"Yes, mahn. Like I said. Good age on her too. Not like some of those flighty young girls. Just right for an old man like you."
"Yeah. You were there a long time, huh?"
"All the time, mahn. Ever since you call Jacques."
"How'd you pick me up?"
"Easy enough, mahn. Your car, the places you go, all like that."
"Where else?"
"The shelter-place. The one for kids. The restaurant. I'm a shadow, mahn. Thin and dark. Nobody sees."
"I appreciate what you did, Clarence."
"You have been our friend, mahn. Jacques said."
"Here's some friendly advice for you, Clarence. Don't go into that restaurant."
"I know, mahn."
"Who told you…Jacques?"
"Everybody knows, mahn."
77
Jacques was at his table in the basement. He didn't blink at Pansy. Pansy didn't blink back.
Clarence handed him the pistol I'd taken from the man in the park. Jacques released the clip, pulling it from the butt, worked the slide.
"Empty, mahn. Nothing in the chamber. Safety was on too."
I nodded. The gunman was what he said he was— not a shooter.
Jacques turned the gun over in his hands, put one polished thumbnail inside the chamber, sighted down the barrel. "Hasn't been cleaned in a year, mahn. A piece of junk. Iron Curtain stuff, not even military." Jacques's fine-boned nose curled into a faint sneer. "Whoever had this, mahn, he was not a professional."
"There was another one," Clarence told him.
Jacques raised his eyebrows, waiting for the rest.
"He had no gun, nothing. And he never saw me coming," Clarence said, a leather-covered sap in his hand, showing Jacques what had happened to the watcher.
"You talked to the man with the gun?"
"He said he just wanted to take me someplace. To see someone named Thana. Queen Thana."
Jacques's eyes didn't change but his cheeks went hollow.
"You know her?" I asked.
"Everybody knows of her, mahn. I have not met her. And I do not want to. Obeah. Very powerful obeah. A voodoo priestess. Her followers are all from the Islands. People say she can make a man do what she wants. That she can kill you with a thought. Reach across the sea, back across time."
"She's in business?"
"Not our business, mahn. Not for money. But she is no love goddess, that one. A warrior priestess. They say her soldiers are the dead come back to life."
"What does she want from me?"
"I do not know, mahn. But if she wants you, she will find you."
"You can reach out to her?"
"No, mahn. Not with the phone. But I know…some things. I can, maybe, get a message through."
"The bag…the juju bag," Clarence whispered.
"What?"
"That was hers, maybe. Swinging from that tree in the moonlight. Evil. She knows."
"Knows what?"
"I went back. Later, I went back. In the daylight. And the bag, it was gone."
I lit a smoke, hands steadying with the answer. She hadn't taken the bag, but her watchers knew who did.
"Tell her I'll come and talk to her," I told Jacques, and walked out of the basement.
78
In prison, I used to lift weights. Just to be doing something— I was never any good at it. Bench presses. Some days they put too much weight on the bar— I couldn't get it up off my chest.
I felt like that now. Put a cardiogram on my life, you'd get a readout: sharp spikes, deep valleys.
I drew a red dot on a piece of mirror. Drew it with some lipstick Belle had left behind. I'd been meaning to throw it out for a long time now, that lipstick. I went into a halfass lotus position, looking into the dot. Until it got bigger and bigger, deeper. I went down inside, clearing my mind.
There's always a pattern. Any crazy thing makes sense to somebody at the other end. I didn't know anything about smuggling until I went to prison. You can get whatever you want inside the walls if you can pay the freight. Guards smuggled in guns, but they never crossed the color line: you wanted a pistol, you asked a guard of your own race. Drugs they'd sell to anyone.
In prison, there's lead pipes just lying around. If you hold them just right, you can still feel them vibrate with the skulls they've crushed.
I pictured a lovely glass ball. As pure as a teardrop, on a polished black marble surface. Pictured it rising from the table, floating gently in the air, hovering. I was holding it up with my will.
I blinked my eyes and came out of it just before the glass ball splattered on the marble.
79
Meetings. Always bullshit meetings. Talk talk talk. And rules. Made by the rulers. In prison, what you want is to get through it. You can't stay by yourself— they won't let you. So you mob up. Get a crew. Someone to watch your back. On the Coast, they call it getting in the car. Going along for the ride. Or the drive-by. If a crew splits up, the other side picks them off one by one, so you stay together. You change sides, nobody trusts you. The first choice is the only one you get.
I wished I could explain it to Wolfe and Lily.
80
I stayed out of the loop for a while. Prairie dog careful— just barely peeking out of my hole in the ground, ready to spook if I saw a strange shadow. Wolfe's time limit pushed me back up to ground level.
Max opened the back door to SAFE, held it while I slipped inside. I don't know how he does that— he can't hear my knock. He pointed toward the back office, made a "be careful" gesture, and went back to the gym.
Lily was standing with her back to me, hands on hips, arguing about something with a calmly seated Storm. I tapped lightly on the doorjamb. Lily whirled, not missing a beat.
"What is it, Burke? We're busy here."
"I needed to talk with you," I said mildly.
"Your telephone's broken?"
"I didn't know who'd be listening."
"Who'd be…" Lily sneered.
"Wolfe," Storm cut in.
"She wouldn't…"
"Sure she would," Storm told her. "What's wrong with you, girl? You know how she is."
"I thought I knew."
"That's what she's saying to herself right about now," I replied, even-toned, "saying it about you. You're doing what you're doing to protect a kid…so's she. Just different kids."
"She doesn't know Luke," Lily said. "All she knows is crimes— that's all she cares about."
"Stop it, Lily," Storm said, lighting her one cigarette of the day. "The doctor says stress is bad for my baby."
Lily fought a giggle. "Sure."
I lit a smoke of my own. "I got an idea," I told her.
Storm silenced Lily with a look. I went on like I hadn't seen it.
"Wolfe doesn't know Luke, that's what you said, right? That's the idea. How about if they meet?"