Devil's Cape

by Rob Rogers

  “Yes,” said Jazz’s voice—calm, amused.

  Reluctantly, he opened his eyes again, saw now not his reflection, or the monster’s, but Jazz’s face, pale, eyes filled with blood.

  “This isn’t real,” he said.

  “No?” The corner of Jazz’s mouth turned up in a sneer. And then the window exploded inward, showering Cain with chunks and shards and cubes of glass. He felt cuts on his face, arms, and throat, felt blood trickling down his chest. His first instinct was to bat the glass away with his hands, but he knew better, knew the damage he could do to himself brushing at broken glass. He sat there for a moment, listening. But Jazz—or his hallucination of her—was gone. There was only the sound of the night—the rustle of wind through the banana trees, the chatter as pieces of glass fell slowly from his body to the floor of his car, and the buzz of insects. A glance into the rearview mirror revealed his own face, not the monster’s. He was bleeding, and a chunk of glass hung in one eyebrow like a decoration, but he was himself. He held himself painfully still, then slowly unlatched his door and stepped out into the parking lot, carefully shaking the glass loose from his face, his hands, his clothes.

  The mosquitoes sensed his blood. They swarmed around him, digging, biting, flying into his eyes, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about them without risking digging an overlooked piece of glass further into his face. He slammed the door shut. The car was open to the world, but he couldn’t be bothered with that now. He reached back into the car, lifted out his medical bag, shook a few pieces of glass from it onto the pavement, and walked slowly and purposefully toward the doctors’ entrance. There was no way not to be observed by the security guard at the door, but he couldn’t be bothered with that, either. He just needed to avoid having the slurred voice and foggy brain that the Thorazine was going to give him, and to do that, he needed to move fast.

  He wondered idly if there really even was blood on his face, glass in his skin, or if that was just another part of the hallucination. No sense going too far down that road now. If he did, he’d start to wonder if he’d left home, if he even existed.

  He shook his head slowly. He was disassociating, losing it. The Thorazine and the psychosis were affecting his judgment, his thought processes. His face and neck hurt from the glass, his arm from the shot. His arm? His leg. He’d driven the needle into his leg, hadn’t he? Nothing seemed quite right. He glanced around, felt the weight of prying eyes watching his progress to the door. But there was no one following his progress, was there?

  “Damn it, Jazz,” he muttered. He gripped his disjointed thoughts as tightly as he dared and opened the door to the asylum.

  “What the hell happened to you?” asked the security guard at the door, rushing forward to help.

  Cain winced, frustrated at the effects the Thorazine was already having on his system. He couldn’t remember the guard’s name. The two of them talked about—what was it?—hockey whenever they saw each other. Cain had had a patient with a Wayne Gretzky fixation and that had started it. They were two black men in Louisiana on the delta, talking about hockey. Cain didn’t know anything about it, and the guard probably didn’t either, but it was the only thing the two of them could think of to talk about. They didn’t know each other and had different education levels, and had formed that one simple connection and knew next to nothing about what else to say to one another. And now Cain had forgotten the man’s name.

  He put on his most charming smile, which hurt, because it forced a chunk of glass deeper into his lip. It probably looked maniacal besides, what with the dripping blood and all. “Like you said, man, sitting on the front row against the glass is a crapshoot. One eighty-mile-per-hour puck at the right angle and you’re sucking glass chips.” Knowing it wasn’t selling, he turned the smile down a turn, self-deprecating. “Ah, I did something stupid.” True enough. “I was out late with some friends and got back into my car afterward, realized I forgot something, and turned funny. Smashed my face right into the window. Didn’t know those things could shatter this way.” He was conscious of his blood dripping on the tile floor. “I was pretty close to Holingbroke, so I drove over here. It’s not as bad as it looks and I can clean it up myself without dealing with an ER.”

  The guard—Dennis? Dwayne?—furrowed his brow. “You’re the doc, doc,” he said. His jaw tightened. “I’ll get the janitor to mop up after you.”

  Cain nodded, the movement painful. His head was fuzzy with the Thorazine now. “Thanks,” he said. He waved in a friendly and dismissing gesture at the other man, then turned to make his way toward his office by the least-frequented route he could.

  “Dr. Ducett?” The security guard had come up behind him, laid a hand on his shoulder.

  Cain stopped. He found himself pushing down an urge to punch the man. Cain Ducett was no longer a violent man. The urge disturbed him. “Yeah?” he asked, turning to face the guard—Darren. The guard’s name was Darren.

  “You, uh, need a hand?”

  Cain shook his head. “No, I’ve got it,” he said. He started to walk down the corridor again, but Darren didn’t remove his hand.

  “You’re not, uh, going to be treating any patients for a while, are you?” Darren’s voice was even. “I mean, till you take some time to clean up, take a shower, maybe change into different clothes? Your cuts and all, you know, might disturb some of them.” Except he didn’t mean that, Cain knew. What he meant was that he thought that Cain was drunk or high, and he had no business seeing patients in that condition.

  “Don’t worry,” Cain said. “I’m fine. But I’m not seeing any patients for a few hours.”

  Darren released his shoulder then and patted it awkwardly. “Okay, then. Good. That’s good.” His Adam’s apple bounced up and down and his eyes cut to the floor. More blood. “Don’t you worry about this,” he said. “We’ll get it all cleaned up.” He grinned at Cain. “We’ll call in the Zamboni, you know?”

  Cain nodded again and made his way down the hall toward a stairwell.

  The Thorazine biting into his brain, he made it up the stairs, then down the hallway to his office, his hand reaching out often to touch the wall and support him. The bleeding had more or less stopped, or at least he was no longer dripping on the floor.

  It was when he pulled the door to his office open that he heard Jazz’s voice again.

  “You running away, Cain?” the voice asked. “Turning your brain to sludge to get away from your debts?”

  He walked into the empty room and closed the door behind him. The room reeked of Jim Beam and marijuana. There was no sign of Jazz in the room, but a yellowed newspaper tabloid was spread across his desk, open to a story about “the Devil Baby of Dubai.”

  “I never ran from a damn thing in my life,” he said quietly to the empty room. “That’s part of my problem.”

  The Thorazine wasn’t working its magic. It was slowing his brain, his reactions, blurring his thoughts, but the hallucinations were still there. Hefting his medical bag, he walked into the small bathroom inside his office, one of his few perks, and stared into the mirror. For the moment, at least, he saw his own face. It was coated with blood, torn and bleary-eyed, but it was his. Working quickly, afraid every second that the mirror would explode, that it would be filled with Jazz’s bloodied face, or the monster’s, he plucked the shards of glass out of his face and neck and arms with a pair of tweezers and a hand towel. He’d need a stitch or two, he thought, but he couldn’t handle that right now, not with the Thorazine, so he applied pressure with a slowly reddening towel.

  “You’re running now,” her voice said, and he imagined he could feel her lips brushing against his ear, though he saw no one.

  Ducking away from the mirror, he limped back into his office and grabbed his telephone. He would talk to Salazar. Salazar would know what to do.

  It wasn’t until he’d pushed the last button that he realized he hadn’t dialed Salazar’s number at all. He’d called Jazz’s old home. Before more than a single ring
could sound, he slammed down the receiver. This was all too much. He locked the door from the inside, wedged it shut tight with a doorstop, and dropped into the chair behind his desk.

  “Cain?” Jazz’s voice came from the bathroom. He knew that if he walked over there and looked into the mirror, he’d see her. “We need to talk, Cain. You need to stop pretending that what’s happening isn’t really happening.”

  He didn’t rise. “What do you want from me, girl?” he asked the air. “I don’t hurt people anymore. You saw to that. You changed me, you and that voodoo that you do.”

  He stopped, wondering what the hell he was talking about. Jazz hadn’t done anything but be his victim. The trauma he’d felt over the incident had triggered a psychotic episode that had ultimately led to his salvation. That was the gospel according to Cain Ducett. It had nothing to do with voodoo.

  The Thorazine was thickening his mind. He couldn’t concentrate anymore. His face hurt. Cradling his head in his arms on the desk, ignoring the crinkling of the newspaper that couldn’t be there, he tried to drift off, to let himself sleep, praying to a God he didn’t believe in that his brain chemistry would right itself by the time he woke. As he closed his eyes, he imagined his body shifting, the skin flaps growing underneath his arms, the fine hair rising on his skin, his ears stretching. He imagined horns and a tail. He gnashed his teeth together, squinting his eyes shut further. Why wouldn’t this end?

  And finally, resting like that, he fell asleep.

  Don’t get so caught up in the bustle and street vendors of Little Athens that you overlook Zorba’s on Sarandakos Avenue. Yes, its décor is kitschy. But the service from charming owner/operator Pericles Kalodimos and his crew is truly Old World, and the food is a delight to smell and taste. In particular, be sure to try the delicate pastitsio, which . . .

  — Excerpted from A Devil’s Cape Traveler’s Guide

  Chapter Twenty

  Devil’s Cape, Louisiana

  Three days after the deaths of the Storm Raiders

  5:30 a.m.

  Despite their differences and the various preoccupations that drove them, Jason and Julian made an effort to join their father for breakfast at Zorba’s early every Sunday morning. They had to be there by six-thirty to have time to eat and talk and still beat the brunch crowd. The Sunday after Argonaut’s televised battle with the Troll, after the deaths of the Storm Raiders, the three men found themselves gathered together earlier than normal, sipping at Pericles’s strong coffee and finding conversation difficult.

  Pericles had torn down the red velvet wallpaper in the 1990s, replacing it with a series of frescoes of Greek heroes and a collection of ferns. The frescoes were now chipping and peeling, and one of the innumerable Kalodimos cousins had modified the heroes’ anatomies on one wall with a steak knife and fountain pen. Pericles had patched it up as best he could, and barred the cousin from the restaurant for a year, but now he was talking about putting the red velvet back up again.

  Jason stirred a spoonful of sugar into his coffee and scraped at his eggs—a moist omelet with tomatoes and feta cheese—with his fork. Lenny Buchholz’s body had been fished out of the Gulf nearly twelve hours before Jason had fought the Troll, but the news hadn’t reached Jason until just before he got to the restaurant. Someone had chained a hunk of concrete to Bucholz’s foot and perforated his belly with an icepick to let the gases escape, but they’d left him in the shallows and a water skier had slalomed into his head. The Troll was already out on bond and had sent a bouquet of lilies to Buchholz’s mother.

  Jason finished his coffee, then poured some more from a steaming pitcher. He leaned in too close and the steam fogged his glasses. He absently pulled them off and polished them on his napkin.

  “I still don’t understand why you won’t get contacts,” Pericles said. “Or even that Lasik surgery or whatever they call it. A man on television, he looks more trustworthy without glasses.”

  Jason shrugged and slipped them back over his nose. He was grateful that his father never seemed to realize that he wore clear lenses. He glanced at his brother, then looked away. “They say it makes me look more intelligent,” he said.

  “So what? So you need to buy into that garbage? You wear these glasses, you change your name . . .”

  “Pop, that’s over and done. You think anyone’s going to listen to crime stories from someone named Kalodimos?”

  Pericles stood up from his chair, the movements slow but angry, his arms still muscular, but wrinkled like old leather, the white hairs bursting out of his scar tissue like razor wire. “We’re not all crooks, Jason.”

  Again, Jason found himself glancing at his brother, then quickly cutting his eyes away. He started to answer, but Julian beat him to it.

  “No, Pop, we’re not,” Julian said. And now Jason couldn’t help but look. There was a beatific smile on Julian’s face, with only a hint of smugness. Julian had grown a goatee and streaked his hair with golden highlights, another way of the twins separating themselves, and he scratched the hair on his chin as he spoke. “But Jason’s right, you know. In this city, he’d never get on television with our name—at least not the way he wants. Too many bad apples.” He gestured to his father. “Would you get me some more bacon, while you’re up?”

  Pericles lifted a plate of bacon from a nearby serving table and carried it over. Using stainless steel tongs, he set some in front of Julian then, almost as an afterthought, in front of Jason.

  “Thanks,” Jason said quietly.

  His father nodded, then grinned at Jason, his teeth yellow, and nodded again. “So changing your name, did it spare you the old Kalodimos temper?”

  Jason smiled back. “Not so much, Pop.”

  Pericles jabbed the air in Jason’s direction from across the table with a piece of bacon. “Saw your news program a few minutes ago with that Troll thing. Who was that man fighting him again? I couldn’t catch the name with the dishwasher running.” Before letting Jason answer, he turned to Julian. “You see that show, Julian?”

  “I saw it,” Julian answered. He wiped his mouth with a napkin, his eyes intent on Jason.

  “Argonaut,” Jason said.

  “What was that?” Pericles asked.

  “Argonaut,” Jason repeated. “The hero’s name was Argonaut.”

  Pericles Kalodimos sat very still then, like a man who’d suddenly found himself alone in a room with a hungry lion. His tanned skin paled and his eyelids quivered. When he spoke, it was as if he had marbles in his mouth. “You know this Argonaut, Jason?”

  “You okay, Pop?” Julian asked, but his father ignored him.

  “I know him a little,” Jason said. “He intends to stay in Devil’s Cape, I think. Said he wants to make a difference here.”

  His father finally blinked then, his eyes moving back and forth from son to son. “Argonaut, then,” he said. He nodded his head. “A strong name. Greek, that’s good.” He began to clear the table. “Argonaut,” he repeated. “Yes, I hope he stays in the city,” he said. He sipped at his coffee. “Pirate Town could use someone like him.”

  He walked off to the kitchen then, his arms loaded with dishes and silverware. With his back to his sons, he couldn’t see the two of them staring intently at each other, as if trying to read secrets in each other’s eyes. Despite the cosmetic differences in hair, clothing, and glasses, they looked like two sides of a mirror.

  doubloon dog: An incredibly loyal and vicious person or animal. Named for Devil’s Cape’s famed Doubloon Ward, where, according to popular legend, the guard dogs are trained to be so completely loyal to their masters and so merciless that they have to be put down immediately if their masters die, lest they wreak havoc.

  —Excerpted from The Phrase Book: A Look at the Evolution of Modern Slang

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Devil’s Cape, Louisiana

  Three days after the deaths of the Storm Raiders

  6 a.m.

  Dawn was breaking over Devil’s Cape’s historic
Doubloon Ward. Wisps of fog snaked across streets lined with cast-iron lampposts designed to look like the gaslights that had stood there more than a century before, when horse-drawn carriages rolled along the roads instead of cars. The families in the ward were among the city’s richest. They were predominantly old money, but while in other cities that might imply respectability, in Devil’s Cape it often meant that their ancestors had been pirates who had plundered and pillaged alongside St. Diable himself. This carried a certain cachet, but with it a taint, as well. The families of Doubloon Ward guarded the stolen wealth they’d inherited from their ancestors with unmatched zeal and the barest jot of guilt. More often than not, the homes of Doubloon Ward had iron gates, shuttered windows, and state-of-the-art security systems.

  Tony Ferazzoli’s mansion stood at the heart of the ward, one of a crescent-shaped spattering of such buildings curving around Bullocq Park, tightly packed. Those old pirates had wanted the grandeur of sprawling homes, but didn’t trust each other enough to build more than a couple hundred feet apart. They preferred to keep their neighbors within close sight, just as in their days at sea.

  Tony had inherited the building from his father Lorenzo, who had inherited it from his brother Arturo, who had extorted it from the previous owner, a descendent of a British pirate named Jack Hicks, who had manned a cannon in one of St. Diable’s fleet of ships. Under heavy fire, Hicks had fired the shot that had doomed a French galleon called Roi des Corsaires and had been rewarded for his nerve and aim.