Tropic of Night

by Unknown

  “He’s writing ? He’s cutting up women and doing God knows what all around the city, and then he goes home and writes ?”

  She looked surprised at the question. “Well, yes. He’s a writer. The other stuff is just for background and experience. It’s Captain Dinwiddie . He’s writing an epic poem of that name about the black experience. You read it all in the journal, didn’t you? That’s why he went to Africa in the first place. But he was blocked for the conclusion. I mean, where’s the payback, for slavery and the ghettos and segregation and all that? It’s an artistic imbalance. Lucifer has to be flung from heaven. Faust has to beat the devil. And Africa has to triumph over Cracker Nation. Originally he just thought he would simply make it up, but that was before he became a witch. Now he’s writing nonfiction, so to speak.”

  “That’s crazy!”

  “You keep saying that. It’s not helpful. My friend Marcel used to say that sometimes life serves up situations that only crazy actions can resolve. This is obviously one of them, and …”

  She stiffened. A look of pain came over her face. He heard a long hiss of breath through her teeth.

  “What’s wrong? Jane?”

  “I … was wrong. Here. He’s here.” Her voice was low, strangled.

  “Where?” Paz looked wildly around the restaurant. Sweat burst out on his forehead. There was something funny now about all the patrons. They weren’t eating and chatting and laughing, as they usually did. They were staring at Paz and Jane, and there was something odd about their faces, they seemed peculiarly flat and brutal, the flesh sagging like candle wax. They had too many teeth.

  Jane was groaning something. There was a crash from the kitchen, and shouting. Someone screamed; it went on and on. Jane was trying to say something. Her eyes bulged with the effort. Paz bent closer.

  “What? What is it? What’s happening?”

  “Escape by water … get over water,” she managed to say. “Take her!”

  Paz felt dull and heavy. He had drunk too much, he thought. He really should call it a night, walk on home and crawl into bed. He got up. Jane looked like a corpse. Everyone in the place looked like a corpse. He started to leave.

  His mother came across the dining room, like a golden galleon under full sail. Light seemed to pour off her; her face was bright and covered with fine sweat. It looked inhuman, like the oiled wood of a statue.

  “Son, son, take them to the boat, take them both to the boat! Do it now!” She reached up over his head and dropped something on a leather thong around his neck. Paz stared at her stupidly. “You know about the boat?”

  She struck him on the face. It sounded like a gunshot. “Jesus Maria, will you go!” she cried.

  Paz was in the kitchen, hot, bright, full of noise. Cesar the chef was huddled in the corner, weeping. The scullion was smashing plates, throwing them one by one against the wall. Then Paz was in the alley behind the restaurant. He couldn’t walk very well, he discovered, because he had more than the usual number of legs. No, that was because he was supporting Jane Doe on his hip, with his arm around her. Deadweight, and moaning. He hated Jane Doe, he wanted to throw her in the Dumpster. There was a weight pulling on the other arm, some kind of horrible hairy animal, clutching at him, it was going to suck his blood … no, that was the child, he had to do something with the child, something to do with water. Throw her in the water? That didn’t seem right. The leather thong was cutting into his neck. He stumbled in another direction. The pressure let up. That was good. He saw Jane’s car far away. The leather thong wanted him to go to the car.

  He was in the car. It was moving and he appeared to be driving it. He wasn’t sure whether he really knew how to drive a car. It seemed huge, like an ocean liner. He turned left on Twelfth Avenue. There were dead bodies in the gutters and burning cars all around. He would be dead soon if he didn’t stop driving and leave this car. What he needed was bed. Thong was choking him. Stop the car get rid of the thong. He slowed, pulled toward the curb.

  Jane Doe punched him in the mouth. The blow came from nowhere: one second she was slumped against the car door, the next she was on him, punching, scratching at his face. He braked to a stop and fought her off. She connected with his nose. The shock of pain. Suddenly his head was clear. He concentrated on the pain. He thought the pain was wonderful, compared to what had been going on in his head before. He grabbed the wheel and tromped on the gas pedal. They roared north. Jane Doe stopped hitting him.

  They were on the boat. He had trouble untying the lines because the lines had turned into fat snakes. His hands wouldn’t grab them. He reached back to his hip and punched himself in the jaw. It really hurt and his head cleared enough to let him do simple acts. He threw off the lines, jumped onto the boat, and started the motor. As soon as black water separated them from the bulkhead he felt a little better, and the further they traveled down the Miami River the more normal he felt. Something had gone wrong at the restaurant, but he couldn’t quite recall what it was. He noticed that there was something around his neck, a finely woven rectangular straw bag on a leather thong. Where had he got that? And why was there blood all over it, and down his shirt? And why did his nose and jaw hurt? And what was he doing on a moonlight cruise with Jane Doe and her kid?

  But by the time they passed under the Brickell Avenue Bridge a good deal of it had come back to him, like recalling a dream you had last night in the middle of the workday, or a déjŕ vu. The air smelled of smoke, like burning garbage; he could hear distant sirens.

  The cabin hatch opened and Jane came out. She stood beside him, her arms crossed, her fine pale hair whipped by the wind of their passage. They broke out into Biscayne Bay, and when they passed the marker, Paz pushed the throttle forward. The boat stood up on its counter and roared into the night.

  “This is nice,” said Jane. “I haven’t been on the water in a while. Where are we going?”

  “I thought Bear Cut. It’s a little channel across the bay. We can drop anchor there and figure out what we’re going to do.” She nodded. The boat was bouncing on a light chop, but she wasn’t holding on, just swaying easily with the motion.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Considering, yes I am. Did I punch you?”

  “Yeah. A right to the nose, I think. A nice shot.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not a problem. It was probably the thing to do, to be honest. I punched myself, too.” He cleared his throat. “Are you going to tell me what went on back there?”

  “He probably sent one of his creatures around with a dose of something mind-altering, untargeted except for me. Mass confusion and madness. He wanted me to come to him.”

  “My mom didn’t seem too affected.”

  “No, she’s under Yemaya’s protection. And she gave you a … I don’t know what they call it in Santería, but in Olo it’s ch’akadoulen .” She tapped the little bag around his neck. “A ward against witchcraft.”

  “How did she know to send me to the water?”

  “She may not have. Yemaya is orisha of the sea. As an oriate of Yemaya she would have thought of water.”

  “So it was just a coincidence?”

  After a second of amazed silence, Jane Doe laughed in his face. “Yeah, right! Honestly, Detective!”

  Paz ignored the rebuke. He didn’t want to think about his mother just yet.

  “There’s stuff I still don’t understand,” he said.

  “Really? Gosh, it’s all clear as glass to me.”

  “Don’t be sarcastic, Jane. I need some help here.”

  “Sorry.” She looked genuinely abashed, and he felt ashamed.

  It struck him that what he had gone through that evening was as nothing to what she had endured. Targeted. He said, “In your journal … he met you at that ceremony, but you never wrote down what he said. Any reason for that?”

  She shrugged. “I can’t recall. Something about how he still really loved me. Just what a girl wants to hear at a dance.”


  “Did you believe him?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “In spite of all the shit he pulled on you?”

  She met his gaze. “Have you ever been in love, Detective Paz? I mean totally, up to your eyes?”

  “All the time,” he said lightly, and immediately regretted his tone.

  “You haven’t, or you wouldn’t ask. I guess I was more of a Catholic about marriage than I figured. I thought it was for life. I guess it is. The Gelede priestess had it right: either I’ll kill him or he’ll kill me. You know what’s the worst thing? I keep thinking it’s my fault.”

  “He doesn’t seem like such a bargain.”

  “You didn’t know him,” she said with a snap to her voice, and then let out a startled laugh. “Christ! I’m still defending him. Yeah, sure, he’s a demon and a serial killer, but aside from that, when you really get to know him, deep inside he’s … I wonder if he has any inside left. You know what real love is, Detective? It’s not what you think. It’s not loving the virtues of the beloved. Anyone can love you for your virtues, that’s no trick. I mean, that’s what virtues are?lovable qualities. It’s the unlovely stuff that makes love. We all have a little nasty wounded place in us, and if you can get someone to find that and love it, then you really have something. And I thought I did. I thought I really saw him, how he saw himself at the core, the baby in the garbage can, the son of the junkie nigger whore and her white trick. I know he saw me. I certainly opened myself enough.”

  “What’s your nasty wounded place, Jane?”

  She gave him one of her sharp looks. “Is this part of the official interrogation, Detective?”

  “No, but I told you mine.”

  “Fair enough. Okay, my mother hated me. Boo-hoo. From the cradle. A staple of cheap pop psychology, so banal I can’t even take it seriously myself, but Witt Moore did. He thought I was beautiful, and smart, and perfect. He may still, God help me.” She turned then and looked backward over the rail, to where the creamy wake vanished into the black waters. Paz let her stare for the remainder of the ride.

  He dropped the anchor in the shallow waters of Bear Cut and switched off the motor. In the ringing silence afterward they could hear the swishing of the mangroves and the plash of wavelets on the nearby beach. The air was clean and smelled of salt and marshes. The moon was nearly full, frosting each billow, out to the horizon, row on row. They could see the lights of the city, although some parts of it were oddly dark. There was a red glow north of the river, sign of a major fire.

  Paz went below and came back with a bottle of Bacardi Ańejo rum and a couple of paper cups. They sat on a cushioned bench at the stern and he poured a generous slug into each cup.

  “Happy days,” said Paz, lifting his cup. She smiled faintly and drank. She coughed and pulled a vial from her bag and took a couple of pills.

  “So what I don’t get is why the two single killings, if he needs four. I mean that woman in Africa, and your sister.”

  “The Olo must have stopped him in Africa. Uluné isn’t the only sorcerer they have. That’s why he came home is my guess. No one believes in that stuff here. My sister … I told you, he wants me to watch him. I’m his audience. He used to tell me that about his writing. Jane, it’s all for you, I think of what you’ll say when you see it. You keep me honest.”

  “But he thought you were dead.”

  “So I believed. But maybe he wasn’t fooled. Or maybe he was trying to bring me back from the dead.”

  Paz drank a big swallow of rum. “Can he do that?”

  “Maybe. It’s not unknown. Usually you need the body, though.” She shuddered. “I’m going to have to stay up,” she said. “But feel free to get some rest yourself.”

  “No, I’ll stay up with you,” he said. Five minutes later he was snoring softly. She took the cup from his lax hand and went into the cabin. She checked to see that Luz was all right, and then went back on deck. She sat in the swivel chair behind the helm and tried not to think, occasionally taking a sip of rum. Something about Witt leaving Africa buzzed around in her mind, a connection she wasn’t making. They stopped the witch in Africa, and then let the witch’s apprentice come over to the land of the dik, and … and what? Did they mean for him to wreak havoc among the dik ? No, the okunikua was forbidden, so they couldn’t have … she shook her head in frustration. It wouldn’t come. She let it fade and let the sounds of wind and water provide a temporary peace.

  She was still sitting there when the sky went violent pink and the sun rose out of the sea. Paz got up a little later and, without comment, went into the cabin. Before long the smell of strong coffee issued from the hatch. He brought her a cup. They had just started to drink it when Paz’s cell phone buzzed.

  He hesitated. “Answer it,” she said. “It could be important.”

  He held it to his ear, and she saw his face pale. He said, “What!” then “Yeah” a few times, then, “I’m on my boat. No, it’s a long story. No, I’ll be there, ninety minutes tops. Have a car at Northwest Seventh and the river.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Another disaster. Barlow’s barricaded in the police chief’s office, with his shotgun, the chief, and a secretary. He says the end times are coming and he wants to preach on TV. I have to go in. Shit! What do we do, Jane?”

  “There’s some stuff at my place that could help. We could drop Luz off with Polly, too.”

  “Will we have to go through another … you know, like last night?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think we have a choice, though.”

  As if in answer, Paz started the motor. They headed back to Miami at top speed, barely slapping the waves. Ahead, they saw the pall of smoke, with the white skyline poking through it like stiffened fingers.

  Headquarters, when they arrived, was a media zoo. A dozen vans were in place, each one supplied with a handsome person filling the voracious maw of live airtime by talking nonsense in a pool of harsh circus light to a camera and the watching world. Their arrival caused a great stir; the police car escorts, with their sirens uttering short whoops, and Jane’s Buick moved slowly through a lane preserved by cops in riot gear, behind whom jostled and shouted several hundred reporters and photographers.

  “Care to make a statement?” asked Paz as they rolled into the underground garage. “Explain on national TV what’s going on in the Magic City?”

  She had her head down, and seemed to be mumbling something, a chant of some kind, low and rhythmic. In her hand was a dusty plastic baggie containing an ounce or so of some brown powder. She had her fingers in it, stirring, rubbing. She put two brown-stained fingers in her mouth.

  Lieutenant Posada grabbed Paz at the elevator when they got off at the sixth floor. His normally tan face was grayed out like old concrete, and his ordinary expression of genial stupidity was now the mask of a trapped rodent.

  “What the fuck is going on, Paz? Where the fuck have you been?”

  “Dinner and a boat ride,” said Paz. “With this nice lady. This nice lady says she can solve our problem.”

  Posada gaped at Jane. He had clearly been briefed over the radio by the cops he had sent to pick up Paz, but he was paralyzed by the thought of sending a civilian in, someone who could provide another hostage.

  “What are you gonna do?” he asked her.

  Jane said, “I believe Detective Barlow has been affected by an African psychotropic poison. I believe I have the antidote here. I need to get close to him, though.”

  Posada said, “He asked for bread and wine. He’s Jesus or some shit. Maybe you could bring it in to him.” He paused, ass-covering thoughts transparent on his face. “Can we put the … um, antidote in the wine?”

  “No, I have to be there.”

  “You got to sign a release.”

  “I’d be happy to,” said Jane.

  It took some time to get the release signed and prepare a tray and to explain to the protesting hostage negotiators that they were going to let this civilian woman
walk into an office with an armed madman. While all this was going on, underneath the rustle and hum of the hallway they could hear another sound, muffled by the doors that separated the voice from them, but comprehensible nevertheless: “… and the kings of the earth and the great men and the rich men and the chief captains, Christ fucking son of a bitch, goddamn you all to hell, black bastards, the Lamb, they said, the Lamb, they said to the mountains and the rocks fall on us and hide us from the face of us who sitteth, who sitteth on the fucking throne and from the wrath of the Lamb for the great day of his wrath has come and who shall be able to abide it …”

  “He’s been going nonstop like that for hours,” said the chief negotiator. “Take a look at this monitor.” They had run a hair-thin cable in through a ceiling fixture, and the tiny fish-eye lens at the tip of it gave a good view of the chief’s office. Horton was in his chair, behind his desk, his arms taped to the armrests with white medical tape, and the same tape had been used to affix the muzzle of a shotgun to his neck and to seal his mouth. His eyes were closed. Barlow was behind him, holding the shotgun’s stock and waving a revolver around as he ranted. The secretary was not in sight.

  Jane refused a bulletproof vest. The chief negotiator started talking at her, telling her what she mustn’t do, giving her a crash course in hostage psychology. As far as Paz could see, she was ignoring him entirely, eyes half closed, her left hand clutched around the little bag of powder. Then she seemed to snap awake. She caught Paz’s eye.

  “Detective Paz, listen to me?I may not come out of there. If I don’t, I want you to promise me that you’ll get Luz to my family. She likes you. I don’t want her caught in the bureaucracy, foster homes … There’s a lawyer’s card in my bag. He’ll know what to do, but I want you to take her to Sionnet. Will you promise me that?”