tias who think they will win the heart of some elderly gentleman of means. Do you care that you sell them false hopes? No. You just pocket their money like a common thief.”
“Yes, but they want to believe it works. Are you saying there is no magic here?”
“I am not saying that,” I answer, knowing enough to fear even my own practice of the dark arts. “But your drugstore magic has no true power. This is Potions-R-Us. Don’t insult me again.”
“But what if I cannot get you what you want? What if it is completely out of my hands?”
I cross the room, towering over Moriceau. “Then I will visit you. Perhaps in a month. Perhaps a year. One day, I will be in the closet when you open it. One day, I will be in the kitchen when you descend the stairs in the middle of the night for a drink of water. One day, I really will be the man sitting behind you at the movies.”
I genuflect, kneel, stare into the man’s small, sable eyes.
“Listen to me, Edward Moriceau. If you do not bring me what I demand, I will be more than the sum of your earthly concerns.” I take my small knife from its ankle scabbard, touch its razor-sharp tip to my right index finger. Blood responds. I touch this shiny dot of scarlet to my mouth, lean forward, kiss Moriceau on the lips. “I will be the shadow within the shadow you fear the most.”
28
The building on East Twenty-third Street is a Veterans Administration-assisted nursing home, six stories of grimy brown brick, just west of a boarded-up factory that once produced ball bearings, just east of a failing discount tire mart. Behind it, the constant moan of the I-90 interchange. The address, almost faded to oblivion on the front of the crime scene photo Paris had found in Mike Ryan’s desk, hadn’t promised much in the first place, and, as Paris traverses the run-down lobby, he expects even less.
Mercedes Cruz is off to interview the other detectives at the unit. Before driving to East Twenty-third Street, Paris had checked in with Reuben. Still no word from his contact in the document division of the FBI on the strip of purple cardboard.
Paris badges the attendant at the front desk. The deskman-tattooed, late sixties easy-is watching a soap opera on an old portable. His name is Hank Szabo.
“These guys are mostly WWII and Korean vets,” Hank says, after giving Paris the basics, his GI-bill dentures slipping on every sibilant. “A couple of guys were in Nam,” he adds with a glare, a look that tells Paris that Vietnam was Hank Szabo’s war. Paris glances at the man’s left forearm tattoo. USS Helena. “But most of us ain’t quite old enough for the heap yet, I guess.”
“This is the heap?” asks Paris.
“This is the heap.”
“How many men live here?”
“Twenty-two, current count,” Hank says.
“Were any of these guys ever cops that you know of?”
“Yeah. Demetrius used to be a cop.”
“Demetrius?”
“Demetrius Salters. I think he was a sergeant in the Fourth District for a lot of years. Gone now.”
“I’m sorry. He doesn’t live here?”
“Oh, he lives here. Room 410. He’s just gone gone. In the head.” Hank points to his temple, rotates his finger. “Old-timers, y’know?”
“I see,” Paris says. “Does he still have contact with anybody at the department that you know of?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Does he have friends or family?”
“I don’t think so. Never seen anyone visit him.”
Paris scribbles a few notes. “And how long have you worked here?”
Hank Szabo smiles, gives his uppers a northward shove. “Let me put it this way, Detective Paris. I started the day they stopped shooting at me.”
Paris walks down the fourth-floor hallway, a grim, cracked-linoleum corridor decked with faded holiday decorations. From somewhere below, a scratchy-voiced Patsy Cline sings about life’s railway to heaven.
He finds 410 with the door open, knocks on the jamb, looks around the corner into the room, then steps inside.
The smell is almost a living thing, instantly bullying him back a step. Camphor and pea soup and feet. A half- century of filterless cigarette smoke. Paris adjusts somewhat, breathing through his mouth, then steps inside to see
