by Baxter Clare
Frank examined a row of book spines.
"That why you left her?" she ventured.
"It was the other way around." Darcy grunted, then volunteered, "I used to have a pretty bad temper. I came home drunk one night, I don't even remember it, but I guess I hit her. I woke up in the tank and by the time they let me out she'd changed the locks. She packed my things in a couple of boxes and brought them outside for me. Her brothers were with her. She had a big gash on her cheekbone and her right eye was swollen. She told me to expect the divorce papers within a week and that I'd never see Gabby—my daughter— again."
Darcy went Code 2 again and Frank said to the books, "I thought you had custody every other weekend."
"Yeah, we're working it out. It's not as much time as I want with her, but it's better than what it used to be. She wouldn't even let me see her in the beginning, or call her. She had a restraining order. Plus those brothers. But it's getting better. I've just got to be patient and not lose my temper. That only sets me back."
The conversation died in uncomplaining silence. Darcy went outside to spit tobacco and Frank wished she'd brought some work to do. She pulled a book from the shelf, a doctoral thesis on African religious art.
She found Shango in the index but it directed her to Xango. She browsed the indicated entries, discovering he was the god of pride, arrogance, and warfare. He loved all physical sports, often carried an ax or a club, usually made of copper, and his favorite colors were red and white.
As Darcy said, he was associated with all natural phenomena, ruling over lightning and fire. That reminded frank of Jill's informant, who claimed to have seen lightning over the Slauson house.
Even as Frank rationalized that the CI had seen a spotlight or some explicable weather event, her lower brain whispered, not a coincidence.
Frank flipped to another entry. Xango was the god to call upon for help with black magic. He had to be propitiated with large offerings, and was especially fond of crabs. A red rooster should be used for sacrifices to Xango, and though he was fair, and often called upon to settle judgments and disputes, he had a fierce temper, often burning those who offended him.
Lincoln Roosevelt torched in a St. Louis flophouse. Billy Daniels burned while he slept. Gough's pimp immolated in his hooptie. Tito Carrillo rolled up and lit like a blunt.
Frank snapped the book shut. Was the Mother appeasing her god and eliminating competitors at the same time? Why hadn't she burned Danny too? Or the Colombians? Because she's smart enough to change her MO, Frank answered herself.
She jumped when Marguerite opened the door. Shelving the book, Frank asked, "All done?"
Marguerite approached without a sound, as if she were trying to catch a spooked animal.
"I'm done with him," she emphasized. She crossed her arms and they disappeared under the overhang of her breasts.
"How much contact do you have with Mother Love?"
Darcy started to come in the front door, but Marguerite held up a hand.
"Leave us alone," she said without looking at him. Darcy retreated. Frank was tempted to join him. Holding Marguerite's gaze was like holding a live coal and Frank almost stepped back. She didn't. Besides making her look silly, she realized, it wouldn't do any good. She could be standing across the room and Marguerite James would be just as formidable.
"We're investigating her nephew's murder. He worked for her. She was one of the last people to see him. I've talked to her."
"Just about the investigation?"
Frank hesitated.
"Other stuff. She explained santeria to me. Said she was a healer. Could see things. She warned me about a dog." Frank held up her bandaged hand and gave Marguerite her most winning grin. "I didn't listen."
"That's all? No other contact?"
"No offense, Mrs. James, but why am I getting the third degree? Hernandez is your client, not me."
As if Frank hadn't spoken, Marguerite pressed, "Did she ever touch you, or offer you food or a drink?"
Frank shook her head, then remembered her visit to the church.
"She put her hand on my arm for a second."
"Did you notice an itching or burning afterward?"
Frank had a crude answer, but asked instead, "Is Hernandez ready?"
Marguerite's head tilted to the side, the physicist analyzing data.
"I gathered from the tone of our telephone conversation that you don't have much use for my religion. I don't care about that. I'm not a proselytizer. But like Mother Love I can see things, Lieutenant. And I can see her hand all over you. It's like you're walking in a black cloud and you don't even know it. I can help if you like. Maybe. I've heard much about her. Her hand is very strong."
Frank smiled, "I appreciate your concern, but I think I can handle her. Are you done with Hernandez?"
Marguerite also smiled, but where Frank's smile had bordered on condescension, Marguerite's was wise, the secrets in her eyes hidden in plain view. Frank felt oddly contrite.
"I'll get him," the priestess offered.
Marguerite led a much calmer Hernandez to the front door. She and Darcy exchanged terse custody plans for the following weekend, then Frank paid her fifty dollars cash. Per their telephone conversation, Frank was to pay whatever she felt the service was worth. Frank had consulted with Darcy who'd explained mambos traditionally didn't charge for their work, accepting donations instead. Marguerite took the money without looking at it. She started to close the door.
"Wait," she said, ducking inside. When she came back, she handed Frank her university business card. Her home phone was written on it.
"If you change your mind, call me. Anytime."
28
Hours ago the neighbors had flipped "Closed" signs and pulled iron gates across their doors. The halogens over head were all shot out and Saint Barbara's Spiritual Church of the Seven Powers crouched in the dark. Above it, a thin rind of moon curled against newly blackened sky. It was beautiful. Frank thought about forgetting this. Just showing up at Gail's and locking the door and holding her all night.
Voices spilled from across the street. Frank looked at the moon once more then followed a vague crack of light at the side of the church. She listened at the door, recognizing the Mother's sultry timbre.
"Who got Spirit wid' 'em?" she implored, and Frank stepped inside.
The church was dim with incense smoke and dull yellow lights. The Mother clapped next to the pulpit, exhorting the small congregation. Frank sat in a vacant pew, meeting the eyes she felt all over her. But even a lifetime on the streets couldn't prepare Frank for what she saw in the Mother's eyes. It hit her like a blow to the head, a flare of hatred, so pure and undisguised it was breathtaking. A perfect black-hole of hate.
Frank's bladder swelled. Bullets nor knives or angel-dusted behemoths had ever scared Frank as much as the tiny woman in front of her. No one could hate that much and not kill. Or worse.
Tommy Trujillo bounced into her head. He'd beaten her up on her way home from school one day. She was in third grade, he was in fifth. He wanted her Batman lunch box. He took it after bashing her ear bloody. When she told her father what had happened, he'd slapped her. Frank had been stunned.
"Do you know why I hit you?"
She'd backed away from him. He'd followed, slapping her again. It was a light slap, its unexpectedness more frightening than its sting. He slapped her again. And again, until Frank was furious. Until she slapped back. Then he'd grinned and pulled her to him. Kissed her tears.
"You know why I did that? To make you mad. You know why I wanted to make you mad?"
When Frank shook her head he'd said, "Because mad is better than afraid. Anger you can use. You can fight with it. But fear'll just eat you up. You may as well lie down and die if you're afraid. I'm not always gonna be there to protect you. Your mom neither. You gotta learn to protect yourself. Next time somebody wants to fight you, get mad at 'em. Remember me slapping you, okay?"
The old memory came like a benedic
tion, allowing Frank to rein her fear. She forced a cool smile. To her surprise the Mother bent double, erupting in laughter. She clapped gleefully and capered in circles. Her eyes flashed at Frank, hands cracking like a bullwhip.
"Who's got the Spirit here?"
She cocked an ear at the assembly. Frank looked around, hiding her shaking hands in her pockets. Maybe twenty-five, thirty people were scattered among the pews. About a third were black, the rest Latino. Roughly the same ratio of men to women. They all appeared expectant.
A hand shot up and a woman claimed, "I got the Spirit, amen!"
"She say she got the Spirit! Ache!" the Mother clapped, her s's tangling in their hurry.
"Who else got the Spirit now?" she demanded.
"I do! Praise be, I do!" a voice called out.
The clapping increased. Against the walls, toward the front of the church, Frank counted eight men sitting around an array of drums—round ones, cone-shaped, hour-glassed, congas. They sipped from glasses, nodding at the Mother. Frank watched one poke around in his nose then inspect his finger with great care. They were older men with more lines between them than a Rand McNally atlas. Blue incense drifted over their heads.
"Who else is filled with Spirit?" Mother Love howled.
Souls cried they had the Spirit. The Mother's hands moved faster. Her flock followed the tempo, clapping, rocking, nodding in time. The Mother bellowed her queries in the same meter, but faster now. Testimonies rang out like rifle shots. The Mother praised each one, chanting a rhythmic sing-song.
"I call down the Spirit—ache!—of the god of the earth! Praise be! I call down the Spirit—yes sir!—of the Lord of the skies! Amen! I call down the Spirit—ache—of the god of all Spirits! Amen! Come down! I call the Spirit—praise God!—to fill our hearts. Come down! Fill us now! Ache!"
The hypnotic litany gained speed. Mother Love equally thanked the wind and sun and rain, ancestors, spirits and saints. Her followers joined in, shouting, "Amen!" and "Ache!"
Frank watched one of the old men touch his drum. He listened intently between pats, his eye following the Mother. He tapped to her rhythm, hesitant until he'd captured it, then he beat the skin firmly. Another man followed him, then one drummer after another picked up the beat. Deep boomings rolled under lighter, faster notes. It sounded like raindrops falling into puddles while thunder rumbled in from an ugly horizon.
The rhythm was hypnotic and Frank had to force her concentration. At the front of the church, the Mother whirled round and around. Ropes of beads on her neck whirled in the same orbit, dizzyingly red and white. The Mother chanted half in English, half in a foreign language. Like Spanish, but not quite, Frank thought. Maybe Portuguese. She whipped her crowd with the mysterious words. They knew the refrain, joyfully shouting it in time. Standing, clapping, they danced and twirled in the aisles. One old man pounded his cane to the beat. His wife wiggled next to him, her arms waving in the air like thick snakes. A young girl writhed in the aisle, her eyes white where there should have been pupils.
The Mother danced and Frank watched. Seeing but not believing. The Mother carried almost sixty years on her wiry frame, yet she whirled with the force of a small tornado. Her red and white skirt blurred to pink. She turned faster than Frank's eye could follow. Bending her head to her toes, the Mother hurled herself backward with inhuman force. Frank was certain bone must have bent and muscle snapped, but the Mother whirled on.
The hair rose on Frank's skin.
The drummers pounded in glassy-eyed fury. Their hands galloped like headless horsemen across the plains of their drums. The Mother twirled faster, arching brutally and impossibly. She leapt like a jungle cat, landing on hands and knees. Then she twisted and rose, continuing the dance, all the while calling down her dark gods.
The faithful fell about in fits. They screamed for Jesus or Saint Jerome to come into them. Some yelled names Frank didn't recognize. The din was mesmerizing. The drums sang an old song, as old as the first moon, and the crowd responded convulsively.
Frank sought Mother Love.
She stood at the pulpit, staring back. A grin twisted her sweating face. Recognition hit Frank like a sledgehammer. Memory replaced present time. She'd already been here. She relived the Mother's triumphal grin, the drums calling her to an ancient home, the rolling eyes and writhing bodies. The incense mingled with sweat, the leafy church, and cries to heaven—it all played in Frank's head with a familiarity that made her dizzy.
The chimera passed as quickly as it had come. Frank drew a hand over her face, unable to look at the Mother. It was enough to hear her keening in the crowd, a wolfish howling that made Frank's blood tingle. Frank stood, clutching the pew in front of her.
The drummers began to slow. The Mother walked among her followers making sure none had hurt themselves in the frenzy. Frank watched the Mother soothe her faithful, bringing them up, down, or wherever they needed to be. The drumming ebbed to a single instrument beating the time of a resting heart. The Mother worked her way to the back of the church.
After drying her tears, Frank's father had taught her how to place a chokehold and lay a chop at the back of the knees. How to roll and block and land a double chin shot. How to jab and hook. Watching the Mother come down the aisle, Frank doubted any of that would help her now.
"I knew you'd come," the Mother said. Her voice was smoky and sweet. "You couldn't resist. You're like a child after candy."
She leaned closer. Frank smelled the flowery bodega scent and sweat and the dust of dry places.
"My church is open," she whispered. "Come join us."
The invitation was sensual and erotic, a lover's desire. Frank had an urge to get up and follow the Mother, to dance with her around a blood-red fire in a place where beasts still stirred beyond the pale. She wanted to cry at the moon then bow low to receive the warm sacrament. . .
Frank was surprised to hear herself say, "Never."
The Mother's wolfish eyes almost closed. In a voice like snakes slithering over each other, she warned, "Don't be so sure, child. Never's a very long time."
29
Darcy leaned in after the briefing.
"Can I talk to you?"
"Sure."
He closed the door and perched on one of her chairs.
"Marguerite called last night. She says she's worried about you."
"Me?"
He nodded.
"She says you don't know what you're into, but that it's bigger than you can handle. She wants you to go see her."
"What for?"
Darcy shrugged.
"She says you need a cleansing and some serious protection. She sees bad juju all over you."
"Bad juju, huh?"
Frank grinned, partly out of condescension and partly to convince herself the Mother's malevolence last night had been routine good guy-bad guy antagonism. Ignoring the reptilian voice asking, then why were you so scared, she concentrated on Darcy and how much money he made. She knew he couldn't foot too much for alimony and child support and wondered if Marguerite thought she had a fish on the line.
"How much she gonna charge me?"
"I don't know. That's irrelevant. The thing is, she wouldn't call like that unless she had a good reason. Marguerite's very selective about who she works with. New clients all have to be recommended by established clients. She doesn't deal with dabblers."
Her logic crippled, Frank admitted, "Look. I just don't get any of this hocus-pocus, mumbo-jumbo shit."
Darcy shot back, "You don't have to get it. It'll happen whether you believe in it or not."
The only sign of Frank's annoyance was the slight jump in her jaw.
"What'll happen?"
"I mean if Marguerite sees the Mother's influence around you, then it's there. It's like radon. Just because we can't see it, that doesn't mean it's not there doing damage."
"Everybody keeps saying you have to believe in this shit to make it work. How can the Mother hurt me if I don't believe in her?"
&n
bsp; Darcy hunched forward. He was about to speak but stopped. Frank gave him the time he needed to pull his words together.
"Remember when you asked me if I believed in voodoo?"
The question wasn't rhetorical, so Frank nodded.
"And what did I say?"
"Somewhat."
"And I told you not to underestimate the Mother, right?"
Frank tapped her watch.
"Where we going, Darcy?"
"To a place you don't know anything about. I know you've got no reason to believe me, but all I can tell you is that I've seen situations that defy practical explanation. Marguerite's cousin was my best friend. I practically lived with him and I spent a lot of time with his family. We used to stay out at his uncle's in Simmesport, go hunting and get drunk, just being boys. This was in the back country, where the old ways are still pretty common. Jeff had a couple, three-four aunts and uncles up there. Understand, the LaCourts had been there a long time. They were part of a pretty tightly knit community. A lot of the women called themselves root workers. Some were better at it than others because they had a talent for it. A gift. Jeff’s grandmother, Pearl LaCourt, she was one of those women. All the other root workers came to Pearl when they needed advice or couldn't help themselves. She was tremendously respected. And feared. Hell, even I was afraid of her, and I was too young and stupid to be afraid of anything."
Frank tapped her fingers against the desk and Darcy said, "I know. My point is I knew her fairly well. I didn't just hear stories about her or catch a glimpse of her on the porch now and then. I spent almost every weekend and half as many weekdays up to Jeff's and every Saturday evening we'd go to revival. It was out in a scythed field behind the church which was really just poles and a roof with hay bales and stumps for seats. I know that sounds like a strange way for two hell-loving, hormone-addled boys to spend a Saturday night, but for one thing, Marguerite was there.
"Even more importantly, I wanted to go. Jeff too. We only talked about it once, after the first time he took me, and then we never mentioned it again. Jeff couldn't explain what happened. It'd just always been that way. That was all. These people accepted that his seventy-year-old grandmother could suddenly jump up in the air and do somersaults like a girl a quarter her age. They accepted that a bite from a copperhead could cure arthritis. They accepted that Loula Tremaine's husband fell down a well and drowned while she was at the revival praying for God to wash his wife-beating sins away.
