The Woman Who Lost Her Soul Hardcover

by Bob Shacochis

  Whatever she and Burnette were working out with each other in the past they worked out this time in Haiti and so in her day pack is an envelope with the address of his town house and a key because she can’t be seen in Florida, especially Florida but anywhere, and she needs to stay dead until she can be reassembled and baptized anew into the midnight flock and he wonders if she’ll turn up in Fayetteville or disappear from his life altogether back into the Agency’s nethery vortex. He stands at the top of the ramp inside the bowel-like cavern of the fuselage as the soldiers slide her into the idling hearse and Burnette turns and recedes into the dimness of the plane to get his gear, stopping to stare mindlessly into the empty place that had contained her coffin. After a moment Bòkò St. Jean is there next to him, looking, also, into the dreamless afterglow of it all, and Ev swings an appreciative arm over the fellow’s shoulders and helps him down the ramp to deliver him to his escorts, his American rainmakers, some suit from State and someone, maybe INS or maybe US marshalls, and the master houngan is driven away in a town car, about to rise from the dead himself, a soul in search of asylum, reincarnated as a bureaucratic conundrum.

  Then Burnette finds a ride over to the commercial airport to catch a plane to Miami, where he connects with the late afternoon flight to Port-au-Prince and tracks down the immensely distraught and grieving Gerard and tells him, It looks like a nice night for a ride up north, my friend.

  The woman is dead, the woman is dead, Gerard laments, wagging his head in disbelief, and there’s nothing Eville can tell the driver to assuage his sorrow.

  I heard, man, says Burnette, switching from Kreyol to somber, almost angry English, feeling like a coldhearted prick but not ashamed about it either, not truly, because the truth could only console Gerard up to the point where his own life was cheapened by it, radically devalued; worth, in fact, nothing at all. I heard, he says again. Her husband whacked her.

  But she is protected by you! How can this happen?

  You know her better than me, Gerard. She told me to go away.

  She sent me away as well.

  Go figure, says Burnette.

  I do not cry, Gerard insists, but then, astonished by himself, he does, a little.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Beginning to end, with Renee Gardner sandwiched in between, his unfinished business with Ti Phillipe in Haiti had taken five days and on the sixth he returned to the States, arriving exhausted and stinking at the town house in Fayetteville well after dark, unlocking the door and hitting the light, instantly aware of a scent in the air that was not sweet but not his own. The flame-eyed empereur of Plain du Nord hung all by himself on the off-white expanse of a living room wall, staring back at him. Eville’s eyes swept the space: a café table and two nice wrought-iron chairs in the breakfast nook, and on the table, yellow tulips in a blue-glass vase next to his truck keys and a Toughbook laptop computer and a clipping from the St. Pete Times, two paragraphs of Renee’s obituary. In the big room an expensive black leather sofa—an upscale companion to his tattered recliner—and an oak bookcase for his books. No curtains on the windows but wood-slatted blinds, another high-end improvement in his monastic habitat. He dropped his duffel and his flight bag, taking in the domestic statement, wondering what exactly it was meant to mean. And then he heard her before he saw her, her voice playful with mock concern, saying, Burnette, how long have you lived here without a bed?

  She was standing in the half-shadow of the hallway that led back to the bathroom and bedroom, a figure of rumpled sensuality, sleepy-eyed and vulnerable, dressed in an olive T-shirt that said Army and wearing a purloined pair of his flannel boxer shorts, large enough to fall off her hips like culottes. Even in the dimness where she stood there was ample light to see the blonde reclaiming the roots of her hair, the punkish fading cinnamon color of the rest of it, and her expression, something he had not yet learned to fully trust, advertising a smile for her new campaign, said she was pleased to see him, he was a good thing, coming home.

  I’m not here that much, he said.

  There’s beer in the fridge, she said, padding barefoot into the light, her painted nails—toes and fingers—neon orange, a vividness matched only by the flowers. She removed the vase and computer to the kitchen counter and sat at the table one bare leg swung over the other and he opened two bottles and came around the divide to sit with her.

  So, he said, raising his beer and they clicked a toast, you look, you know, okay, I mean you look good. How are you?

  Good, she said. Nothing to it.

  Her gaze seemed guileless and direct but he could only look straight at her for so long without becoming self-conscious and his own gaze drifted beyond her to float around the adjoining rooms.

  You’ve been shopping.

  You have to expect that. From a girl, she said.

  Some of them. You?

  It was fun. I bought you a bed. It’s freaky not to own a bed.

  So, he said again, too travel-weary to be shy about talking but ready to change the subject, holding the here and now reality of their arrangements in escrow for the time being. I heard the Feds have Parmentier locked up in Miami.

  My poor little Jack, she said, the blade of her sarcasm slicing down. But her tone dropped, lower in the scale of her octave of mockery, when she said, I don’t think my father’s particularly happy about that.

  Okay, said Burnette. Okay, this is where I get lost in this whole thing.

  Well, she said. Yeah. I don’t think he thought this thing through far enough. That’s not like him.

  I want to ask you something, said Eville. Tell the truth. Did this guy Parmentier ever play golf with your father?

  Honestly? I don’t know. Everything’s possible.

  Let me ask you this, he said. Was your father running Parmentier or this other guy, the Pakistani guy?

  You mean from Germany, that guy? Maybe. I don’t know for certain. If he was running either of them, they probably wouldn’t have known. I know the DEA had Parm in the mix and a guy from the Bureau, Singer, was keeping an eye on him. Maybe they just co-opted him. Or Jack’s working for everybody, right? Jack has an interesting history with the mob, he’s from New Orleans and I know he answers to one of our own assets there, typical player conflict of interests but there you go. Colonel Khan’s one shipment of heroin landed in New Orleans, and I’m guessing that was a trial run, you know, to check out transit routes and networks for moving people out of Asia. But I think my father overvalues Parmentier, which is why I had to go and Jack got to stay. Only he didn’t, did he? Daddy’s worried that now that the Feds have him he’ll cut a deal and start talking and, at least for my father and the Agency, certain people in the Agency, that’s a problem. So he’s got someone, ex-Bureau, private investigator, who knows Jack, who was compromised by Jack when he was a special agent and Jack was his informant. My father has this guy pushing in the opposite direction. Not hard, but just enough for Parmentier to shut up and wait. It’s still a murder case, I’m still a dead girl. The guy, his name is Dolan, doesn’t know otherwise, and has no clue about my father’s involvement, but I’m afraid he does know his wayward daughter, Renee. I wouldn’t be surprised if he believes Jack shot me in the head.

  Man, said Burnette, I’m still not seeing this.

  Which part?

  Most parts.

  She asked him if he wanted to have another beer or if he needed to get some sleep and he said let’s keep talking and when he went to the fridge she slipped back into the bedroom and came back with a soda straw scissored to three inches and a glassine packet of cocaine. Don’t say anything, okay, Ev, she said, laying out a short line on the tabletop. I thought, you know, being in the hospital and being here alone would give me a chance to kick it over, but that isn’t happening. Not yet, okay. It seems I’m still Jack Parmentier’s cokehead wife. But
see, look, it’s just a little taste, that’s all, her cheery rationale, and he set her beer down next to her preoccupied hands, watching the powder go up her nose, her changing eyes.

  I love that feeling. When your two front teeth go numb.

  I love it when the snot runs out your nose. Very attractive.

  Ha ha, she said, not laughing.

  I thought I threw all that stuff out of your kit, he said. Where’d you get it?

  I’m good at hiding things, she said. And anyway, it’s not that hard to find. Just don’t be mad.

  I’m not, he said. I understand.

  With a pained look of hope, she studied his face until he watched the pain shift, hope clarifying to belief, now a pain that came when you were unprepared for another’s trueness and kindness, and she whispered, Thank you.

  That day in Haiti in Saint-Marc, he said, I was convinced you were a mentally deranged person and you said, Trust me, Burnette, and I trusted you and it’s worked out pretty well so far.

  She brightened. Second wind? she asked, tapping the gram of coke with her index finger.

  Not for me, he said. Help yourself, but she didn’t, sipping from her beer instead, and he said, How come you’re not wired?

  It’s strange, she said. It affects me in a different way, it calms me into alertness, wakefulness. Well, not always. Unless I overdo it.

  Can I ask you something?

  Have you heard me say no?

  Damn right I have.

  But not tonight.

  Right. So, who are you now? Are you Dottie now?

  Yes.

  I can call you Dottie and you’ll be Dottie?

  I actually am Dottie, Ev. But Dottie can’t always come to the door.

  I should get this by now, he said.

  He returned to the table with round number three and a can of roasted peanuts and Dottie finished off her second beer in one hurrying gulp and said with an energized air of resolution, All right, I should tell you some things I didn’t tell you in Haiti. First, about two months ago, I ran my mouth off to this guy Dolan at a restaurant in Tampa. I told him—I implied—what Jack was doing, not the drugs and the counterfeiting but something new, basically running a ratline for people we don’t want on this side of the Atlantic. At least a few of them were known terrorists and the others you could assume were on the same team, and Jack was supplying the paperwork and documents they needed to slip into the country, right, and I told Dolan if he had any influence over Jack to tell him to stop. After that, I don’t know, everything got a little weird, and then this guy Karim shows up in Port-au-Prince, at least I think it was him, although he was traveling with a German passport issued under the name of Ahmed Sidiqi. And when I passed this information on to my father, his reaction was, It’s not Karim, and, Stay the fuck away from him. And then he had his visa and was gone.

  Uh-huh, said Eville. What’s that about? Who’s this Karim, exactly? He’s not Paki?

  When I lived in Turkey, Karim murdered a boy. She stopped for a moment in the telling, her face blank with memory.

  A boy I knew, she continued. Karim and another man pushed him off a boat and he drowned. Then he went away to do jihad in Afghanistan during the time that my father was in and out of Peshawar, Operation Bags of Money or something, you know, that big game, and if you told me my father met him there I wouldn’t be surprised. Daddy knew all the jihadists sooner or later. Actually, if you told me Karim worked for my father—in what way, at what point, I don’t know—that wouldn’t surprise me, either. Anyway, if this guy who showed up in Port-au-Prince was in fact Karim, my father was worried I might lose it and blow the op by going after him.

  Like how? Going after him?

  To avenge my boyfriend.

  You would have done that?

  I’ve considered it, she said, frowning, digging a peanut out of the can to throw at him. You still think I’m psycho, don’t you. I’m Jezebel or somebody.

  My opinion of you is—they both said unformed simultaneously and erupted with laughter.

  He excused himself to use the bathroom and when he came back she said did you see the bed and he said it’s big, is that a king? Queen, she said and told him she figured he might barf if she went for anything fancy.

  I like it, he said. That style. A platform or whatever.

  Oh good, she said, happy and high. Sit back down and I’ll tell you my big confession.

  Maybe you should wait until tomorrow, he said, sitting back down.

  No no no. This is important. Jack Parmentier really was in love with me.

  Yeah?

  Yes. And it was becoming clear to me that my father and I were working at cross-purposes and that was just not going to end well. The op had to shut down and Jack would never have let me walk away from him and I knew my father would never agree because he wanted these fuckers to come in so he could put them under surveillance and see what they’re up to, they had cells in Florida and California and other places, and I want to keep them out, period. They are evil, period. Why let them in, period. It’s as simple as that, really.

  Wait, hold on, said Eville. Am I hearing this right? You did this thing to protect yourself from your father?

  Protect is the wrong word, she said. I had to step out of his way.

  Nope, not simple, said Burnette. Not making sense.

  It’s not like Americans are sneaking around in trench coats murdering each other. She tweaked herself again with the coke and raised her eyes to his face and said, Come on, don’t look at me like that. I’m not lying.

  You’re hard to follow. How are you going to get any sleep, putting shit up your nose.

  Don’t worry about me, she said.

  Let me get back to you on that. Your father might still have me on the worry-about-you clock.

  Oh, fuck you. Let’s try again. Did I tell you Jack was in love with me? Crazy in love?

  You did.

  So maybe love’s the wrong word, too. He was obsessed with me, totally. The relevant point is this. I see what’s going on down there and I don’t agree. My father says ridiculous, forget it, I’m imagining things, just like I once imagined he was involved in my boyfriend’s death in Istanbul. I tell him to pull me out and I’ll just disappear, but my father says that won’t really work because Jack knows too many people who know too many people who know the right people and he’ll do what he never really bothered to do when he took up with me, which is look below the surface at who I am, and that makes sense to me because of Jack’s obsession, you know, he wouldn’t have let me vanish into thin air. So I let my father persuade me I have to go. I want to go. But be a clever girl, he says, and come up with a plan that leaves the ratline intact. So what happens next? I don’t remember everything I told you in Haiti. Should we have another beer?

  Last one, he said, getting up.

  Where was I? she said. Oh. Ti Phillipe is plotting something dramatic.

  Phillipe knew who you were?

  No, he knew I was Renee, Jack’s moll, uncontrollable bimbo addict—let’s not forget, white—who knew too much about their trafficking and he had people try to check me out but didn’t know who to believe. Even Jack began to suspect Phillipe’s intentions. Now there’s murder and mistrust in the air, and I need to devise a scenario for my exit. My father gets involved and he has this inspirational flash from Jackie’s original mission, her scientific focus, her research into the potions and the powders, the ethnobotanical aspects of vodou, right, remember? Traditional medical applications but more specifically, the secrets of the houngans’ apothecary, and Daddy said, What about that? Is that a possibility? What are the risks, et cetera, is it worth considering? And so I thought about it, you know—trusting Daddy doesn’t always work out—but I talked to St. Jean. Not to say I wasn’t p
ersonally fascinated.

  What you’re telling me, he said, shaking his head with disbelief. You always do what your father says? That’s it, isn’t it?

  My father’s a great man.

  There’s a big thick file of daddy issues.

  You have no fucking idea. But come on, you have to admit, it was pretty cool.

  My solutions come ready-made.

  Oh, right. Look, a problem—bang. Look, another problem—bang. Oops, there’s a bigger problem—boom. Not very creative. One size fits all.

  He yawned and rubbed an eye with the ball of his fist and told her it was time to pack it up for the night and began untying his boots, Dottie looking on, something behind her facile curiosity that seemed imploring, though it wasn’t in her voice, which held its edge.

  Ev, can I ask? Are you glad I’m here?

  Yeah, he said, glancing up from his shoelaces. I’m glad you’re alive.