The Lower Deep (32 page)

"I was ready to agree with Dr. Driscoll that there is something evil in this house, trying to take possession of us. Trying to bend us to its will."

"So at four-thirty you were lying in bed awake—had been awake for hours, afraid something was after your mind—and you heard a sound in the yard. You got up and went to a window. You looked out, and you think it was Paul."

"Doctor, I'm sure. There was moonlight. And Paul is still a big man, even if he has lost some weight."

"Going toward the road, you say. With Juan Mendoza after him."

"Yes."

"How was Paul dressed?"

"That dark suit he's been wearing all the time lately. And, as I've already mentioned, he was carrying something. Something quite long, wrapped in newspaper."

Steve scowled at his watch again. "Robert, I could happily strangle you for not coming to tell me. Two hours! Do you realize that if Mendoza wasn't following him and doesn't find him for us, Paul may end up missing again, as he did before? Or worse?"

The stockbroker looked down at the floor and shook his head. "I'm sorry. I can see now how stupid I was. But at the time, my mind—if it was mine at that point—kept telling me I mustn't disturb you. You'd been so busy. You needed your sleep. You would be angry. I can't explain it better than that."

"You did see Juan go out right after Paul? You're certain of that?"

"Yes, I'm certain."

"What was
he
wearing?"

"The khaki pants he gardens in. That wild Joseph's coat of a shirt he seems so fond of."

"And you do feel he was actually following Paul?"

"Paul was just out of sight at the end of the yard when the door opened again and Juan appeared.

He waited a few seconds, perhaps to be sure Paul would not look back and see him in the moonlight, then hurried across the yard in the same direction."

Steve asked himself what he should do. He could call Lieutenant Etienne, he supposed, but what
would he say? "One of our patients saw Paul Hen
ninger go out again at four-thirty this morning, Roger. Same old story, and I'm worried. He's been going for walks every day, of course, but never at that hour. No, I haven't any idea where he might have gone. Perhaps to The Hounfor again—if, in
deed, that ever was a destination of his and he wasn't just passing through there on his way to
somewhere else. Or to Anse Douce for another swim, God help us. Or will he just disappear again for several days and come back not knowing what happened to him, as he did the last time?"

Better wait. It was only quarter to seven, and Juan Mendoza was playing detective again. Juan had been pretty good at sleuthing in the past. Hold off a little longer, anyway. And I hope it's my own mind advising me, Steve thought with a sudden touch of fear, and not whatever it was that told Morrison he mustn't disturb me.

"All right, Robert." Frowning at his patient, he shook his head in compassion. "You'd better try for some sleep now. God knows you need it."

His patient departed. Steve picked up the phone and tried to reach Louis Clermont at the doctor's home. On the third try, some fifteen minutes later, he succeeded.

"Louis, I'm sorry. Paul's gone. He was seen leaving here about four-thirty with Juan Mendoza tailing him. I'm just hoping Juan will bring him back."

There was a brief silence. Then Clermont said, "Well, if he does turn up, have him call me, will you?"

"Of course."

"Have him call me here at home, please, no matter what the time. I won't be going to my office today."

"Tired, Louis? You've a right to be, driving back and forth over that god-awful road to Le Cap as often as you—"

"It's more than that, Steve. Much more."

"Oh?"

"Very much more, Steve. I'll get back to you about it." And Abe Lincoln hung up.

Two hours later the army jeep pulled up in the Azagon driveway and Lieutenant Roger Etienne stepped out of it. In the vehicle, looking disconsolate and apprehensive in a soiled white shirt and black trousers, sat the Azagon's cook, Ti-Jean Lazaire. Guarding him was young Dion from the army post.

Etienne found Steve at his desk in the office. "Morning, Doctor," he said without expression. "I've got your cook outside."

Steve brightened. Now at last there might be
some answers to the questions that were driving him up the wall.

"Shall I bring him in?" Etienne said. "He won't make any trouble, I promise you."

"Yes, do. Bring him to the library, why don't you? We'll have more room there."

The lieutenant returned to the front door and motioned to his man in the jeep. Dion spoke to the cook, and both got out. A moment later the cook was seated in the Azagon's library with Steve and the two army men, Lazaire staring vacantly at the floor while Etienne talked.

"It's taken me this long- to locate him because that fellow in The Hounfor, the one who makes coffins, gave me half a dozen places to go and look," Etienne said with a shrug. "I finally picked him up at the home of his lady friend at Carrefour, on the plantation. By the way," he added, "I stopped in to see Elizabeth Langer, and she's improving. Seems to be in pretty good shape, in fact, for a woman who has been through what she says happened to her. I thought you might like to know."

"Thanks. I'm glad."

"Okay, then. Here he is. Do you want to ask him some questions, or shall I tell you what he's already put out in answer to mine?"

"You tell me first, Lieutenant."

The army man looked at Ti-Jean Lazaire and wagged his handsome head as though he found it hard to believe such a man could exist. "Well, first of all he insisted he wasn't out to do anyone here any harm. He likes you people, he says. Am I quoting you correctly, Lazaire?"

Lifting his head, the cook nodded.

"He is especially fond of Paul Henninger and the man who was drowned, he told me. Those two in particular. He could see they were in some kind of trouble, so he tried to help them."

Steve directed a questioning stare at his employee. "What kind of trouble, Ti-Jean?"

"I would rather not say, Doctor."

"I think you pretty much have to."

"Well . . . it seemed to me there was some kind of wickedness going on here,
m 'sié.
Something very bad that was making people sick, giving them terrible headaches and nightmares, and making them walk in their sleep to places where more wickedness would await them."

"Voodoo, you mean?"

The cook shook his head. "Voodoo is not wicked. Oh, there are a few wicked
loa,
yes, and now and then some
mambo
or
houngan
may do evil things, but voodoo itself is a good thing, Doctor."

"You were referring to
bocorism,
then?"

"No,
m 'sie'.
Worse than anything a witch doctor can do. Something truly evil."

"So what you do to protect yourself against this evil presence," Etienne interrupted, spreading both hands in a gesture of resigned acceptance, "is sprinkle some salt around. Or you light black candles in a room they've been coming to—the blackness of the candle attracting the other evil to it—absorbing it, so to speak—and the purity of the flame destroying it." He smiled, as though a man of his background could not be expected to believe such nonsense. "Or you burn incense. Or stretch a tape measure across the window to keep
the presence out." He turned to his subordinate. "Am I getting it right, Dion?"

The younger army man, probably of peasant stock, refrained from smiling and looked vaguely unhappy, but said with obvious reluctance, "Er—yes, Lieutenant. Right."

Steve studied the sad-faced cook with a new kind of feeling and spoke with compassion. "It was you who put the salt at Paul Henninger's door, Ti-Jean?"

"Yes,
Doctor. They are not supposed to step over salt."

"Why did you visit that man in The Hounfor, the voodoo fellow who makes coffins? Was he advising you in these protective measures?"

"Well, yes, he was advising me,
m'sié.
He is a good man. If you knew him, you would never say voodoo is bad. But also, one of the best things to keep evil spirits away is a carpenter's rule."

"I see. So you went to a carpenter for one."

"Not just to a carpenter,
m 'sié.
If the rule has been used to measure a coffin, it is even more powerful."

"Tell me something," Steve said. "Why did Paul Henninger call on your coffin-maker friend? Why did he go in his pajamas? And why wouldn't he admit to us he'd been there?"

"He went for help,
m'sié.
And wore pajamas so he could say he was walking in his sleep again if anyone saw him. The reason we denied going there is that we were afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"That you and Dr. Driscoll would be displeased
if you found out we were involved in voodoo. That you would discharge us."

"When did Paul first go there?"

"The night he woke up in the sea, Doctor."

"Perhaps you'd better explain."

"He went to Auxian Ramses, the
houngan
who makes coffins, to ask for help against the evil he felt was in the sea, calling to him."

"What kind of help, Ti-Jean?"

The cook inhaled deeply and shook his head while letting the breath out. Leaning forward on his chair, he spread his hands and said, "Dr. Spence, Mr. Henninger did not know what kind of help to ask for. But Auxian Ramses knew what to do and did it. He assigned him a personal
loa.
Do you know what that means?"

A personal
loa.
Steve thought, remembering some of what he had learned about voodoo by attending services in Fond des Pintards. Yes, of course. Everyone in voodoo had a personal
loa,
to whom he or she looked for protection and to whom he or she paid homage. Homage usually took the form of private services at which that particular
loa
was honored by the drawing of his or her
vèvé
in cornmeal or ashes on the peristyle floor, the presentation of his or her favorite foods and drinks, and in some cases the offering of certain sacrifices. Some ceremonies were simple, some long and complex, depending on the particular
loa
and, at times, the extent of the help being asked for.

"Which
loa
did Ramses assign to Paul?" Steve asked.

"Agoué, Doctor."

"The god of the sea."

"Yes, the god of the sea. In case he ever again needed protection from the evil in the sea. And of course he did need protection that very night. When he left the voodoo house where the very first of his services to Agoué was in progress, he was drawn to the sea and woke up out of a trance to find himself swimming. If you remember, he was far out at sea and did not know in which direction the shore was. He might have drowned but for the sound of the voodoo drums in the very peristyle where that service was in progress."

"Paul told you this, I suppose."

"Both he and Auxian Ramses."

"Did Paul ever mention a visit to any other house in The Hounfor?"

"M'sié?"

"One of our people here, Juan Mendoza, insists he followed Paul to a whorehouse there. Would you know about that?"

"I do not believe it!" Lazaire spoke in obvious anger.

"Why?"

"Because I was the one who sent him to The Hounfor, and I certainly never told him about any whorehouse, or even that there are such places there. We were discussing voodoo one day, and he asked if I thought it could help him. I said yes, I believed it could, and I sent him to Auxian Ramses. No, no, Doctor. Mr. Henninger never went anywhere in The Hounfor except to Auxian's house."

"The one with the fenced-in yard?"

"The one with the fenced-in yard. Yes."

Then I wonder, Steve thought, why Juan Mendoza introduced a red-light district into this strange scenario. Did he want Paul fired? Or was he trying to keep me from investigating further and finding out where Paul really went?

He frowned at the cook again. "Ti-Jean, why didn't you tell me these things when I first questioned you?"

Roger Etienne said, "Most likely he was afraid to, Doctor. As he just admitted, he thought if you knew he was mixed up in voodoo, you'd fire him." Rising from his chair, the lieutenant walked over to Lazaire and, in a gesture of affection, placed a hand on a shoulder now so drenched with sweat that the soiled white shirt looked as though it had been rained on.