KNIGHT'S REPORTS: 3 Book Set (7 page)

Chapter
10

Hoodoo High

After Black Zack shut out the lights in his Jazzy Brass horn shop, he dropped a broom across the doorway before he headed to the back room.

“What’s that about?” I asked.

He said, “Keeps them evil spirits out — don’t need no witch comin’ in messin’ with Ella Fitzgerald an’ her soon t’be yappers.”

I grabbed the Mach 10 and my wallet and followed him into the back room, past an old, worn out cot and a restroom, and then through an outside door. Parked behind the shop was a blue, well-maintained ‘52 Dodge pickup with what looked like hay bales stacked in the back.

“Nice ride,” I said, admiring the old split-window Mopar truck.

“Thanks. Don’t pay n’mind t’them alfalfa bales. They’s f’my couz’s goats.”

I held my comments as I went around to the passenger side. Another golden retriever sat beside the door. This one had its mouth full of tennis balls.

Zack got behind the wheel and unlocked and opened the passenger door. He saw the dog. “Don’t pay n’mind t’him, neither. Him’s Satchmo — baby-daddy to Ella Fitzgerald’s soon a’comin’ yappers. Neighbor lady Ann Monett’s dog. She gots some hot stuff, know’d wha’I’mean? Her ol’ doggie there’s sweet as k’be — get’s some kinda kick outa stuffin’ his mouth with them tennis balls. His record’s five.”

The dog wagged his tail as I patted his head and stepped around.

I got in and Zack started the engine.

I asked, “What about a woman called Poodoo? Is she a friend?”

Zack looked at me questioningly.

“A goon named John Poppy mentioned her.”

“That murd’rin’ bastard lay a han’ on P’doo, I swear I kill ‘im!”

“Poppy won’t be laying hands on anybody ever again.”

The Brennan laugh came again. “You’s kill’m, boy? Hot damn — good wook!”

He put the floor shift into gear, and we headed out over the curb and into the street. With the punch of the button on a CD player hanging under the dash, the rhythmic beat of Ram Jam’s “Black Betty” began.

“We gonna meet up with Poodoo time come later. She’s on t’sumpin big.”

“What do you think’s happened to Billy?”

“Last I know’d, he’s a goin’ down t’swamp, lookin’ fo’ the chil’ern’s prison — where they’s keepin’ the kids.”

“‘
They’
being Sheriff DePue and Papa Legba?”

Ram Jam’
s complaining guitar.

“That them!”

“I thought so.”

“No! That righ’ there be them!”

Fifty yards ahead, a police car pulled sideways to block us on the narrow street. Behind us, another one of those black limos did the same.

“She-it!” Zack said, “Hol’ on, boy!”

“E Z.”

“No ‘taint!”

“My name’s E Z.”

“Your name an’ mine be mud we cain’t get the hell outa ‘ere!”

The “Black Betty” vocals begin.

“Alley,” I said and pulled out the Mach 10. It’s been a while since I actually shot at a law enforcement officer.

Zack turned left into the alley, the old pickup leaning onto two wheels momentarily. As the cops got out and drew their guns, I put some carefully-aimed rounds in both tires on our side.

But the limo was right behind us, and the alley proved a bit tight.

We smashed into several trash cans and a mattress and went over a couple of deep dips in the road before making another hard left turn onto a street that wasn’t much wider than the alley.

“Did I lose ‘em?”

“No, the limo’s twenty yards back.”

“No, E Z boy! Did I lose ‘em alfalfa bales? Cuz’ll get all wocka-jawed we lose his hay!”

I’m feeling faint, and I shake my head and squint to see through my suddenly blurred vision. Finally, focus returns. “Three bales?”

“Yessa, and thank the good lawd!”

Zack glances at me. “Say, E Z boy, what’s mattah. I lay the smacks t’ya too hard?”

“No, I think I was drugged somehow. The woman who showed me where your shop was blew dust in my face and scratched my hand.”

“What woman?”

“Pretty black lady. Bumped into her at Marie Lavaue’s House of Voodoo. Her name was Marie something, too.”

“Marie Paris Dumesnil de Glapion?”

“Yeah, that was it.”

“E Z boy, you’s in trouble. That’s Marie Lavaue’s di-reck desen’ant! She be the Voodoo Queen. But she ain’t good like h’gran’ma, many past — she practice
black
hoodoo, not good magic!” He was genuinely worried. “N’body jus’ bumps inna her. She do some gris-gris, make a doll outa you hair an’ put a hex on you’s — an m’shop.” He stared out the front windshield of the old pickup. “I’s sho hope Ella Fitzgerald an’ them soon t’be yippers’s a’righ’.”

I checked the side of my head where I’d felt the pinch when Marie left me in front of Zack’s shop. Sure enough, I found a bald spot about the size of my little fingernail.

Gunfire erupted, blowing out the back window, sending glass and alfalfa into the cab of the pickup. One bullet passed by Zack’s head and put a spider-webbed hole on the driver side of the split front window.

“She-it!”

While we’d been distracted, the limo caught up on the straight road. But Black Zack was doing a hell of a job driving, and the old flathead six cylinder must have been tuned perfectly. Within another three minutes, we’d turned several corners — cutting across a couple — and pulled away to about three-hundred yards. Finally, we turned onto a two-lane blacktop leading out of town.

Another five miles, we turned onto dirt, and the limo was nowhere in sight. The old rutted road, lined with thick foliage, vined trees and high grass, took us on a winding, hilly trip toward the swampland.

And so it goes, just when you feel secure and let down your guard half an inch, somebody throws you a jab that lights up the stars behind your eyes.

As we rounded a curve and came over a rise, a patrol car blocked the road a hundred feet ahead. We couldn’t miss either the sedan or the young cop with the .357 aimed over the hood of his car.

At fifty miles per hour, the crash sent the old Dodge pickup into a spin, its gull-wing hood flapping off like a bird. Then down the thirty-foot embankment on the right side we went. We hit the bottom of the ditch hard. I lost consciousness again, this time more from the impact than the drugs still clouding my mind.

When I came to, my movements were slow — very slow and labored. I glanced to Zack and found him leaning against the steering wheel, a trickle of blood coming from his forehead, eyes closed. The truck was nose down in the ditch, and after what seemed like minutes, I realized the old Dodge’s horn was blaring.

Then, I saw the smoke.

The cloud of hay smoke came heavily through the broken rear window, so thick I could barely breathe. The hay bales had busted apart and alfalfa was everywhere inside the cab. The truck would soon be entirely engulfed in flames. I kicked open my door, took the big horn player by the arm and began pulling his limp body out of the cab. As I did, he came to consciousness and helped. We crawled away a few feet and he collapsed.

“
Soc au’ lait!
” Zack said, and at first I thought he was crying. But when he gave that Walter Brennan chuckle in between wails of giddy emotion, I realized he was laughing hysterically.

“She-it, man!” he said. “Cuz’s gonna be pissed!”

I coughed from the smoke and found myself laughing with him. I figured the silliness we were embracing must have been from whatever hallucinogenics the beautiful, black Voodoo woman had passed me by aerosol powder or fingernail scratch. Still, the laughter lay on my face and throat like a tight mask, and I couldn’t shake it no matter how hard I tried.

“It’s just hay — alfalfa,” I said, trying to control myself. “What’s it go for, these days, twelve bucks a bale?”

“She-it, E Z boy!” he said, “not this alfalfa. This’s the good stuff! Fifteen G’s a bale.”

I frowned not understanding, at first. I realized I was starting to get very hungry, in spite of being in danger of losing my life. The cop was probably incapacitated up on the road, but more police would surely arrive soon. Still, I was hungry and laughing my fool ass off. When I took my next good breath, I realized why.
Marijuana?

“Zack,” I said between chuckles. “Your cousin’s goats eat
Mary Jane
.”

“Uh-huh! When Cuz is wasted ‘nough t’gives it to’m. Cuz eats’t, too. An’ he rolls’t, an’ smokes’t, an’ brews’t in his po’lickah, an’ bakes’t in his cookies — an’ sells’t t’his neighbors an’ kinfolk!”

We were both laughing too hard to stop, leaning back on our elbows, watching the cherry ‘52 Dodge pickup burn.

We both finally settled some, and I asked, “What about your pickup burning up?”

“Yessir, sure wish w’had some hot dogs an’ marshmallows!”

The laughing erupted again, with the shrill Walter-Brennan keening and snorts. Tears were streaming from our eyes.

Finally, I caught my breath again. “Really, Zack — your beautiful truck?”

“It jus’ a thin’, E Z boy. Ain’t folks like you an’ me, an’ Poodoo an’ Ella Fitzgerald. An’ not like Billy. I’ll do fine withou’ ol’ Dodge. Won’t withou’ any m’folks — let’s go fin’ Billy.”

He started giggling like a child again as we pulled ourselves up the embankment, one handful of weeds at a time.

“What?” I asked him.

“What?” he shook his head and giggled some more.

It was contagious. “Come on — what?”

He could barely get it out between chuckles. “I ... sure ... got ... them munchies!”

“Well, hell — let’s get outa here and go get some Twinkies!”

“Okay, E Z boy. An’ pity the fool get’n ou’way!”

Chapter
11

Jambalaya, Crawfish Pie, F
ilé Gumbo and Twinkies

When we got to the road, the sheriff’s deputy was lying beside his wrecked patrol car unconscious. We heard a conversation on the cruiser radio putting out an APB on us and the pickup.

We’d been headed for Margoles Bait and Gas, a small store catering to bayou hunters and fishermen. Zack said that if anyone in the Honey Island Swamp had seen Billy, it would be octogenarians Jacques and Agrippina Margoles.

To avoid further contact, we cut through the woods to the bait shop, Zack figuring it to be about two miles away “as the bunny runs”. That was probably a good estimate, but the trees, vines, swamp grass and wading through waist-high bogs and marshy pools made the going difficult. I hadn’t seen this kind of foliage since my days in Marine “Super Squad” competition training in the swampland of North Carolina. But even at Zack’s age and size, he proved himself quite the swamp monster when it came to taking on the terrain.

In the shop, after buying two bags full of Twinkies and other junk food, Black Zack asked about people coming and going, especially the sheriff’s men and Papa Legba or any of his henchmen. While we listened, we dug into our bags of goodies. But I could tell the elderly proprietors of the country store were reluctant to talk around me, so I backed off a few steps. They whispered to Zack, but I could still hear them.

There had been considerable traffic in recent months going down in a hollow past what they called Legba’s cabin — a sort of scary, dark place that “
anybody with sense know’d better than t’nose ‘roun’ ‘cause they got guns and gris-gris
”. But in recent weeks, there had been a steady stream, including windowless panel vans and a couple of container semi-trucks.

“Soun’s like they’s col-lectin’ up sumpin,” Zack said.

The couple nodded with knowing eyes. “Chil’ern,” the woman said. “Know’d that ‘cause the drivers come in f’some candy — whole shitload o’candy, lotta canned stuff — an’ a whole buncha o’er the counter drugs, mos’ly col’ and flu-bug stuff.”

Zack described Billy to them, and they said they’d seen him just yesterday, early morning. He’d asked for their phone, but they didn’t have one, so he’d charged up his cell for about thirty minutes and then headed on foot back into the woods in the direction of Legba’s cabin.

Billy had told them he was going back to save some kids. He said he’d rescued a couple the night before, but had to let them get recaptured in order to evade capture himself.

The old woman looked around Zack to examine me and said, “Billy asked fo’ help. Neither us ca’drive, anymo’. Tol’ ‘im, we’d get word out t’anybody pass by.”

Billy had made arrangements to buy the couple’s Mighty Mite Jeep when he returned and gave them a two-hundred-dollar deposit. An unusual, aluminum bodied machine with an air-cooled Porsche engine, it was made specifically for the US Marines. This one had a snorkel for driving through water up to six feet deep. The 1960 Jeep was parked in front of their store with a hand printed sign that read
$900 — It Runs!
He’d told them he’d bring seven hundred more when he came back.

Billy had walked out of the store with his cell phone to his ear. The old woman thought he’d said something to his “mom”. A few seconds later, they heard gunfire, and they hadn’t seen him since.

She said, “Then those sheriff’s dep’ties come in an’ tol’ us keep our mouth’s shut, o’ be us dead alayin’ in the swamp.”

I bumped Billy’s bid, paying the elderly Cajun couple two thousand dollars up front for their nine-hundred-dollar Jeep. With wide eyes, Jacques Margoles said they’d hold it for us. He’d park it out of sight in back with their Cadillac, and it’d be gassed up and ready when we returned.

When we left, Jacques pointed to the way Billy had ventured and we followed his lead deeper into the swamplands. Zack said he knew the place we were going — that he and some friends had wandered there when he was a teenager over forty years ago, while unsuccessfully poaching alligators. They’d only found one gator.

“Damn near ate all three o’us ‘live,” Zack said and laughed. “Meanes’ damn thin’ — wa’n’t n’mo’ than three-fee’ long, an’ damn nea’ kilt us! Don’t like no adigadahs, anyhow. ‘Specially not that one. Had a big yellah spot ‘tween ‘is eyes where a bullet passed. Mus’ be cain’t die. Ne’er fo’get that adigadah with the big yellah spot an’ bullet hole on ‘is fo’head. We’s calt him
Ol’ Yellah
. Had nigh’mares ‘bout ‘im.

“Ne’er poached no adigadah, befo’. Ain’ ne’er poached a adigadah since — jus’ poach eggs. Them won’ bite y’arm off — jus’ give you’s a little gas.” He chuckled again.

Even though the Twinkies had helped our
munchies
, I could tell my new friend was still under the influence of the “alfalfa” smoke, as was I.

Stepping into the thick foliage, I asked Zack, “Who is this Papa Legba character?”

“Him the guardian o’ the crossroads ‘tween Heaven an’ Earth — been tha’ fo’ thousan’ years. Been hearin’ stories ‘bout ‘im since I’s knee-high. Him won’t let jus’ anybody’s spirit pass, ‘less he wants ‘em do. Him cas’ out who‘im don’t like an’ sends ‘em t’Hell.”

Zack faced me to make sure I heard his next bit of info. “‘Him gots horns — an’ a big ol’ deek.”

“A what?”

“A deek. A big un. They sez it hard as teak wood, an’ ‘bout this long,” he said giving me an indication with his hands of about three feet. “I sees it ‘n a pi’ture.”

“Jeez,” I said, “I won’t bend over in front of that big ol’ boy.”

Zack gave his Brennan laugh again. “Y’got that right! Ain’ gonna sit on ‘is lap an’ az wha’ I gonna get fo’ Chris’mas, either!” He laughed again, and then chuckled to himself intermittently over the next ten minutes as we struggled on.

I’m not superstitious, and I don’t believe in the supernatural. Most things I have to touch to believe. So why would someone impersonate Papa Legba, a mythical Voodoo character and live in the swamp? To keep the ignorant backwoods folks away? Or to make any improprieties that were reported to the FBI and other authorities seem more likely superstition and ghost stories? Maybe a little of both.

Just inside the tree line of a small clearing, we caught sight of the cabin and reconnoitered it. The old log structure seemed to protrude from the thick swamp vegetation. Three sheriff’s officers stood outside, one whittling on a stick and the other two pacing. The big black limo and the sheriff’s car were parked in front, along with several other vehicles, including two semi-trucks with container trailers.

Obviously there as a precaution, the guards seemed bored and not used to being confronted — especially way out here.

Figuring those on the inside would be more willing to talk if they thought they had the upper hand, I devised a risky plan. If we busted in, guns blazing, we could easily get Billy or any other innocents inside killed. And we might not get to the bottom of this whole scheme. Of course there was also the possibility we’d be killed in the bargain.

“Do you know how to use this thing?” I asked Zack in a low voice as I prepared for action and handed him the Mach 10.

Zack’s eyes got big, and I thought he was about to burst out laughing again. I held my hand over his mouth, and he quickly replaced it with his own.

After swallowing hard and clearing the smile from his lips, he said, “Jus’ like one o’ them plastic ketchup bottles — poin’ an’ squeeze, an’ try’n squirt everythin’ n’sight.” He muffled a laugh with his hand.

“Okay,” I told him. “If there’s any gunfire, or if I’m inside more than five minutes, you come in and squeeze that thing hard—shoot anybody that’s armed. Just don’t kill me, Billy or any of the kids.”

If it wasn’t for the marijuana high, I was pretty sure I’d be able to count on Zack for about anything. But, right now ...?