She looked surprised at the question. “Well, yes. He’s a writer. The other stuff is just for background and experience. It’s Captain Dinwiddie. He’s writing an epic poem of that name about the black experience. You read it all in the journal, didn’t you? That’s why he went to Africa in the first place. But he was blocked for the conclusion. I mean, where’s the payback, for slavery and the ghettos and segregation and all that? It’s an artistic imbalance. Lucifer has to be flung from heaven. Faust has to beat the devil. And Africa has to triumph over Cracker Nation. Originally he just thought he would simply make it up, but that was before he became a witch. Now he’s writing nonfiction, so to speak.”
“That’s crazy!”
“You keep saying that. It’s not helpful. My friend Marcel used to say that sometimes life serves up situations that only crazy actions can resolve. This is obviously one of them, and …”
She stiffened. A look of pain came over her face. He heard a long hiss of breath through her teeth.
“What’s wrong? Jane?”
“I … was wrong. Here. He’s here.” Her voice was low, strangled.
“Where?” Paz looked wildly around the restaurant. Sweat burst out on his forehead. There was something funny now about all the patrons. They weren’t eating and chatting and laughing, as they usually did. They were staring at Paz and Jane, and there was something odd about their faces, they seemed peculiarly flat and brutal, the flesh sagging like candle wax. They had too many teeth.
Jane was groaning something. There was a crash from the kitchen, and shouting. Someone screamed; it went on and on. Jane was trying to say something. Her eyes bulged with the effort. Paz bent closer.
“What? What is it? What’s happening?”
“Escape by water … get over water,” she managed to say. “Take her!”
Paz felt dull and heavy. He had drunk too much, he thought. He really should call it a night, walk on home and crawl into bed. He got up. Jane looked like a corpse. Everyone in the place looked like a corpse. He started to leave.
His mother came across the dining room, like a golden galleon under full sail. Light seemed to pour off her; her face was bright and covered with fine sweat. It looked inhuman, like the oiled wood of a statue.
“Son, son, take them to the boat, take them both to the boat! Do it now!” She reached up over his head and dropped something on a leather thong around his neck. Paz stared at her stupidly. “You know about the boat?”
She struck him on the face. It sounded like a gunshot. “Jesus Maria, will you go!” she cried.
Paz was in the kitchen, hot, bright, full of noise. Cesar the chef was huddled in the corner, weeping. The scullion was smashing plates, throwing them one by one against the wall. Then Paz was in the alley behind the restaurant. He couldn’t walk very well, he discovered, because he had more than the usual number of legs. No, that was because he was supporting Jane Doe on his hip, with his arm around her. Deadweight, and moaning. He hated Jane Doe, he wanted to throw her in the Dumpster. There was a weight pulling on the other arm, some kind of horrible hairy animal, clutching at him, it was going to suck his blood … no, that was the child, he had to do something with the child, something to do with water. Throw her in the water? That didn’t seem right. The leather thong was cutting into his neck. He stumbled in another direction. The pressure let up. That was good. He saw Jane’s car far away. The leather thong wanted him to go to the car.
He was in the car. It was moving and he appeared to be driving it. He wasn’t sure whether he really knew how to drive a car. It seemed huge, like an ocean liner. He turned left on Twelfth Avenue. There were dead bodies in the gutters and burning cars all around. He would be dead soon if he didn’t stop driving and leave this car. What he needed was bed. Thong was choking him. Stop the car get rid of the thong. He slowed, pulled toward the curb.
Jane Doe punched him in the mouth. The blow came from nowhere: one second she was slumped against the car door, the next she was on him, punching, scratching at his face. He braked to a stop and fought her off. She connected with his nose. The shock of pain. Suddenly his head was clear. He concentrated on the pain. He thought the pain was wonderful, compared to what had been going on in his head before. He grabbed the wheel and tromped on the gas pedal. They roared north. Jane Doe stopped hitting him.
They were on the boat. He had trouble untying the lines because the lines had turned into fat snakes. His hands wouldn’t grab them. He reached back to his hip and punched himself in the jaw. It really hurt and his head cleared enough to let him do simple acts. He threw off the lines, jumped onto the boat, and started the motor. As soon as black water separated them from the bulkhead he felt a little better, and the further they traveled down the Miami River the more normal he felt. Something had gone wrong at the restaurant, but he couldn’t quite recall what it was. He noticed that there was something around his neck, a finely woven rectangular straw bag on a leather thong. Where had he got that? And why was there blood all over it, and down his shirt? And why did his nose and jaw hurt? And what was he doing on a moonlight cruise with Jane Doe and her kid?
But by the time they passed under the Brickell Avenue Bridge a good deal of it had come back to him, like recalling a dream you had last night in the middle of the workday, or a dejr vu. The air smelled of smoke, like burning garbage; he could hear distant sirens.
The cabin hatch opened and Jane came out. She stood beside him, her arms crossed, her fine pale hair whipped by the wind of their passage. They broke out into Biscayne Bay, and when they passed the marker, Paz pushed the throttle forward. The boat stood up on its counter and roared into the night.
“This is nice,” said Jane. “I haven’t been on the water in a while. Where are we going?”
“I thought Bear Cut. It’s a little channel across the bay. We can drop anchor there and figure out what we’re going to do.” She nodded. The boat was bouncing on a light chop, but she wasn’t holding on, just swaying easily with the motion.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Considering, yes I am. Did I punch you?”
“Yeah. A right to the nose, I think. A nice shot.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not a problem. It was probably the thing to do, to be honest. I punched myself, too.” He cleared his throat. “Are you going to tell me what went on back there?”
“He probably sent one of his creatures around with a dose of something mind-altering, untargeted except for me. Mass confusion and madness. He wanted me to come to him.”
“My mom didn’t seem too affected.”
“No, she’s under Yemaya’s protection. And she gave you a … I don’t know what they call it in Santeria, but in Olo it’s ch’akadoulen.” She tapped the little bag around his neck. “A ward against witchcraft.”
“How did she know to send me to the water?”
“She may not have. Yemaya is orisha of the sea. As an oriate of Yemaya she would have thought of water.”
“So it was just a coincidence?”
After a second of amazed silence, Jane Doe laughed in his face. “Yeah, right! Honestly, Detective!”
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
