In Shadows (5 page)

ITH THE ARRIVAL OF THE SUN
, Memere rose slowly to her feet, blanking out the pain that scorched her knees, elbows, and hips. Rheumatoid arthritis, the doctor called it. She laughed to herself, thinking of the bottle of pills he’d given her, still sitting unopened in her medicine cabinet. Passing quickly into the second bedroom she’d converted to a shrine for the spirits, she nodded to each of the alcoves filled with objects the
Iwas
—the spirits—attached themselves to. In front of each was a fresh offering.
Iwas
could be very naughty, even dangerous, if not treated with the proper amount of respect.

The smell of honey hung in the air, and Memere twisted her nose. This variety of incense stick was too
woosy
for her taste, not nearly as satisfying as the peppermint. She’d remember not to be using it again. She made one last bow to the altars and headed into the kitchen, where she prepared a
fresh paket kongo
for her ails. That and a good long spirit bath would fix her up better than any doctor medicine. Or fix her up as well as an eighty-year-old Voudou
priestess—a
Houngon
—could expect. She shook the new
paket kongo
to make sure Loko Atizou and Ayizan, the patron saints of
Houngon
—and the spirits this
paket
had been created to appease—were really awake. Sometimes the
Iwas
were just like Cramer as a kid, only pretending to wake up.

Sixty years before, at Memere’s initiation as a
Houngon
in the swamps outside of Baton Rouge, she had been presented with the traditional seven
paket kongos.
But of course all
pakets
only held their power for seven years. Even so, those originals held a place of honor atop the dresser in her bedroom. Now she touched each knee ritually with the silk onion of the fresh
paket
, then each elbow, finally each hip, sighing as she called out to Loko Atizou and Ayizan and felt relief flowing slowly through her old bones. The bath would make her even better. She rested the
paket
back on the kitchen counter, glancing back toward the altar room to make sure she hadn’t forgotten any of the many rituals required daily. The
Iwas
should be pleased with her for now.

She ambled off to the bathroom, turned the tub faucet on very hot, and tossed in a handful of jasmine flowers, then a drop of orgeat syrup and some crushed almonds, drops of water from a spring in Florida, more drops of Holy Water from a mostly friendly but sometimes snotty priest up the block, and, finally, a dollop of flat champagne. Memere packaged the same contents in Ziploc bags for sale to her clients—many of whom were big shots around town and came to her because they knew she would respect their privacy—but for her own consumption she preferred to use only the freshest ingredients.

Like the rest of the house, the bathroom walls were covered with framed religious icons and hand-painted images of Voudou spirits. An ornate idol that looked like a miniature
termite mound capped with a Barbie doll head sat beside the bottle of mouthwash. She nodded to it in passing, mumbling a prayer to Danbala, one of the spirits of the
Rada.
The spirits were divided into two nations—
Rada
, cool, and
Petwa
, hot and impetuous—not good or evil, a concept that meant nothing to the spirits. Danbala was the snake spirit, who could be equally hot or cold depending upon the situation, but like all snakes he was best catered to and watched carefully, and he could be a very good ally in time of need.

She let her white cotton shift fall to the floor, shaking her head and chuckling to herself as she stared at her wrinkled black frame. Every year she looked more and more like one of the prunes she was forced to consume to keep from getting all bound up like a rock.

You are what you eat.

She chuckled even louder.

Finally she slipped gratefully into the tub, straining to turn off the water before leaning back and immersing herself in the scalding liquid. The heat and the special ingredients of the spirit bath finished the work of the
paket kongo.
She could feel her muscles relaxing, ancient joints loosening as she dragged in long, deep breaths of the healing, jasmine-scented steam. The bath was as good for the soul as it was for the body. She felt herself drifting into that soft place where her worries eased, and she could think more clearly.

Cramer had been a handful since his mother—her daughter Angelina—had left him in Memere’s care. But that girl had been a lot more than a handful. She was a slut woman from the time she bled, and Memere had been unable to control her no matter what offering she made to the spirits. A woman alone shouldn’t have to raise a kid, but she had been forced to do it twice in her life. At least Cramer had turned
out better than his mother. Still, he’d wanted to go off running after wild chances from the time he was old enough to walk. It had taken a lot of years to settle him down and convince him to take life one day at a time and to pay attention when the spirits spoke to him. Now he was heading way up north on a fool’s errand, and she didn’t like it. She didn’t like it one bit. Jake Crowley was going to get him into a lot of trouble. A lot.

She’d met Jake several times, and deep down she liked him. Cramer liked him, too, probably a lot more than he should, because Jake Crowley had some serious spirit problems. Both the nations, the
Rada
and the hotter, more impetuous
Petwa
, stirred up like hornets whenever Jake came around. That didn’t make Jake a bad man. It just meant the spirits were tuned to him, but for some reason
he
wasn’t tuned to them. She’d just as soon Cramer had nothing to do with that boy. But that was not to be, and so she tried to protect both of them. She prayed to the pantheon for them every night, and she had insisted that Cramer force Jake to take her most powerful
paket kongo
to keep the
Iwas
as pacified as they could be in his presence. But she knew that wasn’t going to be enough in the end. Jake had a peculiar destiny waiting out there somewhere, and she was afraid that Cramer had already been dragged into it.

A noise from the other room startled her, and she stiffened, listening to the faint lapping of the water across her flat, pendulous breasts. It was true that most of her drug-boy neighbors gave her plenty of space, respectful of an old
Houngon
who some of them probably suspected wasn’t beyond using the powers of a
Bokor
, a dark priest. But she also knew that some of those same drug-boys were so hopped up that they might not be afraid of anything.

But whatever the sound had been, it did not repeat itself,
and she sank back against the tub. Sometimes she’d fall asleep like this, dream of her days as a Voudou queen back on the bayous, before Angelina was born, when she spent her nights dancing to the sound of the drums, surrounded by the heady smell of swamp water and the taste of rum, and red beans and rice. When she spent her days in the arms of Jean Coupe, the man who ran away and left her with a full belly and an empty cookie jar when he found out he was going to be a father.

It wasn’t the thought of Jean that opened her eyes, though. It was another sound from the living room, stealthy, like a click beetle snapping its shell.

She climbed slowly out of the water, testing her joints, glad the bath and
paket
had done their work. She felt little fear at the thought of an intruder. The spirits would be more agitated than she was, and woe to the
sac-de-papier
who disturbed one of their altars.

But she dried herself hurriedly and wrapped a frayed terry-cloth robe about her before opening the door. The smell of a Houston morning struck her, even stronger than the honey smoke of her incense. The aroma was a mixture of gasoline and carbon dioxide, oak, pine, magnolia, and something Memere could only describe as the odor of dirty money. She knew instantly that her front door was open. As she strode into the living room it slammed closed behind a man as big as her grandson but pale as the shroud on a corpse. A Mexican of much smaller build was in the altar room, bending over the statue of Ogou. A third man surprised her by speaking from directly behind her, and she whirled to face him.

“My name is Jimmy Torrio,” he said, with a gleaming smile that reminded her of a toothpaste commercial. He had short, curly black hair, a razor-sharp nose, and bony cheekbones, and she found the combination—along with his dark,
cunning eyes—disturbing. But she supposed some women would like his slick manner. He had the aura of the very rich, and he smelled of the same dirty money as the morning air. “I really don’t want to cause you any trouble, Memere. I just need some information.”

“You get out of my house!” she spat, blood racing to her face.

“That’s not going to happen, old woman. I need to find your grandson, and unfortunately my contacts in the police department aren’t cooperating this week. Now, where is he?”

“I tell you nothing. You come in here like you own this place, you and your drug-boys. You get youselves in deep trouble, Mister High-and-Mighty Jimmy Torrio, I tell you that right now.”

Torrio laughed, and the sound hardened the faces of his men. Memere glanced at each of them in turn and saw nothing but deep-rooted evil.

“I have nothing against you, old woman,” said Torrio, shaking his head. “But you are going to tell me what I want to know. Talk now, and we’ll walk out of here without hurting you.”

“I tell you one more time for your own good. Leave now while you okay.”

Torrio’s eyes narrowed, and she could sense the spirits stirring around her. Then he backhanded her so hard she blacked out. She came to in the arms of the pale white giant, and Torrio hit her again. This time she remained conscious, but the pain was fierce. She spat blood onto the carpet, and she knew that would disturb the
Iwas.
The smell and taste of blood always aroused them. The blood of a
Houngon
would excite them doubly.

“Where is your grandson?”

“Why you want him?”

“That’s not information you need. Now tell me, or Paco over there will start tearing this little nuthouse apart.”

Torrio waved at the Mexican in the altar room. The man lashed out with a sweeping hand. Glass crashed and pottery shattered as Agwe’s altar was desecrated. Memere started to scream, but Torrio slapped her again.

“Tell me!” he shouted.

Paco kicked at another altar like a man stamping out a fire. Memere could feel the ire of the nations rising. There was no telling what they’d do. Sometimes they could be fierce for almost no reason. Other times they reacted not at all to the worst insults. But she hoped this time their vengeance would be stern.

She closed her eyes and called on Ogou, Cramer’s protective spirit and her own. Of all the spirits, Ogou was the most unpredictable, but he could also be one of the most dangerous. After offering him her grateful service in the future, and stroking his male ego by envisioning him in all his warrior glory, she asked for added protection for Cramer and herself.

“I don’t want to kill you,” said Torrio. “I never killed anyone’s grandmother before. But you’re going to tell me what I need to know.”

She cringed. “He gone out of town.”

“I know that. Where out of town?”

“What for you want my boy?”

Torrio’s laugh was something Memere thought no one should have to endure for long. It sounded to her as if gas were escaping the lips of a day-old corpse. “I don’t want your boy, old woman. I want his friend. But your boy will lead me to him.”

Memere nodded. Jake’s
baggage
was falling on them after all. This Jimmy Torrio was no spirit. But he worked his own evil in the spirits’ employ, whether he knew it or not.

“So? Are you gonna tell me what I need to know?”

She shook her head, and he backhanded her again, not quite so hard this time.

“If I tell you, it not good for you,” she mumbled through swollen lips.

Torrio smirked at the
poto mitan.
“I’m very, very afraid. Now where did they go?”

She shrugged. “You go there, maybe you die.”

“Tell me!”

She wiped blood away with her sleeve. “Place called Crowley. Like Jake. In Maine.”

“Where in Crowley?”

“That all I know.”

Torrio studied her with hard eyes, and she met them with her own. Finally he nodded and waved at his two gunmen. Paco scurried out of the altar room, like maybe he was being followed, and Memere smiled despite her aching jaw. The big, white, fish-looking man opened the door and stepped out onto the landing, but Torrio stopped on the threshold, turning to the Mexican. “You stay and watch her until we get back.”

“Me?” said Paco, looking around as though the icons on the walls might come crawling out of their frames at any minute.

“What’s the matter, Paco?” asked Torrio. “You scared of
spirits
?”

Paco shook his head. “This place just gives me the creeps, boss. Why not make Jules stay?”

Torrio laughed again, but his eyes narrowed as he glanced from man to man. Finally the big white monster shrugged, and Paco breathed a sigh of relief.