by Jamel Cato
“I don’t recall.”
“Where is it located?”
“Somewhere in Canada.”
“Canada is a big place. Can you be a little more specific?”
“Sorry. I just remember the report had a red leaf on it.”
“Let’s go back to your offer for a minute. What was the name of the guy you requested CPA immunity for?”
“Paxton Briggs.”
“With two g’s?”
“Yes. B-r-i-g-g-s. Briggs.”
The door to the conference room cracked opened. A man in a white lab coat leaned in and said, “You wanted to see me, Director?”
“Excuse me for one moment folks,” Carlos said as he gathered up Xavier’s sample and limped into the hall on a pair of crutches.
With the authority figure gone, Xavier and Michelle were free to converse in their shared cultural vernacular.
“What you drinkin’ on?” Xavier asked.
“Hater-ade,” she said curtly, looking away from him at the wall.
“I can see that. I could’ve sworn you were the dime piece who flirted with me at my house.”
“I found out I’m allergic to dogs.”
“You know when you’re mad you actually do look like Beyonce. From the Lemonade album.”
“Tell Zina with the good hair.”
“I know a spot over by Haines Point that has banging crab cakes and a spoken word open mic. Can I take you there tonight?”
She turned to him with indignation. “You think now is a good time to holla at me?”
“You gotta eat right?”
“The only thing I have to do is respect my momma.”
“What’s the matter, Dudley won’t let you come out because he’s scared you might meet somebody who doesn’t have a name like Dudley?”
Her mouth popped open and she stood, index finger waving. “Oh no you didn’t. Boy let me tell you something. I will—”
Carlos swung the door open, then paused. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No Director,” Michelle said, primly retaking her seat.
“Actually,” Xavier said, “Agent Lathan was just offering to take me to dinner and show me around DC.”
“That’s an excellent idea,” Carlos said.
“Sir, I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I was just—”
“Agent Lathan,” Carlos said, cutting her off. “I need you to interview this asset, this evening, in an environment most likely to elicit the highest amount of actionable information.”
She gave him a pleading look.
“Commence the interview by nineteen hundred hours,” he said, exiting the room. From the hall he shouted, “And find out where in Canada that lab is!”
Quite a few heads poked out from behind cubicle walls to peer into the conference room at Michelle, who was standing with folded arms and her head cocked at someone they couldn’t see.
* * *
Michelle was wearing a cocktail dress when she met Xavier in the lobby of his hotel at seven fifteen.
“Hey beautiful,” he said.
“Are you up for a walk?” she asked. “There’s an Italian place about seven blocks from here where they make everything from scratch.”
“My feet can put Uber out of business.”
The restaurant, Cascatta Uno, had a bustling outdoor seating area and a cherry blossom tree in a huge terracotta pot by the front entrance. Xavier thought it was a great choice until they stepped inside and suddenly found themselves in the foyer of Patni. The hostess, Chanda, was at the greeter stand with a warm smile and two menus cradled in the crook of her arm.
“Mr. Hill, Ms. Lathan,” she said.
Xavier clasped the top of Michelle’s left hand and pulled her back outside, where they found themselves in front of Cascatta Uno, all the way across town from Patni. A man held open the front door of the restaurant for his date and the interior of the Italian hotspot matched what they could see through the large plate glass windows.
“Let’s try someplace else,” he said.
“Yeah that was weird,” she agreed.
The went to a soul food restaurant with live jazz called Monk’s Place and again found it was Patni on the inside.
They tried three more eateries, all of which ushered them into Patni’s foyer.
Outside of a Chinese takeout restaurant, Michelle said, “Listen, I’m starving now. If that same woman is in here, I’m staying.”
They walked in and Chanda said, “Welcome to Patni. Table for two?”
The restaurant was packed with elegantly dressed customers who filled the dining room with the thrumming sound of conversation, most of which was absorbed by the thick fabric walls that enclosed three sides of the candlelit alcove Chanda had shown them to.
“How about we try Indian food?” Xavier quipped.
“Actually, this is nicer than the place I picked. Who knows what universe we’re in, but it’s nice.”
“It’s a good place to elicit actionable information.”
“Okay,” she said. “Can we keep it real now? I showed up in my little black dress without the attitude I gave you earlier. Tell me the truth. Was Carlos in on this?”
“I might have had a conversation with him.”
“Why? You needed help just to ask me to dinner?”
“Earlier was just a little payback.”
“For what?”
Just then Maha walked out from behind the wall nearest Michelle. “How are we doing this evening?”
“Surprised to be here,” Xavier said.
“Ah,” she said, clasping her fingers together. “I wanted the two of you to have wonderful food and complete privacy from the individuals who were following you. While this table candle burns, no words spoken here shall escape these walls.”
Michelle said something in Hindi that had the tone of gratitude.
Maha smiled and gently touched her shoulder.
Someone popped open a champagne bottle, drawing their attention. When they turned back, Maha was gone.
“She seemed to like whatever you said.”
“Carlos teaches me things sometimes when he’s not ordering me on dinner dates. Anyway, you were about to tell me why I deserved payback?”
“You forgot to tell Celebscoop.com that my left side is my good side.”
She paled. “Does Carlos know?”
“Not unless you told him.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I got carried away.”
“Why?”
“Envy, I guess. I wish somebody would write poetry for me like that. Don’t let it go to your head, but you’re the bomb. Fine. Smart. Compassionate. I was supposed to be investigating you, but somewhere along the way I found myself wishing I had been in those photos instead of her.”
“Dudley doesn’t treat you right?”
“Have you ever seen the movie Love and Basketball?”
“Three times.”
“That’s the kind of passion I want. My Mom and Dad had that. You and Zina have that. Dudley’s a good guy, and he looks great on paper, but he could never give that to me.”
“Then find somebody who will. We both know you can have any man you want.”
“Only because of my curse. No man even knows what I really look like. Hell, I don’t even know what I really look like.”
“I know what you really look like.”
She twisted her lips. “I just put myself all the way out there and you’re making jokes.”
He pulled a one-of-a-kind pair of women’s V Shades from beneath the table and offered them to her. “Go in the ladies room and put these on.”
She peered curiously at the trendy oval shaped frames and then back at him before excusing herself from the table.
When she came back, she could hardly stop crying long enough to ask, “Where did you get these?”
“I know a man with a gift the opposite of yours. He sees everything the way it really is whether he wants to or not. One day, he came up with a solution
that let him go about his life without going crazy. I asked him to make a new pair that did the opposite of his. And I told him to make sure the frames were fly because they were for a woman who wears Red Bottoms to the grocery store.”
She chuckled, wiping tears from her cheeks. “Will you at least tell me his name, so I can thank him?
“He said to tell you that he would rather keep his name off the DSO’s radar, but he likes Gucci and wears size ten if you wanted to leave something with me.”
“Really?”
“Really. This guy wears shoes so pointy he could kick out a roach’s eye.”
She laughed out loud, but no one looked in their direction.
“I suppose I should really be thanking you for having these made.”
“You don’t need to thank me. I did it to show you that you don’t need a man to write you poetry to make you feel special.”
She let out a deep sigh.
“What’s wrong?”
“I want to celebrate, but Dudley doesn’t dance.”
Xavier gasped like he had just heard the worst tragedy in the history of the world. In his best Caribbean patois, he said, “You say dat? Bumboclaat! Mi take you ‘pon di riddim and we make the watah dance like soca-soca-sooocaaa!”
Michelle’s mouth fell open. Her day had been one surprise after another.
* * *
Around three in the morning, after a thrilling evening of whining and grinding with Xavier at a DC reggae club, Michelle knocked on the door of a hotel room.
“It’s open,” Xavier said.
After coming in and locking the door, she walked over to where he sat on the edge of the bed.
“You know my situation,” he said.
“Is that why the door was open?”
He looked at her. “Why are you wearing a jacket in the middle of August?”
“Should I take it off or should I go?”
“I can’t lie and say I want you to keep it on, but I gotta keep it one hundred and tell you that taking it off is not going to change what you find on Zina’s phone.”
“I know,” she said, stepping between his legs. She took off the jacket and let it fall to the floor, revealing her nude body. She leaned down and whispered in his ear. “Will you go get some ice? There’s something I want us to do with it.”
“Stay just like that,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
Carlos was leaning against the ice machine with his elbow blocking the lid. “Fine night.”
“Would you mind moving?” Xavier asked. “I need to get in there.”
“This sure doesn’t look like a restaurant.”
“She’s grown.”
“She’s an officer of the law about to sleep with an investigation target after illegally accessing another target’s private communications.”
“You’re killing my vibe.”
“What if she gets pregnant? Have you thought about that? There’s no allowance in the SGZ guidelines for scions.”
When Xavier got back to his hotel room with the ice, Michelle had her jacket back on. “Listen,” she said, “This is not a good idea for either of us. I should go.”
“I think you’re right,” he said.
She scooted past him sideways and headed for the door.
That’s when he noticed the scent.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Was Carlos just in here?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Somewhere Far Beneath the Surface
Lucifer sat at his desk reviewing a summary of his campaign contributions when Baynin and five Sasquatch warriors armed with assault rifles suddenly materialized across the room.
Twelve of Lucifer’s demons surrounded Baynin’s contingent. The smallest of the demons stood nine feet tall. They growled and salivated at the surprise feast before them.
The Sasquatch warriors aimed their weapons upward, trigger fingers poised.
Lucifer placed the report face down on his desk and spoke in the original tongue. “One would think that sowing the seeds of a worldwide revolution leaves little time for social calls.”
“One’s time would be better spent coming to fruitful arrangements than thinking,” Baynin said.
“Coming here was a mistake,” the Devil said. “Especially with these foul-smelling ventriloquist apes. Your starry-eyed followers will be disappointed to hear you died before you had the chance to march them away to Monster Shangri-la.”
“When you have lived as long as we have, the prospect of death does not offer the menace it once did.”
Lucifer leaned back. “When you have lived as long as we have, you should know better than to fall upon an enemy on unfamiliar ground.”
The demons attacked, bounding forward with ear-piercing war cries and shocking speed.
They were promptly cut down and dismembered by the spouts of clear liquid that the Sasquatch warriors fired from their rifles.
Lucifer raised an eyebrow. It had been centuries since he had seen holy water deployed with such effect.
“Your ground is not unfamiliar,” Baynin said.
Lucifer peered closer at Baynin’s warriors, one of whom wore a necklace adorned with a cross. “Ah. These apes are from the tribe in Canada that took up mortal religion.” He switched to their aboriginal language. “Apes cannot get into Heaven, you hairy morons. There is a reason you have to sneak all the way into Nunavut at night to have that drunken priest bless your holy water.”
One of the warriors growled and stepped forward.
Baynin thrust out a restraining arm and glared at his archrival. “Bite your tongue Serpent before I cut it out.”
The Devil could physically manifest in three forms. His angelic form was much too large to fit within that chamber and his human form was no match for an adult Sasquatch warrior.
That left one option.
Lucifer’s body transformed into an enormous serpent with glowing red eyes.
One of the Sasquatch placed a metal shaft with a forked prong into Baynin’s outstretched hand.
Baynin touched a button on the shaft that made it telescope out into the length of a spear. Then he ran forward at full speed, leapt up onto Lucifer’s desk and slammed the prongs of the Beast Tamer into the slab wall, pinning the serpent in place by the neck.
The Sasquatch warriors roared in victory.
But only Baynin was close enough to see that the serpent was smiling.
The entire floor of the subterranean chamber crumbled and fell away, sending everyone but the serpent hurtling down toward the nightmarish lake of fire that was burning six hundred and sixty-six feet below.
The serpent’s tail lashed out and wrapped around Baynin’s right ankle, breaking his fall and allowing him to watch helplessly as his warriors plunged one after the other into the molten liquid. He closed his eyes, knowing what was coming next.
A pillar of fire shot up from the lake and engulfed him. The flames scorched his skin as his mind was overwhelmed with images of his deepest fears. He screamed.
The serpent hissed in maniacal delight.
Minutes later, just as Baynin’s life essence was about to slip away, the pillar of flame receded back down into the lake and the serpent transformed back into human form, complete with an impeccable white suit. Lucifer and Baynin’s smoldering body floated in midair with no obvious means of levitation as the Devil adjusted his tie and cufflinks. Once satisfied with his appearance, he floated over to the center of the room and flicked his right hand in the air, dismissing the invisibility glamour that had been hiding Yefet’s body.
She was startled by the sudden visibility of her fur-covered arms clinging to a thick wooden beam in the ceiling.
“Neferneferuaten Tashpenre Yefeten,” Lucifer said in Coptic, addressing her by her full birth name. “Thunderclap of Ra’s fury. Flower of the Nile. Known to Big Foot hunters as The Mohawk Female. Known to other mortals as the supermodel that one fashion blogger wrote lit up runways at Fashion Week like a sun flare in heels. I know why Baynin
brought the other apes. But why did he bring you?”
Yefet looked away from her master’s limp, charred body. “He brought me to speak with you in his stead in the event he was unable to do so himself.”
“Then speak while you still have the chance, child.”
Yefet told the Devil what Baynin proposed.
CHAPTER FORTY
Washington, DC
Patni was crowded. Carlos generally avoided the restaurant at night, but he had decided to make a one-time exception. He limped on a pair of crutches to his usual table, which was set for a party of two.
When he was seated, Chanda brought two menus over. “I’m impressed, Mr. Vasquez. A model? I think you’ve been holding out on me all this time.”
Carlos smiled. “Well, your mother said you were off limits, so I found the best of the rest.”
She chuckled and made her way back to the hostess station.
Carlos was glad to have his voice back after Baynin had crushed his trachea. Thanks to a Nagasi healer who owed him a favor, you could hardly tell there had ever been any damage. The same could not be said of the wound on his thigh. The tip of Yefet’s blade had been coated with a fungus that no doctor or healer had been able to overcome. He supposed it could have been worse.
He was wondering how his injury would affect his golf game when Yefet lowered herself into the chair opposite his and placed her clutch on the table.
“Wow,” he said. “If you had come to my place like this, I would have been much more receptive.”
“That’s not the kind of greeting I expect from a priest,” she said.
“Former priest.”
“That’s not what your behavior indicates.”
“Are you an expert on priestly behavior?”
“You’re well aware of my areas of expertise.”
He patted his thigh. “Unfortunately, I am. By the way, what was on that knife?”
“A little something extra I add to all my pointed weapons so even if you best me on the battlefield I’ll still win.”
“Does that something have a name—or better yet an antidote? A permanent limp will put a damper on my busy social life.”
Yefet ignored his request. “Who were you referring to as my boyfriend the last time I saw you?”
