Mulengro, page 19
“Anyway I wanted to get a couple of shots of it before the flames ate it up, but Stan was out shooting about fifteen rolls in that strip joint down near Sunnyside—for professional purposes, of course— and then he was working with you, and I sure as hell didn’t want to go with one of the newspaper’s boys. Christ knows what they’d’ve printed if they thought we were interested in it.”
Briggs didn’t crack a smile. “What kind of a symbol did you say it was?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Black paint. A circle with lines. Give me a pencil and I’ll try to draw it for you—though the only thing I can handle is paint-by-numbers, I’ll tell you. Any artistic streaks in my family must’ve passed me right by.”
Briggs dug into a file and pulled out a glossy 8x10. “Did it look like this?” he asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, it did. Where’d you get that?”
Briggs shoved the Gypsy-murders casefile across the desk to him.
“This is too weird,” Will said later that morning when he got back from court. He stared at the photograph of John Owczarek that Sam had dropped off on Briggs’ desk along with the bio from the violinist’s producer. “Bad—”
“Juju. I know. You recognize him?”
“Sure. It’s Mr. I-need-that-money-you-know. His place got burned down the same night Romano Wood almost lost his head?”
“Bad choice of words,” Briggs said with a grimace.
“So sue me.” Will frowned, then tossed the picture on the desk. “What’re we going to do—run down a few of his friends and acquaintances?”
“I got the OK from the Inspector and put an APB out on one John Owczarek, aka Jim Cerinek. Now that we’ve got a taxpayer involved, not to mention three new deaths, he’s gung ho to run with it again.”
“So what else is new?” Will glanced at the photo, then looked thoughtfully at his partner. Various facts were being resorted inside his head and his eyes took on a distant look. “Well now we know he’s a Gypsy, too. I just wonder what his game is?”
“I don’t know,” Briggs replied. “But we’re going to find out. And the big question is: which is he, victim or our man?”
Will nodded. “He must tour the country doing gigs. That’d be a perfect set up for him. If we can tie him into a couple of other cities at the same time as the Gypsies there got killed . . .”
“And the house?”
“Maybe things were getting hot, so he burns it down to cover his tracks. . . .” Will shook his head. “Doesn’t work. He hasn’t got any scars.”
“So maybe it was a mask Cleary saw.”
“Maybe you’re pushing too hard, Paddy.”
The ghosts were a heavy weight on Briggs’ shoulders. “Maybe,” he said softly.
twenty two
Jeff awoke from a restless sleep, troubled by unpleasant dreams. It was close on eleven and he was alone in Jackie Sim’s bed for the second morning in a row. Bright sunlight came washing through the bedroom window, sparkling on the unicorn mobile, and he vaguely remembered Jackie coming in to tell him that she was heading off to work. Much clearer in his memory were the jagged shards of his dreams.
He’d relived that moment in Ola’s porch, but this time the dead thing touched him, doughy hands grabbing his shoulders and pulling him down into a wet embrace from which he . . . stirred, turned over in the bed . . . saw Ola in a dark wood, surrounded by capering trees that were impossibly animate, her calico cat sitting on its haunches by a stump and playing a fiddle while singing in a low burry voice, and then something coming out from between the trees, malformed, a shadow that . . . he turned again, face pressed against the pillow and now . . . Jackie was running down a long corridor, clutching a package to her breast, and she opened a door to find him in her bed, threw the package at him and it fell open on the sheets, a severed head rolling onto his legs . . . his scream died soundlessly against the pillow . . . slept again . . . dreamless now . . . until the thing in Ola’s cottage came reaching for him again and he finally . . . awoke. Safe.
He sat up, expecting the blood to start pounding in his temples again, but the headache had receded into a barely discernible buzz at the back of his head that was no louder than the whir of a fly’s wings at the bedroom window as it tried to get through the glass. At least he had that much to be thankful for. The dresser mirror was right where it had been yesterday morning and last night when he’d gone to bed. He regarded his bruised features, touched the discolored skin gingerly. The swelling was going down a bit, but he still hurt like hell. A two-day growth of beard stubbled his cheek and chin, but there was no way he was going to run a razor over that tender flesh.
He swung his feet to the floor and stood experimentally. When the vertigo stayed away with the worst of yesterday’s headache, he padded into the kitchen to put on water for coffee. He was still aching, but at least he knew now that he was going to live. There’d been times yesterday when he hadn’t been all too sure of that, and last night . . . Weird dreams. Seeing that dead thing again . . .
Yesterday’s experience bordered on the paranormal—something he’d only written about before, never encountered away from the pages that came out of his typewriter or from listening to things that Ola had recounted while they were researching their books. He knew that what he’d seen on Ola’s porch hadn’t—couldn’t have— been real. Head injuries sometimes caused hallucinations—Dr. Mul-ley had warned him about it again yesterday—and he’d been under a lot of stress, what with worrying about Ola and the beating he’d received at the hands of the Gourlays, but none of that stopped a small part of his mind from insisting that what he’d seen had been real. It had been something dead that wasn’t willing to give up its hold on life. Something that wanted to take him down with it.
He shivered, staring at the dust motes dancing in the sunlight that came in through the kitchen window. Something dead. . . . Except Stan Gourlay wasn’t dead, though Jeff wouldn’t shed any tears if the bastard was.
He got up when the kettle started to boil and mechanically set about making his coffee, his thoughts a hundred miles away from what he was doing. He was thinking about Ola now, how different she was. It wasn’t just her being an African here in the predominantly white Ottawa valley. Nor her herbal medicines and cures— gathered from Wiccan, African, Gypsy and Lord knew what other sources—or even the afterlife theories and philosophies like in Beyond the Last Light, their third collaboration.
There was an otherworldliness about her sometimes, as though she could see more and hear more than the people around her. He thought about the way she spoke so seriously about the paranormal and the things that came up when they were working on the books. . . . Weird stuff that she always seemed to regret having spoken of afterward. She’d laugh and make a joke about it, saying something like, “Of course we won’t put anything that farfetched in the book.”
There was her cat Boboko, just sitting there, looking for all the world as though he was listening to them in that way that only cats can look. Or worse, as though he was understanding what they said. Jeff shook his head, putting the image of Ola as witch out of his head. He was starting to get a little carried away. Maybe he should check himself into the hospital for a couple of days. First he was having hallucinations, and now his thoughts were getting all twisted around and crazy in his head.
He could almost see her, stirring some cauldron out in the moonlight, Boboko perched at her feet, the witch’s familiar. They still had hoodoo men in Africa, didn’t they? And hoodoo women, too. All these magics and remedies and cures she was so keen on. Gypsy stuff she’d learned about while traveling through Europe with her parents. Wiccan stuff that she’d picked up in the States. And what did he really know about her? Just what she’d told him, nothing that could be checked out. Ola Drake. Her name, Jeff realized, was all he had. All that he had in the way of cold hard facts anyway. He remembered his dream . . . the dark wood around her, the trees capering, the cat playing the fiddle and singing. . . .
What if the Gourlays had shown up at her place and she’d done . . . something to one of them, and then fled? But that had to be impossible. The Gourlays were a pair of bruisers, each one of them twice her size. They would’ve mopped up the floor with her—like they’d done with him outside of Tinkers. Unless . . . there was such a thing as . . . magic. And if she was a witch . . . an African hoodoo lady, a Wiccan priestess, a Gypsy witch . . .
Another chill traveled through him. What should he do? Should he even do anything? Christ, he was confused. The phone rang suddenly, lifting him a half inch from the chair. He stared at it blankly for a long moment—saw the shredded cord of the phone at Ola’s place in his mind’s eye—then lifted the receiver and brought it up to his ear.
“Hello?”
Jackie was behind the bar in Tinkers, talking to John Danning from The Perth Courier who was teasing her about taking in strays. It was just after twelve and the restaurant was almost empty—though that would change over the next few minutes as the lunch crowd started to come in. An old Eagles tape was playing on the sound system. When the front door opened, her gaze went to it automatically. Two dark-skinned men came in—one quite handsome, in a rugged way rather than pretty, and the other a lean shorter man with an incredible walrus mustache, the tips of which hung below his chin.
“Excuse me, John,” she said as they took a table. John nodded and she plucked a couple of menus from beside the cash register and went over to their table. “Good afternoon,” she said, laying the menus in front of them. “Can I get you something from the bar?”
The mustached man nodded and smiled. “Two drafts, please.”
“Coming right up.”
“Uh, miss?”
She turned, a questioning look in her eyes.
“I was wondering if Jeff Owen has been in yet today. I don’t know him by sight, you see, but my friend here would like to meet him.”
For no accountable reason, Jackie felt nervous. “Jeff?” she said. “What did you want to see him about?” She looked from the mustached man to his companion.
“We wanted to meet a friend of his. The lady he writes his books with.”
“You mean Ola?” Stop fidgeting, she told herself.
The mustached man shrugged. “I’m not sure of her name, to be honest. I thought it was Rouge. Is it Ola Rouge?”
They must only know her from her books, Jackie thought. “I . . . I think I know where I can get hold of Jeff,” she said.
“It’s fairly important,” the clean-shaven man said, speaking for the first time. “If we could meet Mr. Owen as soon as possible . . .”
“I’ll call him right now.” Oh, boy, she thought as she made her way back to the bar. What did these guys want? There was something so intense about them—especially the clean-shaven one. Before drawing their drafts, she went to the phone and dialed her home number. Glancing at the two men, she found them watching her. The mustached man looked away when her gaze alit on him, but the other man didn’t even appear to realize he was staring at her. There was a distant, thoughtful look in his eyes. The phone rang once before Jeff picked it up.
“Jeff?”
“Hi, Jackie.” Jeff balanced the receiver between his ear and shoulder and, picking up the phone, went to the counter to pour himself a coffee. “Listen, thanks a lot for nursing me through another night. I could get used to waking up in that room, you know.”
“Jeff, there’s a couple of guys in the restaurant who want to talk to you.” She spoke quickly, ignoring the bantering tone in his voice. “They’re looking for Ola.”
“Oh, great. Are they cops?”
“No.” There was a pause. “Jeff, is there more going on than you’ve told me?”
“If there is, I’m as much in the dark as you are. What do these guys look like?”
“Sort of . . . tough. Very dark complexions, like Ola, but they’re not blacks. They’re both wearing earrings and one of them’s got a bandana around his neck. I don’t think they’re local, though the one with the mustache might have been in here before. I’m not sure.”
“Did they say anything else?”
“No. They just want you to introduce them to Ola. They say it’s important.”
Jeff thought about Jackie’s sketchy description, trying to place the men. “Are they old, young?”
“Late thirties, early forties. It’s kind of hard to tell. They look like a couple of Gypsies,” she added with a laugh.
Jeff didn’t smile. Gypsies. When he thought about some of the things that went into the books he and Ola worked on . . . Maybe she wasn’t all her jacket copy made her out to be. Her facial features had never looked that African to him in the first place, but he’d just put that down to what the hell did he know. Gypsies. Witches. A pattern that he didn’t like was forming.
“Jackie, I’ll be right down, okay?”
“Are you sure you’re feeling up to it?”
“Oh, yeah. Fit as a fiddle, though maybe the varnish is just a little bit cracked in places.”
“Shouldn’t you maybe . . . I don’t know . . . have someone come down with you? In case it gets, well, rough or something.”
“Does it look like it could get rough?” Jeff asked, thinking this he didn’t need.
“I suppose not.”
“Just tell ‘em I’ll be down in half an hour or so, okay, Jackie? And don’t worry. This time I’m not stepping outside with anybody. Not unless I’ve got a big stick.”
“Okay.”
Jeff replaced the receiver and glanced at his coffee. Shit. What the hell was this all about?
Jeff spotted the two men the moment he came in through the kitchen doors. The swinging doors closed behind him and he stood in the area where the waitresses prepared coffees, teas and desserts. Jackie came from behind the bar and hurried over to him.
“Those the guys?” he asked.
Jackie nodded.
“They do look kind of scruffy, don’t they? Well, here goes nothing.”
“Jeff?” Jackie caught his arm. “Be careful, okay?”
Jeff turned with a smile. The concern he saw in her eyes startled him—not because of what might happen with the two men, but because of what it told him of how she felt. Funny thing; he’d known Jackie for—how long? Was it five years now since she’d moved back to Perth? They’d taken in a couple of drive-ins, gone fishing together, and spent a lot of hours talking in Tinkers, but he’d never really thought of her as anything but a pal. It wasn’t that he found her unattractive, for she wasn’t. But he wasn’t sure how to handle the intimacy he now saw in her eyes.
He laid his hand on hers, marveling at its warmth. Maybe something was changing in him too. “I’ll be real careful,” he said.
The two men looked up as he approached the table and he wondered what they were thinking. Two days stubble and the bruises didn’t do much for his looks. He lowered himself gingerly into one of two vacant chair and found a smile to fit on his lips.
“Afternoon, gentlemen,” he said. “I’m Jeff Owen. So what can I do for you?”
“My name is Tibo Williams,” Tibo Lee said. “I live in the trailer park just outside of town on Highway 4.”
“Oh, yeah. I know the place.” He glanced at Tibo’s smooth-shaven companion.
“I’m John—-John Wood.”
“John would like to meet the lady you write your books with,” Tibo said. “I know where she lives, but we thought it would be more . . . proper if he was introduced to her by someone she knows.”
“But I don’t know either of you,” Jeff pointed out.
“Yes, well. . .”
“What’s all this about?”
There was a moment’s silence, then Tibo asked: “You were in an accident?”
Jeff lifted a self-conscious finger to his cheek. “I had a little misunderstanding with a couple of the local yahoos. It’s nothing serious. Look, I’ve got things to do. Can we get to the point of this conversation? I know now who you say you are.” He let that statement hang for a moment, just long enough for them to understand that he wasn’t going to be taken in with their fake names, so why play around anymore? “So why don’t you just tell me what it is you want with Ms. Rouge?”
“I’m not sure you would believe us,” the man calling himself John Wood said. It wasn’t quite the answer Jeff had been expecting. He glanced at the bar where Jackie was pretending to clean glasses, and felt his throat go dry. It wasn’t at all the kind of answer he’d been expecting.
“Try me,” he said.
“We . . . I’m looking for someone with a working knowledge of . . . magic. Gypsy magic.” The clean-shaven man lifted his head, impaling Jeff with the intensity of his gaze. “Your friend, perhaps even you yourself, you know about this kind of thing, don’t you? Tibo tells me you have written a number of books, some of which contain Gypsy lore. I need to know your sources. Do you make it all up? Or is it real?”
“Real?” Jeff swallowed dryly. The conversation was veering too close to the wild thoughts that had been running through his head this morning. He wished he had something to drink. “Depends on what you mean by real, I guess.”
“Please. I’m not here to cause any trouble. But I have to know.”
“Well, that sort of thing is more Ola’s department. I just transcribe the material—pretty it up, that kind of thing.”
“Could I speak to her, then? You’re welcome to come along and keep me in line if you’re afraid I have ulterior motives. But I must talk with her. I’m up against a blank wall and if I don’t talk to someone I’ll. . .” His shoulders lifted and fell as his voice trailed off.
“You’ll what?”
“I don’t know. Be back where I started, looking for something that probably doesn’t even exist in the first place.” He looked away, a troubled frown on his lips.
