“I’m sure I don’t,” Jack said.
“Been driving a patrol car for twelve years and never had an accident.”
“Is that right?”
“Never even put a scratch on one of my cars.”
“Congratulations.”
“Snow, rain, sleet—nothing bothers me. Never have the least little trouble handling a car. It’s a sort of talent. Don’t know where I get it from. My mother doesn’t drive. My old man does, but he’s one of the worst you’ve ever seen. Scares hell out of me to ride with him. But me—I have a knack for handling a car. So don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried,” Jack assured him.
“You sure seemed worried.”
“How’s that?”
“You were grinding the hell out of your teeth.”
“Was I?”
“I expected to hear your molars start cracking apart any second.”
“I wasn’t aware of it. But believe me, I’m not worried about your driving.”
They were approaching an intersection where half a dozen cars were angled everywhichway, spinning their tires in the snow, trying to get reoriented or at least out of the way. Nick Iervolino braked slowly, cautiously, until they were traveling at a crawl, then found a snaky route through the stranded cars.
On the other side of the intersection, he said, “So if you aren’t worried about my driving, what is eating at you?”
Jack hesitated, then told him about the call from Lavelle.
Nick listened, but without diverting his attention from the treacherous streets. When Jack finished, Nick said, “Jesus Christ Almighty!”
“My sentiments exactly,” Jack said.
“You think he can do it? Put a curse on your kids? One that’ll actually work?”
Jack turned the question back on him. “What do you think?”
Nick pondered for a moment. Then: “I don’t know. It’s a strange world we live in, you know. Flying saucers, Big Foot, the Bermuda Triangle, the Abominable Snowman, all sorts of weird things out there. I like to read about stuff like that. Fascinates me. There’re millions of people out there who claim to’ve seen a lot of truly strange things. Not all of it can be bunk—can it? Maybe some of it. Maybe most of it. But not all of it. Right?”
“Probably not all of it,” Jack agreed.
“So maybe voodoo works.”
Jack nodded.
“Of course, for your sake, and for the kids, I hope to God it doesn’t work,” Nick said.
They traveled half a block in silence.
Then Nick said, “One thing bothers me about this Lavelle, about what he told you.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, let’s just say voodoo does work.”
“Okay.”
“I mean, let’s just pretend.”
“I understand.”
“Well, if voodoo works, and if he wants you off the case, why would he use this magic power of his to kill your kids? Why wouldn’t he just use it to kill you? That’d be a lot more direct.”
Jack frowned. “You’re right.”
“If he killed you, they’d assign another detective to the case, and it isn’t too likely the new man would be as open-minded as you are about this voodoo angle. So the easiest way for Lavelle to get what he wants is to eliminate you with one of his curses. Now why doesn’t he do that—supposing the magic works, I mean?”
“I don’t know why.”
“Neither do I,” Nick said. “Can’t figure it. But I think maybe this is important, Lieutenant. Don’t you?”
“How?”
“See, even if the guy’s a lunatic, even if voodoo doesn’t work and you’re just dealing with a maniac, at least the rest of his story—all the weird stuff he told you—has its own kind of crazy logic. It’s not filled with contradictions. Know what I mean?”
“Yes.”
“It hangs together, even if it is bullshit. It’s strangely logical. Except for the threat against your kids. That doesn’t fit. Illogical. It’s too much trouble when he could just put a curse on you. So if he has the power, why doesn’t he aim it at you if he’s going to aim it at anyone?”
“Maybe it’s just that he realizes he can’t intimidate me by threatening my own life. Maybe he realizes the only way to intimidate me is through my kids.”
“But if he just destroyed you, had you chewed to pieces like all these others, then he wouldn’t have to intimidate you. Intimidation is clumsy. Murder is cleaner. See what I mean?”
Jack watched the snow hitting the windshield, and he thought about what Nick had said. He had a hunch that it was important.
8
In the storage shed, Lavelle completed the ritual. He stood in orange light, breathing hard, dripping sweat. The beads of perspiration reflected the light and looked like droplets of orange paint. The whites of his eyes were stained by the same preternatural glow, and his well-buffed fingernails also gleamed orange.
Only one thing remained to be done in order to assure the deaths of the Dawson children. When the time came, when the deadline arrived for Jack Dawson and he didn’t back off as Lavelle wanted, then Lavelle would only have to pick up two pair of ceremonial scissors and cut both ends of the slender cord from which the photographs hung. The pictures would fall into the pit and vanish in the furnacelike glow, and then the demonic powers would be set loose; the curse would be fulfilled. Penny and Davey Dawson wouldn’t have a chance.
Lavelle closed his eyes and imagined he was standing over their bloody, lifeless bodies. That prospect thrilled him.
The murder of children was a dangerous undertaking, one which a Bocor did not contemplate unless he had no other choice. Before he placed a curse of death upon a child, he had better know how to shield himself from the wrath of the Rada gods, the gods of white magic, for they were infuriated by the victimization of children. If a Bocor killed an innocent child without knowing the charms and spells that would, subsequently, protect him from the power of the Rada, then he would suffer excruciating pain for many days and nights. And when the Rada finally snuffed him out, he wouldn’t mind dying; indeed, he would be grateful for an end to his suffering.
Lavelle knew how to armor himself against the Rada. He had killed other children, before this, and had gotten away with it every time, utterly unscathed. Nevertheless, he was tense and uneasy. There was always the possibility of a mistake. In spite of his knowledge and power, this was a dangerous scheme.
On the other hand, if a Bocor used his command of supernatural machinery to kill a child, and if he got away with it, then the gods of Pétro and Congo were so pleased with him that they bestowed even greater power upon him. If Lavelle could destroy Penny and Davey Dawson and deflect the wrath of Rada, his mastery of dark magic would be more awesome than ever before.
Behind his closed eyelids, he saw images of the dead, torn, mutilated bodies of the Dawson children.
He laughed softly.
In the Dawson apartment, far across town from the shed where Baba Lavelle was performing the ritual, two dozen silver-eyed creatures swayed in the shadows, in sympathy with the rhythm of the Bocor’s chanting and singing. His voice could not be heard in the apartment, of course. Yet these things with demented eyes were somehow aware of it. Swaying, they stood in the kitchen, the living room—and in the dark hallway, where they watched the door with panting anticipation. When Lavelle reached the end of the ritual, all of the small beasts stopped swaying at exactly the same time, at the very instant Lavelle fell silent. They were rigid now. Watchful. Alert. Ready.
In a storm drain beneath Wellton School, other creatures rocked back and forth in the darkness, eyes gleaming, keeping time with Lavelle’s chants, though he was much too far away to be heard. When he ceased chanting, they stopped swaying and were as still, as alert, as ready to attack as were the uninvited guests in the Dawson apartment.
9
The traffic light turned red, and the crosswalk filled with a river of heavily bundled pedestrians, their
faces hidden by scarves and coat collars. They shuffled and slipped and slid past the front of the patrol car.
Nick Iervolino said, “I wonder...”
Jack said, “What?”
“Well, just suppose voodoo does work.”
“We’ve already been supposing it.”
“Just for the sake of argument.”
“Yeah, yeah. We’ve been through this already. Go on.”
“Okay. So why does Lavelle threaten your kids? Why doesn’t he just put a curse on you, bump you off, forget about them? That’s the question.”
“That’s the question,” Jack agreed.
“Well, maybe, for some reason, his magic won’t work on you.”
“What reason?”
“I don’t know.”
“If it works on other people—which is what we’re supposing—then why wouldn’t it work on me?”
“I don’t know.”
“If it’ll work on my kids, why wouldn’t it work on me?”
“I don’t know. Unless ... well, maybe there’s something different about you.”
“Different? Like what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You sound like a broken record.”
“I know.”
Jack sighed. “This isn’t much of an explanation you’ve come up with.”
“Can you think of a better one?”
“No.”
The traffic light turned green. The last of the pedestrians had crossed. Nick pulled into the intersection and turned left.
After a while, Jack said, “Different, huh?”
“Somehow.”
As they headed farther downtown, toward the office, they talked about it, trying to figure out what the difference might be.
10
At Wellton School, the last classes of the day were over at three o’clock. By three-ten, a tide of laughing, jabbering children spilled through the front doors, down the steps, onto the sidewalk, into the driving snow that transformed the gray urban landscape of New York into a dazzling fantasyland. Warmly dressed in knitted caps, earmuffs, scarves, sweaters, heavy coats, gloves, jeans, and high boots, they walked with a slight toddle, arms out at their sides because of all the layers of insulation they were wearing; they looked furry and cuddly and well-padded and stumpy-legged, not unlike a bunch of magically animated teddy bears.
Some of them lived near enough and were old enough to be allowed to walk home, and ten of them piled into a minibus that their parents had bought. But most were met by a mother or father or grandparent in the family car or, because of the inclement weather, by one of those same relatives in a taxi.
Mrs. Shepherd, one of the teachers, had the Dismissal Watch duty this week. She moved back and forth along the sidewalk, keeping an eye on everyone, making sure none of the younger kids tried to walk home, seeing that none of them got into a car with a stranger. Today, she had the added chore of stopping snowball battles before they could get started.
Penny and Davey had been told that their Aunt Faye would pick them up, instead of their father, but they couldn’t see her anywhere when they came down the steps, so they moved off to one side, out of the way. They stood in front of the emerald-green wooden gate that closed off the service passageway between Wellton School and the townhouse next door. The gate wasn’t flush with the front walls of the two buildings, but recessed eight or ten inches. Trying to stay out of the sharp cold wind that cruelly pinched their cheeks and even penetrated their heavy coats, they pressed their backs to the gate, huddling in the shallow depression in front of it.
Davey said, “Why isn’t Dad coming?”
“I guess he had to work.”
“Why?”
“I guess he’s on an important case.”
“What case?”
“I don’t know.”
“It isn’t dangerous, is it?”
“Probably not.”
“He won’t get shot, will he?”
“Of course not.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’m sure,” she said, although she wasn’t sure at all.
“Cops get shot all the time.”
“Not that often.”
“What’ll we do if Dad gets shot?”
Immediately after their mother’s death, Davey had handled the loss quite well. Better than anyone had expected. Better than Penny had handled it, in fact. He hadn’t needed to see a psychiatrist. He had cried, sure; he had cried a lot, for a few days, but then he had bounced back. Lately, however, a year and a half after the funeral, he had begun to develop an unnatural fear of losing his father, too. As far as Penny knew, she was the only one who noticed how terribly obsessed Davey was with the dangers—both real and imagined —of his father’s occupation. She hadn’t mentioned her brother’s state of mind to her father, or to anyone else, for that matter, because she thought she could straighten him out by herself. After all, she was his big sister; he was her responsibility; she had certain obligations to him. In the months right after their mother’s death, Penny had failed Davey; at least that was how she felt. She had gone to pieces then. She hadn’t been there when he’d needed her the most. Now, she intended to make it up to him.
“What’ll we do if Dad gets shot?” he asked again.
“He isn’t going to get shot.”
“But if he does get shot. What’ll we do?”
“We’ll be all right.”
“Will we have to go to an orphanage?”
“No, silly.”
“Where would we go then? Huh? Penny, where would we go?”
“We’d probably go to live with Aunt Faye and Uncle Keith.”
“Yuch.”
“They’re all right.”
“I’d rather go live in the sewers.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“It’d be neat living in the sewers.”
“Neat is the last thing it’d be.”
“We could come out at night and steal our food.”
“From who—the winos asleep in the gutters?”
“We could have an alligator for a pet!”
“There aren’t any alligators in the sewers.”
“Of course there are,” he said.
“That’s a myth.”
“A what?”
“A myth. A made-up story. A fairytale.”
“You’re nuts. Alligators live in sewers.”
“Davey—”
“Sure they do! Where else would alligators live?”
“Florida, for one place.”
“Florida? Boy, you’re flako. Florida!”
“Yeah, Florida.”
“Only old retired coots and gold-digging bimbos live in Florida.”
Penny blinked. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Aunt Faye’s friend. Mrs. Dumpy.”
“Dumphy.”
“Yeah. Mrs. Dumpy was talking to Aunt Faye, see. Mrs. Dumpy’s husband wanted to retire to Florida, and he went down there by himself to scout around for a place to live, but he never came back ’cause what he did was he ran off with a gold-digging bimbo. Mrs. Dumpy said only old coots and a lot of gold-digging bimbos live down there. And that’s another good reason not to live with Aunt Faye. Her friends. They’re all like Mrs. Dumpy. Always whining, you know? Jeez. And Uncle Keith smokes.”
“A lot of people smoke.”
“His clothes stink from the smoke.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“And his breath! Grody!”
“Your breath isn’t always like flowers, you know.”
“Who’d want breath like flowers?”
“A bumblebee.”
“I’m no bumblebee.”
“You buzz a lot. You never shut up. Always buzz-buzz-buzz.”
“I do not.”
“Buzzzzzzzzzz.”
“Better watch it. I might sting, too.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“I might sting real bad.”
“Davey, don’t you dare
.”
“Anyway, Aunt Faye drives me nuts.”
“She means well, Davey.”
“She ... twitters.”
“Birds twitter, not people.”
“She twitters like a bird.”
It was true. But at the advanced age of almost-twelve, Penny had recently begun to feel the first stirrings of comradeship with adults. She wasn’t nearly as comfortable ridiculing them as she had been just a few months ago.
Davey said, “And she always nags Dad about whether we’re being fed well.”
“She just worries about us.”
“Does she think Dad would starve us?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why’s she always going on and on about it?”
“She’s just ... Aunt Faye.”
“Boy, you can say that again!”
An especially fierce gust of wind swept the street, found its way into the recess in front of the green gate. Penny and Davey shivered.
He said, “Dad’s got a good gun, doesn’t he? They give cops really good guns, don’t they? They wouldn’t let a cop go out on the street with a half-ass gun, would they?”
“Don’t say ‘half-ass.’”
“Would they?”
“No. They give cops the best guns there are.”
“And Dad’s a good shot, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“How good?”
“Very good.”
“He’s the best, isn’t he?”
“Sure,” Penny said. “Nobody’s better with a gun than Daddy.”
“Then the only way he’s going to get it is if somebody sneaks up on him and shoots him in the back.”
“That isn’t going to happen,” she said firmly.
“It could.”
“You watch too much TV.”
They were silent for a moment.
Then he said, “If somebody kills Dad, I want to get cancer and die, too.”
“Stop it, Davey.”
“Cancer or a heart attack or something.”
“You don’t mean that.”
He nodded emphatically, vigorously: yes, yes, yes; he did mean it; he absolutely, positively did. “I asked God to make it happen that way if it has to happen.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, frowning at him.