Enforcer
Page 6
He located the temple and parked opposite. It was one of the older buildings, a small hall that had been allowed to run down. Probably Ambrose got it cheap, and hadn’t even bothered to tart it up to catch the suckers.
He crossed the road and tried the door, it was locked, and a notice read:
CHURCH OF DAMBALLA
Evening Service 8.30
Diamond looked at his watch and drove on till he found a coffee bar and passed the waiting time with the local paper. As it grew dark, he drove back to the church hall and parked in the shadow of a tree across the street, and watched the entrance.
He saw late workers speeding home and presently the dim street lights came on; it was too hot to leave the windows closed and he sat breathing gasoline fumes.
Then cars began to arrive at the hall, lights appeared at the windows and the front door opened. Diamond waited, watching the tourists flock to be fleeced. A crowd gathered around the porch, talking desultorily. A bunch of young dropouts drifted up and he took a keen look at one; a slim boyish figure, hip-hugging Levis and tank top, fair hair. He thought he recognized Ella Leland.
Inside, a drummer started up and the night throbbed with sound, a monotonous slow beat, calling the faithful to the service.
Diamond left his Mustang and crossed over to be met at the door by a young man with a collection box. He folded a dollar bill and pushed it through the slot and walked inside.
The sultry atmosphere seemed worse in the fiery red lighting with a drummer, cross-legged in shadow, pursuing his unvarying beat. People stood around, close to the walls, chatting in low voices. There was an altar with black candles. The single drumbeat went on and on, a dull rhythm destroying his capacity to think clearly.
Diamond began to angle towards the group of youngsters with Ella Leland when a curtain parted behind the altar and a man stepped through. Diamond froze. The drumbeat changed, quickened to work up to a crescendo, and stooped.
In the silence, Doctor Ambrose smiled and raised one brown hand. He spoke in a quiet penetrating voice that reached to every corner of the hall.
‘My friends —’
The drummer struck a single beat.
‘Welcome to the Temple of Damballa —’
The drum beat once.
‘To my regular parishioners I say, worship in peace —’
Another single beat.
‘To those of you who appear for the first time —’
One drumbeat.
‘Welcome, and I hope you will enjoy our simple service.’
The drum rolled like muted thunder in the distance.
Diamond studied Ambrose. His skin was light brown, his hair a dusty grey and his voice held a hypnotic quality. He wore a dark suit and gold-rimmed spectacles and when the light caught the lenses, his eyes seemed blank and staring.
A black hand holding a live chicken came through the curtain and passed it to Doctor Ambrose. Doctor of what? Diamond wondered. With a deft movement, Ambrose cut the bird with a small knife so that blood ran into a silver cup resting on the altar.
‘Damballa, we offer this sacrifice in Thy name.’
He brought the cup to his lips, sipped, and passed it to a member of the congregation. Each person sipped the hot blood and passed on the cup. Visitors passed it on quickly without tasting.
When the empty cup returned to Ambrose, he placed it on the altar and lifted his face, smiling. It was the smile of a shark scenting a shoal of small fish.
‘I call on Damballa the snake god of ancient Africa.’ The drum beat once. ‘Now he will reveal his Power.’
The drapes parted again and a black man carried in a wicker basket and placed it before the altar. Doctor Ambrose moved to one side as two more drummers took their place, sitting cross-legged on the floor. The drummers pounded out a dance rhythm until the walls of the hall began to shake.
Diamond found his own feet tapping. His glance moved over the white visitors, sure now that the girl he’d seen earlier was Ella Leland. Her freckled face glowed with excitement.
A dancer swept through the curtains into the hall; she was young and lithe and naked to the waist. She had olive-tinted skin and wide dark eyes and dark hair, cut short. Pointed breasts jutted and she wore only a G-string under a transparent ankle-length skirt slit to her thigh.
She threw back the lid of the wicker basket, caught up a python and began dancing, slowly at first, encouraging the snake to slither over her shoulders and around her hips.
The drums quickened their beating as she glided around the hall and there was no other sound. The audience held its breath, listening to the drums and watching the girl.
Again the drumbeat quickened and the dancer worked herself into a frenzy, bare breasts shaking, juggling the big snake in her hands to prevent its coils tightening about her neck. The quick violent beat was hypnotic. Faster and faster she whirled on powerful dancer’s legs, sweat trickling down her body, hips undulating and skirt flaring. The drums pounded louder and louder.
The congregation began to chant and clap and stamp, echoing the beat, swaying in unison with the dancer and the sinuous body of the python. She achieved ecstasy.
Diamond found himself held by her performance; he knew what was happening to him, what was happening to everyone in the hall. He found himself believing; the atmosphere was getting to him. His blood was roused and his pulse reverberated to the incessant rhythm of the drums. He was becoming mesmerised.
One thing was certain; Doctor Ambrose knew how to stage a performance.
Fighting to retain a hold on his reason, Diamond began slowly to edge a way through the foot-stamping, hand-clapping crowd to the door. Once outside, he used his handkerchief to mop the sweat from his face and crossed the street to his car. He slid behind the wheel, closed the windows and turned the radio dial till he found music to combat the insidious drumming from the hall. He tuned to a Mozart quartet and settled to wait for the show to end.
The drumming seemed to go on for hours, louder and faster, to reach a dramatic climax — and then stop abruptly. It was as if a storm ended in the middle of a roll of thunder. Total silence blanketed the suburb and Diamond wondered if he’d been struck deaf. Then, gradually, normal night sounds — a car horn, the clip-clop of stiletto heels on the sidewalk, a distant shout — filtered in over the Mozart.
People began to leave the temple, putting money in the collection box in the porch. Diamond was willing to bet that box pulled in a lot of dough at each performance.
He switched off his radio and got out of the car, watching for Ella Leland. He saw her come out with a bunch of teenagers; she looked excited and some of the group appeared to be in a daze, as if the drumming had been too much to take.
Diamond moved fast to cut her out from the group. ‘Miss Leland?’
‘Yes . . . what is it?’
‘Quite a show that,’ he said casually. ‘Phony as hell, of course. That Ambrose character must be really raking in the dough.’ He laughed, including her in the put-down.
Ella Leland stared coldly at him. ‘Some people believe it to be a genuine religious experience, Mr. —?’
‘Diamond’s the name. Now, Miss Leland, you’re an intelligent person so you don’t have to fall for any old flimflam. You and I both know —’
She cut in sharply. ‘Did my father put you up to this?’
‘He’s concerned for you, yes.’
‘Well, I’m free, white and twenty-one and I’ve just found what I’ve been looking for all my life. I’m not going back, Mr. Diamond, and you can tell my father that.’
She turned abruptly and hurried after her friends, leaving Diamond a rear view of her Levis and credit cards sticking up from a pocket. She didn’t look round and he got in his Mustang and started the engine. He waited for the group to get some way ahead and then followed, driving slowly and hanging back.
Ella Leland and her friends turned into Vallette Street and entered a dilapidated house not far from the river. Diamond cruised past, made a m
ental note of the number and went home.
Chapter Nine – Target for Tonight
Fred Cave sat alone at a table outside a waterfront bar near the Moon Walk, sipping ice-cold beer and staring gloomily at a dull red sunset over the Mississippi. The other tables were crowded with tourists, but nobody joined him; maybe it was his sour expression or maybe they smelt cop. In any case, it was too hot to worry about.
He was officially off-duty and feeling depressed. Most other detectives would have been glad of a few hours freedom, but Cave couldn’t face going home to an empty house. He used the place to sleep, take a shower and change his shirt. How long was it since Mae had left? Damn near eighteen months, he calculated. How long since he’d had a proper meal? Or gone to a concert? Or had a woman stay the night?
Everything seemed too much bother. He lived now only for his work; it had been like that before, he admitted, and that was why Mae left him. It was the reason a lot of cops’ wives split; they couldn’t stand the long hours and uncertainty.
He got depressed just thinking about the germs; the pushers and muggers, rape-artists and thieves and conmen.
And the corruption. The force was just another bureaucracy nowadays — full of young career types busy keeping their noses clean, pushing for promotion and sitting on their asses waiting for the pension to arrive. Time-servers. Cave despised them. That wasn’t police work.
A shadow passed across his face and Breeze dropped into the seat opposite. Cave bought two beers.
The informer sat in shadow, floppy hair hiding his face. ‘I hear the word’s gone out for Earl Vogel.’
Cave’s lip curled back. Another scumbag.
‘You know where he hangs out?’
‘Of course I know,’ Cave snapped. ‘A pusher, strictly small-time. It’ll be Turk, I suppose?’
‘I suppose.’
‘Yeah, well, thanks. I’ll have a think what to do about it — if anything.’
Breeze drained the last of his beer and slid away into the night, as silent as any ghost.
Cave lit a Marlboro and listened absently to the tourist talk around him. Sin City, they called it. You could buy anything — openly — in New Orleans.
And filth like Greco got rich on it. Cave considered how he might use this bit of information. He didn’t give a shit what happened to Earl Vogel, but there had to be an angle he could use, somewhere. Tip off Diamond? He could still raise a smile when he remembered how Roach had ripped off the Fox. Maybe . . .
*
Kenny’s room was small, the walls covered with full-size colour posters of glamour models. On the bedside table were stacked piles of girlie magazines. The door of the room was locked.
Kenny unlocked the wall cupboard and got out his guns, handling them with the loving care another might give his woman. He broke down each one, cleaned and oiled and checked the mechanism, reassembled them. His collection was his joy and pride.
He hefted each one in his hand. A Luger. A .45 revolver. A small automatic. Finally he decided on the .38 Colt with a short barrel, grieving over the loss of its mate.
It would be nice to use it on Diamond, but Mr. Greco had said ‘no’, and he was the boss. Kenny didn’t understand what Greco was up to these days but he wasn’t going to disobey, not all the time he paid big money.
He slid the gun into his shoulder holster and put on his jacket, slipped a couple of boxes of shells in his pocket. He locked the rest of his armoury in the cupboard and turned to study the posters on the wall.
‘Which one? Blonde, brunette, redhead? Nude or sexy lingerie? He thought of Diamond and his brown-skinned girlfriend and laughed as he took down a picture of a young negress. ‘Yeah, just the job . . .’
He rolled the poster and tucked it under his arm, picked up a box of brass thumb-tacks. He went out, locking the door after him. Whistling, he walked along the street to a gun club he used and down the steps to the underground target range.
This early in the evening, there weren’t many using the range. Just a couple of kids, barely out of their teens; amateurs, Kenny thought disparagingly. The air echoed to gunshots and smelt of cordite fumes; it was a sound and smell he enjoyed.
The floor was sand and there was a rack of fire extinguishers at the bottom of the stairs. Never been checked in years, he thought; probably they’d never work if there was a fire.
He shucked his coat and loosened the revolver in its holster. Target for tonight, he reflected happily, and pinned up his poster; a dark-skinned model, wearing high heels and stockings supported by a frilly white suspender-belt, tiny briefs and a half-cup bra.
He licked his lips as he drew his gun and took aim at her right breast. ‘Bitch!’ he hissed, and emptied his .38, obliterating the bra cup.
He reloaded, drew himself up to his full height and aimed at the left cup. ‘Black whore!’ He fired all chambers, destroying her bra.
Again he reloaded. ‘Cow!’ He wiped out her briefs.
Kenny stared at the cutout figure, naked except for stockings and suspender-belt and shoes. He felt good, all tension drained out of him. He reloaded and holstered his gun.
When he left the range, he was clear-headed, all thought of Diamond gone from his mind.
*
The ground floor bar at the Hotel de Paris was a madhouse. Leon Greco sat in an alcove off the main lounge, drawing on a Cuban cigar and smiling with satisfaction. In front of him was a low table with a tray of bottles and glasses and a plastic sign lettered:
PRIVATE
The lounge was crammed with salesmen. The Paris was entertaining a sales convention and it sounded like feeding time at the zoo. The monkey house, Greco thought. Each salesman appeared to be trying to drink his rival under the table and flog him Brooklyn Bridge at the same time. It made good cover for a meeting.
Every now and again, he had to insist that his alcove was booked for a private meeting. Most of the conventioneers were well-oiled and unsteady on their feet and into dirty jokes. Greco had had no difficulty in borrowing a name badge from someone who’d passed out early. Nobody would be able to overhear what was discussed and, if each interview went briskly, he’d be in and out of the hotel before the management realised he wasn’t with the convention at all.
He sat smoking and smiling, totally relaxed and wearing his borrowed badge: Al Bonney Detroit.
The first man pushed through the crowd and dropped into the seat next to Greco.
‘A drink?’
‘Straight bourbon.’
Greco poured and Blackie Hendriks tossed it down in a single gulp. He had a bruiser’s face and a reputation for armed robbery. He wore a business suit that was tight under the arms and wiped sweat from his face with a tissue.
‘Some crush, huh?’
Greco leaned close so they could hear each other above the noise. ‘I’m hiring for Madden. Are you interested?’
‘Madden? Sure.’
‘It’s a team job — a job for people who don’t lose their cool. No guns allowed.’
‘That’s okay if it’s Madden. What he says goes.’
‘Good.’ Greco had the feeling this was going to be a cinch. ‘I may be hiring for other organisers in the future. D’you want me to put your name on my books for regular work?’
‘Sure, why not?’
Greco nodded, pleased. ‘Right, I’ll be in touch.’
As Blackie rose and disappeared into the convention crowd, Greco glanced at his watch. He’d set the intervals at fifteen minutes; he had a couple of minutes in hand. He lit a fresh cigar while he waited for the second man.
Ted Paley was slim and wiry and known as a hot get-away driver. He, too was impressed by Madden’s name and readily agreed to take the job. He said he didn’t drink and looked as cold as a chip off an iceberg.
Greco had refused even to consider Kenny for the team; he didn’t want Kenny or anyone else to know what he was doing. He wanted the new life he was building in a separate compartment. As for Turk, he had Vogel to take care of.
At the end of the interviews, he felt satisfied he’d made a start in his new career — one that wouldn’t leave him exposed to any risk at all.
He discarded his borrowed convention badge, and slipped the PRIVATE notice into his pocket and lavishly tipped the waiter who’d kept his table supplied. Leon Greco edged through the noisy crowd in the foyer, out into the quiet of Royal Street.
*
‘I’m not getting mixed up with Doc Ambrose,’ Chelsea stated resolutely. ‘No way am I getting into voodoo.’
Diamond sighed and glanced at the charcoal portrait on the wall of his office; the artist seemed to have missed out the stubborn part of her character.
‘I’m not asking you to,’ he said patiently. He’d filled her in on his trip to Algiers and his meeting with Ella Leland. ‘I just thought you might know the dancer Ambrose uses. I got the impression she was a professional show dancer, is all.’
Morning sunlight slanted through the open window and turned his Hawaiian shirt to a tapestry of many colours as they sat drinking coffee.
‘I only ever heard of one dancer who does a sort of voodoo act. Her name’s Julie something or other, and she works in cabaret. I’ve no idea where she might be —’
Above the clatter of washing machines below, they heard quiet footsteps on the stairs. Chelsea got up from the client’s chair.
‘See you later, Wash. I’ll try to get a line on Julie for you. Somebody at the club might know where she hangs out.’
As she went through the doorway, a man came in. He was lean and unshaven with long greasy hair. Diamond had the feeling he’d seen him somewhere before, but couldn’t place him.
His visitor wore a linen jacket that needed cleaning, patched jeans and pointed shoes with badly scuffed heels. He smelt of back alleys and garbage.
He stood looking around the office, nodded to Diamond and slid into a chair. He had a smile like a snarl.
‘Heard tell you’re standing up to Greco,’ he drawled. ‘And I need somebody on my side against his new thug. How’s about it?’