Voodoo Eyes (52 page)

The dark space Max had been staring at shifted, grew a fraction lighter, as if a little of the night had been sucked from it.

‘Say hello to Eldon from me,’ said Boukman.

He walked away, slowly and soundlessly, down the lit steps.

58

Max realised he’d seen the tall, scrawny figure standing by the TV before. He recognised the pose, the way he carried himself. The glow of the screen and the nearby candlelight picked out the metallic printed patterns on his shirt – diagonal birds, either geese or pelicans, flying in formation, beak to ass, hem to shoulder. The birds were the same shape as the die-cut mirrors on the walls of the Zurich. He was looking at the very same man he’d spotted across the street from the hotel, the one who’d been staring at him when he got the call from Joe telling him Eldon was dead.

The man picked up a black plastic bucket by the handle and came over, carefully avoiding stepping on any of the
vévé.
He’d tucked his pants into gumboots, whose thick rubber soles made his every dainty, careful step squeal on the concrete.

When he was close, Max got a good look at the face Eldon and Joe had seen right before they died, the very same face he’d seen on Wendy Peck’s surveillance photo – and whose even more deformed, embryonic version had hung on Vanetta Brown’s wall.

There was still something of that child in him now. The upper half of his features was fragile, almost tender; the small, flat forehead, with its smooth and shiny brow, unmarked by worry or time; his eyes were wide and vacant lots, waiting on experience.

But the damaged mouth dominated. The thick bisection, making the right half of his lower face hang slightly askew from the left, as if waiting for a hand to slide it back into place. The middle lips, thin, ragged and scaly, like shards of broken glass threaded through razor wire; the ends overfilled dark brackets, a pair of fleshy screws keeping the rest in place.

‘You’re Osso, right?’

He didn’t answer, but it was him all right.

He set the bucket down on a clear space, close to Max, who caught a full, intense hit of gasoline. His eyes burned and ran, his nose smarted at the fumes. He coughed and gagged and turned his head away.

Osso looked him over without expression, eyes reading him side to side, then up and down. He took a paintbrush out of his back pocket, crouched and dipped it into the bucket. He swirled the contents around a few turns, never once taking his eyes away from Max. When he’d finished, he tapped the brush to shake off the excess.

He squatted at Max’s feet and painted on the paste. It was cold. When it touched the open wounds around his ankles they burned deep. Max gasped and groaned in agony.

Osso was the skinniest living, healthy person Max had ever seen. The knobs of his spinal bones protruded through the back of his shirt, making Max think of a giant lizard.

‘You killing Eldon Burns, I can live with. I mean, if I’d known then what I do now, I’d’ve put two in him myself.’

Osso ignored him. He coated Max’s feet all the way up the edge of his calves.

‘But Joe …
Joe Liston?
No. Not him. He was a fine upstanding man. His whole life, he only did good. And you…. you fucken’ killed him anyway. You sack of shit. I know you’ll say it wasn’t personal, that you were only following that twisted fuck’s orders. But you know what? I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. You pulled the trigger. You’re just as bad. Just as guilty.’

Osso stopped painting to look at him. His mouth moved – only the middle, not the ends, and his lips parted, as if he were about to say something, but then they closed again. Max thought he saw anger flash across his eyes, clear and fast as lightning in an eclipse.

Osso stood up and walked behind Max.

Max felt the man’s breath on the nape of his neck, passing over his scalp. Then Osso began brushing the paste on to his hands.

Max twisted his head around to look at him.

‘That motherfucker adopted you, didn’t he? You’re his
boy,
ain’tcha? You call him
daddy?
You were born with a cleft palate. He had your face fixed and you were so grateful you became his bitch. That’s the way it was, right? Say, can you even
talk
outta that fucken’ thing?’

Osso continued what he was doing, but not in the same slow, careful way. When he got to the open sores on Max’s wrists, he pressed the brush head down hard. Max screamed and jerked back and forth as the pain shot up his shoulders, frying and soldering his nerves.

‘Hey?’ Max gasped. ‘How’d your
daddy
pay you for killing Joe? He promise you more
plastic surgery?
I bet he did. And you know what? He’s right, ’cause you fucken’ need it, you ugly motherfucker.’

Osso jabbed and twisted the brush into his wrist and held it there. Then he twisted it some more.

The pain doubled, then got even worse. It went all the way up the side of his head. Max screamed. His legs shook in the chair. He kicked out.

He …
kicked …out.

Max’d felt his feet fly out and up. Free. No restraints.

He looked down. His feet had come out of the ropes.

When Osso had shoved the brush into his wrists, he’d bucked and pulled his legs so hard, his lubricated feet and calves had torn themselves loose.

And Osso hadn’t noticed.

Max realigned his feet.

Osso painted halfway up his forearms, liberally slapping on the paste, caking his skin.

He gripped Max’s chin with strong fingers and pulled his head back as far as it would go.

He bent to dip the brush in the bucket.

Max felt Osso’s breath on his cheek and sensed the grip on his chin slacken a little.

Max glimpsed a chance.

And seized it.

The skull is the hardest part of the body, naturally designed and engineered to protect the brain, its most vital organ. At police academy they taught rookies the fine art of the head-butt. Max had been a good student.

He wrenched his head free with a sharp leftward twist and flicked it back at Osso’s exposed chin.

He caught him right on the button, hard as any right hook.

Osso took it in a strange way.

Normally people went down for the count and beyond.

Not Osso.

The blow sent him shuffling sideways. Then he paused, staggered forward as if he’d been kicked in the ass, before veering off to one side, heading for the candles. For an instant Max feared he’d reach them and knock them over and incinerate them both. But Osso’s self-preservation instincts just about outmuscled his urge to collapse and he stopped again, took a couple of halting backward steps and froze. He straightened himself and took a deep breath. He shook his head quickly once, then twice, confronting the twister that had taken his senses; realigning, rebooting.

He dropped the brush beside him. He turned to pick it up, but his rubber soles slid apart on the paste beneath his feet, smearing and blotching the
vévé,
as his long thin legs separated, painfully, in an impromptu split.

He caught himself with his palm. He took a knee. He breathed in deep. But he was inhaling heady, dizzying gasoline fumes and they were joining forces with the aftershocks of the blow he was trying to weather, and the two were fucking him up bad.

Somehow he managed to stand and face Max.

He looked at his captive through dull, glazed eyes.

He slapped at himself, but he missed and span all the way around.

Max stood up as far as he could – a semi-crouch – and tried to yank his arms free.

Osso went back down on one knee and put both palms on the ground, one right in the middle of the snake’s head.

Again he managed to get back up, although his legs were rubber filled with cotton wool.

Max was pulling frantically, so hard the chair’s bolts were starting to loosen.

Osso came towards him, tottering, his eyes rolling around the edges of his sockets like a sprung compass, more white than brown. His mouth was open, his tongue flopping out and sucking back in. He groped around his waist, hoisted up his shirt, exposing the pearl-handled grip of a pistol. He reached for it with his other hand. He didn’t get to it. His hand closed around air. He looked down, perplexed. And then he fell to the floor, out cold, face down on the cross, inches away from Max.

Max yanked and heaved at his restraints. He used his legs as levers. He sat at the edge of the chair and tried to tear his hands free by brute force, but the knots were tight and fast.

Osso moaned. His leg twitched.

He’d be coming round soon.

Max intensified his efforts.

He put his right foot on the chair and leaned up with all his weight. His left wrist popped free. It was gashed and shredded open, blood dripping from his fingers.

Osso raised his head and grabbed at the ground. His hand slipped in the paste.

Max put his left foot on the chair and repeated the process.

Osso crawled to his knees.

Max prized and scraped his hand out.

Then he was free.

Max kicked Osso in the head, the flat of his foot connecting with Osso’s chin. Osso’s head twisted sharply round and he fell back with a bump.

Max snatched the gun out of Osso’s waistband. Then he grabbed Osso by the hair, lifted his head up and smashed a fist into his already swollen jaw.

Osso was out cold.

The
vévé
was smeared all over the floor, the signs of their struggle marked out in blurred outlines and white footprints.

Max checked the gun – a full seven-round clip, plus one in the chamber.

He looked over at the basement steps, bathed in pink neon, and back at Osso.

He knew what to do.

Solomon Boukman emerged slowly from the basement.

He was in full sacrificial regalia – a white top hat with a red feather sticking out of its black-and-white-chequered band, a white tailcoat draped loose over his bare chest, white dress gloves, pressed black slacks and gleaming patent leather shoes. He’d painted his face in a two-tone layer of make-up, a black underlay with half a white skull over the right side.

He was chanting in Kreyol, invoking Baron Samedi, calling to him to rise from the depths, imploring to be made his vessel, to be vested with his power, to become his earthly hand – the taker of life, the giver of death, the stealer of souls. His voice was deep and sonorous, his enunciation clear and precise, unfettered by its lispy hiss.

Boukman entered the circle of candles. The flames fluttered and swayed on their wicks, a few going out as he passed, the thin smoke following him.

He advanced towards the figure in the chair, his steps slow and unhurried, his eyes catching and reflecting all the room’s light, which danced over his entranced irises. He was completely oblivious to the mess that was the
vévé.

*

Standing close to the man in the chair, Boukman crossed his arms and reached both hands into his coat.

He withdrew two short samurai swords, their shiny blades glowing green with the room’s primary lights, the still-playing television and the ever-burning candles.

Boukman twirled the blades in the air, first in small arcs, his motions those of a conductor leading a large orchestra through a slow movement, building incrementally, note by note, instrument by instrument, to a dramatic crescendo.

Brutality undid his artistry, as the violence he was about to wreak took his arms. His poised curls turned to broad, heavy swings, the metal whistling crudely as it swiped and sliced through the air, itself becoming headier and thinner with petrol fumes.

Boukman’s gesticulations got faster and wilder, the swords losing definition as metal and light fused and blended into a glowing, evanescent whole, leaving molten tracer loops hanging in space.

Boukman roared his final invocations in a fearsome, bestial growl, speaking Max’s name, spitting at the man in the chair.

Then, suddenly, he stopped.

He raised the swords high above his head like horns.

He folded his arms one over the other and tightened his grip on the hilts.

He lowered the swords until he had the tip of the man’s shoulders between the blades.

Osso had come to when Boukman was in mid-pirouette.

It had been a slow and arduous climb out of unconsciousness. He’d opened one eye, closed it, opened the other, closed it.

Then he’d come to, fully.

He breathed in and coughed and gagged and retched at the paste that covered his entire head and feet and hands.

He just had time to comprehend where he was and what was about to happen, before the swords struck both sides of his neck at once, the razor-keen blades cutting clean through.

He carried a look of bewildered astonishment to the grave.

Boukman had the same look the instant he realised what he was about to do.

But his brain was a fraction too slow for his body. By the time he could have stopped himself, it was already too late.

Osso’s blood geysered over his coat and chest and face.

Boukman stepped back, shocked, confused.

He looked around. Left, right, backwards, forwards.

And then he saw Max, who’d stepped out from the darkness.

Max underarmed the bucket of paste, splattering Boukman’s front.

Boukman didn’t move. He stood where he was, the bloody swords in his hands.

Max kicked two candlesticks over on to the
vévé.

A gangway of flames opened up along the floor, fire whooshing up high into the air, almost kissing the ceiling, as it reached to all four points of the room within seconds.

Small flames pounced on Boukman’s hat. Then they leaped down to his shoulders. One of his shoes caught fire. And then the tails of his coat.

No movement from Boukman. He stared at Max, seemingly oblivious to the blaze.

Max raised the gun and lined Boukman’s head up in the sights.

He flicked off the safety.

Their eyes met.

And Max almost lowered the gun.

In the full light of the blaze, Max saw that it wasn’t Boukman standing there.