Lovely Death Read online

  “Yo, fuck you, nigga,” said Dee Dee.” Don’t be pressin’ me out of place.”

  “Step off, Dee,” urged one of his other friends from the Lincoln. “Have some respect. Let’s get the fuck out of here.” It might have been Nick’s imagination, but he would have sworn that there was fear in the third man’s voice. The driver said nothing, but put the car into gear. He honked the horn once, a summons.

  The thug in earrings elbowed his pal gently, turned back to the waiting car. He opened the heavy door while Nick watched silently.

  Dee Dee’s lower lip was pinched firmly between his teeth as he stared back at Nick. He lifted the gun, and as he did Nick felt his hand unconsciously twitch toward the small of his back. At this distance, he was guaranteed to get at least five of his nine bullets on target, as per his typical performance at the range. Even though it had been a couple months, he felt sure of that. It was twice the distance from which he’d struck Laura down, and that had been a single shot. Plus the kid had a snub-nosed revolver. He had five shots of .38 caliber lead at best, plus a barrel that kicked like a mule. But god only knew what remained out of sight in the Lincoln.

  But Dee Dee just tapped the muzzle of the silver pistol on his chest.

  “I see you out here again, snowflake, and I’m gonna ace the both of you. Got it?”

  Nick stared back at the kid. And he really was just a kid. Maybe twenty, if he was lucky. It was a sad and terrible thing when you really thought about it. But the kid was hard. He had probably done a little time, enough to make him cold and indifferent to the world and the frailty of human life. No amount of hippie love bullshit would be reaching this kid, despite what many of the softer-hearted folks of the world would have said. This man knew what other men knew in this, the urban jungle. Death and respect were the most definite laws of the world and woe be it for the man who argued otherwise.

  Nick nodded once, an upward jerk of his chin, and let his hands rest at his sides.

  Dee Dee tucked the pistol into the waistband of his jeans, spit on the ground with his eyes fixed on Nick, and turned toward the car. The bass turned up when the door swung shut behind the kid.

  Layla pulled Nick toward the doorway while the car idled. He turned away from the Lincoln and stepped back to the threshold where he beheld the resident that they had come in search of. She was tired in the face, with more white in her braided hair than not, and her dark cheeks had begun to wear the weights of middle-age. Her eyes were clear but solemn, and she did not look at all to Nick like the sort of woman who could have commanded such a powerful voice.

  “Miss Bindu?” Nick said.

  “What?” the woman boomed. It became apparent to the both of them that she suffered from significant hearing loss.

  “Miss Bindu,” Layla repeated, more loudly. “Are you Miss Elisa Bindu?”

  The woman chuffed through her nostrils, apparently amused, but not smiling. “Elisa’s dead, sugar. But she been giving me an earful about you. Come on in.” She pulled the door open to reveal the grandeur of her neon pink bathrobe. “You’re late.”

  Twenty-One

  The interior of the house was startlingly bare.

  Nick and Layla stepped through the entry into a living room that was lit mostly by a wood-fired hearth. A few candles were scattered here and there on the floors, amid ancient piles of unkempt wax, but the fireplace did most of the work.

  It was nothing like the cryptic, talisman-laden, Hollywood movie set Nick had expected to see. There were no skulls or animal bones strewn about the place, no altars to dark beings, and not a single trace of illicit potion making. There was one wooden rocking chair in the corner, but no other designated seating available in the hardwood-floored living room. A few family portraits hung from the stark plaster walls. They were all of children and the most recent looking one featured a young black girl in braids whose wardrobe looked like it had been contemporary back in the seventies.

  Nick and Layla took a few steps inside to clear the threshold before turning to properly meet their host.

  “I’m Layla. And this is Nick. Thank you so much for…for helping us out there. I thought we were in a bad way.”

  “We’re all in a bad way, honey,” said the aging black woman. Her voice was even louder here inside the echoing confines of the home than it had been outdoors. “Most of us just don’t know it.”

  Nick rubbed his hands together, warming his fingers in the firelight. “Like she said, thank you again. But if you’re not Elisa Bindu, who are you? And how did you know we were coming?”

  At this the woman barked a laugh, with a hand over the mound of her ample bosom. Her long pink robe swayed with her sudden mirth.

  “Boy, you’re a looker but you’re not too quick on the take, are you? I knew you was coming by the same token your lady friend here thought to look for my help. Or, Mama Elisa’s help, anyway. Come on inside, children. Take a seat by the fire. And don’t take that terrible weapon any further into my house.”

  The woman gestured with one hand to the floor near the hearth. With the other, she pointed insistently toward the miniature dresser next to the front door. Nick and Layla traded a quick look with one another before he finally pulled the pistol out of his pants and slowly set it on the wooden stand. The two of them continued into the sitting room and basked in the radiant heat. They lowered themselves to the warm floor, crossing legs, and watched as their host did the same. She gave a great groan when her meaty body met the floorboards.

  “To answer your first question, boy, I am not Elisa Bindu. I am her favored niece, Monique Bindu. Mama Elisa has been in the land of the dead for almost two years now. And Lord knows she natters at me still. Some days I hardly can tell she’s in the ground at all.”

  “Sorry,” said Layla. “The phone book we found the ad in must have been outdated.”

  Monique shrugged. “Probably so, darling. Mama Elisa only did buy the one advertisement. And that was shortly before she crossed over.”

  There was a short pause before Monique giggled. “God rest her soul for trying, but it’s the honest truth that you’re the first and only customers that ad’s ever brought to this doorstep. Sure, there’ve been phone calls, but only from the foolish and ornery. But nobody’s come a knockin’ yet. You hear that, Mama? You were right. You done brought these two in, but quick.”

  “You said you knew we were coming,” Nick said. “How?”

  “Like I say, boy. Some of the more obvious things in life elude you, don’t they?” Her tone was not unkind, but teasing. “Mama Elisa told me to keep an eye out for you. Hell, she been telling me for weeks. And today was the day we was supposed to meet, but the time she give me was an hour past.”

  “Weeks? How did she—” Nick started, but he was cut off by Layla.

  “If she told you that, then you already know why we’re here.”

  Monique’s broad face lost all animation as it was overtaken by seriousness. “Indeed I do, darling. Indeed I do. I know all about the man of shadow and the lover scorned.”

  Nick could feel Layla’s eyes on him, watching for his reaction to the mention of Laura Scranton.

  “I know of the hollow-eyed puppet man, your own creation. And I also know of the prostitute’s key.”

  “Hey,” Layla said.

  Monique chuckled softly. “Not you, honey. It was fortunate that you received that gift, Nick. It may well have saved your life. For now.”

  Nick shook his head, stunned by the accuracy of the woman’s words. “How did you know all of that?”

  Monique’s eyes darted to Layla. “He always this thick, honey?”

  “Yes, yes.” Nick lifted his hands. “I mean no. No, I’m not. I get it. I understand what you’re saying. I’m sorry. You’ll have to forgive my surprise. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I just sort of assumed you’d be full of shit. Or your aunt, I mean.”

  Monique nodded slowly, her chin held high. “No need to apologize, boy. Doubt’s no stranger around here. Especia
lly these days. Science done made a fool of the past, and most folk anymore are plenty wary of the divine, or whatever money-grubbing manure it is that gets passed off as divine anymore.”

  “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” Nick said. “Or presumptuous. But if you knew we were coming, and you know what’s wrong with me, can you please just tell me how you can help me? I don’t think I have much time left.”

  “You don’t,” Monique said, lowering her booming voice “You wrapped up in it bad, boy. That man, that greedy soul-eater, has got hold of you but good and he ain’t letting go until you’re down in the ground. Like a pit bull. With your heart in his hand all he has to do is squeeze a little harder.”

  “He’s killing me from the inside,” Nick said. “I can feel it. He’s trying to push me over the edge, make me kill myself.”

  “Yes, boy. In order to make it easy, he needs you to do the deed. And that, he will certainly get you to do, in time. You see, his hold don’t just affect you. He can reach the ones you love most, use them against you.”

  Looking into the flickering blaze, Layla pressed the skeleton key to her heart.

  “That key, it works for now. But it won’t forever. And this ain’t the only girl you need to be thinking about, if you hear me right.”

  “Wait, what? Who—are you talking about Sandra? Has that son of a bitch done something to her?” Anger rose in his chest like the flames in the fireplace.

  This time it was the robed woman’s turn to raise her hands. “Not that I know of, Nick. But it is only a matter of time.”

  “What do you mean not that you know of? I thought you were the goddamn voodoo priestess who knew everything about everybody?”

  Layla squeezed his leg. “Nick, stop it.”

  “Don’t curse me, boy,” warned Monique. “I may just be the only person in this whole city can help you crawl out of this grave you dug.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nick said, pressing back the fury. He took a deep breath, full of warm air, and leveled his gaze at the woman. “I need your help. We need your help.”

  The woman watched him with a careful stare for a moment, before straightening her back. “And you’ll get it. But I also got to say, I’m no priestess. The only priestess in the room is standing right behind you.”

  A chill ran through Nick’s guts and he jerked his head around. He did not know what sort of trickery to expect, and felt foolish when he found himself staring at a blank, yellow wall.

  “I’m still an adept,” Monique explained further. “I been at this for over three decades, but I still got a lot to learn. Only when Mama Bindu says I’m ready, that’s when I’ll be ready. She standing right behind you, Nick. Don’t look too close now, else she might decide to take you by the nose and teach you some manners.”

  “Why can’t I see her? I saw the dead woman in the hotel…the one that gave me that key.”

  “Mama Bindu ain’t a ghost, that’s why. She crossed over to the other side, left nothing behind. Not like the prostitute.”

  “Then how can you see her,” Layla asked. “Because of your magic?”

  Monique chuckled. “Yes and no. I can commune with the dead, child. Been doing it all my life, since I was just a little one. That’s why Mama Bindu took a shine to me. She knew I had a rare gift in my blood. I was blessed.”

  Layla shifted a little closer to the woman, obviously curious. “So, Mama Bindu isn’t the only one you can talk to? You can reach…anyone?”

  Monique put a hand to Layla’s cheek, looked deep into her eyes. “Honey, I know you asking from a place of love. But let me tell you, and I’ll only say it once, nothing good ever come of bothering the departed. Some things ought to be let rest. When they with you here, in your heart, they live on forever.”

  Layla bit her lip, nodded, and lowered her eyes under the woman’s gentle hand.

  “But enough of that. We got business to attend to, children. Time is not on our side, and if we gonna get done what must get done, we gonna have to stop yammering and get after it.”

  “What do we have to do?” Nick imagined himself sprawled across the top of some primal stone altar, bare-chested and bathed in the blood of a freshly sacrificed animal of some sort, surrounded by hanging skins and religious totems.

  Monique looked him square in the eye. “We got to kill you.”

  “Come again?”

  “You heard me, Nick. And I know it don’t sound at all appetizing, but it’s got to be done. There ain’t no other way around it.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but that sort of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?”

  Monique’s nostrils flared as she took a great breath, her face taking on a calming look.

  “The dark man has your soul, Nick. He has it dead to rights and there’s no earthly living thing that can shake his grip.”

  “No living thing,” he repeated.

  “Now you catching up to speed, honey. Only you have the power to fight for your own soul, but it’s a battle that’s got to be fought in the land of the dead.”

  Nick felt doubt drain him. It had been a waste of time coming here.

  “Not really much good if I have to die anyway, is it?”

  “Boy,” she said somberly, “we all got to die. But it ain’t a common thing to get your soul ate up by the bogeyman. Trust me, it won’t be a pleasurable thing.”

  “And then what? What’s the point of keeping my own soul when I’m dead? Don’t feed me any crap about reincarnation, either, because I don’t buy it.”

  Mama Bindu’s niece offered a grim smile.

  “The thing of it is, child, just because the body has expired don’t mean the soul won’t live on. The land of the dead is only the next stopping place in the great cycle. When the dark man devours your soul, it will be a second death. A long, terrible thing that might take decades. Or even longer. It is the life force that allows him to live on in this world, a leech among men, a monster of the flesh.”

  Nick pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes.

  “How? And why? How did he do this to me…and why me of all people?”

  “Because of her, Nick. Because of the young woman with the hair like fiery blood. She gave herself to him willingly, and made you a killer. False promises he certainly made to her, and just what she wanted to hear. No doubt she almost gone now, wasted away while he sucks her dry. But you, Nick. With you, he got what he needs.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Boy, you got blackness on your spirit. When a man kills another man, he loses a part of what makes him human. It breaks the whole, makes it possible for the spirit to be seized. You know what I’m saying? It makes it possible for him who means harm to reach his hand right in and take hold.”

  “But there are lots of killers out there,” Nick countered. “I understand what you’re trying to say, but it still makes no logical sense. Why me?”

  “Because, Nick, you ain’t proud of what you done. There are plenty of killers out there, plenty of marked men, for sure. But there are also damn few of them who didn’t want to do it in the first place, didn’t want deep down to take a human life and wipe it away. No man is born a killer, but the murderer’s soul is one that is dirtied by life. The act itself often becomes only an eventual thing, like a waiting bomb. It is more likely than not bound to happen at some point because the tortured soul demands it. But not you. You’re a pure heart. Lost and wayward, yes oh yes, but a pure heart still.”

  “So, that’s why he wants him so badly?” Layla said.

  “You got it, girl. That soul of his is worth a thousand blackened ones. And believe you me he knows it. This man, this beastly leech has taken enough of them to know the difference between a boiled rat and a T-bone steak.”

  “Layla,” Nick said. “She did this. She…knew it. She made it happen.”

  A sour taste of metal filled the back of Nick’s throat. It was the venom of fury, welling up inside of him, boiling over in a torrent of fear and disgust. He wanted ba
dly to blame Laura. He hated her with a rage so intense that it was near blinding. But he was not blinded from the truth. Not completely. If there was one person to blame in the whole matter it was him. The responsibility fell squarely on his shoulders. He hated this woman for her directness, probably because deep down he knew she was right. The longer this affliction plagued him, the clearer it became that he was a man unraveling. His free will was not only capable of being pirated, but it was slowly seeping from him. He was like a bucket without a handle and a hole in the bottom.

  Nick hammered the warped surface of the red oak floor with his open palm.

  “How can I expect to fight a man I don’t even know the identity of?”

  Monique shrugged.

  “What?” Nick said. “You don’t know?”

  “Boy, how should I know that? Only Mama Bindu can tell you that.”

  The tone of her voice explained that this was something that would not be achieved through some sort of ethereal séance. It told him in no uncertain terms that in order to reap whatever knowledge the deceased cleric had to offer, he was going to have to do it face to face, in the place where she resided.

  “You can’t help me? You can’t keep me alive? Then what the fuck good are you?” Nick rose to his feet.

  Layla reached for the cuff of his jeans but he sidestepped it.

  “Nick, wait. Just sit down and take it easy.”

  “No. I’ve heard enough of this shit, Layla. This chick isn’t doing anything but laying on a thick layer of cosmic guilt trip. Is this all my fault? Sure. Yeah, you think I don’t know that? It’s my fault my dick got me into trouble, that my carelessness, no, my recklessness came around to bite me on the ass. But your only solution is to have me do what the Black Tar Man wants me to do anyway, to off myself, with no chance of living my life again in this world? That’s not a solution. That’s a loss. With all due respect, fuck you, lady.”