Priscilla was steamed, no doubt about it.
She had been steamed since eight
p.m
. when the boys finally got back to the hotel with an envelope they’d retrieved from the pay locker at the Rendell Road Terminal.
The envelope had contained a letter that read:
My dearest Priscilla:
In the event of my death, you will have been directed to this locker where you will find a great deal of cash.
I have been saving this money for you all these years, never touching it, living only on my welfare checks and whatever small
amounts still come in on record company royalties. It is my wish that the cash will enable you to further your career as a
concert pianist. I have always loved you.
Your grandmother,
Svetlana
In the envelope, there was five thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills.
“Five
thousand
?” Priscilla had yelled. “This is a great deal of cash?”
“It ain’t peanuts,” Georgie suggested.
“This is supposed to take
care
of me?”
“Five grand is actually a lot of money,” Georgie said.
Which it was.
Though not as much as the ninety-five they’d stolen from the locker.
“Five thousand is supposed to buy a career as a fucking
concert
pianist?”
She still couldn’t get over it.
Sitting here at ten minutes to one in the morning, drinking the twenty-year-old Scotch the bartender had brought to her table,
courtesy of the house, Priscilla kept shaking her head over and over again. The boys sympathized with her. Priscilla looked
at her watch.
“You know what
I
think?” she asked.
Georgie was afraid to hear what she was thinking. H
e
didn’t want her to be thinking that they’d opened that envelope and stolen ninety-five thousand dollars from it. Priscilla
didn’t notice, but his knuckles went white around his whiskey glass.
He waited breathlessly.
“I think whoever delivered that key went to the locker
first
,” she said.
“I’ll bet,” Georgie said at once.
“And cleaned it out,” she said.
“Left just enough to make it look good,” Tony said, nodding.
“Exactly,” Georgie said.
“Made it look like the old lady was senile or something,” Tony said. “Leaving you five grand as if it’s a fortune.”
“
Just
what he did,” Priscilla said.
“Well, it
is
sort of a fortune,” Georgie said.
Priscilla was getting angrier by the minute. The very
thought
of some blond thief who couldn’t even speak English cleaning out the locker before delivering the key to her! Tony kept fueling
the anger. Georgie kept listening to him in stunned amazement.
“Who
knows
how much cash could’ve been in that locker?” he said.
“Well, after all, five grand is quite a lot,” Georgie said, and shot Tony a look.
“Could’ve been
twenty
thousand in that locker,” Tony suggested.
“More,” Priscilla said. “She told me I’d be taken
care
of when she died.”
“Could’ve been even
fifty
thousand in that locker,” Tony amended.
“There
was
five, don’t forget,” Georgie said.
“Even a
hundred
, there could’ve been,” Tony said, which Georgie thought was getting a little too close for comfort.
Priscilla looked at her watch again.
“Let’s go find the son of a bitch,” she said, and rose graciously. Flashing a dazzling smile at the seven or eight people
sitting in the room, she strode elegantly into the lobby, the boys following her.
They found Clotilde Prouteau at one
a.m
. that Monday, sitting at the bar of a little French bistro, smoking. Nobody understood the city’s Administrative Code prohibiting
smoking in public places, but it was generally agreed that you could smoke in a restaurant with fewer than thirty-five patrons.
Le Canard Bleu met this criterion. Moreover, even in restaurants larger than this, smoking was permitted at any bar counter
serviced by a bartender. There was no bartender on duty at the moment, but Clotilde was covered by the size limitation, and
so she was smoking her brains out. Besides, they weren’t here to bust her for smoking in public. Nor for practicing voodoo,
either.
A fifty-two-year-old Haitian woman with a marked French accent and a complexion the color of oak, she sat with a red cigarette
holder in her right hand, courteously blowing smoke
away
from the detectives. Her eyes were a pale greenish-gray, accentuated with blue liner and thick mascara. Her truly voluptuous
mouth was painted an outrageously bright red. She wore a patterned silk caftan that flowed liquidly over ample hips, buttocks
and breasts. Enameled red earrings dangled from her ears. An enameled red pendant necklace hung at her throat. Outside a snowstorm
was raging and the temperature was eight degrees Fahrenheit. But here in this small smoky bistro a CD player oozed plaintive
Piaf, and Clotilde Prouteau looked exotically tropical and flagrantly French.
“Voodoo is not illegal, you know that, eh?” she asked.
“We know it.”
“It is a religion,” she said.
“We know.”
“And here in America, we can still practice whatever religion we choose, eh?”
The Four Freedoms speech, Carella thought, and wondered if she had a green card.
“Francisco Palacios tells us you sometimes do the ceremony.”
“
Pardon?
Do the
ceremony
?”
“
Conduct
the ceremony. Whatever.”
“What ceremony do you mean?”
“Come on, Miss Prouteau. We’re talking voodoo here, and we’re talking the lady who implores Papa Legba to open the gate, and
who sacrifices …”
“Sacrifices?
Vraiment, messieurs
…”
“We know you sacrifice chickens, goats …”
“No, no, this is against the law.”
“But nobody cares,” Carella said.
She looked at them.
The specific law Clotilde had referred to was Article 26, Section 353 of the Agriculture and Markets Law, which specifically
prohibited overdriving, overloading, torturing, cruelly beating, unjustifiably injuring, maiming, mutilating, or killing any
animal, whether wild or tame. The offense was a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment for not more than a year, or a fine
of a thousand dollars, or both.
Like most laws in this city, this one was designed to protect a civilization evolved over centuries. But cops rarely ever
invoked the law to prevent animal sacrifice in religious ceremonies, lest all the civil rights advocates demanded their shields
and their guns. Clotilde was now weighing whether these two were about to get tough with her for doing something that was
done routinely all over the city, especially in Haitian neighborhoods. Why bother with me? she was wondering. You have nothing
better to do,
messieurs
? You have no
trafiquants
to arrest? No
terroristes
? And how had they learned about Friday night, anyway?
“What is it you are looking for precisely?” she asked.
“We’re trying to locate a person who may have driven a live chicken to a voodoo ceremony,” Hawes said, and felt suddenly foolish.
“I am sorry, but I did not drive a chicken anywhere,” Clotilde said. “Live or otherwise. A
chicken
, did you say?”
Hawes felt even more foolish.
“We’re trying to find a person who may have stolen a gun from a borrowed Cadillac,” Carella said.
This didn’t sound any better.
“I did not steal a gun, either,” Clotilde said.
“But
did
you conduct a voodoo ceremony this past Friday night?”
“Voodoo is not against the law.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about. Did you?”
“I did.”
“Tell us about it.”
“What is there to tell?”
“What time did it start?”
“Nine o’clock?”
An indifferent shrug. Another drag on the cigarette in its red holder that matched the earrings, the necklace and the pouty
painted lips. A cloud of smoke blown away from the two detectives.
“Who was there?”
“Worshipers. Supplicants. Believers. Call them whatever you choose. As I have told you, it is a religion.”
“Yes, we’ve got that, thanks,” Hawes said.
“Pardon?”
“Can you tell us what happened?”
“Happened? Nothing unusual happened. What is it you think happened?”
We think someone delivered a chicken for sacrifice and stole a gun from the car while he was at it. Is what we think happened,
Hawes thought, but did not say.
“Did anyone arrive with a chicken?” Carella asked.
“No. For what?”
“For sacrifice.”
“We do not sacrifice.”
“What
do
you do?” Hawes insisted.
Clotilde sighed heavily.
“We meet in an old stone building that was once a Catholic church,” she said. “But, as you know, there are many elements of
Catholicism in voodoo, although our divinities constitute a pantheon larger than the holy trinity. It is my role as
mamaloi
to call upon Papa Legba …”
“Guardian of the gates,” Carella said.
“God of the crossroads,” Hawes said.
“Yes,” Clotilde whispered reverently. “As you mentioned earlier, I implore him to open the gate …”
“…
Papa Legba, ouvrez vos barrières pour moi. Papa Legba, où sont vos petits enfants?”
The gathered faithful in the old stone church close their eyes and chant in response, “
Papa Legba, nous violà! Papa Legba, ouvrez vos barrières pour le laisser passer!
”
“Papa Legba,” Clotilde pleads, “open the gate …”
“Open the gate,” the faithful intone.
“Papa Legba, open the gate …”
“So that we may pass through.”
Call and response.
Africa.
“When we will have passed …”
“We will thank Legba.”
“Legba who sits on the gate …”
“Give us the right to pass.”
The strong African elements in the religion.
And now a girl of six or seven glides toward the altar. She is dressed entirely in white and she holds in either hand a lighted
white candle. In a thin, high, liltingly haunting voice, she begins to sing.
“The wild goat has escaped
“And must find its way home.
“I wonder what’s the matter.
“In Guinea, everyone is ill.
“I am not ill.
“But I will die.
“I wonder what’s the matter.”
Clotilde fell silent. The detectives waited. She drew on the cigarette again, exhaled. Piaf was still singing of unrequited
love. “Guinea is Africa,” Clotilde explained. She fell silent again, as if drifting back to Haiti and beyond that to Africa
itself, to the Guinea in the child’s plaintive song, to the Grain Coast and the Ivory Coast and the Gold Coast and the Slave
Coast, to the empires of the Fula and the Mandingo and the Ashanti and Kangasi, the Hausa and the Congo. Still the detectives
waited. Clotilde drew on the cigarette again, exhaled a billow of smoke, and began speaking in a low, hoarse voice. From the
rising smoke of the cigarette and the hypnotic smoke-seared rasp of her voice, the old stone church seemed to materialize
again, a young girl in white standing before Clotilde, the priestess sprinkling her hair with wine and oil and water, whitening
her eyelids with flour.
Clotilde blows out the candles.
The faithful are chanting again.
“Mistress Ezili,
come
to guide us!
“If you
want
a chicken,
“We will
give
one to you!
“If you
want
a goat,
“It is
here
for you!
“If you
want
a bull,
“We will
give
one to you!
“But a goat without horns,
“Oh,
where
will we find one …
“
Where
will we find one …
“
Where
will we find one?”
The bar went silent.
Clotilde exhaled another cloud of smoke, blowing it over her shoulder, away from the detectives.
“That is essentially how the ceremony goes,” she said. “The faithful call to Ezili until she appears. Usually this takes the
form of a woman being mounted …”
“Mounted?”
“Possessed, you would say. Ezili possesses her. The goddess Ezili. I left out some things, but essentially …”
“You left out the sacrifice,” Carella said.
“Well, yes, in Haiti a goat or a chicken or a bull may be sacrificed. And perhaps, centuries ago in Africa, the sacrifice
may have been human, I truly don’t know. I suppose that’s what the goat without horns is all about. But here in America? No.”
“Here in America, yes,” Carella said.
Clotilde looked at him.
“No,” she said.
“Yes,” Carella said. “After the oil and the water …”
“No.”
“… and the wine and the flour, someone slits the throat of a chicken or a goat …”
“Not here in America.”
“Please, Madame Proteau. This is where the priestess dips her finger into the blood and makes a cross on the girl’s forehead.
This is where the sacrifice is placed on the altar and the drumming begins. The sacrifice is what finally convinces Ezili
to appear. The sacrifice …”
“I am telling you there are no blood sacrifices in our ceremonies.”
“We’re not looking for a cheap three-fifty-three bust,” Hawes said.
“Good,” Clotilde said, and nodded in dismissal.
“We’re working a homicide,” Carella said. “Any help you can give us …”
“Mais, qu’est-ce que je peux faire?”
she said, and shrugged. “If there was no chicken, there was no chicken.” She ejected the cigarette stub from the holder,
and inserted a new one into its end. Piaf was singing “Je Ne Regrette Rien.” Taking a lighter from her purse, Clotilde handed
it to Hawes. He lighted the cigarette for her. She blew smoke away from him and said, “There are cockfights all over the city
on Friday nights, did you know that?”