'You have your pistol?' I asked Clarence.
'Always,' he said, whipping it loose.
'Leave it in the car, Clarence. And anything else you got.'
'You crazier than they are, mahn. I'm not going in no voodoo house without…'
'Yeah, you are. They're going to search you anyway, what's the point? It's too late now— we trust them or we don't.'
'I
'Then stay in the car.'
'Look…'
'You look, Clarence. This is my play, my way.'
He glared through the windshield. Finally, he slipped the pistol under the front seat. Pulled out a couple of spare clips, his straight razor, the leather-covered sap.
'That's all I got, mahn.'
We turned left into a short block. A drug supermarket: dealers sitting in parked cars, working the traffic crawl. Cars with Connecticut plates, Jersey plates. Flames licked from a 55-gallon oil drum, winos warming their hands. A man staggered out of the doorway of an abandoned building— why pay rent when you re running a crack house? If citizens lived on that block, they were indoors.
Daylight wouldn't be any better.
A three-story wood frame house stood squarely between two others. A centerpiece, white with black trim. The surrounding houses were standing open to the night, in the process of being rebuilt. The Caprice pulled into a driveway, drove around to the back. We followed, the trail car behind us.
We stepped out. I looked around as Clarence opened the trunk. High wood fence, the planks nailed solidly together. Chicken coop in one corner, a small black-and-white goat tethered. A two-car garage, doors closed.
I took the package in my arms again. Car doors slammed. The others got out. The messenger came over to us.
'Will you follow me, please?'
112
The back door opened into what had probably been a kitchen once. We followed the messenger through an entranceway into a long rectangular room. Neatly dressed men and women crowded the place. Sober clothing, spots of color on the women— a small red feather in a hat, a white scarf. The front door had a steel gate behind it.
'This way,' the man said.
Down the stairs, to a basement. Under the ground, under the surface. In the blackness, I wished for Sheba. Sharp, clean smell, like cloves cooking, everything whitewashed.
At the bottom of the stairs, against the far wall, a woman. Sitting in a huge chair of dark, oiled wood, the back fanning into a seashell shape behind her. She was wrapped in red silk, loose around her shoulders, falling into a natural V at her breasts. Long dark hair, coffee-with-cream skin, dark red lips.
The messenger stepped ahead, motioning us to stay where we were. Bowed to the woman, said something in a rapid-fire language I didn't know. Sounded like some kind of French.
'Speak their tongue,' the woman said, her voice darkly rich, gold-laced loam.
'We have done as you commanded,' the man said in reply.
'Come forward,' the woman said.
I approached, Clarence just behind me on my right. I bowed, folding my upper body protectively over the package.
'They have no weapons,' the woman said.
Sounds in the darkness: a pistol taken off full cock, a sword being sheathed.
'What is your name?' she asked.
'Burke.'
'You have brought us our offering?'
'Yes,' I said. 'That and an apology.'
'Your friend, he is the one who hurt one of our people? In Central Park?'
'No.'
'Yes, he is the one. You would lie for a friend?'
'I would die for one,' I said quietly, cursing myself, clutching the juju bag.
'Your friend is young. He did not know what he was doing?'
'He only thought I was to be attacked.'
'Yes. Give what you have brought to us.'
The messenger stepped forward. I handed him the bag. He placed it reverently on a dark slab of polished wood. At a nod from the Queen, he unwrapped it carefully, gently removing the plastic. Held the bag up for her to see.
