I was certain I would never again laugh at one of his heroic poses.
“We’re closed for a few minutes, bud,” the bartender snapped. “Take off.”
“No problem, bud.” Rick gestured in my direction, then in Donald’s. “But these guys are with me.”
“So?”
“So the three of us are gonna walk out of here. You guys got no problem with that, right?”
Tooley gripped his pool stick with both hands, swung it slowly down by his feet like a pendulum. “What if we do? Then what?”
Rick’s grin slowly faded. “Then I kick your ass.”
“That’s enough of all that.”
The voice distracted everyone. It was a deep, raspy voice belonging to someone who smoked too much. It had come from the back, and we all turned toward it in unison.
In the smoky doorway to the back area was an enormous woman in a bright flowery muumuu. Her considerable feet were forced into a pair of flimsy flip-flops, puffy skin and toes strained to the near exploding point beneath her weight. The woman’s hair, styled into a sort of bouffant-gone-wild, was dyed jet-black, though several renegade strands of gray survived along her temples. She wore heavy, powdery makeup, gobs of eyeliner and mascara, and her plump lips were painted a brilliant red. When she parted them with a smile they revealed stained brown teeth too small for her otherwise huge face. She leaned on a thick walking stick that appeared to have been carved from gnarled wood, and waved a chubby hand at us. “You come on back here and have a talk with Mama Toots.” Waddling around with great effort, the woman started back into the area from which she’d come, but before disappearing into the smoke and darkness, she looked back over her shoulder at the other three men. “Leave them be.”
The bartender immediately returned to his duties, wiping down the bar as if nothing had happened, and Tooley and the tattooed man drifted away from us and joined their friend at the bar.
“What the fuck was that?” Rick asked under his breath.
“You got here just in time,” Donald said. “Let’s get the hell out of—”
“Watch my back,” I said, already moving across the room. I could hear Donald scolding me but I kept moving. I hesitated in the doorway; saw a pool table, a boom box sitting on a small counter area against one wall and a row of booths along another. The lighting was worse here, the air just as stagnant and smoke-filled. The woman had somehow managed to cram herself into the last booth and now sat watching me.
Rick remained in the doorway like a guard, arms folded over his chest and one eye on the bar. Donald accompanied me a bit deeper into the room, if for no reason other than to convince me to leave, but by the time I reached the last booth he had fallen silent.
At close quarters the woman was even larger than she’d first appeared. She had to be at least six feet tall and well over four hundred pounds. “Who are you?” I asked.
“Who am I?” A burst of roaring laughter bellowed forth, jiggling the mammoth breasts beneath her muumuu. “Who am I, he says. Maria Tootrachelli, that’s who I am, but don’t nobody call me that. I’m Mama. Mama Toots.” She flashed her brown teeth again. “This is my place.”
“We didn’t come in here to cause trouble, lady, we just—”
“I heard all that,” she said in a gravelly baritone. “Have a seat.”
Donald stayed on his feet, a few feet back, as I slid onto the vacant bench across from her. I noticed a deck of cards, a shot glass and a bottle of whiskey in the center of the table between us. Next to her was a smoldering cigar stub teetering on the lip of an ashtray.
“This ain’t a good place to come poking around uninvited.” She scooped up the bottle and poured herself a shot. “Few months ago a couple college boys came in here acting the fool.” The shot glass vanished in her fleshy paw as she drank it down then slapped it back on the table. “They had a bad time.”
“Well I appreciate you calling off your dogs,” I said.
She looked beyond me to Donald, and then to Rick. “It’s OK, Muscles. They won’t do nothing.”
Rick nodded. “That’d be better for them.”
“Do you know Claudia?” I asked.
The fat woman’s eyes returned to me. “You must want to talk to her something awful to go through all this.”
“I take it you already heard my explanation out there. Do you know her or not?”
“Of course. Mama Toots knows everybody, darlin’.”
“Where can I find her?”
She touched the deck of cards, stroked it slowly with chubby fingers. “She lived down off Milner Avenue, an old industrial road not far from the airport, you know the one? Only a couple old houses down in there. I don’t know the exact address, it was a little shack all off by itself. Little shit-hole about a mile in, on the left—can’t miss it.”
“She still live there?”
“Ain’t heard nothing about her moving. Haven’t seen her in a long while, though.”
“What’s her last name?”
“Brewster or Brewer, something like that. Don’t use last names much around here.”
“How do you know her?”
“From here, where else?” She shuffled the cards. “She used to hook in here on Fridays and Saturdays. A few girls do. It’s a break from the street, safer, and it’s a regular clientele, you know? They work the customers then kick back a percentage to me. That keeps Mama happy, and when Mama Toots is happy, everybody’s happy.”
“When did she stop working here?” I asked.
“About a year ago.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know exactly. She stopped coming around. Girls in that biz come and go.”
I cocked my head toward the bar area. “The guy with the tattoos out there said he knew her too. You think he’d know—”
“They used to hang around a lot of the same people.”
“Used to.”
“That’s what I said, darlin’.”
“Claudia…is she into that shit too?”
“What shit would that be?”
“From his tattoos I think it’s safe to assume he’s into some dark shit.”
“Aren’t we all?” Another brown grin. “Some wear it on the outside is all. He likes to scare people, thinks it’s fun, but he’s just a punk and a drug addict. Nothing more.”
“Why did you help us?”
“Didn’t. Helped me. Blood on the floor ain’t nothing new here, but I like to avoid all that stuff if we can. Especially with outsiders.”
Donald stepped forward. “Thank you for the information, madam. Alan, let’s go.”
“I know you got troubles,” she said to me, ignoring Donald and holding up the deck of cards instead. “You wanna know what the future holds?”
“Not particularly.” It was so hot in the backroom I had broken into a heavy sweat. I wiped some perspiration from above my eyes. “I’m more concerned with the past.”
“Too late do anything about the past.”
“Can’t know the future without knowing the past, though.”
“That’s true.” Mama grabbed the cigar stub from the ashtray and stuffed the already wet and chewed end into the corner of her mouth. “But I got a gift, and my gift helps me see the future, helps me see spirits. Truth is, the spirits brought you here so I could read you. I know that ‘cause don’t nothing happen by accident. You’re here ‘cause they brought you to me.”
“I don’t believe in psychics.”
“You think magic gives a shit if you believe in it or not?” She shuffled the cards again. “Don’t matter. Magic’s like a tree. A tree don’t give a shit if you believe in it. It just is what it is, you see? Tree still gonna be a tree, it’s still gonna grow, still gonna be there day in and day out whether you believe in trees or not. Belief only matters if you’re fighting it.”
“I can see a tree,” I said. “I can touch a tree.”
“Same thing with magic. Just got to know how.”
I swallowed hard. “Ever give
Claudia a reading?”
Mama chewed the cigar for a while before answering. “Once.”
“What’d the cards say?”
“Ask her. What happens between me and a believer is private.”
“What are you, a priest?”
“In a way.” Mama shuffled the cards yet again, this time without breaking eye contact. “Why, you want me to hear your confession?” When I didn’t answer she caught Rick’s attention in the doorway. “How about you, Muscles?”
“I’ll pass.”
“You afraid?”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” Rick said.
Mama threw me a conspiratorial wink. “That means he’s afraid of everything.”
Rick said nothing, and I was grateful he let the comment go. Donald shuffled about just feet from the booth. “Will you light somewhere?”
“We need to leave,” he said. “It’s Saturday night, this place will be packed in—”
“Relax,” Mama Toots told him before returning her attention to me. “Been having dreams for a while now. Strange dreams. The spirits told me strangers were coming, strangers that needed my help. Now them dreams make sense.”
I started to stand. “Thank you for your help, but I told you, I don’t believe in—”
“Maybe you don’t do what the spirit world say.” Mama slammed the deck on the table with such force it stopped me. “But I do, even when I don’t want to—like now. Shuffle the cards.”
I eyed the deck like a child considering candy from a stranger then picked up the cards. They were warm and slightly damp, but otherwise a normal deck. I shuffled them twice then handed them back to her.
Donald lit a cigarette and puffed away apprehensively.
Mama glanced at him, barked out another laugh, adjusted her considerable girth and slowly placed six cards face-up on the table. She arranged them into a large semicircle then placed a seventh in the center. As she focused on the display something changed in her expression, and she immediately gathered the cards, returned them to the deck and offered it to me a second time. “Do it again.”
“What was wrong with those?”
“They’re just a prop; a tool. Do like I said.”
I complied then watched as she laid the cards out a second time in identical fashion. She studied them for what seemed a long time without speaking then plucked the cigar from her mouth with a moist popping sound. “It ain’t good.”
“Is it ever?”
Her suddenly humorless face lacked the arrogance it had before. “It ain’t good.”
“Why, what do they say?”
“You don’t believe anyway.”
“Thought it didn’t matter.”
“I’m gonna give you some advice, so listen up.” Mama folded her arms across her mountainous breasts. “Long time ago, I learned not to stick my nose in where it don’t belong, and to never ask questions you shouldn’t know the answers to. So I don’t know what three nice, neat small-town gentlemen like you are doing in here, or what you want with that tramp girl—don’t know and don’t care—but you need to understand the world ain’t always what you think it is.” She rolled the cigar back between her lips and suckled it. “This is a great city, New Bedford, lots of history here, a long past. Compared to where my people come from in Italy—the old country—this city ain’t nothing but a baby. But for America, it’s old. It’s an old city, lots of spirits here, lots of old ghosts. Take the city away and it’s ancient, this land. Under all the light and reality is what come before, you see? All that come before, just…there. Waiting, doing, watching, listening. The city’s like that, too. It got a dark side, secrets just like anything else. Just like in life, certain neighborhoods you should stay out of. Spirit world got those same places. Dark places. Not everybody got the gift like me, so not everybody sees what I see, and it’s better that way. But you should never fuck with the spirit world. Know why?” She smiled coyly. “‘Cause it’ll fuck back.”
“I’m just trying to find a girl.”
“Why you want to go messing around with the dark?”
“Maybe the dark’s messing around with me,” I said.
“Could be.” She nodded and gave me a look somewhere between accommodating and challenging. “You want to see, then I’ll show you.” She closed her eyes, drew several deep breaths then consulted the cards. After a moment she said, “There’s trouble all around you.”
“Go on.”
She shook her head and the flesh on her neck swayed as she reached again for the deck. “Usually when I do this it’s clearer but this don’t…It don’t really make sense, I…” She counted off a series of cards from the deck then selected one and pulled it free. Carefully, as if afraid the table might collapse beneath it, she very slowly laid the card next to the one in the center. “There’s something here, I—Jesus, Lord—I ain’t never seen anything like it before. Not like this, not like…” For the first time her face registered more fear and discomfort than confusion. “I seen my share of negative energy and dark spirits before but not—not like this—never like this. It’s so strong. This ain’t just dark, it’s—it’s unclean—evil.” Despite the heat in the room Mama shivered and began to rub her bare arms with her hands. “And there’s something else, something… something about the eyes. Occhi violenti.”
“Say again?”
“Occhi violenti,” she said, her face a mask of sorrow and burgeoning terror. “Violent eyes.”
“What’s it mean?”
“Death,” she said in a loud whisper. “Sacrilege—it’s sacrilege, you can’t—you can’t stop it now, it’s all around you.”
“I don’t—”
“Whole lot of death.” She shivered again, her doughy face contorting into one pained and fearful expression after another. “Jesus—sweet—Sweet Jesus, this…”
I felt my earlier anger returning. I’d had my fill of shadows and smoke. What had begun as a routine she’d probably been through thousands of times before was now transformed into something more, something real, and something she had clearly not expected.
“It’s like a current it’s so—so strong, but…I never seen nothing like this. It’s cold.” Her hands were shaking with such ferocity she was having difficulty holding the cards. Even as I struggled with the stagnant and engulfing heat in the room, I noticed goose pimples rising along her arms. She was rocked by another shiver. The deck fell from her hands and cards scattered across the table. Again, she shook her head, as if in answer to voices only she could hear. Her face twisted into a grimace and her eyes narrowed as she stared at the clutter of playing cards. “Jesus, God,” she whispered, her hands hovering just above the table. “Jesus…Jesus, God.”
Donald dropped his cigarette to the floor, stepped on it. “This is nonsense,” he said with little conviction. “Absolute—”
Mama’s massive body began to tremble, her lips moving rapidly as if in silent prayer. She seemed to be looking beyond the cards to some deeper horror that had opened a portal known only to her. “No, you—you need to go.”
“What do you see?” I asked.
She blinked her eyes rapidly. “You don’t understand, you—you have to go.”
I stood up, leaned on the table. “What do you see?”
“Get out of here,” she growled, her clarity of mind returning. “Get out, I—”
“What!” I slammed the table with my hand. “Tell me, goddamn it!”
Mama’s body continued to shake. She held her hands up as if to ward me off. “I don’t go there, I don’t go there, Christ Jesus, I don’t go there, I—”
“The natives are getting restless,” Rick said, motioning to the bar. “Let’s move.”
I felt someone grab my arm, realized it was Donald. I pulled free and stepped closer to Mama. “Where don’t you go, Mama? Where don’t you go?”
Her eyes turned wet, and as she held her hands out for me I saw that her fingertips were somehow raw and bloody about the nails and cuticles. They looked as if she�
�d been clawing at cement for hours.
I remembered the dream with Bernard, and how his hands had looked much the same.
“Good Lord,” Donald said softly.
A chill scampered up the back of my neck. “Where, Mama?” I pressed. “Where don’t you go?”
She began to choke. “There’s—there’s so much blood, it—rivers of it.”
“Move!” Rick said suddenly. He stood in the doorway, partially blocking my view of the bar, but even through the smoke and haze I could see movement out there. The volume of Mama’s voice had signaled something was wrong, and they were coming.
“Mama, where?”
A quiet whimper escaped her. “The dark.” She looked at her bloody hands and began to weep, though she seemed far off now, unaware. “The dark beneath the dirt. You don’t never come back from that dark. You don’t—you don’t know what’s down there, it—it ain’t like us. It wants you—it—wants to bring you down there with it, under the dirt.” Her lips moved slowly, slightly out of sync with the sound of her voice. “It’s got a taste for you. It’s been waiting for you down in that dark under the dirt. You don’t never come back from that dark. Never.”
“Why Mama? Tell me why.”
“‘Cause you got to be dead to be there.”
Before I knew it Donald and Rick were hustling me to the doorway.
“You got to be dead,” Mama’s voice cried behind us. “You got to be dead to be there.”
Tooley and the tall man ran by us into the backroom, hesitating a moment like they weren’t sure if they should stop us or attend to their friend first. They opted for the latter and we kept moving, Rick in the lead, Donald between us, and me pulling up the rear.
The bartender scurried out from behind the bar and stepped in front of us, blocking the door. He held a baseball bat, cocked it back in a threatening posture. “What the fuck did you do to her?”
Rick pivoted and threw two rapid kicks, the first into the bartender’s midsection and the second into his throat. The man vaulted back and crashed into the bar, scattering two stools. As the bat left his hands it rattled against the floor and rolled toward the corner.
We were nearly to the door when I heard screaming and the sound of heavy footfalls behind me. I turned in time to see the tattooed man closing on me, Tooley lumbering along a few paces back.
The Bleeding Season Page 24
