A group of photos with a woman and some snakes caught my eye, so I stopped to look. No one else was nearby, and the icy wind blew up the bottom and sleeves of my coat.
“Suzanne” sported a dimpled waist, hammy thighs, and two of the largest, firmest breasts I’d seen this side of a Barbie doll. Poor old Sally. This snake didn’t have a chance, even though he was as big around as her arms, which were decorated with slave bracelets, like the one I wore now over my biceps. Once you got your eyes off the breasts, you realized that her arms were amazingly strong. No Hannah this, but nevertheless there was real strength there, especially in the photo with the hapless serpent stretched over her head.
“Really something, hmmm?” One of the overcoat types was standing next to me on the sidewalk.
You could smell the liquor and the cigarettes, and there was another smell too, the one Tommy had that night. It was the way men smelled when they didn’t mean you any good.
Acting out of some new instinct, I reached down into my pockets where I could feel the poodle toys lumped together in their underwear bags. I thought about my cigar box, and I thought about Hannah.
“That’s a man, you know,” the old guy leered. “Would you like to meet him in person?”
I thought: strong.
I thought: power.
I said it over and over in my head: strong-power, strong-power, until I forgot where I was standing and everything. It was like that weird light on the second floor of Madame Miraculo’s. My hands began to tingle, and then my forearms tingled, and then my elbows, and then my shoulders, and then my whole body felt warm and pure and chock-full.
When I opened my eyes, nobody was standing on the street next to me, but out of the corner of my eye I saw a light-suited man with pecan-colored skin.
Quick as lightning, I was after him. He turned, I turned. He was fast, nothing but a shadow. He disappeared inside a shop and I whipped in after him.
It was the voodoo store, of course.
“Where’s Sammy?” I panted out to the very fat man behind the counter.
“No Sammy here.”
I caught my breath. “Yes, there is,” I insisted. “I was right behind him.”
“There was nobody in front of you and there’s nobody here.” His voice was as cold as Sammy’s but he was so different. First, he was fat. Second, his skin was pale yellow, like the inside of a banana. Third, he was all decked out in scarves and green velvet pants, like a gypsy. I’d only met Sammy twice, but I knew that wasn’t his style.
I scanned the store. Herbs and dolls and trinkets and candles. No Sammy, no visible truck. No nothing. What was I doing here, anyway?
“Besides, little girl, we aren’t open yet.”
“Oh.” But the door had been open, hadn’t it?
“In fact,” he continued, “I’m just cleaning up, then I’m on my way to bed. We open after twelve.” He began to shoo me in the direction of the door, as if I were a stray cat.
Strong-power, strong-power. “Wait!” I cried, on the threshold.
“Yes?” His hand was on the knob.
“I have to buy something.”
“Well…”
“I have to,” I said. “I have to get it now, before it’s too late.”
“Do you have any money?”
I held up the Hilton wet-laundry bag.
“Okay,” the fat man said. “Ten minutes. What do you want to buy?”
I started to say I wasn’t sure, but then I figured that would be a strategic error. “I need to keep something bad from happening.”
The fat man resumed his stool behind the counter, a professional look on his face. “What sort of bad thing?”
“A wreck. And I also need to disappear my, uh, sister. And I need to get this man to come see me again.” Go for broke.
A wrinkle of intensity appeared between his eyes. He rubbed his earlobe, where a large gold ring appeared painfully heavy. “You want Uncrossing. You want Disappearance. You want Attraction. Am I right?”
“Yes.” I swallowed hard.
“Okay.” His voice was reasonable. “What makes you think there’ll be a wreck?”
“My sister predicted it.”
“The sister you want to disappear, I presume?”
A hint of temptation, but no. “Yes, that’s the one.”
“And how does this man figure in all this?”
The whole thing sounded pretty stupid, but I plugged on. “He has something he wants to trade me.” Something to make Deane go away, which would make the wreck go away.
It all came clear.
“Look,” I said. “I’ll make it easier. I want the best, most powerful thing you have that will make somebody appear, no matter what.”
The fat man narrowed his eyes. “How much have you got in that bag? All pennies, I bet.”
“No, sir. It’s a hundred dollars.”
He smiled, and I saw the sharp tooth, like the alligator’s. “I believe we can help you,” he said.
Stupid me. First I’m only a child, now I’m a chump. Yet, what else was the money for, except the off chance that magic might work?
After rifling around under the counter a moment, the fat man produced a large key. “Follow me,” he instructed.
We went through a curtained niche with the sign: voodoo museum $2.00, over the archway. Inside was dark and glitter and candles, and the smell, thick as destiny, was exactly like Deane’s room. For a moment I felt scared, and I had to pee, but it was all reflexive and my eyes adjusted to the dim.
The fat man went up to the altar, which Deane might as well have designed, and produced a small, iron box, which he unlocked with the key.
“Is this place still used?”
He looked at me. “What makes you think that.”
Not a question. I let it go.
He pulled a little pouch out of the box and then relocked it. He hesitated.
I tried to ignore the peculiar vibrations wafting off the various witchy-looking machinery against the walls.
“What the hell,” he muttered as he plucked an object off the altar itself. We went back into the shop.
He locked the front door and then motioned me to an alcove behind a small partition. A grubby pack of cards with funny symbols on them lay on the small table next to a crystal ball.
“This is very serious stuff,” he said, once we were seated. “I’ve decided to believe that you’re sincere, so this is the real McCoy.”
I nodded, impressed in spite of myself. On the other hand, this fat guy didn’t have the same kind of pizzazz I’d come to expect. “Are you sure you don’t know who Sammy is?”
“Little girl, I never said that.” His small dark eyes looked like raisins in a golden bun.
“Then you do know who he is!”
“I never said that either.”
Instinctively, my hand fingered the poodle toys. I plopped the wet-laundry bag full of money down between us and slid it over. For some reason, my energy felt cleaner, fuller, as if the money had been blocking something. “Do you or don’t you know him?”
“Look, kid.” The man fingered the ring in his lobe. “You’ve already got five more minutes than I promised you.” He took the bag and secreted it behind the counter. “Plus, there’s this stuff I got off the altar at great personal risk.”
Strong. Power. “Do you or don’t you?”
A fine sweat misted over his forehead. “Let’s say I might know about this guy. Wait!” He held his hand up in protest.
I swallowed my excitement.
“Let’s say I do know who he is. You want him to come see you. This stuff, she’ll do the trick.”
“But—”
“And just to show you what a good egg I really am, let’s say I throw in a coupla lucky amulets, to keep harm off in the meantime. At no extra cost to yourself. How’s that sound?”