Evil Returns

by Cave, Hugh

The man did so, and Clarisse knew what was happening. Her master's eyes would be live coals glowing red in the dark, and gazing into them would be nearly as painful as having hot coals pressed against one's own eyeballs. Yet it would not be possible to look away.

  "Go," Margal said.

  "But if he will not talk to you—"

  "He will talk to me. Go." And to Clarisse, "Put me down."

  She placed him on the ground and stood behind him, again knowing what would happen. And because he was using his eyes on the car now, it did.

  She saw a light wink on as the driver opened his door and stepped from the machine. It went out as the door clicked shut. The man walked toward them like a zombie.

  Halting before them, he simply stood there motionless with his arms dangling. He was a thin man with bony wrists and limp, long-fingered hands. "What is your name?" Margal asked him. "Zepherin, m'sieu."

  "I am hiring you to drive the three of us to Gifford."

  "Where is that, m'sieu?"

  "A few miles south of here."

  "I am supposed to drive people to Miami."

  "They can wait."

  "Of course."

  "You may carry me to the car," Margal said. "My lady is tired."

  The driver picked him up as though he had been taking such orders for years. It was usually so, Clarisse reflected as she followed them, holding Merry Dawson's hand. Behind them now came others from the boat.

  At the car, the driver waited for her to open the rear door, then deposited Margal on the seat. She and the child got in to share it with him. The suitcase was already on the floor, and the man who had carried it stood a few paces distant, silently staring.

  Clarisse dosed the door. The driver had just turned the ignition key and switched on the headlights when the people from the boat appeared out of the darkness. Seeing the three already in the car, some surged forward with cries of protest.

  Margal looked at them, and they halted.

  "Tell them you will return for them," he instructed the driver.

  Zepherin did so, as though the words had no meaning to him.

  "Now drive on."

  The car moved forward while the boat people stood in silence, watching it leave them stranded.

  It was a large car, air conditioned, and once it reached a concrete highway it ate up the miles swiftly. Clarisse made herself comfortable, welcoming the change from the sea voyage. But by the taste of the air, she knew the ocean was still close by.

  The child gazed out the window. Margal sat with his eyes closed and a look of concentration on his scarred face. Nothing was said for ten minutes or so.

  Then the headlights picked out a sign bearing the name of the town that was their destination, and the driver said, "We seem to be here, m'sieu. Where in Gifford am I to take you?"

  "Turn right just ahead."

  "As you say, m'sieu."

  Clarisse almost spoke but decided not to. Never before had Margal been here, she was certain. Or anywhere else in the United States. How, then, could he know?

  But, of course, he did.

  They turned from the four-lane highway onto a narrow strip of blacktop. "Go slow here," Margal said. "There will soon be a road on the left."

  There was, and he ordered Zepherin to take it: another narrow, black road with nothing on either side for the headlights to reveal except sand and scrub, with now and then a stunted pine or cabbage palm. To Clarisse it was desolation, even in the dark. What, dear God, could have persuaded the master to come to such a place?

  "Turn to the right, ahead."

  This road was unpaved and rutted.

  "Now watch for a house on the left, with a light burning on its veranda."

  "They are expecting you, m'sieu?"

  "No, but the light is burning, as I say. By the driveway is a mailbox with the name 'Jumel' on it. Stop beside it."

  And there it all was, just around the next bend. The house, the light, the driveway, the mailbox, the name. Zepherin stopped the car.

  Margal said, "Go to the door for me, please, Clarisse. Ask if M'sieu Jumel is at home. If he is, come back and carry me to him, so that I may talk to him face-to-face."

  And make him know, she thought as she opened the car door, that he, too, is now part of this mysterious game we are playing, whether he wishes to be or not.

  Chapter Ten

  In her daughter's deserted playroom, Sandy Dawson gazed through a haze of despair at the red tricycle. Today was Thursday. Merry had disappeared last Friday night.

  Six days. Six centuries.

  She had driven every street in Port-au-Prince that could be driven, she was certain. She had walked many of them. She had spent hours begging the police to do more than they were doing.

  "Perhaps the child has been stolen for ransom, Madame."

  "But no one has made any demands!"

  Stolen. His word. It was growing in her mind now like a malignant tumor. Not just because of what she had read in sensational books. She didn't believe most of that. Though there was such a thing as voodoo here, of course—affecting the life of this country as surely as an underground stream affected plant life in the earth above it.

  But there could be other reasons for stealing a little girl as attractive as Merry. Sexual reasons. Or to fill a void in a childless family. And if Merry had been taken for one of those reasons, there would be no demand for ransom, only an endless silence. The child would be kept hidden until everyone but her parents had forgotten about her.

  Going down the stairs, Sandy clung to the railing. In the living room she sat and gazed blankly at the telephone.

  Six days.

  She had tried to phone Brian in Miami. Had called his hotel time and again, only to be told that he was not there and given another number to call. But calls to the other number had also gone unanswered, no matter what the time. Once she had phoned at three in the morning.

  The Embassy, too, had tried without success. But while she was frantic, they were merely furious. On one of her visits she had overheard something not meant for her ears: that Brian Dawson was able to do "these stinking things" only because his father was close to the President. "I'd like to see the bastard get his comeuppance just once, damn him."

  Walk the streets. Hound the police. Hammer at the Embassy. She had even tried to enlist the help of an army officer she knew slightly, and a Catholic priest who taught at the College St. Martial. Anyone. While Edita, who really loved the child, had doggedly sought information in places a white woman would be neither understood nor welcome.

  All in vain.

  What else could she do?

  One more thing. She looked at her watch. Quarter to ten. How Ken Forrest could possibly help she did not know. But he might know someone to whom she could turn.

  She never had called the plantation where Ken worked, though its number was in the phone book. As she waited for the connection, her fingers whitened around the phone.

  She heard sputters and clicks, and then a ringing. "Plantation Margot. Bon jour."

  "Ken Forrest, please. This is Mrs. Brian Dawson."

  "Mrs. Dawson in Port-au-Prince?"

  "Yes. It's urgent that I—"

  "I'm sorry, Mrs. Dawson. Ken isn't here."

  Her voice must have told him something. He came back quickly with, "You might be able to contact him this evening, though, right there in Port at the Pension Etoile. Do you know where that is?"

  "Yes." It was a small hotel on the Champ-de-Mars, generally ignored by tourists. The kind of place Ken would stay.

  "He's on his way to the city now. Flying in. He has to be in Miami tomorrow."

  She discovered her mind was still working, after all. "What time is he due here? Can I catch him at the airport?"

  "You might. In fact, I think yes." The voice was cheerful now. "He got a new camera from the States yesterday and said he'd be trying for some aerial shots of the Citadelle on his way in this morning. That should stretch his flight time a bit."

  "Thank
you!" Sandy shouted. "I'm on my way!"

  Ken Forrest had indeed gone out of his way to take new pictures of the incredible mountaintop fortress built years before by King Christophe. One of the special rewards of working in Haiti was the freedom his job provided to explore and photograph—sometimes by plane but more often by Jeep or on muleback—this mysterious country that for most outsiders ended at the outskirts of the capital.

  Coming in for a landing at Port-au-Prince now, he set the company's light plane down with a touch of a flourish, just to prove a point to the cowboys who flew for the Haitian Air Force. Some were nightclub buddies of his when he spent an evening in the city. Being sons of the elite, they delighted in telling him that he looked more like a farmer than a pilot.

  "Well, hell, I am a farmer. I was born on a farm."

  He had been born, he liked to tell them, in Aroostook County, Maine, where his father was still one of that state's top potato growers. "But there are only two seasons in that part of the U.S—July and winter—so I opted for college in Miami and ended up here at the plantation."

  None of his pals appeared to be present this morning, however. Mildly disappointed, he picked up his suitcase and headed for the terminal to catch a taxi. While loping past the bar, he heard his name called.

  He stopped. The voice had been female, with an unmistakable note of invitation. Wheeling, he saw waving to him the wife of a man who worked at the U.S. Embassy. At a recent Embassy get-together, she had not seemed to mind that he looked like a farmer. If, indeed, he did.

  A striking blonde, Veronica Holly was married to a man who believed an employee of State should always wear, even in the tropics, dark trousers, white shirt, a jacket, and a tie. She would have liked to know better this man who stood six-two, flew a plane, had the rugged features of one who spent most of his time outdoors, and, so far as she knew, never dressed up unless he had to.

  "Well, hi," she said as he approached the bar. "What brought you to town?"

  Ken put down his bag and accepted her hand. "Have to go to Miami tomorrow. Business."

  And what, she quickly asked herself, might he be doing until then? Today was Thursday. Her husband, Hal, was in Jéremie and would be there until Sunday. "You've time for a drink, then." Her smile made it more than a casual invitation.

  Ken ordered a Barbancourt-and-soda from the hovering bartender. "And what are you doing here at the airport?"

  "I came to see a friend off."

  He was not a man for small talk, she recalled. At least, at the Embassy party he hadn't been. Not that it mattered. Small talk was something she received from her husband seven days a week. And nights. It was not what she wanted now.

  Still, you couldn't just stand and stare at a man, could you?

  To fill the gap, she said, "Have you heard about the kidnapping?"

  "Kidnapping? I've been in the bush all week."

  "Sandy Dawson's little girl."

  She saw his fingers tighten on his glass and was surprised it didn't break. "Merry? What happened? When?"

  She had made a mistake, she realized. He knew the Dawsons. And she didn't want to . . . But it was too late now. Damn.

  "Well, no one seems to know what did happen, exactly." How could she keep the telling brief? "Brian left for Miami Friday. Next morning, when Sandy got up, their child was gone. The whole city's been looking for her."

  "My God." His face was actually pale. "What do they think happened?"

  She shrugged, then wished she hadn't. She mustn't seem indifferent. Nobody ought to be indifferent to the disappearance of a little girl, even when the child's father was a bastard. "Well, you know the stories that circulate here when something like this happens. The crazy voodoo tales."

  "But Sandy must be frantic! And Brian. Has he come back?"

  "She can't locate him. Even the Embassy can't." She reached for his arm. "Look. Drink up and let's go to my place for a refill. It's a long story."

  But he was not hearing her.

  He was not hearing because he was looking past her at something. And when she turned to see what had caught his attention, she could have kicked herself for having asked him to have a drink here. What you should have done, stupid, was offer him a lift to town. Because the person coming toward them at a run was the woman they were talking about. And the look on the face of Ken Forrest was the one she herself had been hoping to arouse.

  Well, perhaps not really hoping. But when you were wed to a man who wore embroidered purple pajamas to bed in Haiti's summer heat, you had to at least try.

  With a sigh of surrender, the wife of Hal Holly stepped back against the bar to avoid being caught in the middle as the two came together.

  "Sandy!" Ken Forrest said. "I've just heard—"

  "Thank God you're still here. I got caught in traffic."

  "—about Merry."

  "That's why I'm here. Oh, Ken, I need help! Do you have time to help me?"

  "Of course." Still holding her hands, he turned to Veronica. "Excuse me, will you, Mrs. Holly?"

  Her "Run along" was merely a vocal shrug.

  Ken put money on the bar and let Sandy lead him out to her car. "Better let me drive," he advised. "You look a bit rocky."

  "I am."

  He opened the door for her. "Where to? Your house?"

  "Do you mind?"

  As he drove, she told him what had happened, and he managed to steal a few close looks at her despite the traffic. How long was it since he had been this close to her?

  A long time. Much too long a time.

  On coming to work in Haiti he had not looked her up. He knew, of course, that Brian was the Embassy man who had given the plantation his name, and that could only mean Sandy had suggested it. But it didn't have to mean she wanted to see him.

  If she did, she knew where to find him and how to use a phone.

  They had met twice at events in the capital, but only as impersonal parts of a crowd. Two totally unsatisfactory meetings in nearly two years.

  She hadn't changed much, had she?—except she now looked as though she hadn't slept for days. But then, maybe he didn't look any different, either. Maybe the ache didn't show.

  By the time they reached Rue Printemps she had finished briefing him. Following her into the house, he sank onto a chair in the living room.

  "Where do you suppose Brian is?"

  "With some woman somewhere."

  "You can't mean that."

  "In all the time we've been in Haiti, he's taken me to Miami only twice. Why does he go alone?"

  "You think he checks in at the Greenway and then moves in with a girlfriend?"

  She shrugged.

  "You've called the hotel, you say."

  "So has the Embassy. Time and again. He told the hotel people he'd be gone for a few days. They haven't seen him since."

  Ken's scowl lowered bushy brows over his intense brown eyes. "If he planned on being away for a few days, he'd have given them a number to call."

  "He did. No one answers."

  "Have you tried to locate him through his father?"

  "By calling the White House? I'm not that close to dear Daddy. I haven't seen him since the day of our wedding, when he turned up late and stayed less than an hour."

  "All right. When I get to Miami tomorrow, I'll see what I can do. Meanwhile, let me make some local calls."

  Sandy said helplessly, "Who to? I've called everyone."

  "I know some police and army guys. It won't hurt to tell them I'm your friend."

  She came to him and stood with a hand on his shoulder. It was not an answer to the question in his mind, but it was something. If Brian was cheating, the marriage couldn't be all that great anyway.

  Why, for God's sake, hadn't he taken the trouble to find out?

  He made four calls. The last, to a Captain Roger Labrousse at a police post in the area, was the only one that produced results. The man was an older brother of one of his Haitian pilot pals.

  "Come see me. We have just uncov
ered something that may be important."

  "Should I bring Mrs. Dawson?"

  "I think not. Come alone."

  Chapter Eleven

  They sat across a long, bare table in a back room at the police station.

  "Have you ever heard of a man named Margal?"

  Ken hesitated. "I don't think so. But many Haitian names still sound pretty much alike to me."

  "You would remember this man. He has no legs."

  "He what?"

  "The man is a sorcerer. Some years ago, by order of—we think—a certain politician whom he refused to serve with his magic, he was so badly beaten up that his legs had to be amputated."

  "A sorcerer? A voodoo houngan, you mean?"

  Labrousse shrugged. With his height and supple grace, he should have been a basketball player. "Not a houngan. Voodoo people are not necessarily evil; in fact, usually they are not. Margal is a witch doctor, a bocor. Probably the most feared one in all Haiti."

  "And?"

  "Some time ago he masterminded a plot against our president. It failed at the last minute, and we thought he had perished in a fire." The captain paused to shake his head, as though he still found it difficult to believe what he was about to say. "Now we know we were mistaken. Margal did not die. He has been hiding in a house in Rue Printemps."

  "Sandy's street."

  "Pardon?"

  "Mrs. Dawson's street."

  "Where the child disappeared. Yes."

  Ken stared.

  Labrousse's eyebrows went up a little. "You are not impressed?"

  "Well, I—"

  "Of course. You have not been in Haiti that long, have you? Until now you had not even heard of our infamous Margal."

  "I've been here nearly two years, Roger."

  "But, like most outsiders, you still inwardly smile when witchcraft is mentioned, eh? So, then, I will simply state the facts as we have learned them."

  "Roger, don't think for a minute I'm una—"

  The tall captain waved Ken to silence. "Only the facts. Then form your own conclusions. In questioning people who lived or worked near the Dawsons' home we were, of course, merely hoping for a report of something unusual or suspicious. A lead, you might say."