Black Beast: A Clan of MacAulay Novel

by R. S. Guthrie

  I motioned for Agent Byrne to follow.

  “I never understood why they put ‘Special’ in front of ‘Agent’,” I said.

  “Again?” she said.

  “I mean, since you all get the moniker. It’d be one thing if, say, only you were a special agent. Like Maxwell Smart. Or Ninety-Nine.”

  “Ninety-Nine,” she said.

  “You know, Get Smart. Mel Brooks, Buck Henry. The television show. Probably before your time.”

  “No, no. I got the reference.”

  “Good for you,” I said.

  “I just wanted to make it clear I want to be Ninety-Nine.”

  “Come again?”

  “She was hot,” Byrne said.

  I stopped and turned around.

  “I guess that makes me Max Smart,” I said.

  After introducing her to the squad, I suggested we grab an early lunch at a pasta bar near the station.

  “Look,” she said, poking at her tetrazzini. “It’s not like I expect you to appreciate any of this.”

  “They tell you what happened to my partner?”

  “Yeah,” she said, and for a moment, her hard shell seemed to soften. “I’m sorry about that, Bobby. I am.”

  I ate a few garlic noodles and stayed quiet. Finally I looked up at her, eye to eye.

  “I’m sorry if I came off gruff, but that’s how I feel about it. Not personally, just overall. It’s been a bad decade or so, you know? I lost my first partner, too. You might want to reconsider the odds of joining Team Macaulay.”

  “I’ve read your file. Anyone ever tell you that heroes get an easy ride?”

  “What?”

  “Heroes. Name one throughout history that wasn’t surrounded by tragedy. Comes with the whole ‘saving the world’ gig.”

  “Heroes? Is that what we are?”

  “You know where that word comes from?” she said. “It’s from Greek mythology: herMs. It ultimately comes down to those who sacrifice the self in order to save others. Even those who don’t deserve it.”

  “You’re Irish,” I said.

  “Yes. So?”

  “I was just changing the subject.”

  “Macaulay. Scottish?”

  “We’re all just Celts anyway, right?”

  “Something like that,” she said, and smiled for the first time. She was beautiful; I’d be forced to concede that one if sworn in. The rest I wasn’t sure about at all.

  “My dad, Paddy. He was half Irish, half Scottish. I think he connected more with his Scot side.”

  “And you?”

  “That’s been the prevailing question of late,” I said.

  “Hmm,” she said, and actually took a bite.

  “So the task force has been investigating Calypso for how long?”

  “Three years,” she said.

  “What? And you don’t have anything?” I said.

  “We’ve got a lot. We’re just not going to settle for tax evasion, you know what I’m saying?”

  “Ever heard of the ‘Obeah’?”

  “No,” she said.

  “So I spoke to an underling a week ago. Pinched him, got him to fess up a bit. He tells me Calypso is heavy into this dark practice. You know, there are shamans, sorcerers, witches…”

  Byrne’s eyebrows went up and she was giving me that are you shitting me look—it was the same one Burke gave me before he died.

  “I mean, you’ve heard of all those things, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, Obeah, that’s like the king of the necromancers, okay? Legendary in the Caribbean. Kind of thing the superstitious down there are afraid to even say out loud.”

  “Are you the superstitious type?” she said.

  “The hairs on my arm stood up once,” I said.

  Again with the smile.

  “Touché,” she said.

  “Anyway, this guy—Wendell—he tells me Calypso is one.”

  “An Ocho?”

  “Ocho is eight in Spanish. O-bay.”

  “Obeah.”

  “Yep.”

  “So Calypso is some kind of voodoo priest?”

  “I figure it at least puts him a little in the way of these ritualistic slayings,” I said.

  “That’s your theory?” she said.

  “That’s the eleven-thousand foot view.”

  “The Bureau has been looking from that elevation for too long. We’re going to need to deep dive quick.”

  “But you’re okay with chasing this thing down?” I said.

  She smiled. “My arm hairs stood up when you said necromancers.”

  I spent the rest of lunch bringing Amanda up to speed on the Sloan’s Lake Park murders, as well as my conversation with the late Eb Durning. We left and headed for a lady on Spear who ran a psychic shop. I’d never met her, but she was Jamaican. She also now fronted a medical marijuana store with her séance room. I figured we’d roust her a bit and see if she knew anything about Calypso. Byrne seemed to think it might be fun.

  “Byrne means what?” I said, driving toward The Seeing Eye.

  “Raven.”

  “That’s it?”

  “It’s all I know, really. Never been big into the family tree.”

  “My folks didn’t come over on a boat or anything. For me, though, I could always feel that Scottish blood.”

  “Not the Irish?”

  “Blasphemer,” I said.

  We arrived at The Seeing Eye and entered through the front door. The first room looked like a small bakery and smelled of the ganja. There was a display case with a number of buds of various strengths, qualities, and prices. There was another with baked goods, lollypops, salves, candy bars—about anything you could dream up to put the stuff in, she had it.

  “Help you, all?” Marta Jones said. “I got da rightful paperwork, coppers.”

  Funny how the criminals could spot John Q. Law from a hundred paces.

  “We have some unrelated questions for you, Ma’am,” I said.

  “About the Ocho,” Agent Byrne said. I smiled.

  “Come in da back, den,” Jones said.

  Once we were seated around the séance table, I broke the ice.

  “I assume you’ve heard of the Obeah?” I said.

  “’Course I heard of ‘em,” she said. “Ain’t been smokin’ my own product, if that’s what you’re gettin’ at.”

  Impressive. Either she was a complete shakedown artist, or she had no nervous system. Not a muscle twitched.

  “You know anyone around here that might be interested in that kind of thing?” Byrne said.

  “In Denver? Now I think you been smokin’ a bit o’ the ganja.”

  Agent Byrne was not amused.

  “You think your memory gets better the closer we get to the station house?” she said.

  “I tink we both know who we be talkin’ about here, lady,” Jones said, her face stony and unaffected by the threat. “And it gonna take more dan a pretty face and a trip to da station house ta make dis woman’s lips go flappin’.”

  “Ever heard of Samhain?” I said, jumping in.

  Marta Jones turned pale.

  “You don’t gotta warrant, you get da hell outta my store,” she hissed.

  “Who the hell is Samhain?” Byrne said. We were back on Spear, heading for the station.

  “Did you see her go white on us?”

  “Yeah, she dropped that poker face pretty quick. What gives?”

  “Samhain is like the Scottish version of the Obeah. On steroids,” I said.

  “Oh, the Halloween thing,” Byrne said. “My, you actually are the superstitious one, aren’t you?”

  “Not so much,” I said. “You up for a little detour?”

  I made a U-turn at the next light and drove north, toward my house.

  “Agent Byrne, this is Father West.”

  Father West, who had been sitting at the table in my kitchen, drinking some herbal tea, stood and offered his thick hand.

  “Call me Amanda,
” Byrne said.

  “Father West returned from London last night, almost got his ass shot off, isn’t that right, Padre?”

  West smiled uncomfortably.

  “I actually never left the country,” he said.

  “My mistake,” I told Byrne. “But he has got some information that might interest you.”

  “I’m all ears,” Amanda said.

  “Tell her what you told me,” I said. “Amanda—you’re going to want to sit down for this story.”

  Father West started at the point when he first met Father Rule. It wasn’t long into their relationship when Rule shared with him the secrets of Bête Noire, the Book of Ossian, the history of the Clan MacAulay, and the many unsanctioned exorcisms—and outright killings—he and Father Terrence Macaulay had done.

  Amanda Byrne looked at me.

  “This is your family? Father Terrence was your grandfather?”

  “It’s starting to appear that way.”

  “All kidding aside, Bobby—you are buying into all this, what was it…Obeah stuff?”

  “It’s been a bit hard to swallow,” I said. “Like trying to wash down a ten-pound block of ice, actually. But it’s getting pretty difficult not to want to start connecting the dots.”

  I told her about the drawing and my leg.

  “There’s something I haven’t told you,” West said. “Father Macaulay never wrote about it in the journal.”

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  “In their last encounter—when they took the life of Ramzi Ben Younes—the Black Beast destroyed your grandfather’s left leg.”

  “Say that again,” I said.

  “Father Macaulay’s left leg had to be amputated.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  TURNED OUT Calypso owned a reggae bar down near Five Points.

  Sweet Potatoes.

  The same bar that David Pella and his buddy Marty Dolan frequented.

  I figured it was time for Father West and me to have a drink and listen to a little Caribbean music. It was a Thursday night so the place was hopping.

  “Beer?” I said to West. It was easier to think of him as my cousin Meyer with the white collar left at home. I convinced him that street clothes were going to work a lot better, particularly down near Five Points.

  “Any kind’ll do,” he said.

  “Two Red Stripes,” I said. “From the tap.”

  West had the look of a child come to his father’s workplace.

  “Nice,” he said. “The music, it’s nice.”

  When the waitress brought our drinks back I said:

  “Is the owner here? I’d like to pay a compliment on the bar.”

  “Nine-fifty,” she said.

  “He’ll be here at nine-fifty?” I said.

  “For the beers. Nine-fifty.”

  “And the owner,” I said, handing her a twenty.

  She moved her head to the side. “Door back to the left of the speakers there.”

  “Keep it,” I said.

  We nursed our beers for a bit, listening to the gentle sounds of the steel-drum band.

  “I’m thinking I’ll go back and introduce myself,” I said.

  “You want me to stay here, I take it,” West said.

  “I think it’s best.”

  I knocked on the door and a large wrestler with several folds of fat instead of an actual neck opened the door.

  “No solicitations,” he said, scanning the crowd for other intruders.

  “Big word,” I said. I showed him my badge.

  “Don’t see no warrant, cop.”

  “I just want to talk to the man,” I said.

  “A minute,” the big man said, and closed the door.

  It was actually more like ten.

  “Boss’ll see you now,” he said, and stepped to the side.

  I walked into a room that could have been for a secretary who was absent that day. Clearly the office was the door in the back.

  I’d never actually met Calypso, and the pictures in his file were distant, grainy, and nondescript. The man sitting behind the desk was like the Marlboro Man of first impressions. Me? I’m not often impressed. For once, however, I had nothing to say—not even a wisecrack.

  I didn’t even care that he knew I was gawking. My guess was he’d long since gotten used to being a bit of a sideshow attraction. Had I been forced to give a description, Calypso’s weight would’ve been listed as indeterminate. I’d never seen such a large specimen. He wasn’t muscular. In fact, it was unclear to me that he had any form at all beneath the folds of his skin. Being no Star Wars geek, I could still not push an image of Jabba the Hut from my mind. But Jabba looked downright grandfatherly compared to what I saw beneath the countenance of Calypso.

  And the man was smiling from ear to enormous ear.

  "Detective Macaulay," he said. Quite refined. Not much of an accent at all.

  "Have we met?" I said.

  "Fate makes no introductions, yet calls us all acquaintances."

  "Calypso, then."

  "You see?"

  "Is there a family name, or is it like Bono. Or Carrot Top?"

  “Carrot Top is two words.”

  “Can we speak privately?” I said.

  “Brain,” Calypso said, waving a hand that looked like a piece of uncooked pork. “Detective Macaulay and I will be fine.”

  Brain stepped out and closed the door behind him.

  I sat down in a chair facing Calypso, who had still not stopped smiling. His teeth looked like they were constructed of barbed wire. Razor sharp, as if he kept them that way. There was a strange, sweet odor in the room that made me nauseated.

  “You seem a happy man,” I said.

  “Happiness, like everything else, is completely relative.”

  “I have a few questions.”

  “Regarding the Obeah,” he said.

  “You are clairvoyant,” I said.

  “My friends are loyal to me,” he said. “Therein lays the mystery. Information travels quickly on the backs of the allegiant.”

  “I should’ve pushed for more from Marta,” I said.

  “You strike me as a man who detests futility,” Calypso mused.

  “Point taken.”

  “What is it you wish to know about the Obeah,” he said. The smile had vanished.

  “For starters, I’d like to know if you are acquainted with any,” I said. “Beyond those introduced to you by fate, I mean.”

  “Such an interest seems misplaced. For a detective.”

  “Color me superstitious if it makes this line of questioning any easier for you.”

  “Is that what this is?”

  “Do you? Know any, that is.”

  “I don’t,” Calypso said.

  His first lie. We were finally getting somewhere.

  I read once that a cop can’t get anywhere with a suspect until the lying begins. It took me a few years on the job to understand the guts of that principle.

  Police interviews are not always about getting to the truth. A cop can traverse an entire case, stepping only on the lies, and still make it to the other side.

  Like walking across the lake on a crowded Independence Day—boat to boat.

  One only had to be careful not to fall in.

  “I find that difficult to believe,” I said.

  “Your difficulties don’t much concern me, Detective. I hope that doesn’t mean we won’t be friends.”

  “Let’s agree to cut the mutual stroking for a couple minutes,” I said, leaning closer to that sweet stench. “I don’t much care for any of this occult, sideshow bullshit, okay? Just wasn’t raised that way. But someone is killing people. And if the ritual involved means some bad guys are playing with matches, I don’t much have to care about where they got them, you know?”

  “You’re speaking in riddles,” Calypso said, unfazed. “I’m a simple man.”

  “I don’t give a shit how the Obeah, or the threat of the Obeah, or the idea of the Obeah are involved. I care
about solving these multiple homicides. It’s the people behind the murders that are going to do the time. Not a bunch of ghosts.”

  “You try my patience, Detective.”

  Not a lie, but a helpful truth.

  “One last question,” I said.

  Calypso said nothing, but his eyes narrowed.

  “Did you know Danny Wells?”

  He thought for a moment. I could see the gears turning behind those sunken eyes of his.

  “The police officer who was murdered,” he finally said.

  “Did you?”

  “A tragedy. Killed in the line of duty, I believe.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “I can’t say I ever had the pleasure,” Calypso said.

  “Yet you remember the murder, off the top of your head, how many years later?”

  “Twelve years later,” Calypso said.

  “You son of a bitch.”

  “Easy, Detective. Now it appears I’m returning the favor.”

  “Favor?” I said, barely able to contain my anger.

  “The gift of trying ones patience.”

  I collected myself. At least the fat bastard had tipped his hand a bit. He definitely knew something about Danny’s death.

  “If I find out you are involved with the murder of my partner, Calypso, I’m going to make you very sorry. Voodoo magic aside.”

  “The Obeah have nothing to do with voodoo, I assure you,” Calypso said.

  “I thought you didn’t know about the Obeah?”

  “I said I didn’t know any,” he said, smiling.

  “It’ll take more than superstition to keep me from burying you.”

  “Is that so?”

  “I don’t even believe in lucky clovers.”

  “I wouldn’t think so,” Calypso said. “My understanding is you’re Scottish.”

  “Half. But I also don’t believe in wasted trips. So on the way back, I’m paying a visit to Madame Suck My Bucks—even if I have to wake her up. When you call ahead, tell the seer her immigration papers better be in order.”

  “Have a nice day,” Calypso said, and banged a gnarled walking stick hard on the floor. Brain the knuckle-breaker opened the door on cue and I left without any more words.