Night of the Jaguar (36 page)

“Of that I make horseshit,” said Zwick. “Technically, we in science are not allowed to say that anything’s impossible, just that some things are so improbable as to be not worth thinking about, and this falls in that category. I mean organic forms do change shape, obviously, but as growth over time, and via evolution over humongous ranges of time. They don’t just change shape like in fairy tales, not in real life.”

“Okay, but look at it another way. If you were God, and making a world in which something like that
could
happen, how would you do it?”

“Oh, well, that’s the way to my heart, letting me play God.” Zwick laughed and finished his beer, tossing the can over his shoulder into the bay. “Although among the many improvements I’d make, that one would probably not be high on the list. Let’s see now….” Zwick
leaned back against the rail and opened another can. His eyes lost focus as he raised his head to the sky, seeming to seek counsel from the current deity. Paz observed him with interest, as a phenomenon of nature. Watching Robert Zwick cogitate was less fascinating than watching Nolan Ryan pitch or Michael Jordan shoot baskets, but it was the same sort of thing, a thing regular people couldn’t hope to do.

“Right,” said Zwick after several minutes of this. “We all have in us a neural map of our bodies. No one knows how detailed it is, but let’s say for the sake of argument that it descends to the molecular level. So your shape-shifter would have to have a duplicate image of the selected animal in there somewhere. How it’s instantiated we don’t know, but it’s not through any strictly biological process. On the other hand, we’re constantly discovering biological processes we never suspected, so call that a gimme. We observe in nature the caterpillar turning into a butterfly, a completely different creature, over a fairly short time. Let’s say it’s the same kind of thing, but faster. Okay, we need energy. Well, there are humongous reserves of energy in the universe, the so-called dark energy for one thing, and ordinarily we have no access to it. But suppose Penrose is correct, that consciousness is partly a quantum phenomenon, and suppose our little guy has solved the dualism problem, don’t ask me how…”

“Sorry, what problem?”

“We talked about this before, remember? Substance dualism, the idea that consciousness is its own thing and exists independently of the material brain, as Descartes believed. It satisfies all the problems of consciousness by explaining them away—the ghost in the machine, as they call it, or rather all problems except one, and that’s the killer: how do you imagine any gearing or connection between the material and the immaterial? How does an immaterial mind cause a material event, say, the firing of neurons in the motor cortex that move your arms? Which is why it’s bullshit, and also why there’s no God.”

“Except you.”

“Of course. But never mind that for the moment. Substance dualism implies conscious immaterial beings that are nevertheless capable of influencing matter, so that takes care of a lot of your energy concerns. This putative being moves the molecules into the right place according
to the alternate body plan he keeps in his head. Animal flesh is just air and water and a few minerals, easily obtained from ordinary dirt, if you have godlike powers. So that’s one solution. Alternatively, we could posit that there are other universes intimately connected with our own, the unseen world of superstition. We think that our four dimensions are generated by vibrations of the strings wrapped up in the Calabi-Yau geometry, but for the math to work there have to be seven other dimensions tangled up in there, of which we know zip and probably never will. Again, the central question is, What is consciousness? Maybe it can get in there and arrange for the passage of mystic beings. Maybe that’d be a simpler solution than assembling your jaguar from molecules on order. The thing just steps through, and the little Indian goes back the other way, like a revolving door. The energy cost would be huge, but who’s counting?”

Paz nodded. He had some experience both with beings appearing from nowhere and with uncanny geometries. “I like that one. So you think it’s possible.”

“Not the right question. Like I said, anything’s possible, but almost everything except what we observe is ridiculously improbable. On the other hand, we don’t know shit about either consciousness on the fine grain, or about the probability set associated with dimensions other than the familiar ones.” He regarded the present beer can, found it empty, flung it away. “There, that solves the physical problem, but it leaves the sociopolitical one, which I think is the most telling.”

“Which is what?”

“Which is that if these little guys, these shamans, can do all that subtle moving of energies with their minds, how come they don’t rule the world now? How come scientific technology totally destroys any competing worldview? I mean, destroys it physically? The Indians are all on reservations, if you notice, and all the indigenous people, so called, are flocking into cities, dying to sew underwear and get a TV.”

“Mozart,” said Paz.

“Say what?”

“A woman I once knew, an anthropologist, said that magic was like a creative art. There were geniuses that could do things that no one else could, just like Mozart, but that they couldn’t package what they
did so that the whole culture could do it, too. But any asshole can use science packaged as technology, so the primitives get killed off everywhere, like you said.”

“Hmph. Sounds like something an anthropologist would cook up. Now, do you want to know the real explanation?”

“If you would be so kind.”

“You have perfectly ordinary murders by human murderers, who are also charlatans. The so-called evidence is planted and faked. The observers are distracted and/or scared to death, or are believers and autohypnotize themselves.”

“Yeah, that’s the current police theory. But how come me and my wife and my kid are having the same dream about a jaguar while this is going on?”

“Oh,
dreams
! Now
there’s
a body of reliable evidence! Look, the reason science more or less abandoned self-reporting in the study of the human mind is that with the right suggestion people will report fucking
anything
. I mean the whole purpose of the scientific enterprise is to eliminate—”

“Daddy! My hook is stuck!”

Both men looked at Amelia, whose rod was bowed nearly double. Paz realized with a guilty shock that he had nearly forgotten she was on board. The drag on her reel let out a number of clicks. Paz jumped to her side and took the rod from her. He heaved on it and felt the tug of a live weight on the line. Handing it back, he said, “That’s not stuck, baby, you have a fish on there. Reel it in!”

As she did, Zwick leaned over the side and observed the line. “I think it’s an old tire. It doesn’t seem to be doing much running.”

“Shut up, Zwick! Don’t tell a Cuban about what’s a fish. Am I right, Amelia?”

“It’s a fish,” she cried. “I can feel it moving.”

She was correct. After five minutes of steady cranking a large gray shape could be seen moving toward the surface. Paz reached out with a landing net and heaved the thing over the rail, but it was lively still and with a violent gyration it leaped from the net and began to skip and bounce along the deck.

“What is it, Daddy?” the girl shouted.

“It’s a hardhead catfish. God, it must be a two-pounder. Wait a second, I’ll get the net on it again…”

But the fish skittered across to where Zwick was standing. He raised his foot. Paz saw what he was about to do and a negative expostulation formed in his throat. Too late. Zwick stamped down heavily on the catfish’s back, and the sharp, thick, venom-coated spine that marine catfish wear in their dorsal fins went right through the bottom of his sneaker and pierced his foot to the bone.

“Does it still hurt?” Paz called out twenty minutes later as the
Mata
skipped over the bay toward Flamingo, going all out.

“Not really. I just amputated my foot with your bait knife.”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously? It’s
agony
! Why the hell didn’t you tell me the goddamn thing had a poison spine in its back?”

“Because I thought you knew everything,” said Paz. “Who could imagine that the world’s smartest man would tromp on a catfish? We’re almost at the channel. Do you want me to take you to Jackson?”

“Hell, no!” said Zwick. “I might get touched by one of my students. No, let’s go to South Miami, it’s closer anyway.”

I
fail to see why everyone sort of turns away and giggles when I tell them what happened to me,” said Zwick to Lola Wise. His tone was aggrieved, but she was hard-pressed not to giggle herself.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” said Lola. “I heard that Sir Francis Crick once stuck his tongue in a light socket.”

“You’re giggling, too! You’ll probably be laughing your ass off when I get permanent brain damage from this operation.”

“It’s a local, Zwick. They have to clean out the puncture. You don’t get permanent brain damage from a local anesthetic. You’re a doctor, you know this. I can’t believe you’re being such a baby.”

Lola felt a tug and leaned over to receive a whisper from her daughter. “Amy says you can get Dove bars in the cafeteria. She says she always gets one when she has to get shots and wishes to know if the same will make you stop whining.”

“Thanks, Amy,” said Zwick. “Throughout this you’ve been the only person who hasn’t made me feel like a jerk. Tell me, Amy, this is something you learn in kindergarten here? The colors, the alphabet, and catfish have poisonous dorsal spines—that’s in the curriculum?”

Before Amelia could consider this question, a nurse came in, giggling, and whisked Zwick off on a gurney.

“Where’s Daddy?” Lola asked.

“Around. Mommy, is it my fault that Bob got stuck? It was my catfish.”

“No, of course not, sugar. It was an accident. He didn’t know it was dangerous to step on it.”

“But,
technically,
if I hadn’t’ve caught this fish, he wouldn’t be hurt.”

Lola bent down and gave the girl a hug and a tickle. “Oh, stop it!
Technically,
if I hadn’t met your father and got married and had you, you wouldn’t be there and wouldn’t have caught the fish. You can’t string contingencies out that far; you’d go nuts.”

“What’s contingencies?”

“Stuff that happens because of other stuff. The point is, contingency is morally neutral. Responsibility follows intent. You didn’t intend to hurt Bob’s foot, did you? No? Then you’re off the hook.”

“Like the catfish,” said Paz, catching this last as he entered. He caressed his daughter and wife simultaneously. “We have a serious
pescadora
here,” he said, nuzzling the girl. “She landed that monster all by herself, two pounds three ounces, a major fish.”

“Yes,” said his wife, “we were just discussing the tangled web of contingency and how while she was responsible for the fish being there she was not responsible for Bob getting stuck.”

“True enough, but on the other hand, you might say that Zwick needed to be punctured a little. A lot of people think that what happens was meant to happen.”

“It’s a point of view,” said Lola, in a tone that indicated she did not share it. “Anyway, I have to go check on a patient.”

“Busy day? I was surprised to see you working.”

“I’m not meant to lounge, as you know. I was going batty in the house and I figured I’d ease back in on a slow shift. This is a strange one, by the way, this patient. A couple of Good Samaritans found her wandering up Dixie Highway, naked. They thought she’d been drugged and assaulted.”

“Was she?”

“Hard to say. No drugs in the blood work. Sexually active, but she hadn’t been raped, not recently anyway. On the other hand, she
had
been tied up with tape, hands and feet. I can’t get anything out of
her—mute and flaccid. And an epileptic. She seized just after she got here.”

“Uh-huh. This person’s about nineteen, a tallish good-looking redhead?”

Lola stared at him, dumbfounded. “Yes. How did you know?”

“Her name’s Jennifer Simpson and the cops are looking for her. She was snatched off the street a couple of nights ago by a Colombian gang. I need to call Tito on this.”

“My God! Are you sure it’s the right girl?”

“Unless there’s another redheaded teenaged epileptic who’s recently been tied hand and foot wandering around Miami. The other thing is…well, the bad guys are going to be looking for her.”

“But nobody but us knows she’s here.”

“Not at this second, but they’ll think of hospitals right away and put some money on the street. Hospitals are full of low-wage Latinos. It won’t take long. Let’s take a peek at Jennifer now—maybe she’ll talk if we show her we know who she is.”

They went down the hall to one of the small rooms where they kept ER patients, with Amelia trailing behind them, temporarily unregarded.

The girl was in bed with the covers pulled up high and her red-gold hair spread wide on the pillow, like a dead girl in a Victorian painting. Lola stood over her and said, “Jennifer? Is that your name? Jennifer Simpson?”

Jenny opened her eyes. She saw a pale blond woman in a white lab coat over green scrubs, and a dark man. They were looking at her with concern, and saying a name, which was strange at first, just nonsense syllables, and then the sounds popped the little switches in her empty mind and she knew it was her own. Memories returned, first trickling in, then a flood as she reoccupied herself,
all
the memories, including the recent ones from the garage. Another face appeared, lower down in her field of view, a little girl, dark-haired, with skin colored a tone just halfway between those of the two adults. These people were covered in sparkly lights like sequins. Waves of color burst from their heads and fell with slow grace to the floor, and the cool waves rolled down from the region of her heart to her groin, really quite delicious this time, and she was gone from there.

When she could see again she found herself not in the hospital room but in a gray place with no horizon lit by a cool light that seemed to come from nowhere at all. The only real color came from the bright-feathered cape and headdress worn by her companion, who was Moie. For some reason none of this surprised her.

“Hey, Moie,” she said. “What’s up?”

He answered in a language she did not know, yet the meaning of his words was perfectly clear to her. “Jaguar has taken you to the other side of the moon,” he said, “where the dead have their being. I mean the real dead, not the
wai’ichuranan
. This is a great thing, because I don’t think that he has ever let one of you here. I think it’s possible because you have the
unquayuvmaikat,
the falling gift. It’s how the god reaches you, even though you have no training at all.”

Jenny accepted this as reasonable and wondered for a moment why she had never thought of it before.

“He breathed in my face.”

“Yes. This is another thing that has never been done to one of you. I have no idea of what it means.”

“Me neither. Maybe I’ll be able to turn into a jaguar, too.”

“Possibly, but, you know, it’s not a turning into. It’s hard to explain. You know how animals mark their territory?”

“Like dogs peeing on trees?”

“Yes, and in other ways. So, those who serve Jaguar are his marks in this world. He can smell them as he passes through the
ajampik,
the spirit world, and then he makes a door through and changes places with the
jampiri,
me. Then I am here until he calls me back again.”

“Is he going to do that with me now?”

“All things are possible, but it usually takes a lot of training and practice to walk through the worlds, and you have none. I am the last of my people who can do this, and it would be very strange if you could also do it. If we had many hands of seasons, perhaps I could teach you, but we don’t. My time in the land of the dead is nearly over.”

“Are you going home?”

“I don’t think so. Being with so many dead people is harder than I thought it would be. Father Tim was right—you are as many as the
leaves on the trees. If one dies, another takes his place. And I feel my
aryu’t
draining out, like water from a gourd with the small crack in it. It’s hard to remain a human being without real people around me.”

“You could go home. I bet Cooksey could get you back. You wouldn’t have to paddle your canoe either.”

“I know this. And it would make me happy to go home, as Cooksey has told me, in the flying canoe of the
wai’ichuranan
. But now I am part, and Jaguar is part of a…a part of a…
thing
. I could say the word, but even if you knew what it meant, you wouldn’t know, because there is no place to hold it in the minds of the dead people. It is like a place where many, many paths come together, and the choice made there determines what roads we travel and everything that will or won’t happen to us after we take that road. And also for some reason Jaguar wishes to take this girl—that’s part of the…
thing.
Only this one girl. When I first saw you, I thought that you were the one that was necessary, but it’s not so. Then I thought perhaps because she is the grandchild of the man that Jaguar took, Calderón, but that’s not it, either. I’ve served Jaguar all my life, or nearly all, and I still have no understanding of his ways. Why should I? He’s a god and I’m not. I don’t care about that—this is the life I was chosen for. But I’m curious about what he wants with you.”

“Me, too,” said Jenny, who was not particularly curious. Perhaps that was why Jaguar had chosen her. She had often noticed that most of the people she met had some kind of motor in them or a compass—they knew where they were going or what they wanted, but she thought that she had never had anything like that in her, or not a very strong one, whatever it was. From her first memories she had been an inert being, ready to go along with whatever was happening, learning how to vanish as an individual that anyone else was obliged to consider. She had gone along with the various weirdness or blandness of her foster homes, had been docile at school, had agreed cheerfully with whatever the other kids wanted to do, had participated in sex when it was time for that to happen, had picked up the environmental radical business from Kevin and the science business from Cooksey, although she considered this last to be a little different, because it was a lot closer to
having something real, a real talent or desire within her void. Now there was another thing inside her, not at present making any demands, but
there
; and it had something to do with her disease, if it was a disease at all. Moie certainly didn’t think so.

She found he was looking at her with interest, as if at a newly discovered plant. He rarely smiled but now he did, as at a silly joke. She observed for the first time that his incisors had been filed to sharp points. She wondered what was so funny and was about to ask him when bright light flooded the dim scene and she found she was in the hospital room again.

That doctor, the blond one, was filling her field of vision and she had a finger on Jenny’s eye, as if she had been about to pry an eyelid open. Jenny twisted her face away from the annoyance.

“You’re back with us,” said the doctor. “Do you know where you are?”

“A hospital.”

“Right. South Miami Hospital. Do you know your name?”

“Sure. Jenny Simpson. I had a seizure, right?”

“More than one,” Lola Wise said, and asked a number of other questions pertaining to her condition, after which Jenny asked, “Can I go home now?”

“That’s not a good idea, Jenny. You could seize again. We’d like to keep you under observation for a while, see what drugs work best for you and—”

“I don’t want any drugs. Dilantin makes me sick.”

“There are other drugs besides…”

“No. I want to go home.” She sat up in the bed, clumsy with the residue of the seizure and the dream, if it had been a dream. Things still looked strange, the little speckled lights were still flashing, and the doctor’s face looked transparent—no, not exactly transparent, Jenny thought, but like she could see through the mask that she wore in the way that everyone wore a mask, and see her true feelings. The doctor was frightened, she observed, really scared behind the cool veneer. The man and the little girl were absent.

Jenny looked around the small room. “Can I have my clothes?”

“You don’t have any clothes. You were brought in here completely naked. You’d apparently been walking up Dixie Highway that way.”

“Oh, right. I forgot. Well, could you get me some?” Giving her measurements in a rush. “And some flip-flops? I could pay you back, or somebody…”

“You’d be leaving against medical advice. You’d have to sign a form.”

“That’s cool.”

“And the police would like to talk to you,” said Lola. She felt a certain satisfaction at the look on the silly girl’s face when she said this, and immediately found herself cringing with guilt. It is not pleasant for those in the helping professions to have their help spurned, and more often than is supposed, they get even.

“I’ll get some clothes for you,” said Lola the Sucker, and bustled out.

In the hall she found Tito Morales talking with her husband. “She’s all yours,” Lola said and went to the nurses’ station to sign out for an hour of personal time.

“You want in on this?” asked Morales.

“Would it help?”

“I guess. I don’t know,
mano,
this fucking case…did I tell you they had to let all the Colombians go?”

“No. How the hell did
that
happen?”

“Garza and Ibanez. They swore up and down that these bastards were all bona fide Mexican businessmen. They showed good Mexican paper and smiled a lot. Meanwhile the federal judge and the assistant U.S. attorney are both Cubans, Garza and Ibanez are both generous contributors to the party all Cubans love, and the rest is history. We got absolutely nothing to hang a local warrant on, so it’s
hasta la vista, mis amigos,
write when you get back to Cali.”

“What if they’re really businessmen?”

Morales gave him an eye roll. “Oh, right! Listen, you didn’t see any of them. You know how you just know when someone’s wrong? Well, these
cabrones
were as wrong as it gets. The feds were chewing pencils and running around in little circles.”

“What about Hurtado. Don’t they know what
he
looks like?”

“Of course, but that’s a whole different game. Everyone knows Hurtado is a drug lord, but no one’s ever been able to pin anything on him. The reward is for information leading to arrest and conviction,
but there’s no such info. He’s laundered right up to the nipples. Yet another respectable businessman and our Cubans vouch for him, too. Meanwhile, I’m hoping this girl will help us out on the murder-kidnap.”