Old Black Magic

by Jaye Maiman

  That’s when it hit me. Instinctually I knew that this madman had carefully positioned himself between me and the exits. There was no way out for me. Unless a train came and came fast.

  All at once, Sweeney reared up next to the dumpster, stretched his arms out to his sides and tilted his head back, a perverse echo of Christ on the cross. I pulled out my gun, snapped off the safety and took a bead on him. The Jennings twenty-two wasn’t the best weapon at this distance, but it’d at least buy me time.

  Sweeney shouted, “The moment has come. Shoot, my friend. Shoot and feel the glory of righteous vengeance.” He’d assumed an entirely different accent. The clipped English of a Tulane graduate.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” I yelped, wincing at the panic in my voice, the thud of my heartbeat against my chest. My memory skidded back to the first time I’d driven with him, the crime scene photos he’d tossed in my lap. Every bloody tableau this man had brilliantly engraved in my brain.

  “Like you, I’m the specter of justice. Come on, Miller, you must understand. Every case you take, you’re avenging your sister’s death.”

  I snarled, “I murdered her myself, Sweeney,” then my voice broke and my knees felt ready to cave. He knew too much, knew how to unsettle me. I had to stay cool, focused.

  He curled his lips. “So you seek vengeance against yourself and I seek it elsewhere. The difference is small, really.”

  Where the hell was a train? I strained for the slightest hint of a distant rumble. Nothing. Stall for time, I warned myself. Probe for his Achilles’ heel. Instantly, I thought of Ryan. “Why’d you slaughter your best friend’s wife? Explain that.” Would anyone hear me if I shouted? Could I even manage to make that much sound? My throat was so constricted, I was gasping for air.

  “Mary, the Madonna. Yes. She was the second one. And the best.” His arms fell to his sides. “She broke my friend’s heart, left him when he needed her most. I went to plead his case and she scorned me. Like I was scum. As you thought. So easy to make you women believe the best or worst of me, whatever I want, whenever I want. I tried to teach that to Barry, but he wasn’t a natural performer. He had to work so hard. Poor kid didn’t know I was setting him up as my alibi all those years. You were better than I ever expected, by the way. Forced my hand. Made me kill my poor puppet and his dumb cousin. Chamelle’s dead, too. But no one will ever find him. After you’re gone, they’ll assume you were his next and last victim. Before he retired to Argentina.”

  He patted his breast pocket. “Tickets and passport pre-arranged, under Chamelle’s name. See how prepared I am?” He laughed and took a step in my direction. “But you wanted to know about Mary Ryan. I don’t blame you. We always want to know why, don’t we? And I want you to, Robin. You deserve that much for playing the game so well. When I went to see Mary at her hotel that night, she told me she was determined to divorce Ryan. You don’t know him like I do, the way he was back then. He was a giant and she fuckin’ toppled him, squeezed his balls till he squeaked like a girl.” For an instant, he sounded like the pig I knew. He’d noticed the break himself. With a jerk of his chin, he said, “So sharp, Robin. So sharp. I knew only two other women as sharp as you. My wife, Celeste, and sweet, stoney Betty Galonardi.”

  “And you killed Betty.” We were dancing backward. Each step he took, I matched with one that moved me farther away. A few more feet and I’d be flat against the wall.

  “I cleansed them.”

  My hands were trembling. I forced myself to stop moving and focus on keeping a steady aim. Then his words sank in. “Mary was the second victim?”

  A full smirk beamed at me. “Ryan is so good at confidences. If he’d told you about my wife, how she’d left me, you would’ve understood so much more, so much sooner. Celeste was my Ezili, like Mary was Ryan’s. And like Mary, she betrayed me. Left me for someone else.” Now he cocked his head and sneered at me. “A woman.”

  No wonder Ryan had looked so uneasy this morning. He must’ve realized how closely Sweeney matched the profile we’d mapped out of the killer. So where the hell was he now?

  Sweeney swaggered toward me. “Then Celeste was stricken with breast cancer. That’s when I first realized how committed God was to me and my life. How he wanted to work justice through me. Yes, Robin. Ogou Feray. It was so easy to make people believe she took her own life. But her death was not satisfying. Too impersonal. Do you know how she died?”

  I shook my head.

  He appeared to gloat. “She threw herself in front of a train. And now fate closes the circle here.”

  We both heard the murmur of faint voices upstairs at the same time. Someone was talking to the clerk in the token booth at the far end of the station.

  “Last chance, Miller. Shoot!” he commanded.

  “Forget it, Sweeney.” The faint hum of a conversation just one flight away emboldened me. I said, “Lower yourself to the ground. Now!” Good, I thought. My voice sounded far less tremulous.

  “Surrender is not a possibility, Miller,” he said, his voice as cold as stone in winter. He glanced over his shoulder toward the stairs and shouted forcefully, “Fire in the tunnel! Get out now!” Then he pulled off his bomber jacket, plucked out a Bic lighter and set it aflame.

  I hollered, but whoever was upstairs was too busy scrambling for assistance to hear me. “As much as I’ve enjoyed this cat-and-mouse game, it’s over now. One of us will go down today.” With unearthly speed, he whipped a thirty-eight semi-automatic from his shoulder holster and assumed a two-handed position. I barely had time to cock my gun. The bumbling detective I’d grown to despise was gone. I finally understood why Ryan had called Sweeney the best in the field. Without thinking, my finger sank hard against the trigger.

  Click. Again I pulled and again the hammer hit nothing.

  “I was in your house. Remember?” He dug into his pocket and withdrew a palmful of bullets, which he dropped one by one to the platform. “Your gun is worthless.”

  The game continued.

  My gun clanged to the ground as I vaulted onto the tracks and ran faster than I ever had. The sudden darkness of the tunnel blinded me. I stumbled forward, one foot almost catching on the thick wooden ties. The third rail gleamed where passing trains had etched a line through the coal-black dross. An electric eel, I thought, ready to strike me if I veered the wrong way.

  There was an archway off to my right. I flung myself into the recess, sucking in air like a fish. Sweeney’s approaching footsteps were relaxed, rhythmic. Soot rushed into my nostrils as a slight breeze billowed around my ankles. I moved out, my eyes at last able to pick out shapes. Including the twelve-inch shadows slithering along the wall. Sweeney was less than ten feet away with his gun at half-mast.

  I rushed headlong into the tunnel, staying in the center gutter between rails. Sweeney picked up speed behind me. The first bullet whizzed by my head. He wasn’t aiming to kill. Not yet. He still underestimated my nerve, assumed he could scare me into submission. I had to use his disdain to my advantage. I traversed the tracks, making it harder for him to keep a steady aim.

  Sweeney chortled. “Miller, slow down and I’ll fill you in on the rest of details. You don’t want to die before all your questions get answered, do you? Like who sent you that rich breakfast in New Orleans. And who had his nose up your pussy girl’s crack? K.T.’s the name, right? Now there’s a morsel worth devouring.”

  He was goading me, trying to snake under my skin, using the sick tactics he’d honed all week long. But under the bravado I detected something else. Desperation. With a tingle in my limbs, I knew he didn’t want this hunt to go fast. This was the last game he intended to play and he wanted to make it memorable. The spectacle of the tooth he’d carved out from Lisa Rubin’s jaw jolted into mind. I pledged to hurl myself onto the third rail before I let him butcher me.

  My legs felt heavy and my ankle wound stung, but I kept my pace steady. The welcome sound of frenzied voices exploded back in the station. They must be invest
igating the fire. Maybe they’d see the bullets, the gun I’d tossed away. I howled like a wolf and kept hurtling deeper into the tunnel. The next station after Carroll was Smith and Ninth, an open-air section of elevated track. If I could stay ahead of him, I had a chance. But at the same instant the thought struck me, the opportunity evaporated.

  The tunnel swerved suddenly to the left and I lost my footing. I pitched forward, smacking my chin hard against the track. For a few seconds I was stunned, but it was all the time Sweeney needed. Next thing I knew he was over me with the thirty-eight angled at my stomach.

  “Get up, Miller.” His eyes sparkled.

  This was a killer unlike any I’d ever encountered. The man was absolutely evil. Malevolence rose from his skin like the stench of rot from a carcass. I shrank away from him.

  “Now the fun starts,” he said. “You wanna see the essence of Ogou, the warrior. Take a look.” I followed the direction of his eyes. His pants tugged around his erection. “This is how it begins,” he said patiently, an instructor to a challenged student. He rubbed the handle of his gun against his penis and moaned lightly. “This is my fire. The bolt of lightning.” He smiled sadly at me. “For a while, I worried about whether or not you needed cleansing. You never abandoned a man. You never crushed a soldier’s heart. All the others did, you understand that now. Being a lesbian’s not enough to warrant my wrath. And then I got it. You reminded me of Betty.” He puckered his lips, as if remembering her. “A strong woman. I wanted to make her my partner. She was pure, at forty-seven. Never with a man or a woman. But she rejected me.”

  The voices deep behind us started to fade. Knowing how minds work in the bruised Big Apple, they probably assumed the fire had been the work of juveniles out for an afternoon kick. My stomach knotted. I had no doubts about Sweeney’s intentions, and now rescue seemed a more distant possibility. I rested my cheek against the cold, dank floor, my focus snapping suddenly toward the rat that glared at me from a few inches away. I jerked backward.

  An explosion sounded near my head. Sweeney had put a bullet through the rat’s belly. I covered my ears and rolled onto my side.

  “See. You’re all mine. No one else’s. Tell me, Robin, would you have turned down the chance to be my partner? In life and in death?”

  I groaned. “You know the answer, Sweeney.” My arm stretched out to the side. Another few inches and I’d graze the third rail. Electrocution had to be better than anything else Sweeney planned.

  I glanced up and saw him grin. “And so you justify the cleansing.”

  He reached for his zipper at the same time I bucked off the track and rammed my fist into his knee. The oomph he made as I made contact gave me a burst of hope. I lumbered to my feet, narrowly missing the third rail. Our eyes met and he nodded solemnly. Next time Sweeney wouldn’t hesitate. He raised the gun, but I was already springing backward. Maybe Sweeney didn’t know what the ringing of the rails and the rush of stale air pouring toward us meant, but I sure as hell did. I turned tail and catapulted through the tunnel toward the dim light ahead.

  Sweeney shouted, “Run, but you won’t get far,” so certain he had me where he wanted that he took after me in a lazy jog. The distinct metallic clink and rattle finally woke him up. He muttered, “Shit!” and scrambled to catch up with me, this time not to take me down but simply to outrun the train now barreling after us.

  We pounded along the tracks, huffing in perfect synchronicity. The conductor must’ve seen us at last because the horn blasted and rocked the ground under my feet. Brakes screeched along the rails like chickens being skinned alive. I made it to the edge of the tunnel just in time. The tracks opened up to the sky, a near-gale wind gusting toward me. I sprinted hard for the last few feet, then dove for the narrow walkway that ran alongside the outer tracks. The train shrieked by my ears, so close I could feel the metal’s heat sweep along my arms.

  Sweeney had been only two or three seconds behind me. As I hit the concrete and rolled onto my hip, I heard a muffled thud behind me, the sound of a sack of potatoes being slung carelessly into a grocery cart. And then, as my eyes flickered gratefully across the horizon, I saw him. The train must’ve clipped him as he attempted to leap out of the way, or maybe the decision had been his own. All I know is that for the briefest of moments, he hurtled through the thin, sweet air like a hawk surfing on a summer thermal. And then he arched and plunged to the ground, a streak of gray and crimson against an impossibly blue sky.

  I never told anyone this, but at that black instant in hell, it was an image of beauty.

  Postscript

  Saturday, July 3

  The sun baked my cheeks, painted the insides of my lids the color of a cardinal’s feathers. I shifted in the lounge chair so that Mallomar could curl up between my legs. She mewled contentedly. I smiled down at her, swallowing hard at the memory of her sister. The buzz of a hummingbird made both of us turn sharply to the right.

  With a sigh I leaned back, the scent of Avon’s Skin So Soft wafting around my nose, the whirr of insects a mild distraction. I waved away a mosquito and nodded to myself. Thank God for today. A simple prayer in a simple moment.

  K.T. and I had agreed to spend her birthday weekend at a house we’d rented up in the Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania. She was inside puttering in the kitchen, whipping up sourdough bread, grinding up pesto and deveining shrimp. Me, I’d opted for the deck and a tall iced coffee with a splash of Hershey’s, Ella Fitzgerald crooning at me from the outdoor speakers and the most recent issues of People. The past three months have been a period of brutal adjustment for both of us. K.T. and I both mourned the little girl we’d never get to know. For K.T., though, it’s been much harder. Despite the doctor’s assurances to the contrary, she worries constantly that something’s fundamentally wrong with her. And now that she’s turned thirty-eight, she’s convinced that the last of her eggs have shriveled up like raisins left overnight in an exposed bowl. In August. In Death Valley. After a sand storm.

  When she blew out the candles on her cake last night, she threw her emerald high beams at me and smiled shyly. “Guess what I wished for, honey?” As if there could be any doubt. Sometimes in her sleep, a small cry escapes from her lips and her brow gathers in pain. She never remembers the nightmares, though we have our suspicions. K.T. worries about what will happen to us if she does get pregnant again and the next instant frets about what will happen if she doesn’t. No matter what, I’m determined to be around for the ride. K.T. will just have to learn to believe me.

  I have another reason to grieve. My partner Tony passed away last month. He went in his sleep, at his own home, after a day spent with friends and colleagues, which was exactly the way he would’ve wanted it. The funeral was small and simple. As sad as the day had been, most of the attendees seemed relieved he hadn’t suffered more. But losing him was harder than I’d expected. We spent so much of the last several years cussing and battling with each other, I barely noticed how fond I’d grown of him. And how much I needed him at the helm of Serra Investigations. Of course, with Ryan on board and some serious reengineering, I’m sure SIA will survive. Some of the major changes are already underway. We made Jill Zimmerman a full partner and hired Evan Alexander as our full-time research clerk. At the last staff meeting, we agreed unanimously to keep the agency running under Tony’s name. We owed it to him, me more than anyone else.

  Ryan has his own demons to face. When the horror of Sweeney’s betrayal and madness sank in, he’d had a short-lived but frightening breakdown. That fateful Friday in May, when he left our offices, he’d gone straight to a bar and downed his first whiskey since Mary Ryan’s funeral, nine years ago. Tony tracked him to the bar around mid-morning and immediately dragged him to an AA meeting. Of course, when the two of them realized that they’d left me to confront Sweeney alone and how close I’d come to being his next victim, they were devastated. Ryan especially. I’ve lost count of how many times he’s sworn to make it up to me.

  What concerns me mo
st, though, is the way he’s been second-guessing himself as we manage the SIA transition. He’d been so close to Sweeney and so totally conned by him, he’s lost some of his old, blustery confidence. Worse, he blames himself for each and every one of the black-magic deaths, which is what the two of us have since termed them.

  We still have a lot of questions about how Sweeney managed to pull off his sick charade for so long. Only last week, Ryan and I sat down together to try to close out the files for good. Thanks to a diary the NOPD found at Jimmy Lee Troy’s trailer, we discovered more about Sweeney than he’d ever expected the dumb egghead to know. Sweeney should have done a little more investigating. The egghead had earned a degree in creative writing from a correspondence program he’d enrolled in while in jail. Good old Jimmy Lee figured he’d write a screenplay based on his cousin’s exploits one day. His writing style didn’t impress me much, but his attention to detail sure did.

  Troy’s tattoo, we learned in the last few pages of his diary, was suggested and paid for by Sweeney. No surprise there. What was surprising was how fully informed Troy had been about his cousin’s and Sweeney’s activities, dating back to the time of Mary Ryan’s murder. Another matter that struck us as odd was the fact that NeVille had been physically involved in the actual commission of only one murder: Mary Ryan’s. In all the other homicides, his role had been simply to lure victims or distract authorities.

  From Troy’s notes, it sounded as if Sweeney had pegged Barry NeVille as the perfect foil for his crimes almost the instant they’d stumbled onto each other again outside Mary Ryan’s hotel in San Francisco. According to Troy, that was the first time NeVille and Sweeney had seen each other since NeVille’s arrest on rape charges eighteen years earlier. I still wasn’t sure how they had recognized each other after so long a period. Ryan and I speculated that the supposedly chance encounter had been anything but chance. Of course, we’ll never know for sure. That same day Sweeney invited NeVille out to his cabin and began stirring up the drifter’s anger at Thomas Ryan and pointing him in the direction of Mary Ryan.