Cold Blood

by Lynda La Plante

  Juda stared at Lorraine. ‘She pays me, I admit that, and she pays me well, but it’s not the way you think.’

  ‘What is it then, Juda?’

  Juda sighed and looked away. ‘Mrs Caley was hexed, a long time ago. Because she played Marie Laveau in that movie she got to believe, and as a believer she needed me. That’s all I ever been to her, someone she could talk to, someone who knew her secrets and could soothe her fears. She is a woman who is very fearful.’

  ‘That’s it? Elizabeth Caley was fearful, of what?’ Juda shrugged her big shoulders, refusing to look at Lorraine. ‘What about Anna Louise Caley, Juda?’

  Juda sipped her tea. ‘She was obsessed with her father, nothing more to be said, she wanted him to herself.’

  ‘Did he want her in a sexual way?’

  Juda smiled, shaking her head. ‘No, honey, the girl was just infatuated. He is a real handsome man, and a nice strong body to him, and Anna was just going through a stage in her young life. But she kept on coming to me, begging me to help her, wanting love powders and herbs and gris-gris bags. I just let the child talk.’

  ‘Did you give them to her?’

  Juda looked away. ‘I have to earn a living, but I never encouraged the girl, always told her that no good would come of it, that it wasn’t natural for a girl to dote like that on her father.’

  ‘But he wasn’t her real father, and you knew it. Did you tell her?’

  Juda shook her head. ‘No, ma’am, the child didn’t know, that was a big secret we all kept close. Mrs Page, all I could do was tell her not to go after something that was unobtainable, but she was kind of crazy, you know. Asking for potions, things she’d been reading about, anything that would make him respond as a man to her. You got to remember Anna Louise spent a lot of time here in New Orleans when she was a little one, she was often at this place by herself for months on end. The help was black, she had a sharp mind, she took everythin’ in, a real inquisitive little girl she was.’

  Juda sighed, and closed her eyes. ‘I told her over and over what she wanted was bad work and only evil would come of it, but you know, she kind of liked that. There was a side to that girl, a bad side. I hate to speak of it now, but there could be a look to her face that was mean-spirited and bad. She was spoiled, used to getting anything she wanted, but the one thing she couldn’t get was her own father on top of her! It was sick all right.’

  ‘What do you think happened to her?’

  Juda opened her eyes and stared hard at Lorraine. ‘If I knew, honey, I’d be in line for that one million dollars you are trying to get.’

  ‘How do you know about that?’

  Juda sucked in her breath. ‘Honey, there is little connected with Miss Elizabeth Seal that I don’t know about. Truth is, all I know is that child is dead, an’ she’s been dead a long, long while.’

  ‘Like eleven months?’

  Juda nodded. ‘Yes, she’s been gone a long time, I don’t get any feeling that she is alive, so now you know. But I got to earn a living, I got a big family to feed, and sometimes it helped Mrs Caley to have something to hope for.’

  ‘Even if it was a lie?’ Lorraine asked coldly.

  ‘I wasn’t going to be the one to tell her I felt no feelings, no heart, because I knew she’d start up those bad drugs again. All I did was try and keep her steady.’

  Lorraine rubbed her head. ‘So let me ask you again, what do you think happened to Anna Louise?’

  ‘They didn’t bring me down here until she’d been gone awhile. By then it was too late, I got no response.’

  ‘What about Ruby?’

  Juda gave a tight-lipped smile, and suddenly Lorraine could feel that she was very tense.

  ‘Well, Ruby is Ruby. She’s my niece. Why you ask me about Ruby?’

  ‘She worked for Tilda Brown’s family.’

  ‘Mmm, mmm, she did. In fact I got her the job. Anna Louise told me her friend was needing a maid, so I rang Edith, and Ruby called by their house. Be about three years ago. Work is hard to come by in these parts, a lot of unemployment.’

  ‘But Tilda Brown came to you, didn’t she? With Anna Louise?’

  Juda pursed her lips, the deep shiny lipstick running up the lines around her mouth like cracks in baked red earth. ‘Once or twice, I read the tarot cards, looked in her hand, but nothing serious. They was just young teenagers, it was harmless, and they paid me fifty dollars!’

  ‘Did Tilda believe, like Anna Louise, Juda? I mean, they were close friends, they may have thought it was fun, or interesting. Did they both come to see you together always?’

  Juda sighed. ‘One time Miss Brown booked an appointment by herself, encouraged by Anna Louise, I think. If anything little Tilda seemed frightened, and when I next saw Anna Louise I said to her not to weave stories, that she was giving her friend nightmares. You got to understand, Tilda was born in these parts too, she would have been brought up by black servants, and children hear things, get things distorted.’

  Lorraine was tick-ticking again. She got to her feet and started to pace up and down.

  ‘What kind of nightmares?’

  ‘Oh, she couldn’t sleep in the dark, silly things. She asked if somebody hexed you what you should do about it, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Who was hexing her?’

  ‘I don’t know. When I asked her she said she’d been reading some book, that’s all.’

  ‘Did Anna Louise ask you to make something special for her, Juda?’

  ‘Yes, I told you, love stuff.’

  ‘Not a death doll? A voodoo doll in the image of Tilda?’

  Juda gasped, and clenched her hands. ‘No, no, and I would not play with that kind of thing, Mrs Page. I would not be a part of it, no matter what money was offered.’

  ‘Really? No matter what money? Anna Louise was rich, she could have offered a lot, couldn’t she?’

  Juda stood up angrily, planting her big fat feet wide apart. ‘I don’t have to sit here listenin’ to you saying that stuff. I would never, so help me God, abuse what powers I have, not for a child, not for anyone. I don’t play with darkness because if I do, I got to go into it too, maybe you don’t or can’t understand what I am, but it’s not a gift I would wish on anyone, it’s a vocation. I help people – I don’t play with fire.’

  Lorraine raised her eyebrows. ‘You sure about that, Juda? I mean, you don’t seem to be doing too badly. How about your sister? These powers you are supposed to have, do they weigh heavy on her?’

  ‘You joke on, honey, we don’t expect you whites ever to understand. When you do come to us, it’s not for good, or for helping others. It’s not for spreading joy or healing or loving, but for evil. That’s the only time you people want to believe, when you want something from us, and it’s been that way for centuries.’

  Lorraine laughed softly. ‘Come on, it’s not us wringing the neck of chickens and drinking blood. Or was it new-born babies they used to slaughter for their joyful “love thy neighbour” ceremonies?’

  Juda pursed her lips, her whole face as shiny as her lipstick, her blue eye-shadow running into a smudge from her black mascara-ed false eye-lashes.

  ‘You won’t make me angry enough to say something that’ll go against me, Mrs Page, because I have done nothing.’

  ‘What? Don’t kid me, you have withheld evidence, Juda. You have stated to me, and to the police, that Anna Louise did not visit you, nor did her friend Tilda Brown. You have also been blackmailing Elizabeth Caley for years. You say you haven’t, but I don’t believe you. But right now all I am trying to do is find out what the fuck happened to Anna Louise Caley, because I think she made this And I think she gave it to Tilda Brown.’

  Lorraine took out the voodoo doll wrapped in the hotel towel and thrust it at Juda. The big woman’s large melon-like bosoms heaved as she slowly unrolled the towel on a side table, her breath rasped and Lorraine saw that her black wig had shifted slightly, and her own short fuzzy grey hair showed through. Juda was drenched in
perspiration, her curls wet around the nape of her neck and across her forehead. There was a dark V down the back of her dress, the underarms of her dress were damp, and her ankles were swollen, her feet puffy in her tight court shoes. Lorraine watched as Juda looked over the doll, noted how she too sniffed it as she had seen Fryer Jones do, then pushed it away.

  ‘This is not made by a professional voodoo practitioner: it’s more likely to be a conjure ball here than a doll if someone wanted to do bad work. This is an amateur thing, disgusting. The pin’s just a dressmaker’s pin too, not the right kind. Whoever made this didn’t know what they were doing.’

  Juda flipped over the towel, covering the doll. ‘I didn’t make this thing, Mrs Page, and I honestly don’t know anyone who would. I’m getting old now, like Edith, we get real tired doing trances and rituals. They’re all taken over by the young, me and Edith are tired old women now.’

  ‘What about Ruby? Does she have the powers, as you say you have?’

  Juda chuckled. ‘I say I have them, Mrs Page, and if you get off your high horse you kind of know I have them, and you are just that little bit scared yourself. Took a long time, Mrs Page, but you are beginning to believe.’

  ‘No, Mrs Salina, I am not.’

  Juda shook her head, took out a paper tissue from a pocket and dabbed around her mouth. ‘I don’t care either way, but maybe you should ask my golden goose, as you rudely describe Mrs Caley, whether I am blackmailing her or not. You ask her, honey.’

  ‘Perhaps I will.’

  Juda put her hands on her wide hips. ‘I don’t want to go back to LA, Mrs Page, I want to stay here with my relatives. I’m one tired old woman and I pray what powers Edith and I have end with us, I think they do. Little Ruby don’t have the sight, and you know something, I am glad, because sometimes the pain is so bad. We don’t say what we feel when we have somebody crying at our tables, but we always know. Knowing is an affliction we were born with.’

  She came up close to Lorraine and pinched her chin in her fingers, staring into her eyes. ‘You’re a clever woman, Mrs Page, sharp-eyed like a pecking bird, an’ you don’t miss nothin’ with those sharp bird eyes o’ yours, but I can look at you and say you are hurting right now, hurting for some love, and it is tearing you apart. You been a woman with no love for a long, long time, and you ain’t gonna find it in the bottom of a bottle.’

  Lorraine blushed and Juda laughed softly. ‘I’m right, huh, but you know what I don’t understand – why can’t I tell when my own nephew is gonna rob me of all my savings, eh? So what good is having this extra vision for every poor bastard that comes to me? How come I can’t know things that’d warn me? Life is not easy, is it?’

  Lorraine sat forward, not wanting to ask, but unable to stop herself. ‘What do you see for me, Juda, in the future?’

  Juda laughed softly. ‘Honey . . . it’ll cost you fifty bucks.’

  Lorraine went to open her wallet, but Juda put her hand on Lorraine’s head.

  ‘No . . . don’t. You got to walk away, you make your own future, sweetheart, believe me. You don’t want to know what’s in store for you. Besides, I don’t have the energy to get into it.’

  Missy appeared. ‘Mrs Salina, she’s askin’ for you, she says you got to stay here, she doesn’t want you to leave.’

  Juda nodded, and pointed to the door. ‘I’m keeping her alive, Mrs Page, and if she pays me for it, who am I not to take it? I got a niece set her heart on being a queen in a fancy dress and a dressmaker asking for more money than is decent. So if you want to go up and see her, you go do it. I need to wash, freshen up.’

  Lorraine watched Juda walk to the door. She seemed weighed down, not just by her bulk but something else, a sadness. And Lorraine remembered Fryer saying that once she had been beautiful.

  Lorraine tapped on Elizabeth Caley’s bedroom door.

  ‘Juda, is that you?’

  The voice was like a frightened child’s, and when Lorraine eased open the door she saw the room was in semi-darkness, the shutters closed. Even in the gloom it was clear that Elizabeth’s stricken face was as white as paper, so pale that Lorraine was alarmed.

  ‘It’s me, Lorraine Page, Mrs Caley. Are you all right?’

  ‘Go away, I want Juda, I need Juda. I can’t see anyone else right now, go away. Juda, Juda!’ Elizabeth was curled up hugging the pillow, her voice barely audible. ‘Please, please get Juda, I need her – I am sick, very sick.’

  Lorraine took a couple of steps further into the darkened room as Elizabeth moaned and then uncurled her body. Her hands were clenched into fists, and she began to make deep, guttural sounds, her body thrashing as if she was having a fit.

  ‘Juda! Juda!’ she screamed, and her eyes rolled back into her head, showing only the whites. It frightened Lorraine, who didn’t know what she should do, but then Juda appeared behind her. She’d changed into a big tentlike dress and a blue silk turban, and was barefoot.

  ‘I’m here honey, rest easy now, Juda’s right here.’

  Lorraine watched as Juda ran water over a cloth in the bathroom and then dipped it into an ice bucket by the side of the bed.

  ‘You want to ask Mrs Caley something? You go ahead. You ever seen anyone act like this, huh? Take a good look, Mrs Page, these are her demons.’

  Lorraine looked over to the bed. Elizabeth moaned and thrashed around the crumpled sheets but Juda seemed unconcerned.

  ‘She’s been like this for thirty-five years. Started on that movie she made. They hexed this poor child, made her think the spirit of the snake was inside her, and sometimes it takes her over. Right now that’s what is screaming out. Not the drugs or the booze, but her fears. This is what evil can do. This is what comes of playing with the spirits, Mrs Page. This poor woman was cursed.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Lorraine whispered.

  ‘No, your kind wouldn’t. Now, if you got nothing to ask her, leave me to calm her. This is what I am paid for, an’ I do it because she can’t trust no one else.’

  Lorraine took one more look at Elizabeth Caley and walked out. She closed the door behind her, still not fully understanding what was going on. But she didn’t want to see any more because it was unnerving to see someone so out of control, as if in a fit. By the time she had walked to her car, that is what she believed was wrong with Elizabeth Caley – she was suffering from some kind of epilepsy.

  Juda sat by Elizabeth Caley’s bed, rinsing out the cloth and gently wiping her sweating brow. She would never cease to be in wonderment at Elizabeth’s beauty, it always touched her soul, just as the demons inside Elizabeth wrenched and exhausted her. All those terrible curses laid on little sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Seal’s head had created such agony, such fear, that she had lived inside of it all of her adult life and there would never be an end to it. Juda knew that all she could do, all she had been able to do, was calm her and stop her sinking into such a state of terror that it froze her mind and body. She eased that terror now, talking in a soft voice, whispering that it was going to be over any moment. Juda felt the evil, sometimes had taken it through her own body, just as she had felt the loneliness inside Lorraine Page. When she’d looked into Lorraine’s face she had seen deep insecurity, and it made Juda feel compassion – not a lot, but some.

  ‘Juda,’ murmured Elizabeth.

  ‘I’m here honey, like I always am, right up close, you can reach out and hold me, I won’t leave you.’

  Juda felt Elizabeth’s nails cutting into her palm as she clasped her hand tightly. Her body heaved as she retched, but there was no vomit; it was as if she was releasing something from inside herself, her mouth frothing and the spittle trickling down her chin as she heaved and her tongue hung out. Then she lay still and her hand slowly released Juda’s. It was over.

  Ten minutes later the wondrous eyes opened and the fear had gone. Juda saw the sweet, innocent smile of thanks.

  ‘Everyone leaves me Juda, but not you. I love you Juda, I love you.’

  Juda kiss
ed the perfect cheek. ‘I know. You’re nice and calm now, no fears, nobody will ever hurt you, Marie. My own little Marie Laveau.’

  Elizabeth closed her eyes and sighed. ‘Tell me some more about her. Tell me how strong she was.’

  Juda smiled. ‘Well, you remember the day I first met you with that snake and you said to me, “Juda, I can’t let that thing wrap around my body.” And I said, “Come on now, if Marie Laveau could, then so can you. What’s more you’re gonna dance with it, fall in love with it, feel its body inside yours,” and you said—’

  ‘Dance with me, through hell and back.’

  Juda was rocking her gently in her arms. ‘That’s right, honey, you showed you weren’t afraid. You want to dance now, sugar, or are you too tired?’

  Elizabeth eased away the bedcovers and helped by Juda stood up, her crumpled chiffon nightdress hardly hiding the outline of her glistening, sweat-soaked body.

  ‘I want to dance, Juda.’

  How many times she had had to watch this she couldn’t count, but she watched again as if it was the first time, still whispering encouragements as Elizabeth Caley stumbled round the room, her arms undulating like snakes and her thin white gown swirling around her. And Juda wanted to weep, weep for the exotic beauty that had once been Elizabeth Caley, who for one moment had allowed her real blood to shine through, caught on celluloid as the reincarnation of the greatest voodoo queen of all time.

  It had not been Juda alone, but many others who had sworn they saw Marie Laveau come to life for a few brief moments: the cameras had kept rolling, the director said nothing, none of the crew spoke as the big voodoo scene began to take on a life of its own and young Elizabeth Seal danced herself into a state of total exhaustion. It had not ended there, nor had it ended when Juda helped her back to her trailer. She had not come out of the trance, and Juda had been unable to stop the men coming in, unable to stop them encouraging her into a night of debauchery. Even when the crew and director had packed up for the night and left, the ‘dancing’ continued until the men had carried Elizabeth Caley into the swamps. Juda had been barred from going and Elizabeth was not brought back until dawn: she had been repeatedly raped, blood covering her gown and face. Whatever terrible things had been done to her left such a mark on Elizabeth Caley that thirty-five years afterwards she was still living in fear and was sometimes transported back into the shadow world of that night.