by Gary Jonas
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Uber driver dropped us off near the French Quarter. Esther wasn’t with us, and I knew I’d have to make it up to her later, but I had to focus on things in a particular order.
Kelly frowned as she closed the car door. “Weren’t we here the other night?”
I looked down the street and spotted the cemetery.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.
“What?” Tara asked.
“Maybe she wanted to talk to Emmanuel,” I said. “Or Grady.”
“One way to find out,” Tara said.
We didn’t have any trouble getting into the cemetery since Tara had a family tomb there.
And we had no trouble finding Grady, though Emmanuel wasn’t there.
Grady sat on the top of one of the tombs, kicking his legs. When he saw us, he jumped down and raced over to Tara.
“Did I say you could come here?” he asked.
She walked through him.
“She can’t see you, dude,” I said.
Tara turned around. “What?”
“Grady is here.”
“Dad?”
“Not exactly,” I said.
Grady fumed and barked in my face. “What do you mean?”
“Your wife wasn’t faithful, and word on the street is you were sterile.”
He took a swing at me, but his fist passed through my body harmlessly.
“So it’s true,” I said.
“What?” Tara asked.
“Papa Simon is your real Papa.”
She looked confused. “But he was sleeping with Mama, not Mom. I told him that.”
“Stop talking about this!” Grady yelled.
A cemetery tour group approached, and the tour guide glared at us, but addressed her people. “The exes you see on some of the tombs relate to voodoo…”
Grady ran away from the tour group, so we followed him.
“I hate those people,” Grady said.
“You hate everyone,” I said.
Kelly and Tara stared at me. “Maybe you can tell us what he’s saying so we can be part of the conversation,” Kelly said.
Grady went to the corner of the tomb, peered around at the tour group, and yelled, “Get away from my grave!”
I grinned and pointed at Grady even though they couldn’t see him. “He’s doing the Clint Eastwood ‘Get off my lawn’ bit to the tour group right now,” I said.
Grady spun around. “I kinda liked that movie,” he said.
“Then we have something in common,” I said, “because I kinda liked it too. Clint Eastwood rocks.”
“True, but he ain’t got nothing on Denzel,” Grady said.
I looked at Kelly and Tara. “He wants to argue about who’s the better actor,” I said. “Clint Eastwood or Denzel Washington.”
“Morgan Freeman,” Kelly said.
“Oh, I like him,” Tara said.
“Maybe we can agree that all of them kick ass, and we can get down to the real business.”
The tour group walked away. The guide shot a glare at us, so I gave her a smile and a wave.
“What business?” Grady asked.
“Have you seen your wife lately?” I asked.
Grady glanced at Tara, then at me. “Not exactly.”
“What do you mean?”
“None of your business,” he said.
Something occurred to me, so I asked him. “Why are you here?”
“Because I died, you moron.”
“No, I mean why are you here? I know you died. But you’re a ghost. You should have gone on to the Underworld or wherever souls go. Ghosts only remain if they have unfinished business, or they died a violent death and missed the door of light.”
“I don’t like talking to you,” he said.
“What if I say Denzel is better than Clint?”
“You don’t mean it.”
“Sure I do,” I said. “Denzel has range and can play a variety of characters. Clint usually plays Clint.”
“I don’t want to talk to you then.”
“Why are you back to actors?” Tara asked.
“Fill us in,” Kelly said.
“In a minute. I’m working here,” I said.
“You’re working on my last nerve,” Grady said.
“What’s your unfinished business?” I asked.
“Ain’t got none. I just hang out in this here cemetery wishing my boy would come visit. He ain’t been here since the night I met you. Went off with that idiot with a hole in his damn noggin.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But that’s not what I asked you.”
“Fuck off,” he said.
I turned to Tara. “How did your father… I mean, how did Grady die?”
“My parents died in a car wreck.”
I shared a look with Kelly.
“That ain’t true,” Grady said. “Her mama’s been filling her head with nonsense.
“Then tell me,” I said. “How did you die?”
“She died in the car wreck,” Grady said, pointing at her. “My wife. My daughter.”
“You’re sounding a bit too much like Faye Dunaway in Chinatown,” I said.
“Good movie,” he said. “And it’s close.” Grady pointed at Tara. “She’s my wife and my daughter.”
“Gross,” I said.
“Not like that.”
“Then tell me.”
He shook his head, then sat on the ground, staring at the gravel. He looked up at me, eyes filled with sadness. “My mother was my wife,” he said.
I must have made a face.
“Not like that. I didn’t have sex with her. She’s ruled the family for centuries. She’s been living off the lives of others for all that time. She marries her eldest son, sleeps with a powerful wizard or sorcerer or even a voodoo priest using a body she created.”
As he said created, he pointed at Tara.
“Uh oh,” I said, seeing where he was heading. I looked at Kelly and Tara and gave them a head shake to let them know I’d explain later.
I moved around so Grady would turn to follow me. That put his back to Tara and Kelly. I sat on the ground with him.
He looked at his hands. “I told her not to go, but she had to see him. I was out fishing with Emmanuel at the time. She needed proximity to use both bodies, so she parked the old Madame Rousseau body in bed, and took her younger, prettier self out even though that body ain’t got the same skill with the arts. That’s why I can talk openly. She can’t see or hear me. In any case, she didn’t have a sitter, so she took Taraji with her.”
I kept my eyes on him. As a ghost, he didn’t breathe, but he still had similar reactions.
He feigned a sigh. “I should have come home to watch Taraji. But Emmanuel was enjoying what he called Papa Time, and while that name bugged the shit out of me, I loved that boy. Wanted to raise him up right.”
The tour group made some noise going down another row, and for a moment, I thought Grady would go yell at them, but he just sat there and waited for their talking to subside as they moved away.
“Islande was a shitty driver. She told me she was fiddling with the radio trying to find a jazz station, and ran a red light. One of them big pickups T-boned her in the middle of the intersection. Killed Taraji on impact. Busted up Islande’s body, too, but she had her gris-gris bag in the glove compartment, and when she’s near that thing, her magic is something to behold, but she has to know to use it. And again, the pretty body wasn’t as good with the magic, while the older body is infused with it.”
I nodded, having experienced her power.
“If she hadn’t been distracted. If she’d zigged instead of zagged. If she hadn’t run the light, or had left the house a minute later, or any of a million billion zillion other things… But no, she didn’t see it, and Taraji died.”
I gave him the time to compose his thoughts.
“Ain’t sure how to tell you this. Ain’t even sure why I’m telling you all this. Maybe I just
need to get it out. And I can’t tell anyone else.”
I nodded. Anything to keep him talking, though this was common with ghosts because they had so few opportunities to be heard.
Kelly and Tara watched me sitting there, and to them it looked like I was alone, but they knew better, and Kelly put a hand on Tara’s shoulder. Whispered in her ear. Neither of them spoke.
Grady rubbed his face with both hands, though he couldn’t have felt it. Mannerisms from life reflected in death.
“Islande snapped from her pretty, but broken body back to her older body in bed miles away.”
He looked off to the right and watched a raven land on a wrought iron fence. It screeched, fluttered its wings, cocked its head, then launched into the air again, free to soar away.
“Cops and paramedics obviously showed up on the scene, but Islande was already gone. They found two dead bodies in the car. I got a call from the police. Emmanuel and I weren’t having any luck with the fish, but we were having a good time anyway. Laughing and smiling while Taraji died. My phone rang, and while the signal was terrible even with the antenna pulled out, I listened to a policeman tell me what happened. My wife and daughter were killed. Only my wife wasn’t really dead. Just an avatar she’d been using to attract lovers.”
Again he went silent. Again, I gave him time to decide how much he wanted to tell me.
“The bodies were embalmed and buried. We had the funeral services. Emmanuel thought he’d lost his mom. And then Islande concocted her plan.”
He shook his head.
“Crazy-assed plan,” he said. “She asked me to help. Said she needed my magic, too. Now, I didn’t have much in the way of magic because she likes her sons to have the genetics, but not the abilities, so I didn’t think I’d be much help, but she said she could bring back Taraji. That she’d make the ultimate sacrifice for her daughter.”
Kelly stared at me, and I held up a hand to let her know to be quiet. She looked away, then back at me, and again whispered in Tara’s ear. Then she quietly hopped the wrought iron fence, and disappeared.
If there was trouble, I knew she could handle it.
I needed to hear the rest of Grady’s story.
And he obliged me.
“Mama set up a perimeter around the tomb.” He pointed at the building we sat beside. “This one right here. And she used her bones to bang on her drums, and she drank blood, and spit some of it into a fire, and had me drink some nasty-ass potion, and chant some words. Then she took my wedding ring, pulled it from my finger and tossed it in a cup of blood with some special herbs. My body shriveled up and dropped, only I still stood there, but I was as I am now.”
He gestured toward one of the bricked over chambers. “Next thing I know,” he said, “something starts kicking those bricks from the inside. Mama got up and waved her hands, and bricks dislodged themselves, flew into her hands. She stacked them on the ground, and kept them coming until her younger body climbed out of the grave.”
He gave me a lopsided smile.
“That body was jacked-up in spite of being in her Sunday best. Mama took that bowl of blood and herbs, reached in to pluck out the ring, and she called something out of the night. Some dark entity. She used her magic and its power to reform the body. She chanted the names of body parts. Heart, kidneys, like that, right? And the body arched its back each time as if that organ had just grown back. The gray flesh darkened as blood began to flow, and then her younger body stood there looking as fresh as ever, only the eyes were empty.”
I closed my eyes for a moment because I knew what came next, and sure enough, Grady told me.
“Mama sipped the blood, licked her lips, then moved forward, and kissed her younger body. A soft white light lit up both their faces, then the light went into the younger body and she called forth Taraji’s spirit, fed it in there as well, and it took hold inside her new vessel.”
“As an adult?” I asked.
He frowned. “It ain’t what you think. Let me keep going. She took care of the size of the body next. She held that ring, spoke an incantation, and popped that golden band into her mouth. Again, she kissed the younger body, and the years fell away. The body shrank, and bits of flesh dropped like strips of clay cut from a sculptor’s block to the ground. A few minutes later, Taraji stood there as a seven-year-old wearing a dress way too big for her. And Mama touched her head, said, ‘Forget,’ and Taraji dropped to her knees and closed her eyes.”
“Hell of a story,” I said.
“All true,” Grady said. “I ain’t never told no one about it until now. Something tells me you need to know it. And now that I told you, I need you to promise me something.”
“What’s that?”
“Get that ring and melt it down.”
“That will end your existence,” I said.
“My life ended back in the year 2000. I ain’t sure what Mama called up, but she uses the gold in the ring to control it, and she ain’t the voodoo queen she used to be. No sirree.”
“I’ll destroy the ring,” I said.
“Thank you,” Grady said.
“Do you want me to say anything to your daughter for you?”
Grady frowned. “She ain’t my daughter.”
“Not as far as she’s concerned.”
“She ain’t Papa John’s daughter either.”
“What do you mean?”
“It don’t matter. You can tell her whatever you think will make her feel good then. Something like I love her and all that jazz.”
I nodded, and made a note to lie and say he meant it.
But that had to wait because Kelly returned. “We’ve got company,” she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A moment later, Hank and Derek stepped around the corner. So I was right that Franklin was the dead guy. They wore suits and ties, which looked odd on them. While Derek hadn’t waved a gun at me the first time around, this time he did have a gun in his fist. A snub-nose .38. Hank had a compact 9mm pistol with a nickel plated slide and a black frame.
Maybe I should put some emphasis on the word had. As in past tense. Because as soon as they stepped around that corner, Kelly snatched the guns from their hands.
They stood there with stupid shocked expressions.
“What the hell?” Hank said.
“You didn’t pass your background checks,” Kelly said. She tossed Hank’s gun to me. I caught it, ejected the magazine to check the load, then slapped it back home. Derek’s gun, she stuck in her waistband.
Hank tried to throw a punch.
Kelly caught his arm, pulled him off balance, chucked him into Derek, and they both hit the ground hard.
Kelly stepped on Hank’s throat as Derek tried to scramble away.
“That’s far enough, Derek,” I said, and aimed the pistol at him.
“Good help is so hard to find these days,” Kelly said.
“What do you aackkk?” Hank asked, the final word getting mangled as Kelly put some weight on his throat.
“We ask the questions,” Kelly said.
“How did you know they were after us?” I asked.
“I didn’t know for sure until they stepped around the corner, but they had the look of the kind of guys who would be stupid enough to come after us in broad daylight, so I came back just in case.”
“I’m glad you did.”
Derek put his hands up.
I motioned with the gun. “Get up and step over here against the fence.”
He did as I told him.
“I don’t have any zip ties.” I pointed at his shoes. “Untie the laces and pull them free.”
Instead, he chopped at my wrist, and knocked the gun from my hand.
I felt like an idiot as it skidded across the gravel. Kelly stepped on it, letting Hank breathe.
“Real smooth, Jonathan” she said.
Meanwhile, I grabbed Derek’s tie and twisted the knot.
His eyes widened as his circulation was cut off. He gagged. I eased off on the
pressure so he could breathe.
“Don’t get cute with me, Derek,” I said. I looked over at Kelly. “He caught me off guard.”
She shook her head, disgusted.
“Cut me some slack,” I said. “Hank’s the asshole who poisoned me the other day. Maybe we should switch bad guys.”
“You might give him a gun,” Kelly said.
“We aren’t interested in you two,” Hank said. “We’re here for her.” He pointed at Tara.
I looked at Tara. She pointed at herself. “Me? What did I do?”
“Your grandma wants to talk to you,” Hank said.
“You know where her grandmother is?” I asked.
“I do.”
“All right. You’ll take us to her.”
“It’s a trap,” Tara said.
“Thank you, Admiral Ackbar,” I said.
“What?”
Tara was clearly not a Star Wars aficionado.
“Let me go,” Derek said.
“Sorry, pal,” I said. “I don’t like you.” And I twisted the tie knot tighter. He gagged and tried to claw at the material, but then went limp and slid to the ground.
He wouldn’t be out for more than a few seconds, but I tied the tie around the bars of the fencing, and by the time he came around, I was done.
“Let’s go,” I said, walking over to Kelly. I bent to pick up the pistol.
Hank got to his feet, and Kelly gave him a smile. “Feel free to try something,” she said.
“You can’t leave me here!” Derek yelled.
“Keep screaming,” I said. “A cemetery tour is bound to happen by soon enough.”
He clawed at the knot.
Grady floated over to me. “Don’t forget your promise,” he said.
I gave him a nod, then Kelly, Tara, and I followed Hank out of the cemetery.
Tara took my hand and pulled me to the side as Kelly and Hank climbed into the black Lincoln Continental parked at the curb.
“This is a bad idea,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because I think he’s lying about knowing where Mama is.”
“No worries,” I said. “We have Kelly with us. If things go south, she’ll deal with it. I’ll help, of course, but it’ll be fine.”
Her grip on my hand tightened. “I really don’t want to go.”
