Clint was feeling a lot better as he sat up in bed. He watched through the window as the ghost of an alabaster moon swung low, setting over McPherson Bayou. He felt good. Better than he had in a long time. Strong. He could feel the blood coursing through his veins, his sinewy muscles flexing. He ran his tongue over his teeth and felt sharp points. It felt like his canines had doubled in length. He reached up to open the window and noticed that a tuft of black hair had sprouted on the back of his hand. As Clint stared at the almost transparent, bewitching moon he felt the urge to howl. He ripped open his shirt, popping buttons across the room and revealing a thick mat of fur.
Baring his teeth, he drew back and sent a long, harrowing howl moonward.
“What the hell was that?” Dee Dee said to Cutter as she dug through the vials and potions she had dumped from Hussey’s doctor bag onto her bed.
“Sounded like a wolf,” Cutter said “A big one.”
“There aren’t any wolves in St. Petersburg. I can’t find anything that looks like Mambo powder,” she said. “It’s not here.”
“Shit,” Cutter said. “I have to pay Tony what I owe him or he is going to have my legs broken.”
Dee Dee stepped back from the pile of vials and then moved toward Hussey’s closet. “Hey, there’s a backpack in the closet, maybe she has something in there.”
Dee Dee emptied the contents of the backpack onto the bed, adding another layer of colorful vials of potions and powders to the current pile.
“Borko!” said Cutter, picking up a vial of deep purple powder and reading the label. “I remember Hussey saying once that Borko is zombie powder. This must be the right stuff, and it’s the right color.”
Dee Dee snatched the vial from Cutter’s hand and slipped it into her pocket. “OK, let’s go make another zombie,” she said. “I’m not sure what we gave the cowboy before, but I’m pretty sure, whatever it was, it wasn’t zombie powder.”
The door to Clint’s room flew open and Cowpie, in full clown regalia, burst into the room, arms spread wide to embrace Clint’s terror. When he saw the clown, Clint bared his teeth, a menacing growl bubbling up from deep inside his chest. Cowpie stood paralyzed. This was not the way it was supposed to happen. He was supposed to burst in and scare Clint shitless but instead there was a huge, snarling, growling wolf-like monster hunched on all fours on Clint’s bed
Clint, snapping his powerful jaws, his mouth dripping ropy strings of saliva through his razor sharp fangs, leaped toward the clown, blood in his eyes. Cowpie screamed and bolted from the room with Clint, the werewolf, bounding after him on all fours. Tearing past Cutter and Dee Dee, Cowpie knocked Cutter into the wall as he sprinted toward the stairway. Dee Dee managed to step out of the way and press herself up against the wall as the clown ran past, screaming. Hot on the clown’s heels, Dee Dee gawped at what looked like an enormous wolf, snapping at the clown’s backside.
When Dee Dee and Cutter arrived at Clint’s room they found it empty except for a shirt ripped to pieces on the floor.
“Uh oh,” Dee Dee said as they surveyed the empty room. “Do you think that was Clint chasing the clown?” she said.
Cutter picked up the vial of powder that sat on the dresser. “Oh yeah, I remember what Loup Garou means now,” he said. “It means werewolf.”
Bella was explaining to Jones, in graphic detail, what she had in mind for him when she got him alone as he pulled his cruiser into the parking lot of the police station. Jones was considering whether to turn the cruiser around and head straight to his apartment or jump into the back seat and ravish her on the spot, when his radio crackled to life. “Please repeat that,” Jones spoke into the microphone, his libido placed on hold. “That’s what I thought you said.” Jones shook his head. “It just keeps getting crazier and crazier doesn’t it?” he told the dispatcher.
As Jones opened the rear door to let Bella out, Dickerson’s voice crackled through the radio. “Jones, did you hear that?”
“I heard.” Jones sniggered as he pressed the button on his microphone. “A werewolf chasing a clown down the beach? You gotta be kidding me.”
“The chief wants to see you as soon as possible,” Dickerson said, “I’ll check out the werewolf. Probably just a big dog anyway,”
“It’s always something,” Jones said, shaking his head. “This town keeps getting weirder every day.”
As Jones escorted Bella past the front desk, the desk sergeant handed him a pink inter-office memo. Jones scanned the memo which confirmed that the chief wanted to see him as soon as he got back; he took Bella to a bench beside the desk. “I have to go talk to the boss. The desk sergeant will take you down to the lock-up. As soon as I can, I’ll get you out.”
“Jane,” Jones said, turning to the desk sergeant. “Would you mind taking this young lady down to processing?”
“Charge?” said the desk sergeant.
“Disturbing the peace. I’ll meet you down there in a few minutes with a release order.”
Bella grabbed Jones’s butt, a lusty look in her eye, as he walked away. “Make it quick. We got a date.”
“What was the deal on the body on the beach?” the sheriff said, “another homeless person?”
“No, it was false alarm,” Jones said. “The girl was just sleeping naked on the beach, but she’s going to be booked for disturbing the peace. Probably be out in an hour. Why do you want to see me?” He dropped into a chair across from the sheriff.
“I got a call from the Tampa hospital,” the sheriff said. “The boxer’s going to be alright, he came out of the coma a few minutes ago. He sat up in bed and asked for breakfast. There don’t seem to be any complications, except that the doctor said he no longer shows any signs of OCD. I didn’t even know he had OCD.”
Jones thought of the voodoo doll he had found on the dresser in Bella’s hotel room. Before he had pulled the pin from its stomach, he had noticed the doll was wearing white boxer trunks and had a patch of blond hair glued to its head. “What color is Dutch’s hair?” he said. “Was he fighting in white trunks?”
“He’s blond,” said the sheriff, “and yes, he always fought in white trunks. I’ve seen him fight before. But what does that have to do with anything?”
“Oh, nothing,” Jones said. “Just wondering.”
The sheriff beetled his brow. “Anyway, Rebel Buford is going to be OK too. He was pretty banged up, didn’t come to until yesterday. Besides a few broken bones and some third degree burns he’s doing fine and get this, he doesn’t have claustrophobia any more. Again, there was nothing in any of the other reports that said Rebel had claustrophobia.”
“So Hussey is clear of charges?” Jones said. “Should we cut her loose?”
“Not so fast,” the sheriff said. “I followed up on the tip from that cook, Cutter. I called the bank while you were out and Miss Paine made a large deposit the day after the Daytona race. It looks like she cleaned up on the race. The chemical analysis folks said the powder she had on her matches the chemical analysis on Dutch and Rebel Buford. Some sort of hallucinogenic substance. And your report said that she has knowledge of voodoo and how to make zombies, not that I believe there is any such thing. So she had the big three; means, opportunity and motive. I think we should keep her in custody for a while.”
Jones leaned against the wall outside the basement lock-up, just out of sight of the row of jail cells, and listened.
“What are you doing here?” Hussey asked Bella who was locked in the cell beside hers.
“I got arrested for disturbing the peace. You?”
“I got arrested for making zombies.” Hussey folded her arms across her breasts and tapped her foot. “I didn’t make anyone a zombie that I didn’t have to!”
As she finished her sentence, Jones came walking down the hall between the jail cells.
“Then who did?” Jones said to Hussey.
“It was Dee Dee and Cutter who made those men into zombies” Bella chimed in. “Cutter told me so himself.”
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br /> “That makes sense,” Jones said. “The bartender at the Fugu Lounge told me both men were escorted out of the bar by Dee Dee and Cutter and the next time he saw them, they were ‘different.’”
“Cutter is dead meat,” Hussey said. “I’m going to start with the vulture claw and then get seriously voodoo on his ass.”
“There’s still one loose end,” Jones said to Hussey. “There was a very large deposit into your account the day after the Daytona race. The sheriff thinks you turned Rebel into a zombie and then cleaned up by betting on him.”
“It must have been Cutter who made the deposit,” Hussey said, sidestepping the subject of making Rebel a zombie. “You can probably check the bank cameras to prove it. Now will you let me out of here so I can go kill that miserable little shit?”
“And the boxer in your hotel room?” Jones said to Bella. “I saw all those powders in your room and I know what they are. I saw the recipe in the conjure book and I saw the voodoo doll. I know who that was.
“OK, so I did a little conjuring on that Dutch fellow, won a little money. That man will be fine when I take the needle out of the doll.”
“I already did,” Jones said, remembering how he removed the needle from the doll. “He came out of the coma about the same time. He doesn’t even have OCD anymore. And the race car driver is OK too. He was in a coma for a few days but he woke up fine as frog’s hair, minus his psychological problems. He was cured of his claustrophobia.”
“Do you know what this means?” Hussey said.
“Yes,” Jones said. “No murder charges. So I don’t see any point in keeping you locked up. The sheriff wants to keep you in jail for a while but I think I’m through taking orders from him.”
“It also means the Mambo powder works on humans.” Hussey was too excited to listen to what Jones said. “That’s monumental! It means my little concoction could revolutionize neurobiology.”
“Mama Wati would be proud of you,” Bella said. “That old woman loved you. Me, she blinded.”
“She blinded you?”
“It’s a long story. Remember the voodoo doll mama had? The one with the eyes sewn up? That was me.”
“But why?” Hussey said.
“Who knows? The woman was crazy.”
“Did you poison Mama Wati?” Hussey said to Bella, her face returning to a serious scowl.
“I don’t think I want to know about this,” Jones said.
“No, I didn’t poison Mama Wati.” Bella sighed again. “I told her there was poison in her food and she believed it. Her belief killed her. One of the first things Mama taught me was that belief is power.”
“She died because you told her there was poison in the food?” Hussey was beyond skeptical.
“I did a few things to make her think she was going to die,” Bell said. “I got three decks of tarot cards from the occult store and had the woman at the store take out all the good cards. I had her leave in all the cards like the hanged man and death, and the really bad sword cards, so every time she read her cards they said she was going to die. And whenever she dozed off in her chair I snuck up and whispered ‘screech owl’ in her ear so she would dream of one. Dreaming of a screech owl means you are going to die.”
“So you made her think she was going to die, and telling her there was poison in her food pushed her over the edge?” Hussey said.
“Maybe she just thinks she’s dead,” Bella said. “I don’t know if there is a difference in thinking you’re dead and actually being dead. She died because she felt guilty about what she had done to me, making me blind, treating me like a maid. Her conscience killed her. If you do bad things, even if you think you have a good reason, in the end karma is going to come around and bite you in the ass.”
“What about the fighter in your room?” Jones said to Bella. “Are they going to find any zombie powder in his bloodstream when they examine him?”
“The only thing they’re going to find in that man’s bloodstream is Scotch,” Bella said. “He isn’t a zombie; he just passed out, dead drunk. The man is a pig. But he was so happy I helped him win the fight I couldn’t help but invite him back to my room to have a few drinks. I did think about making him a zombie. I read up on it in that conjures book, but I didn’t have any voodoo powder. I did take some of those mushroom seeds from Mama Wati when I left. That’s why I was lying on the beach trying to get buzzards to puke at me. I was going to grow my own Mambo powder—”
“The conjures book?” interrupted Hussey. “You mean my book, the book Mama Wati gave me?”
“That’s the one,” Bella said, “it should have been mine in the first place. I was supposed to be her apprentice.”
“But the book is in the closet in my room at the Santeria,” Hussey said.
“Not anymore,” Bella said “I made Cutter steal it.”
“Mama got that book from my grandfather. It’s been in my family for two hundred years. I think I have a stronger claim on it than you,” Hussey said. “How did you talk Cutter into stealing it?”
“I told him I’d tell you how he and Dee Dee tricked you into giving that poor race car driver the Mambo powder,” Bella said.
“That low-life, two-faced, conniving, son of a bitch!” muttered Hussey.
“And don’t forget almost retarded,” chimed in Bella.
“I think I better go over to the Santeria and arrest the right voodun,” Jones said.
“Can you get me out of here now?” Bella said.
“Me too,” Hussey said, “I’ve got a score to settle.”
Jones disappeared through the cell block door and Bella and Hussy heard a brief argument between Jones and the Jailer, shouting at each other, then Jones returned pushing the jailer ahead of him. The jailer was wearing handcuffs and shouting obscenities at Jones. Jones opened up an empty cell and pushed the jailer inside then he unlocked Bella and Hussey’s cells.
“I only took this damned job so I could find Bella,” Jones said to the jailer, “and now that I found her, the sheriff can shove it.”
Moreover leapt from the starting gate ahead of the pack and began stretching out his lead. He was feeling good. He had been feeling better and better ever since his near-death experience and the Mambo treatment from Hussey. In last few days he had started to feel more alive, his mind was clearer and more focused. He was gradually becoming less zombie and more dog. Even his multiple personality problems had gone away. He was able to get in touch with his ‘inner bitch’ as well as his ‘inner shepherd, his ‘inner poodle’ and even his ‘inner Jack Russell.’
He was winning almost every race he ran, but his new mental clarity had revealed something else to him. He began to realize he didn’t particularly like running around a dirt race track in a circle. He didn’t like his life. If he won he got a night in his cage and a bowl of kibble; if he lost, he got a night in his cage and a bowl of kibble. Where was the motivation? What was in it for him? He was becoming disillusioned with the whole dog eat dog ‘rabbit race’, he wanted more. He knew deep down that he was meant for more. Tinker, his owner, was a nice guy, most of the time, but he was just an owner. Moreover wanted a real human friend. Someone to scratch behind his ears, rub his belly, someone to play fetch. That woman who cured him, he thought, maybe she could help him reevaluate his life, find the answers he sought and maybe be his friend.
As he rounded the first turn, a good six lengths ahead of the second place dog, he thought, I need a direction, a home. He dug into the backstretch heading south, pulling further away from the pack, and eyeing the last turn. The track before him turned west toward the finish line. Straight ahead, due south, was a five foot wall which separated the track from the parking lot and past that, the beach. In the split second before the westward turn Moreover decided to head south. He made the decision the way most decisions to head south are reached; impetuously and instinctively. He stretched his front paws skyward and bounded over the wall with inches to spare. From the parking lot he could see the beach in the dis
tance and he knew if he followed the beach south, it would take him to the Santeria Hotel and to Hussey.
As Moreover trotted toward the beach he caught a strange scent mingled with the salty sea air. He lifted his head into the ocean breeze and sniffed deeply. An image of a large wolf flashed in his brain. Moreover had never smelled a wolf before but his ancient instinct recognized the scent instantly. It was ‘wolf’ but it was also something else. He smelled an undercurrent of human beneath the wolf scent.
Cowpie had shed his oversized shoes when he hit the beach and was running barefoot as fast as his balloon-like clown pants would allow with Clint on all fours, nipping at his naked heels. Cowpie heard the siren behind him and started waving his arms, flapping them up and down like a deranged seagull hoping to attract the attention of the squad car.
Turning his head to the beach Moreover could make out the origin of the strange scent. He saw a large wolf, a wolf with a trace of ‘man’ scent, chasing a clown southward down the beach. Moreover wasn’t sure what to do, but since the creature was mostly wolf, his instinct was to give chase. Ears laid back, barking loudly, he fell in behind the wolf-man creature, as Clint chased Cowpie down the beach.
“I think we need animal control over here,” Deputy Dickerson said into his radio as he watched a clown being chased down the beach by a large wolf which was being chased by a greyhound with a racing number on his back. “Tell them to bring a tranquilizer gun and lots of darts.”
“I think Tony Tums is gonna get whacked,” Carlo Colostomy said even before Vito stood and asked “Whaddya say? Whaddya know?”
The out-to-pasture paisanos were again seated around a large rectangular table in the back room of the Italian Club. In a far corner of the room, hidden in the shadows, a large man slouched in a chair with a baseball cap pulled down low over his eyes. The few members of the club who did notice him assumed he was either one of the dishwashers on break, or one of the waitresses’ boyfriends waiting for her shift to finish.
Homemade Sin Page 27
