Dead Man’s Walk

A Shell Scott Mystery

Richard S. Prather

For my father

Sydney Scott Prather

CHAPTER ONE

We could see the low, bone-white hotel now, its wings curving toward the sea like the base of a sun-bleached skull.

For an hour the island had been growing on the horizon as the “Wanderer II” sailed steadily west, pushed by the winds of the Caribbean. The small spot of mossy green we'd first seen on the earth's curved rim was now unmistakably Verde Island, near enough to us that we could see the froth of the surf spreading on the black sand beach near the hotel.

It didn't look dangerous.

Verde Island looked like something out of a travel folder designed by a liar—preposterously beautiful, with white-sand and black-sand beaches, a scalloped blue lagoon before the graceful hotel, low and lush green land to the south, and, much farther to the north, higher land with several jagged peaks there solid against the sky.

Behind the hotel rose the soaring bulk of Damballah-Loa, Verde's long-extinct volcano. Low on its steeply slanting side were the hotel's two score “cabins,” and above them, a half dozen larger and even more lavish private homes. Thick cables supporting the little cars that carried guests up to those cabins—after the fashion of ski lifts at snow resorts—from here were cobwebs against the volcano's dark face. In the lagoon near the hotel were slips for the hotel's boats, which could be rented for fishing, cruising, and water-skiing; and a mile to the south was the dock where soon we would tie up and disembark.

Gazing at all that travel-folder beauty, I decided Ed Wylie must have died a natural death or else peace and contentment had killed him. Murder? Murder just didn't belong in a place like this.

“Isn't it gorgeous, Shell?"

That was lovely blonde Vanessa Gayle, on my left. Very close on my left. In fact, I had my arm around her slim, firm, warm, exciting, vibrant waist—it was some waist—and was holding her in a pretty firm grip, so she wouldn't fall off the boat.

“That's the word,” I said.

“It sure isn't anything like L.A., is it?"

The slangy abbreviation sounded harsh and out of place here on the blue and balmy Caribbean Sea. But Vanessa was right. Los Angeles and Verde Island seemed parts of different planets entirely. This was a far, far cry from, say, Broadway between Third and Fourth Streets, downtown in the City of the Angels. That's the location of the Hamilton Building, wherein is the office of Sheldon Scott, Investigations, wherein sometimes I am—since I am the Shell Scott of Sheldon Scott, Investigations.

In several years of investigating everything from missing husbands to multiple homicides in and around Los Angeles and Hollywood, even including jaunts to Mexico City and Acapulco and Hawaii, this was the farthest I'd roamed from the well-traveled routes of the world. Verde Island was definitely off the beaten path. Only one small airline included Verde in its itinerary, and only rarely did a passenger ship make it a port of call. Except for that, all contact with the “outside” world was with the passenger-carrying freighters that docked here once or twice a month, and with the “Wanderer II” itself. While one island after another in the Bahamas, the Lesser Antilles, the outer islands of the West Indies chain, had become centers of farming, manufacture, or tourism, Verde had rested quietly, almost untouched by the growth and progress all around it.

Before leaving the States I'd dipped into the Encyclopædia Britannica and a book or two. So I had a rough idea of what lay ahead of me.

Verde Island. In the Caribbean Sea almost due west of Martinique, above the fringe of the old Spanish Main. Here, two hundred years ago, pirates roamed, and Dutch, French, and Spanish slavers sold their pounds of flesh for pieces of silver. It had been ruled at different times by the Spanish, the British, the French—and, for thirty years following the massive slave uprising of 1814, by the slaves’ descendants themselves. It was now, at least temporarily, a French possession; the island was a stew of peoples and tongues, seasoned by French, Spanish, British, and hodgepodge races, but predominantly black—descendants of those thousands of slaves carried here in sailing ships during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The white population was probably no more than five hundred people. But one of those people was John Farrow, codeveloper—with the now-deceased Ed Wylie—of the Sunrise Hotel, my destination. He had sent for me, asking me to come here and investigate the “strange circumstances” of his partner's sudden death. Just how strange, or how sudden, I didn't yet know; but I would be meeting Farrow in less than an hour.

Vanessa said, “I'd better go freshen up a bit, Shell. So unhand me, you beast. Or unarm me."

“How about disarm?"

“Either dis one or dat one. Whichever arm you're—"

I groaned. “Vanessa, puns are the lowest—"

“I have an excuse. A monster kept me awake most of the night."

“Who? I'll kill it."

She smiled. I smiled. We both knew who. Me, that's who. Except for the four-man crew, we were the only people aboard the “Wanderer."

* * * *

Before Vanessa joined me at the rail again, I'd had time to finish the tag ends of packing in the two suitcases I'd brought along, and the “Wanderer” was nosing in toward the dock, sails furled and twin diesels throbbing as the skipper signaled for the engines to turn slow astern. The deck shuddered beneath our feet, the lead for the bowline was thrown to a black-skinned native on the dock, then there was a soft shock as the boat nudged the thick pilings.

Lines fore and aft were made fast, and in a few minutes the gangplank was down and we were ready to disembark. I didn't know what, if any, excitement lay ahead, but for me it was excitement enough just to be here. There was something in the air—something more than the rich spicy scent of fruits and flowers and the luxurious warmth of the breeze, more than the dazzling array of colors.

On the dock a handful of natives worked; others sat silently and watched. One weird-looking character, wearing what appeared to be a woman's woven-reed hat, stared up at me. Beyond the far end of the dock were a dozen or so tin-roofed shacks, and I could see mounds of vegetables and fruits before some of them. It looked like a small local market place. Men and women in brightly colored clothing moved lazily among the stalls. From there a dirt road snaked west toward the sun just dropping past the edge of Damballah-Loa, and on the road three women walked, each balancing something on her head. Going home, I guessed, now that the sun was nearly gone.

From the elevation of the “Wanderer's” deck I could see past green clumps of banana trees, slim and graceful coconut palms, to the rough peaks at the north end of the island. It seemed to me I'd never seen a more beautiful place in my life. A mile away were patches of white gleaming through the trunks of palms. That was the Sunrise Hotel. I wondered if there was any transportation or if I'd have to walk.

Behind me Vanessa said, “It's so lovely. I could die here."

“Don't say that. Say live here."

She smiled.

She'd changed into a white linen skirt and a simple white blouse, and she had her pale blonde hair pulled back and tied behind her head. She was something to see: tall and slim, but with enough fine firm flesh to go around, and just a little more; lips the red of a Stop light but with a Go smile on them; a pale white body and hot green eyes that made me think of jungles. Her face made me think of jungles, too, in a way. The eyes seemed, but weren't, slanted; she looked just a little savage. She was just a little savage.

“Well, let's go,” I said.

We walked down the gangplank and turned left toward the sheds or stalls at the dock's end. The character who'd been staring at me earlier was still staring. I thought maybe it was because I probably looked like nothing that had visited this island in the last fifty years. Or maybe longer. Since the Stone Age, say. Not that I look like a cave man or Cro-Magnon citizen. Not exactly.

I'm six feet two inches tall with my socks on and weigh two hundred and six pounds, and I'm sun-browned to the approximate shade of mangrove roots, which accents the whiteness of my inch-long hair and the equally obvious whiteness of the brows angling up over my eyes and then slanting down sharply at their ends, as if fractured. My eyes are gray to begin with, and set in the deep tan of my chops they probably look lighter than they really are, so I figured I could stare just as menacingly as this character.

Which I did as he walked toward me, his fixed gaze holding to my face. I stared smack back at him, even leaning forward a little. It didn't faze him. I started wondering what the hell he was doing.

This guy was brown-skinned, with bushy hair spraying out from under that wide-brimmed hat I'd noticed before and a sharp-featured face that might have been African and Mexican blended together. His eyebrows were bushy and tangled and black, going every which way, partly obscuring his dark eyes, and his nose was thin and came to a point sharp enough to be dangerous if he should happen to blow it, something which he apparently had not done for some time.

He was dressed in ragged white pants cut off under the knees and a red, blue, white, and green shirt with long, billowing sleeves. He wore black bands like elastic garters over the shirt sleeves above his elbows, and around his neck was a string of bright beads. In his right hand he held some kind of gourd at the end of a short, curved stick. It looked, believe it or not, like a rattle.

It was a rattle.

He rattled it at me.

"Ahgee hoo, wah chacha wah-boom," he chanted—or something like that. At least remotely like that.

I knew most of the Verdean natives spoke a patois formed from French, Creole, Spanish, a little African, and local invention—and I couldn't understand any of it. But whatever he was saying, it didn't sound like, “Welcome to Verde, O White God.” It didn't sound like that at all.

He was getting that stuff off at a fine clip, in a kind of nasal singsong, going rapidly up the scale and then sliding back down as if he was shooting the words up one nostril and down the other, and all the while he kept shaking that damned rattle at me.

I'd stopped and was looking at the guy with alarmed amazement, and he was standing about six feet from me. Now he started hopping up and down in one spot and moving no more than two or three inches vertically, and he'd just got to a part about like, "Vahkee muerdo, muerdo, Damballah fie fooey!"—again, I stress that that's what it sounded like, at least remotely. But, whatever he was saying and doing, I'd had enough of it to last me for a while. So I said, “Forget it, champ. Get lost. Vanish."

It was as if I hadn't spoken. He just kept on with the noises. I looked at Vanessa. “What the hell is this?” I said.

She didn't answer. She was looking at the spook, one hand touching her throat. She didn't look overcome with happiness. Well, I didn't blame her exactly.

“The spook had now dug into his pants or shirt somewhere and come up with a snake. Yeah, a snake. It was dead and dangly, but that didn't help much. He was shaking the rattle in one hand and whipping the snake around in the other, not singsonging now but just spitting out a single word from time to time.

He danced around me in a circle, quivering like a fat woman in one of those vibrating reducers, and when he got back to where he'd started he dropped both arms to his sides, looked up into the air, and cried, "Aieeee!", I think.

I said, “I am going to pop you."

He looked at me.

Well, maybe he didn't understand English. I took a step toward him, held my right hand up, open, palm toward his face. Then I slowly closed it into a large fist and drew it back to my shoulder.

It was clear as could be that I intended to bash him right in the mouth, but it didn't seem to faze him. He grinned. He had two teeth out in front, I noticed. Maybe he didn't think he had much more to lose. But he must have known it was going to hurt. Nonetheless, he just grinned, then shook his rattle and snake and said, “Muerdo, Damballah!” or sounds to that effect. Then he turned and walked away.

“What the hell was that?” I said.

Vanessa remained silent. But, of the half dozen men who'd earlier been sitting limply on the dock, and who were still sitting limply on the dock, one spoke.

He used a kind of warped English, but him I could understand. “You go,” he said. He pointed past me to the boat, then to me, then to the boat again. “You go. Away, over water."

“Go? I just got here. If you think I'm going to sail away just because a creep with St. Vitus's dance shakes a rattle and a snake at me and bounces his beads—"

“Him no beads."

“Him no beads?"

“Him wanga.” He ran a brown hand around his neck. “Much bad in him. Pow'ful wanga. You get sick and die now."

“Ha,” I said. And ha-ha, I thought. So that's what the performance had been about. The creep had been trying to cast some kind of spell on me, apparently. Well, he couldn't hex me. Not me, he couldn't.

But, by golly, I felt a little chill. It seemed colder, all right. And then suddenly I realized my eyesight was failing. It was getting darker. And colder. The twitchy bastard had frozen my blood or something. But it couldn't be. I didn't believe. That stuff was all a lot of baloney.

I was standing there, wondering if I'd freeze solid and get all white and slick and frosty on the outside, and maybe with my tongue hanging out a little bit, when I realized what had happened.

Nothing. Nothing supernatural, anyway. It was merely that the sun, which had been dropping past the volcano's edge, had now slipped all the way down and the tropic darkness had started to fall. The rest had been my imagination.

Ha-ha, I thought again. Can't hex me. I'm immune. No such thing as a hex. I'm immune. Just a lot of baloney. I'm immune.

I was still thinking when Vanessa said softly, “That man just about scared me to death."

“Ha,” I said. “It was nothing. Nothing. That stuff doesn't work unless you believe. And you and I know there's no danger from a guy shaking sticks."

“But ... they do practice voodoo here, don't they, Shell?"

“Sure. So they practice voodoo. So what?"

In reading of Verde I'd come across much about the basic religion of the island, voudon or voodooism—much like the Haitian and South American variety, but with indigenous corruption and invention. Plus a liberal addition of sorcery, black magic and such. But I hadn't thought much about it, except to think some of the dances might be interesting.

For example, the Cha Cha—that's straight out of Haitian and Cuban voodooism, chacha being the name of a rattle used in voodoo ceremonies. Or mambo—the voodoo word for a priestess of the supernatural religion.

That creep hadn't been doing a Cha Cha or a mambo, though.

Vanessa said, “Well, I don't know much about it, but it's—it's scary."

We'd started walking to the end of the dock, and I said, “So let's go to the hotel and get a drink. I think I could use a drink. To warm my bloo—to warm me up a little."

“I could use a couple myself,” she said. “Let's."

CHAPTER TWO

Only we didn't get that drink right away. At least not together.

When we reached the group of stalls and little sheds, I noticed that there were not only fruits and vegetables on display but also numerous examples of native handicrafts. Next to a table heaped with yams, alligator pears, and little bananas, was a stall displaying calabash gourds, straw hats, woven beach bags, and sandals. On its left was another, laden with trays and bowls and bracelets made of tortoise shell and a big mass of crudely fashioned but interesting jewelry—earrings, bracelets, rings, and pendants, made of coral, polished stones, metal bands, and more tortoise shell.

Vanessa, being a woman, simply had to rummage among the earrings and doo-dads. She told me to go on to the hotel and she'd follow later, having spotted an old Model A coupé with “Taxi” printed on its doors in yellow paint. Finally I left her haggling over the price of a pretty with a fat native woman in a bright dress, a pink turban, and enormous earrings dangling down to her chins. The fat woman paused to light a shiny Coleman lantern, then returned to the haggle—and I took off.

Not far. A dirt path led between rows of stalls, northward toward the hotel, and I hadn't walked more than thirty yards that way when somebody called, “Mr. Scott!” in a strangely tight voice.

It startled me. Nobody here knew me; nobody even knew my name, for that matter, except John Farrow, I supposed. And it had been a woman's voice, too.

The sound had come from my left. Ten or fifteen feet away, a very tall man and a girl stood close together next to a ten-year-old Chrysler sedan painted bright red. The door was open, and it looked as if the tall man was trying to push the girl into the front seat of the car.

It was pretty dark, with only the last glow from the sky and faint light from a nearby lantern illumining them, but it didn't take much looking to know the guy was in fact wrestling with the girl. And then she called again, “Shell—Mr. Scott. Help me."

I moved over there, stopped next to them. The tall man was gripping both the girl's arms beneath her shoulders, and her face was twisted with pain. As I stopped by them, the man turned his head and stared at me. Down at me.

He was quite a sight. The dim illumination didn't help, but even in broad daylight he would have been more than a little disturbing if you had caught sight of him without warning. He was at least four inches taller than my six-two, and his dark eyes were as big as any I'd ever seen on a man. Huge and dark and with a kind of black fire in them under straight black brows, and projecting out and down from the brows was a nose resembling a small scythe—extremely thin, sharply ridged, curving toward his dark lips like a hook or an eagle's beak. His hair was tight against his big head, like a curly black skullcap.

“Let her go,” I said.

“This none of your business. Get away.” The voice was thick and low, smooth and syrupy.

“It is now,” I said.

“Go away. I warn you."

He peeled his lips back and smiled, or snarled, and I blinked several times. I think my mouth sagged open. He had false teeth, but what teeth they were—steel, they were. Steel teeth. Like George Washington had. These looked like they might even be the same set. Big, square, glittering in the dim light. He was the damndest looking man I'd ever seen.

But I'd had enough of creeps warning me. I reached for his wrist, got it, bore down a little, and pried. It came up with my hand, as I'd figured it would. But I hadn't figured his next movement.

He let out a kind of screech and let go of the girl with his other hand, then leaped at me as I released him. At least that was the impression I got. He whirled around toward me, flapping his arms up, hands bent at the wrists and splayed out at me like Dracula descending on the sleeping virgin, and I thought he was just about to poke me, or scratch me, or slap me, or maybe even try choking hell out of me.

I didn't puzzle myself about which of those things he was preparing to do. I popped him.

I didn't plan it. I've had so many guys swing at me or jump me in my time that the reflex has become automatic. My hand did it all by itself. It snapped up from my side and formed a fist, which smacked the tall guy squarely beneath the chin. His mouth was open a little, and it clicked shut with enough force that, if he'd had real teeth before, he might have needed repairs on all of them. But there was merely a clink, and then he was lying at my feet next to the red sedan.

At our feet, rather. He was crumpled between the girl and me. I started to take a good look at her, but it turned out there wasn't time for a good look.

She said, “Oh, dear!” as if truly distressed—and from behind me there was a sudden babbling. I looked around.

Half a dozen people were near us, including two women with big tin cans balanced on their heads, and all of them were wailing and yelping. "Ai!” “Ohhhh!” “Mordieux! Mordieux!” and such, including just plain indescribable wailing. One of the women moved forward so rapidly that the tin can got unbalanced and fell from her head with a clank, which I'll bet didn't happen often.

They were all breaking up. Two men pointed rigid fingers at me and muttered unintelligible things, and another clapped his hands over his eyes and then spun around and ran.

“What the hell is this?” I said—for perhaps the third or fourth time recently. It was just about all I'd said since setting foot on this damned island.

“Oh, dear,” the girl said again.

Then she grabbed my hand and pulled at it. “Hurry. Come with me, Mr. Scott. Hurry."

“What the—I mean, what's going on? Who's that creature on the dirt down there? How'd you know my name?"

“Later. Please come."

She led me fifty yards or so to an almost new station wagon, slid under the wheel, and waited for me to climb in on the other side. In a minute we were ripping down a dirt road in the general direction of the Sunrise Hotel.

I found a cigarette in my coat pocket, took my time lighting it, had a couple of big drags, then said, “Hello."

“Hello.” She turned her head and smiled at me.

It was a sweet smile—in a sweet, almost an enchanting face. In the light from the dashboard I could see thick chestnut-colored hair falling forward slightly over a smooth brow, massed behind her head and crumpled on her shoulders. Her eyes were like dark star sapphires, and her lips looked tender. The warmth and glow of health, of pulsing blood, filled her lips and cheeks, and maybe even those dark eyes.

“Who are you?” I said.

That quick glance again, that smile again. “Alexandria Maria Ducharme,” she said. “I am called Dria."

“Dria.” I let it roll on my tongue. I liked it. She'd pronounced her last name “Doosharm.” I said, “Is that French?"

“Ducharme is. The rest—My father was a Greek Frenchman, or a French Greek, and my mother was born in a little town called Bariloche, not far from Buenos Aires, in Argentina.” She called it “Arrhenteena.” “There is perhaps a little Indian, or Indio, and I like to think maybe there is a drop of Aztec blood in me as well."

“If that's what you like to think, so do I.” Whatever it was, it was magic. She almost made me forget about the guy with the rattle and the weirdo with the steel teeth. Almost.

“Dria,” I said. “I just climbed off the ‘Wanderer,’ but I'm more at sea now than I was then. Will you start talking—about anything? Maybe things will begin making sense. Though I doubt it."

“Mr. Farrow sent me. He knew you were to be on the ‘Wanderer,’ and when he saw it he sent me, so that someone would be there to meet you, and also so you would have a way to the hotel."

“Well, that makes sense. Keep going."

“I suppose you mean the trouble with Mordieux.” Mordieux. That was what one or two of those wailing people back there had been wailing. “Is that the guy I clobbered?"

“Yes. Count Mordieux—at least, that is what he calls himself. He is the most powerful hungan on the island. Hungan—you would call that voodoo priest. He says he is the God of the Dead, controls many loa."

“Looked like he was trying to control you. What was that wrestling match about?"

“I saw him near the dock with Michel, one of his hunsi, and when Michel went on down to the dock, Mordieux stopped me. I said I had come to meet the passengers off the ‘Wanderer,’ and he told me—again—that I would have to come to his sanctuary. For weeks he has been concerned for me to go back there."

“Sanctuary?"

“Every hungan or mambo of voodoo has what is called a sanctuary, or humfo, where they live, take care of the sick, hold ceremonies and rituals—in one way, like a church. Only much more than that. Some of the colony also live on the sanctuary grounds, and Mordieux’ is the biggest and most lavish on the island, with the most and largest buildings."

She had turned from the narrow road and was now going up Sea Drive, a curving blacktop road. We passed by the thin trunks of tall coconut palms and green banana trees, then suddenly came into a large clearing before the hotel. Dria drove on around the clearing, swung left toward the big white building.

On our left, directly before the hotel's entrance, was an enormous swimming pool, and, beyond the pool, nearer the sea, which was a hundred yards or so away, was what looked like a half acre of orchids. On our right white steps led up to the hotel, which faced east, and the curving wings I'd first seen from aboard the “Wanderer” cupped themselves around the pool and the clearing—and us. The lobby was brightly lighted, and in the curving walls of the hotel light glowed cheerfully from behind the windows of dozens of rooms.

Dria parked at a low curb paralleling the asphalt. I asked her to tell me more about Mordieux and especially her trouble with him, why he was so concerned about her going to his sanctuary, or whatever she'd said.

Dria shrugged and drummed on the steering wheel with her fingers. “I told you of my father, my real father. After I was born here, he left. He went away and did not return. When I was young, my mother married again, married him who was known as Papa Lurin. A hungan of great wisdom and good power, a good man and a good hungan. All of Verde to this hour thinks well of Papa Lurin. Still, when I was young, my mother died, and my stepfather cared for me. Until he too ... died."

She gave the word “died” an odd inflection; it twisted in her mouth. I said, “When was that, Dria?"

“One year and four months now he is dead. It was then that Count Mordieux became the new hungan of what had been my stepfather's humfo. He had been Papa Lurin's confiance—you would say his next below ... his right hand. And one year and four months ago I left the humfo and have not returned. Then I lived there. Now I work at the Sunrise and live not far from here, close to the city of Verde."

“So Mordieux wants you back in the sanctuary, huh? Because you lived there before?"

“That, and because I was like the daughter of Papa Lurin. I am friends, I am close, with all of the colony. The new hungan says it is not well that I am no longer of the colony. They wish me there, and he has promised them I will return."

“He's promised them? It's up to you, isn't it?"

“Yes. But in this year Mordieux has many times talked to me. Now, this last month and more, he has said I must go back. He has said that if I will not he will send the dead against me."

“He'll what?"

“It is an evil thing, I'envoi-morts.” Her voice was soft. “It is a most powerful thing, and if Baron-Samedi agrees, the dead enter one and hold him. He grows thin, and when he begins to spit blood it is known he is held close and soon will himself be of the dead.” She paused. “Already Mordieux has thrown the stone against my door."

I know my eyes must have been bugging in the near darkness, and my mouth was a bit ajar, and I don't know what I might have said right then. But, fortunately, Dria laughed suddenly.

“But I am not afraid,” she said. “I know how to make the dead let go. I am the daughter of Papa Lurin."

I swallowed. I could still hear the sound of her voice as it had been seconds ago, low and soft, and kind of spooky. Finally I said, “Must be hellishly important to him that you go back."

“Yes. He has made the promise. But I am still here. A hungan's powers must have effect or he will lose the confidence of his people. If that happens, they will take back their pots-de-tête, which contain their souls, and they will not pay him to cure sickness. He will be as nothing."

It struck me that, no matter what I'd come here for, I'd walked in on a war. A war between a creepy hungan with steel teeth and a little lovely with star sapphire eyes. I knew whose side I was on, too. But I also knew it sure as hell wasn't my kind of war. I'm not really superstitious or anything like that, not really, but ... well, the hell with it.

I said, “The way he was hauling you around, I guess he figured if the, um, dead couldn't do the job he'd have to do it himself."

“It would seem. He was trying to force me into his car. This month past he has been most insistent, severe in what he has told me. It is of much importance to him.” Dria paused, then went on, “He is very strong. I could not do anything. I was afraid. I have not thanked you, Mr. Scott. For helping—"

“No need to. I'm kind of glad it happened, now.” I thought a moment. “I think."

“But you should not have hit him. You cannot be expected to understand, but that was a terrible thing to do."

“What's so terrible? The guy was about to choke me or something. Or grab me, anyway—"

“No. He would not use physical force against you. At least, that is not what he was doing then. He was calling on his loa, his bad loa. To do ... bad things to you."

“Yeah? How about that? I guess I loa'ed the boom on him—strike that. That damned Vanessa ... Uh, loa is that spooks—spirits?"

“Spirits ... gods. The invisible powers. Some men have the ability to call upon them for aid or for attacks upon their enemies. So it is told."

“I gather you must believe that stuff. Pardon my indelicate air. What I mean is, I guess you believe in the loa, those invisible powers? In voodoo?"

She was studying her fingernails as if they were highly interesting, not looking at me. “I was born here. As I said, I grew up with Papa Lurin. And so I grew up with voudon, also. Even as some people grow up in the Catholic Church, or the Jewish religion, or as Protestants or Buddhists. It is our religion here, Mr. Scott. I have outgrown much of it, of course. But ... I have seen many strange things. Things I cannot explain.” She paused. “I know some of it is not logical. I am a woman now. With a mind and belief of my own. But perhaps we do not ever outgrow all the things of our childhood."

I didn't say anything.

After a few seconds she went on, “That is not important, Mr. Scott. Important is that you struck Mordieux. This was seen by others. Tomorrow—no, tonight, it will be known all over the island. Before the dawn all will know this. The big white-haired one inflicted injury on Count Mordieux, God of the Dead, chief and most powerful hungan of all Verde. Now, surely, the white-haired one will grow thin and pale and waste away and die; yes, his spirit will grow small and dry, and leave him."

Her voice had dropped lower, and she spoke very softly now, as if more to herself than to me. Shadows filled the inside of the car, and she almost whispered as she went on. “This they will say. And Mordieux himself—he will now stop at nothing. As I said to you before, you cannot be expected to understand. You are from another place, yes, another time. But you have done the terrible thing. And if only to keep his power with the people, to keep his, ‘face,’ you might say, he must have revenge upon you. His people will expect it. Even I expect it.” She bit her lip. “I should not have asked you to help me. I did not think—"

“Look, don't worry about it. I'm not worried about it."

That's what I said. But I kind of wanted to go somewhere and spit. Just to make sure.

Dria looked at me then, her eyes shining. “Please take care,” she said. “Listen. There are here many good hungan and mambo. They care for the ill, feed those who have no food, give shelter to those who are without shelter. They call upon their loa, feed them, make sacrifice to them, that there may be help and good for their people. It is good, and they are good. All these things Count Mordieux does also. But he is bad.” She was looking straight at me now and speaking with such gravity and sincerity that I could feel a tightening in the pit of my stomach. “He is not good hungan,” she went on gravely. “He is boko, sorcerer, macandal; he uses bought loa; he works with both hands. He is not good."

She was silent. I was silent.

Then she said, “I will tell you this. I did not intend, but ... My stepfather did not die, as men die. He was old, but he did not die of being old. Count Mordieux killed him. He murdered Papa Lurin."

“Are you sure?"

“I am sure. I have no way to make others sure. It is only that I know it here.” She pointed to her breast. “But he died as he would have died from the murder of Mordieux, the poison Mordieux would know. And suddenly he died. That is why I left when Mordieux became hungan. He knows I think this, and so do those of his colony. It is why he must make me return. Only when I return will it be known that I absolve Mordieux. My act lifts the cloud from his head."

So that was it. Dria went on, “You must understand. He is of much danger to you now—now that you have done bad to him. Believe this."

“Yeah. I kind of think I do, maybe. Yeah. You mean he might shoot me, or stick a spear in me, or something?"

“Not that. Oh, perhaps that.” She was studying her fingernails again. “He will do whatever Count Mordieux can do. There will be ceremonies; he will call his most powerful loa. He will make sacrifice, maybe invoke Damballah-wèdo, and even Saint Expédit and Baron-Samedi.” She paused and rubbed her nails with the tip of her thumb. “Understand, I do not say there is danger to you from this only. No. But I, even I, have seen many strange things...."

I don't know quite what it was. Maybe her tone ... or maybe something in her mind reached out and brushed my mind, and I felt part of what she might have been feeling. All I know is, when she said, “many strange things,” something pulled at my spine. I could almost feel the vertebrae move in a slow, sinuous wriggle like a snake crossing a path.

“Hey, ho,” I said suddenly. Just to make noise, I guess. “Well, maybe I shouldn't have popped the dandy, but I did it. I didn't know he was tossing spells and such at me. I thought maybe he was going to bite me. Man, those teeth! A guy could get gangrene, lockjaw—"

“Do not make it a joke."

“Who's joking? A guy could get lockjaw.” She was frowning, so I cut it off and said, “Seriously, Dria, I do thank you for the warning. I appreciate it—and I promise you, I'll take care."

“Yes."

“Well, I'd better go on inside. I suppose Mr. Farrow's been expecting me for a while. But first I'm going to have a drink. Maybe a double Zomb—uh, a stiff ... a bourbon."

“I must park the car. Then I will tell Mr. Farrow you are here. In the bar? All right?"

“Fine. Because in the bar is where I'll be."

CHAPTER THREE

The lobby of the Sunrise was big and bright. Furniture of wicker and bamboo, with cushions covered in colorfully patterned cloth, was strategically placed in the large room, and a dozen guests relaxed on chairs and couches. The registration desk was against the far wall, and on my right were big carved doors, open now, above which was the name “Coral Room."

I could see the long bar inside, and a lot of people on stools and at low tables. The place was jammed, but I managed to find a stool at the end of the bar. A gaunt woman who looked more like a dying American tourist than a waitress, wearing pink slacks and a purple blouse, with a narrow-brimmed, woven-reed hat on her head, tottered to a table, bending under the weight of a tray with two little cocktails on it. She was not quite a hundred years old.

Behind the bar a fat man with very pale white skin, wearing Bermuda shorts, black shoes and—yes—black sock, washed glasses. The other bartender, who stopped before me, was clad in white Bermudas and a green sports shirt and was smoking a pipe. He looked like a drunken Irishman.

Hmm, I thought. Where was the magic of the Caribbean? The native waiters flashing brilliant smiles? The steel bands, the wild dancers?

“Helloo-oo, stranger!” the pipe-smoking bartender chortled. “What's your poison?"

“Bourbon and water, please,” I said. “Instead."

He picked up a glass, flipped it into the air with a little twitching movement, and missed it. As it clunked on the floor, he shrugged, moved it out of the way with one foot, and picked up another glass. He didn't flip this one. He poured booze into it—contemptuous of jiggers—then added water and gave me the highball.

I tasted it and said, “That is lousy."

“Something wrong with it?"

“I think it's the bourbon. I think it's Scotch."

He looked at the bottle still in his hand. “Yeah, you're right,” he said placidly. “How about that? See?” He showed me the label. Scotch.

“Fine,” I said. “O.K. We all make mistakes. Now how about a bourbon and water?"

He got the drink made and put it in front of me, spilling only a little of it, as I said, “Hope you don't mind my asking. But have you been a bartender long?"

“About an hour."

“An hour,” I said.

“Yeah. Maybe a little less."

I had some of my drink—it was bourbon this time—looked at the bartender and shrugged. I looked at the old waitress, creeping back with her empty tray. At the fat man washing glasses, in his Bermuda shorts and black shoes and—yes—black socks. It was too much for me. This whole damned island was too much for me. Maybe the “Wanderer” had gone down at sea, and I'd drowned, and this was the beginning of my hell.

But suddenly it occurred to me that perhaps I was taking all this too lightly. After all, I owned a piece of this joint now, didn't I? Sure I did: four and a half per cent, at least. Yeah, there were going to have to be some changes made around here. First thing, those black socks would have to go. In fact, the whole bartender would have to go. And we'd get some waitresses like those I knew back in L.A. at a place called the Harem, the kind who killed off sultans. Then we'd —

“Hey,” the bartender said, breaking in on my thoughts. He was squinting at me. “I'll bet a buck you just got here."

“You win a buck."

He pulled the pipe from his mouth and stabbed it at me. “You must be this Shell Scott."

“How did you know?"

“John told us—Mr. Farrow. Told us a detective was coming in, so we didn't need to worry."

“Didn't need to worry about what?"

“Well, after the second guy died—"

“Second? There's been another one?"

“Yeah. Paul, native boy that worked here. Bellhop. Died yesterday. Some of the guests were a little upset, and Farrow told us he'd got in touch with a detective from the States—just in case it wasn't heart attacks or something. You were already on your way.” He put his pipe back between his teeth.

“Great. Fine. That's all I needed. Now for some blaring trumpets and big posters—"

“Huh?"

“Never mind. How'd this Paul happen to die?"

“You got me. Just died. Like Farrow's partner. Laughing and scratching, and then zowie. Dead."

I was thinking about that—laughing and scratching, and then zowie, dead—when the bartender went on, “I suppose you're curious about me mixing drinks, and other guests waiting table, and all."

“Well ... a little."

“We're just pitching in and helping. When all the local people walked off the job, somebody had to do something. Couldn't eat cold doughnuts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."

“Doesn't sound very exciting."

“Don't even have any doughnuts. So somebody suggested we take turns cooking, sweeping, making up the beds and rooms, mixing drinks.... Which we did. Are doing.” He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them. “I'd like to apologize to you, sir. Didn't realize you just got here. I'm usually not this drunk. I'm usually not drunk at all. But I never been a bartender before—temptation is overwhelming. I apologize for being a lousy drunken bartender."

He smiled happily.

I grinned. “What's this about the help walking off the job? When did it happen?"

“Yesterday. Every last one of the devils. Zowie, all at once. Walked right out. Mumbling and chanting."

“Mum—doing what? Why did they walk out?"

“Beats me. Some crazy voodoo thing, it was. Well, I'd better get back on the ball. Want another ... what was it?"

“No, thanks."

Some crazy voodoo thing, he'd said. I finished my drink in silence, sitting sideways at the bar and looking over the other guests.

They didn't all look as weird as the three I'd first noticed. In one corner was a handsome couple in their early twenties. The way they were squeezing and nudging and chucking each other, and ignoring the rest of us, I guessed they were honeymooners. Two older couples sat around a table near me playing bridge. I heard one of the women say, “If I'd had two more little trumps, we'd have made four doubled."

All gay and harmless. A fun evening in the Coral Room.

But then I saw a guy I recognized. That is, I knew the face but I couldn't place him, couldn't recall where I'd seen him. He was at a table across the room with another man who was a stranger to me.

But I was sure I'd seen that heavy, dark, thick-mustached face before. The guy had black hair combed straight back, smooth over the top of his head and pretty full at the sides, the sideburns just a bit too long—like the villain in silent comedies. He didn't look like a villain, though. Or comic, either. He was a not-quite-handsome man; it was a strong, powerful, virile face, the expression a little proud, or maybe arrogant—a kind of to-hell-with-you look.

He turned his head, and his eyes fell on me, lingered very briefly, passed on with no flicker of recognition. Or interest. So maybe I'd seen him in the movies or on television. He'd play the tough engineer who builds a bridge over the impossible chasm in the Andes. Or maybe the guy who shoots the chief of police three times in the head, then lights an expensive cigar before strolling away. Ah, my imagination was active this evening.

I was about to slide off my stool and hunt up John Farrow when he came in. I hadn't known what he looked like, but my guess was right. He had the air of authority, of “ownership,” in a way. He was dressed in a white suit that looked just old enough to fit with familiarity and a dark blue shirt open at the collar. A lean, graceful man about six feet tall, with crisply waved gray hair and a tan perhaps even deeper than mine, he paused in the doorway and glanced around till his eyes landed on me. Immediately he smiled and started toward me. He hadn't encountered any difficulty in recognizing me, either.

“Mr. Scott,” he said as he reached me, “I'm very glad you're here."

We shook hands and grinned, and he slid onto a stool beside me. While we chatted casually about “How was the trip?” and such inconsequentials, Farrow waved the bartender over and pointed to the bar before us to indicate that we'd like a couple of drinks. When they arrived, he said to me, “Well, Dria told me the story. You may be in trouble, Mr. Scott."

“I'm used to it. Incidentally, might as well make it Shell."

“Fine. Call me John, of course. Well, I'm glad you're used to trouble, because Mordieux may give you a lot of it. He's the most powerful man on the island."

“That beanpole with the shiny choppers? It's hard to believe."

“Things are different here, Shell. You're a long way from Los Angeles—in more ways than one."

“Yeah, I'd noticed. What's this about all your help? They go on strike?"

“You might call it that. Mordieux again. He's been after them to pull out for a long time, stirring them up. He doesn't like me, doesn't like the fact that the Sunrise is here. Doesn't like white men, for that matter. When Paul Yuré died ... he's a native boy who worked here, caused me a little trouble. Anyhow, when he died, Mordieux used that as the final lever to pry his people out of here. White man's hotel was bad medicine, that sort of thing.” He paused and sipped at his drink, frowning. “If I can't figure out some way to get them back, it's going to be a mess. As you can probably guess."

“I don't have to guess. I met your temporary bartender. Incidentally, he mentioned this Paul's death. What killed him?"

Farrow kept frowning. “Difficult to say. Natural death, apparently. No marks on him, no evidence of violence, nothing like that. Same as Ed. My partner, Ed Wylie."

“Uh-huh."

“If nothing else, it convinced me I was right to send for you, though. There are some things that puzzle me about Ed's death, and I hope you can—"

He paused, as a middle-aged woman walked up next to him.

“Mr. Farrow ... ,” She said softly. She looked a little green.

“Yes? What is it?"

She handed him a folded piece of paper. “I just got the call at the desk, Mr. Farrow. I don't know who it was. Some man. But—well, I wrote it all down.” She moistened her lips. “I'll be at the desk.” She turned and walked out.

John opened the note and read it. His brows pulled down. He didn't say anything. Just sat and stared at the note in his hand.

Finally I said, “Well, with this Paul dead, that makes two sort of peculiar deaths in the last few days, right?"

“Three.” John glanced at me, then gazed at the paper in his hand again and said quietly, “It's three now."

In a moment he went on, “One of the guests this time. A woman, Miss Ellen Underwood.” He crumpled the note and looked at me. “She's in her room, dead, according to the call that apparently just came in to the desk. I'll have to check. Better come with me, Shell."

“Of course."

We slid off our stools and walked from the Coral Room into the lobby, across it to the stairs.

“Damn it,” Farrow said suddenly as we started up. He wasn't talking to me. Just to the world at large, I guess. “Damn it to hell."

I almost felt like joining him in a colorful curse or two. It had been only three days since I'd received Farrow's letter asking me to come as soon as possible to Verde Island and the Sunrise; I'd been on my way less than twenty-four hours after that. But people had been dying like flies, and just about the sum total of my knowledge was: people were dying like flies.

As we went up the stairs and turned toward the room where a woman lay still in death, I thought of the day in Los Angeles when this had begun. Actually, it had begun not with John Farrow's letter to me, but before that—with another dead man. A dead man, and the reading of his will, and that dead man's bequest to me...

CHAPTER FOUR

The will had already been read, but I didn't know it then.

I'd spent a slow Monday at the office—my first day at the Hamilton Building for over a week. I'd been out of town on a case and, after wrapping it up, had stayed on for a little vacation, arriving home rested and refreshed last night.

So, after sitting and lolling, I'd hit the office this a.m. raring for action, and had sat and lolled. The phone hadn't even rung. Nothing. Silence. Ennui. Death seemed to have taken a vacation, and life was dull. I was bored.

But I stuck it out till nearly four o'clock, reading a book. Now there are times when reading a book is lots of fun. But not when you are already edgy from inactivity, and the eager blood races in your arteries and veins and capillaries and loins and all those important places, and a little voice keeps yelling “Whoopee!” in your ear.

So I left the office over an hour earlier than usual and walked down the one flight of stairs and out onto Broadway, blood racing, eyes darting and flashing. There was something in the air besides smog. It wasn't a day to go immediately home, that is, to the Spartan Apartment Hotel, and cook an egg, and curl up with a book.

I drove into Hollywood, but instead of turning at Rossmore and heading for home I just kept going out Sunset to the Strip. There's a little place on the Strip called the Harem, which I sometimes frequent because the cocktail waitresses wear transparent garments that would raise the temperatures of eunuchs, and each appears sufficiently female to have her own harem of sultans.

Into the bar's dimness I went, let my eyes get adjusted to the waitresses, then sat at the bar and waggled a finger at Jerry, the bartender, whose circulation was probably shot after so many months in this atmosphere.

Jerry automatically mixed me a bourbon and water and said, “Drinking on the job, hey?"

“No job at the moment. There is a dearth of death and thievery and even of mopery. What I need is a lovely ax murder, something to stir the blood."

“Now you're talking. Want me to kill somebody?"

“You're a real friend, Jerry. But I'd rather a real friend didn't do it."

“You got a problem, all right."

We continued to carry on our usual intelligent conversation while I finished my highball and worked my way into a second. Then the blonde came in.

Now, to say merely “blonde” doesn't mean much. It can refer to a babe with a fine silky mustache, or to a wig, or even to a collie.

But this wasn't “merely” a blonde. This was a tall, slinky, undulating tomato who came into the Harem slinking and undulating, wearing a black cocktail dress so form-fitting that she looked like a gorgeous nude Negress from the neck down. No, not the neck down; this was one of those scoop-topped affairs held up by thin and round little straps, which on a hanger look substantial enough, but on this lovely, for reasons that were immediately apparent, appeared on the verge of parting instantly, to the great dismay of the Harem's waitresses.

The face was beautiful but a little haughty, the glance imperious and even bold; it could have been the face of a cult's princess preparing to wield the sacrificial knife, or of a goddess descending into hell in payment for sins she'd enjoyed, and enjoyed, and enjoyed. Thin brows arching over pale green eyes, high cheek bones, lips that would curl but never tremble. She looked like whatever it was that had been stirring up my blood and yelling “Whoopee!” in my ear.

She slunk to the bar three stools from me, sat down, looked at a watch on her sexy wrist, and ordered a brandy alexander made with Káhlua.

Jerry made the frothy beige drink, gave it to her, and lingered. She ignored him. He gave up.

The blonde looked at her watch at least ten times while she drank the alexander. I made an attempt to strike up a gay conversation, but she killed me with her eyes, and like Jerry I gave up.

She finished her drink, checked her watch again, then looked around and spotted the phone booth beyond the bar's end. She found a dime in a beaded bag big enough to hold a quarter, went to the phone booth, used the dime, and dialed a number. The door wasn't quite closed, and after about half a minute I heard her voice rise. “All right, all right!” she said. “Then just forget it, Tommy. And don't call me—I'll call you!"

So when she stormed back, all aslink and undulant even when furious, I slid off my stool, straightened my tie, started smiling happily, and moved toward her.

She was saying, “Mix me a martini. A double martini."

“I beg your pardon,” I said suavely. “But I couldn't help—”

Whip, her head came around; snap went her eyes. “Mind your own damn business."

“I beg your pardon,” I said again, not so suavely.

I went back to my lonely stool, thinking: Well, you can't win ‘em all. Sometimes you can't win any of ‘em. So I finished my drink, waved to Jerry, and started out.

But then there was a long-fingered, red-tipped hand on my arm, and a cool husky voice saying, “Please ... I'm sorry."

I turned toward her. She was sitting sideways on her stool, looking up at me. Jerry was just placing the double martini before her. She sounded different this time; she even looked different.

“I must apologize; I'm really sorry,” she said.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” I said, hope rising.

“I wasn't angry with you. I was angry with someone else—furious. I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

I grinned. “I'm glad you did. How could we know the heights unless we'd plumbed the depths? Double martinis heal all wounds, anyway."

She smiled. “And occasionally inflict some."

“True. I wonder if we might injure ourselves together."

“It sounds dangerous."

“Even single martinis are dangerous."

“That's not quite what I meant, but..."

I waited.

And she said, “All right. Double martinis for two, then."

I sat on the stool next to her. “All right, Jerry,” I said briskly. “Hop to it. Speedy, speedy—and the good gin, if you please."

He was holding a bottle by the neck. “This is the good gin,” he said sourly.

And that's how it started. Her name was Vanessa Gayle. She didn't tell me about Tommy. That was O.K. I didn't give a hoot about Tommy.

We had two double martinis apiece, and it wasn't at all painful. In fact, by the time we had wandered down the street to a sumptuous eating place and ordered a wild dinner, we were feeling something close to euphoria. It was a delightful dinner, and a delightful three or four hours, and somehow we wound up at the Spartan Apartment Hotel, in my apartment, about nine o'clock in the evening.

She was seated on my chocolate brown divan with her shoes off and her legs curled beneath her, and I was in the kitchenette saying soberly, “There must be some double martinis around here somewhere,” when the phone rang.

The man calling was Jason Leach of the law firm of Leach, Leach, Benson, and Leach. And it was Leach Senior, himself. He said he had been trying to reach me since four p.m., and also all during the past week—but that I had been unavailable. I told him that that was true; I had been unavailable. Then he mentioned George Knowles, which sobered me up enough so that the rest of the story shocked me into total sobriety.

George Knowles was a former client of mine, a multimillionaire for whom I'd handled a somewhat messy case over a year before. His fourteen-year-old daughter had been raped by a twenty-six-year-old tough with a long record of hoodlumism; the police were looking for the man and would have gotten to him soon, but that wasn't fast enough for Knowles. He hired me, just in case I might get lucky.

I did get lucky. The punk was hiding out, but one of my informants knew where he was hiding. I found the guy, put him under citizen's arrest; he pulled a knife on me, and I broke his neck. I didn't mean to break his neck, I just hit him a little too hard in the wrong place; knives kind of speed up my reflexes.

It didn't kill him, but it crippled him up a bit. He wouldn't be quite the same for the rest of his life. Knowles said that his daughter wouldn't be quite the same, either.

The rapist was convicted, and a sweet judge sentenced him to the term prescribed by what was left of the law, then suspended sentence. Presumably on the condition that he not rape any more fourteen-year-old girls. Knowles, oddly, was satisfied. He wasn't happy about the guy's going free in the streets, but he said to me, “No judge in this world can suspend a broken neck."

He also said that he owed me more than he could ever pay. I told him he owed me a hundred bucks, and he gave me a hundred bucks.

Three weeks ago George Knowles had died, at the age of seventy-one. He'd been found by a neighbor, slumped over the wheel of his car, in the driveway adjacent to his home. Apparently his clock had just run down; the newspaper stories said he'd died of cardiac failure, or words to that effect. His heart had simply stopped.

Since the case, over a year ago, I'd seen Knowles from time to time; I'd twice had dinner at his home with him and his wife and daughter. We got along well. But that was it.

So the rest of what Attorney Leach told me knocked me for a row of loops. “The will was read last week, Mr. Scott,” he said. “Mr. Knowles had invested a substantial sum in a resort hotel called the Sunrise on Verde Island. He made that bequest to you—his interest in the Sunrise, that is. I naturally attempted to locate you—"

“Wait a minute. He bequeathed me what?"

He explained again, in a little more detail, ending with, “I'm not certain of the value of his interest today, but his original investment was one hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

I didn't quite let go of the phone. But I sure got sober fast. Mr. Leach said something about, “If you'll drop by my office in the morning ... ,” and I told him yeah, sure, and when he suggested nine a.m., I mumbled that I'd be there.

Then I hung up, went over to the couch, and looked at Vanessa. “Guess what,” I said. “I just inherited an island. Well, not a whole island. But a piece of a hotel on a whole island. The Sunrise, on someplace called Verde—"

She gasped. Her green eyes got big and round. “Not Verde Island! The Sunrise?"

“That's what the man said."

Her eyes got even bigger and rounder. “Why, that must be the most beautiful place in the world,” she said. “Isn't it?"

“Beats me."

“You don't know about Verde?"

“Never heard of the place. For all I know, the man was pulling my leg—"

She interrupted again, all excited. “But it was just written up in—oh, I think it was the last issue of Escape."

“What the hell's Escape?"

“Don't you know anything? It's only the most exciting travel magazine published anywhere,” she gushed. “Oh, I just about died when I read about it. It must be the most beautiful place in the world."

“You said that."

“And you inherited it? The whole thing?"

“Uh, no. Not the island—not even the whole hotel. Just a little piece of it. Probably some beat-up furniture and—"

“Oh, isn't it marvelous. Shell? Ever since I read that article in Escape I've been dying to go to the Sunrise. Just dying."

I grinned. She must have seen the message flashing in my eyes because she suddenly got more subdued and said, “Now, wait a minute. Don't get any ideas."

“It's too late."

“All I meant was, it seemed such a lovely place.... I just thought it would be fun to go there. Some day. Years from now. All I meant was—"

This time I interrupted her. “Maybe I can fix it up,” I said. “I know one of the owners."

CHAPTER FIVE

Actually, I hadn't really intended to visit Verde Island. Not then.

The next morning I stopped in at the offices of Leach, Leach, Benson, and Leach, and when I walked out I was indeed a part owner of the luxurious resort hotel, the Sunrise, on the island of Verde, in the Caribbean Sea. For another six months the shares would have to be held in trust for me by Leach Senior, who'd been named executor of the will, but for all practical purposes I owned four and one half per cent of the Sunrise Corporation.

Even then I wasn't seriously considering hopping a jet to the East Coast, but when I arrived, late, at my own office, there was a thick letter waiting for me. It was from “Mr. John Farrow, President, The Sunrise Corporation, Sunrise Hotel, Verde."

It was a long letter, but the gist of it boiled down to two points. The first was that several days before writing me Mr. Farrow had received a letter from the late George Knowles. Knowles’ letter had been written nearly a year before, at the time when he'd added the codicil to his will leaving his interest in the Sunrise to me; at the same time he'd left instructions with his attorney for the letter to be sent to John Farrow in the event of his death—so Farrow had learned of my bequest before I had, in fact even before the reading of the will.

In the year-old letter Knowles not only informed Farrow of that bequest, but also included a good deal of information—apparently quite flattering—about me and my occupation as a private investigator.

The second point—and Farrow's primary reason for writing me—was that his partner and codeveloper in the Sunrise enterprise, one Edward Wylie, had died suddenly only the day before Farrow wrote me. Both the competent physician in residence at the Sunrise Hotel and the local police were satisfied that it had been a natural death, but Farrow was nonetheless concerned, not only because his partner had died so suddenly, but because the man had seemed to be in excellent health. Under the circumstances, having so recently learned of George Knowles’ passing—and of my being an investigator—Farrow had decided to get in touch with me right away.

The final paragraph of John Farrow's letter read: “So you see, Mr. Scott, why I would be most appreciative if you could find time to visit the Sunrise. As explained above, I am interested in having a thorough investigation made of what I consider the strange circumstances of my partner's death. If you could conduct that investigation, you would at the same time be able to familiarize yourself with the hotel property and with Verde Island itself. I would, of course, very much like to meet you. Whatever your decision, would you wire me at the Sunrise?"

That was it, except “Cordially,” and his signature. That's when I decided to visit Verde Island. I happened to tell Vanessa Gayle about it. The truth is, despite my jollying with her about “knowing one of the owners” of the Sunrise and such, I fully intended to go to Verde alone. But she seemed to be with me quite a lot; she even saw me off at L.A. International Airport, where I was to board a jet for Miami, there to grab another plane to Martinique, where the “Wanderer II” was to meet me. Naturally, for old time's sake, we had a couple of double martinis at the airport bar.

Naturally, after a few double martinis, we both climbed onto that jet, switched at Miami, and met the “Wanderer II” at Martinique—where I wired John Farrow that I would arrive with “a friend” who happened to be female.

Female as hell. Truly, however, I hadn't planned it that way. But you know what? I found myself in Miami not only with Vanessa, but with Vanessa's three large suitcases, which she had slyly checked at the baggage counter during our gay time at that bar.

There's a moral in there somewhere, and I'm pretty sure it has something to do with double martinis.

* * * *

I was thinking again of Vanessa Gayle—and wondering where she was now—when John Farrow and I reached the door of Suite 23, in which, presumably, lay the mortal remains of Miss Underwood.

Not just presumably.

She was there, all right.

And she was dead. She lay on her back, fully dressed, on the bed. Not stiffening in rigor yet. Still cooling. But dead.

Farrow swore softly, his features bent in frowning angles. I took my fingers from the girl's cool wrist and said, “She hasn't been dead long. You have any idea who called the desk?"

He shook his head. “Man's voice, that's all. No name. It was somebody in the hotel, though. Wasn't a call from outside."

“Is there a doctor handy?"

He nodded. “Yes. Dr. Otter is in residence here at the hotel. I'll call him. And the police—again."

He went to the phone. While he talked, I looked at the girl. She'd been in her early twenties, I guessed, maybe twenty-five years old. It was a sweet face, still quite pretty despite the unnatural immobility of her features. There were no marks visible on her nor any sign of what had killed her. Maybe the doctor would find something unusual.

He didn't.

Dr. Otter was a small, gray-haired man with a thin face on which the flesh sagged, and a high piping voice. “Strange,” he said. “Of course, I can't tell after such a limited examination. But this appears to be precisely like the deaths of Mr. Wylie and that native boy Paul, yesterday.” He turned to look at Farrow. “I've not yet examined the boy, but as you know I conducted a careful post-mortem on Mr. Wylie. And I found absolutely nothing to indicate any cause other than natural death. Tissues and organs in excellent condition for a man of his age.” He glanced toward the body on the bed. “And she was such a young woman, and apparently healthy....” He let the words trail off, frowning.

Dr. Otter had completed his work and made arrangements for the body of Miss Underwood to be taken later to the local funeral home by the time the police arrived. There were two of them, in resplendent uniforms, primarily blue but with a good bit of red and green in them. One was a police sergeant; the other—in even more resplendent garb—his assistant, an ordinary Verdean policeman.

The sergeant was Spanish, with expressive eyes and hands. “So,” he said to Farrow as he and his assistant came inside the room, “you have another corpse, once more again. And like the two others, yes?"

“Yes.” Farrow indicated the girl's body, then gestured toward me. “This is Mr. Scott, Sergeant Rivera.” We shook hands, then Rivera and his partner looked around the room, and the sergeant made notes in a little book. Then he asked a few questions of John Farrow, made some more notes, and snapped his book shut. “Bueno,” he said. “When there are developments of a positive nature, I shall inform you, Mr. Farrow.” The two officers left.

This, I thought, was a far cry from Los Angeles, and the efficient homicide crews of the L.A.P.D. But maybe there was more to Rivera than met the eye. Besides, this wasn't a homicide; it was merely the third natural death in a row.

* * * *

When Farrow and I got back downstairs there was a new quietness in the lobby. Word of this latest death had obviously spread among the guests, and the talk was subdued. We stopped by the desk while I asked about Vanessa—she'd checked in, all right, loaded down with packages, earrings, beads, junk—and then we went into the bar again.

There was a new bartender; I wondered if the other one had conked out somewhere. We got a table in the corner and ordered drinks, then I asked John, “How long had this Miss Underwood been here at the hotel?"

“A week. She came in on the boat—ordinarily the ‘Wanderer’ leaves here every Thursday, carrying guests to Martinique, and returns the next night. One trip a week. She came in on the boat's last regular trip, just a week ago."

“Last Friday. Your partner died before then, didn't he?"

He raised an eyebrow, but said, “Yes. Two days before then. Wednesday, nine days ago."

“Who was Miss Underwood with?"

“Alone, as far as I know. Made her reservation a month or so back. Registered as a single."

“She been with anyone in particular most of the time since she arrived?"

He pursed his lips. “Well, she has been with a man named Phillips a good deal of the time."

“Phillips. What's he like?"

“Quite a bit older than she is—was. Maybe fifty.” He paused. “Phillips came in on the same boat,” He looked at me silently, then said, “Let's check at the desk, Shell."

At the desk in the big lobby he thumbed through some cards, then looked at me with a half smile on his face. “She's in twenty-three. He's in twenty-five. Adjoining rooms."

And I was in thirty-six, Vanessa in thirty-eight. I said, “Uh-huh. You wouldn't know if the reservations came in about the same time, would you?"

“Tell you in a minute."

He walked behind the desk and on into a room beyond. In a couple of minutes he was back. “Same day. Separate letters, but it looks as if they were typed on the same typewriter."

“Could be she even typed them herself. For her and the boss, maybe?"

He shrugged. “Something like that, probably. It happens here from time to time."

“Uh, probably. This Phillips around now?"

“Haven't seen him for an hour or two. I'll call his room. If he's not there, I'll have him paged."

He did, but there was no sign of Phillips. If he should suddenly turn up dead, with no marks of violence on him, I was going to start feeling pretty creepy about Verde Island. In the meantime, John and I went back to our table in the bar and got our drinks.

While we were finishing them, the dark, heavy-set man with the thick black mustache came in from the lobby. It was the man I'd noticed earlier, at a table with another guy, and the same guy was with him this time.

I said to John, “The solid-looking boy who just came in, guy with the long sideburns. He looks familiar to me. Know who he is?"

Farrow craned his head around, then turned back and said, “Sure, know him well. Marcus Rule—one of the investors in the Sunrise. Very wealthy man—wants to buy me out, by the way. I've told him ten times in this last year that I've no desire to sell. But he's persistent."

It still didn't fit. I knew the name, the face, and—something else; I just couldn't put all of it together. I said, “What do you mean, one of the investors?"

“Just that. I haven't had time to fill you in on all the details of this operation. Briefly, about two years ago, Ed, my partner, and I were hard up for cash.” He lit a cigarette. “It's only this past year we've gotten out of the red, Shell. Kind of rough at first; we got in a bit over our heads during the time when maybe only twenty or thirty rooms or suites would be occupied. Anyway, we needed approximately a million to keep the Sunrise in operation over the tight time. So I borrowed the money."

“From Rule?"

“Only part of it. I flew to Los Angeles and spoke to several of my friends there, made inquiries. Banks are pretty conservative; they wouldn't touch it, figured the Sunrise was so far off the usual routes and such they'd never get their money out.” He grinned. “But I knew this setup was a gold mine, if we could just keep it going till it started paying for itself—and I managed to convince some of my friends I was right."

“Rule's one of those friends?"

“No ... not exactly. A business associate. What happened was that we formed a corporation and issued thirty-three hundred shares of stock at a thousand dollars a share. Three of my friends took a hundred and fifty shares each. Those were Hale, Beard, and Knowles—George Knowles, who turned over his interest to you."

“Uh-huh."

“And the rest were taken by three other men whom I met through my friends. Those were Rule, Lester, and Davis."

“What did they get for putting up the hundred and fifty G's? A piece of the whole operation?"

“Yes, a small piece. I've oversimplified this for you, but it worked out so that each block of one hundred shares was equivalent to three per cent of the corporation. Aside from our know-how, Ed Wylie and I put into the corporation the buildings and real property and the physical assets, and we retained seventy per cent of the stock and control of the board of directors. It was a risk for the investors then, sure, but it looks as though they'll double their money in another two or three years, now we're in the black."

“Not bad. Only thirty per cent of the shares were sold? So you've got complete control?"

“That's right."

“This Rule,” I said. “Marcus Rule ... You say he wants to buy you out?"

“Yes, and he means it. About six months ago he bought Beard's shares, and he also bought out Hale a few weeks ago."

“Intel sting. Which leaves ... let's see, that leaves Davis, Lester, Rule—and you.” I grinned. “And me."

“Right. Rule first approached me about buying me out a year or more back, but he's only offered me half what I think the operation's worth. Worth today, anyway. A couple of years ago it might have been a good price, but we're moving now. You see, Shell, in the beginning the only way to get to Verde was on freighters or on the ‘Wanderer's’ weekly trip from Martinique. But last June we worked out a deal with Carib Airlines, and they now run flights in here every Saturday and Wednesday. It had to come, but it took time. Then we got some good publicity when a movie outfit spent a month here, after that some articles in travel magazines, and so the Sunrise is becoming very profitable.” He shrugged. “Even if it weren't, I don't think I'd sell, not after the work Ed and I put into this place. I've told Marcus that, several times."

“Wonder why he's so hot to own the whole shebang?"

“Maybe he likes it here.” Farrow smiled. “Or maybe he understands, as I do, that it's onward and upward now. That the Sunrise is going to be a hell of a money maker."

“He's from Los Angeles?"

“That's right. Worth several million, I understand. Owns some land on Wilshire Boulevard in L.A., and a hotel there, too. Owns half a dozen hotels, in fact. The Barrett House in San Francisco, the Willow in Chicago—he even owned a casino hotel in Cuba before the Reds grabbed it. Think he also has some kind of importing house in Los Angeles."

The key clicked when Farrow made that comment about the hotel-casino in Cuba; finally it all came together. Actually, I didn't know much about the guy, but what I did know was interesting. The L.A.P.D. Intelligence Division had a file on Marcus Rule. That was all, just a file, and a small one at that. The Intelligence Division keeps up-to-date records on known criminals, members of organized crime—the Syndicate, the Mafia. In a word, the Mob. But Rule didn't fall into that category.

In Rule's case, what had piqued the ID'S interest was the indisputable fact that, though he had no police record himself, he had many—too many—friends and associates who were known members of the mob. Not just the hoi polloi of hoodlumdom, but members of crime's hierarchy, the Mafia dons, the power elite, the fat cats who pulled the strings, tightened the nation's garrote.

Rule himself, on the record at least, was sweeter than Peter Pan—except for his known association with capital-C Creeps. Maybe it didn't mean anything; but at least that explained my earlier curiosity about the man. I'd never met him, but I had seen his picture in the ID file.

Farrow said, “Something the matter?"

“Not really. Not yet, anyhow. I just remembered the guy from L.A. Some of his chums are very unsavory citizens. Some aren't even citizens any more. How long's Rule been here on the island?"

“He's been coming over for a week or more at a time ever since his investment in the Sunrise. Just like the other investors, for that matter, Shell. He's been here ... let's see, about a month now."

“Who's the guy with him?"

“He's been with Marcus since they got here. Arrived together. Don't know who he is, though."

I'd never seen him before, but I wondered. One of the little tidbits in Rule's L.A.P.D. file was the rumor, possibly not even remotely based on fact, that he employed a professional dropper, a murder man, for handling odd jobs that cropped up from time to time. Assuming, of course, that Rule's business ever actually included such odd jobs as murder—a possibility about which the Intelligence Divison had no solid evidence whatever. All the ID had on the nebulous killer himself was a name: Danny Pratt. Nothing else, no description, nothing. It was all pretty far-fetched. But it was in the ID'S file.

I said, “Something else, John. Things have moved pretty fast since I got here, maybe a little too fast—I expected to check one simple death, your partner's, but yesterday this Paul died, and now there's a third corpse. What do you think's going on? Murder? Natural deaths? Some kind of epidemic?"

He didn't answer for a while. Then he said, “You know that I at least suspected the possibility of murder when I wrote you. Not because there was evidence of it, but simply because Ed had died, and died so suddenly. But now ... Well, I don't know how the others could be murders—how, or why. There was no connection among the three of them. Miss Underwood didn't even arrive here until a good while after Ed died. The day he was buried, in fact."

He got out a cigarette, tapped it absently on the table top, didn't light it. “If it's murder, it's a kind of murder I never heard of. I suppose it could be some kind of disease, virus—epidemic. If that's it, we're all in trouble.” He finally put the cigarette in his mouth and lit it, puffed a few times, looking at the wall and apparently thinking.

Then he looked directly at me and said, “If it's none of those, the only other thing I can think of is—voodoo. Voodoo murders."

“You sound serious."

“I am. I hesitate to say this to you, Shell. You're only a few days out of the States. You haven't had time for the peculiar feel of this place to sink into your bones. Under the surface beauty here there's a kind of palpable undercurrent—not of evil; I don't mean that. Some of it's evil, sure. Some of it's good, though, and some of it, whatever it is, is just different. It's foreign, exotic, otherworldly, but it's just as much a part of Verde Island as the palms, the beaches, and Damballah-Loa."

He dragged on his cigarette again. “So, if the three deaths weren't some unlikely kind of murder that leaves no trace of murder, or coincidentally natural deaths, then I think it was voodoo. And I think—if that's the case—the killer was your friend, Count Mordieux."

“Yeah, my new buddy. Well...” John Farrow wasn't the mystical or crystal-gazing type; he was a solid, practical, down-to-earth guy. The solution he'd suggested struck me as pretty far out—but I had to confess I didn't have any better ideas.

I said, “O.K., but how could shaking rattles and pulling off chickens’ heads and such kill a gang of people? Give them fits, maybe, but kill them? And why all three—if, as you said, there was no connection among them?"

“The why, I wouldn't know. How? Well, that I don't know either, Shell. I do know the natives believe it. Too many of them have seen, or at least think they've seen, unmistakable evidence of the power of voodoo. They're afraid of that power. It's a fear with its roots stretching back centuries, back into old Africa—that's where voodoo was born, you know."

I nodded.

“I know, too,” he went on, “that a good many natives have been—well, cursed, made the object of hungan or mambo attack—and then have weakened, wasted away, and died."

“Poison?"

“Sometimes, I suppose. There have undoubtedly been cases of physical poisoning. It's said the voodoo priests know of certain herbs that can kill without leaving any trace. Any trace we know how to find, anyway. But to be truthful I'd have to admit I believe there have been as many cases, probably more, when there was no poison—at least not physical poison. Just the power of voodoo."

“You mean the power of suggestion? Like hypnosis?"

“Oh, there's that, too. Sure. But it isn't what I mean. I mean—well, you must know that I mean."

“I guess I do.” I scowled, thinking back. “But I kind of hope you're wrong entirely. The fit doctor I met when I arrived didn't seem to be greeting me with shouts of joy and thanksgiving."

“Who?"

I told him about the dancer with the rattle. I thought I made it rather amusing in the telling. John didn't double over with laughter.

He said soberly, “Describe him again, will you?"

When I added the bushy hair and brows and missing front teeth to my previous description, John nodded. “That's Michel. He's one of the hunsi—like a neophyte in training, or apprentice to the top man—of Count Mordieux. Paul Yuré, until he died, was second-in-command, you might say, to the Count. Michel was the Count's la-place. He may move up a notch now."

“Mordieux’ boy, huh?” I said. “Ah. Well, that's grand. First, lots of fun with the lieutenant, then I pop the general himself. You'd think I was asking for it, wouldn't you?"

I grinned at John. He didn't grin back.

“Those rattles you mentioned are interesting instruments, by the way,” he said. “They use a calabash gourd for the rattle itself, paint magical signs and symbols on it, and attach china beads and snake vertebrae."

“No wonder it was fun. Well, enough of that. I think I'll check on Phillips again, then ... hey, I'm hungry. With the chef gone, do I dare eat?"

He grinned. Finally. “One of the guests recently retired as head chef of the Maison Mignonette in San Francisco. He has volunteered to present us with gourmet vittles. The food, I'm sure, will be delicious."

“So I'll eat."

But I didn't intend to eat alone, so I called Suite 38. Vanessa said she'd been taking a nap. Tired out from her whirlwind shopping tour, apparently. I told her I'd pick her up for dinner in a few minutes. She thought that would be wonderful.

I was told at the desk that one of the “Wanderer's” crew had brought my suitcases from the boat and they were now in my room, so I checked again on Phillips, again without success, then went back and joined John in the bar.

He wanted to introduce me to some of the guests, but first he said, “Nearly everybody here knows you're a detective by now, I imagine. I don't know if you're aware—"

“Yeah, one of the bartenders told me the whole gang knew a private investigator was going to show up. I kind of wish they didn't know."

“I felt it was necessary. There was no secret about Ed's death, then when Paul was found last night it caused a good deal of—uneasiness. Then the help walked out. Well, with the boat gone—empty, on the special trip to bring you to the island—and no plane due till tomorrow, the guests were temporarily stuck here and getting the fidgets. I felt I should try to ease their minds."

“It's all right. Did it ease their minds?"

“Not a bit.” He grinned again. He could be rather a jolly fellow when he wanted to be.

As we started across the room, I said, “Start with Marcus Rule, will you? I want to see how he reacts to a word or two."

So John led me to the table where Rule and his young square-headed chum were clutching highballs and jawing at each other. They stopped talking as we came up to their table.

John performed the introductions. Neither of them offered to shake hands. In fact, I got the impression that their day wouldn't have been ruined if we hadn't met at all. Or even if I had died, in horrible agony. So, after we'd grunted our how-do's, I said, “It's odd we never met before, Mr. Rule. I'm from L.A. myself. Know several of your friends."

“Oh?” It was a strong face, all right. Strong, not joyous. And he sure had a lot of hair. It bulged full at the sides and from this close it looked like thin barbed wire.

“Yeah,” I continued. “Vito Caccio; Tony One Ton; Samuel Berstein, familiarly known as Sam Beer; and Joe Garbanza. Among others."

I had just named half of Crime, practically, but he didn't bat an eye. “You know all those people, huh? Friends of yours?"

“Not exactly. No, not exactly. We're on opposite sides of the fence, so to speak. And the fence is doing ten years in San Quentin. I just know them from the society pages. Down at the L.A.P.D."

He still didn't bat an eye. He just looked as if all that hair was growing, and it hurt.

“Oh?” he said again. He hadn't been looking at me. But now he raised the thick head and laid his eyes on my face. It was as if something soft and cold and highly contagious came out of them and started eating me. It was a lethal stare, and I could feel it like thin little knives.

After staring at me silently for a while Rule said, “You're a private detective, I hear. Private?"

“Uh-huh. Unofficial fuzz, Mr. Rule."

“Little out of your league, aren't you, Scott?"

“Not league. Just stomping grounds. But a citizen can stomp anywhere he wants. Unofficially."

“Lots of luck."

“Thanks. Incidentally, what ever happened to Joe Garbanza?” Joe had disappeared a few months back and had not been heard from again.

“He's not around,” Rule said.

“Yeah, I heard. I thought maybe you knew where he'd gone. I'd like to find out. After all, that's my business."

“You mean you're minding your business?"

“That's it,” I said cheerfully—at least, I sounded much more cheerful than he had. But a guy getting his legs pulled off would have sounded more cheerful than he had.

“Maybe he's taking an ocean cruise,” Rule said.

“In the ocean?"

That look again. But no words. From the way his hair seemed to be agonizing him, I began to feel the conversation was ending, if not over. So I said, “Hear anything from Danny Pratt?"

If anything happened to Rule's expression, I didn't notice it, because I was looking at his stocky chum. Nothing happened to him. He just kept looking bored.

Rule said, “Who's he?"

“Only a rumor, I guess. Well, glad we met.” I looked at Rule, adding, “Especially since we're partners, you know."

“Yeah, I know."

“How did you know?"

I looked at Farrow, and he shook his head slightly. So I guessed that meant he hadn't told Rule about my being a part owner. John looked unhappy.

Rule said, “I got it off the wire."

He didn't mean Western Union. The wire is the grapevine, the underworld wireless, the mouth-to-mouth belch so fragrant to hoodlum ears.

Nobody opened up any new channels of conversation, so I waved a hand and left the table with Farrow.

He said, “What the hell was that? Didn't sound like any way to make friends to me."

“I'm not trying to make friends, John. I'm trying to do a job for you."

“Is that how you go about it?"

“Once in a while. With a guy like Marcus Rule."

“What kind of guy is that?"

“Maybe a prince of a fellow. But he knows half the slobs, mad stranglers, dope pushers, killers, and Mafia bosses in the under and upper worlds. I know you're not supposed to hint these days that maybe birds of a feather flock together, but I still haven't seen any eagles flying with geese. As I say, maybe he's a prince of a fellow. Who's next?"

We were approaching a table at which sat a very queer pair. The woman was about fifty, going on sixty, with reddish hair that appeared to have been dyed with diluted ketchup, a bovine face, and an expression indicating that her cud was fermenting. The guy was equally unique, but not so sour in appearance. Even seated at the table, he appeared to be a tall character, with a long face, the cheek bones unduly prominent, and thin brows over mild brown eyes.

As we neared them, the guy was saying in a high but melodious voice, “No, dear, I insist. It was the Anoüs minutus, a white-capped noddy."

“It was not,” she said.

“I insist. The white cap was unmistakable. I saw it clearly in my glasses—"

He looked up as we stopped next to the table.

Farrow said, “Hello, Mrs. Burder, Mr. Burder. I'd like for you to meet Mr. Scott."

The man got to his feet, smiling gently, as Farrow completed the introductions. Mrs. Burder burped slightly, but kept her mouth closed, and smiled at me while holding the gas in. At least that's what it looked like.

The guy was a little taller than I. About six feet, three inches, I guessed, maybe six-four, with narrow sloping shoulders and long arms. “Joshua,” he said. “Call me Joshua."

“Joshua,” I said. “I'm Shell."

“You must be the gentleman Mr. Farrow said would be arriving. The detective?"

“That's right."

“Ah, I'm glad you're here, sir. I place little confidence in the local constabulary, and ... well, we might as well speak of it. Everyone's concerned about the three people who so recently left us."

I guessed he meant the three dead ones. So I said, “I don't know that I'll make much difference. My being here, I mean. But I do—"

Mrs. Burder said flatly to her husband, “It was a plain old common noddy. Anoüs stolidus. Wasn't any kind of white on it. A common noddy."

Joshua was still smiling, but his smile died a little. He rolled a look at his wife, then turned his eyes back to me. “At least it's comforting to have a man of your experience here, sir. Just in the event the deaths weren't—"

“Common,” Mrs. Burder said.

He sighed. “Dear,” he said patiently. “We saw lots of common noddies in the Dry Tortugas. It was a white-capped noddy, and that's final."

Then he spoke to me again. “I must apologize, Mr. Scott. You see, we're birders. I mean, b-i-r-d-ers."

“You're what?"

“Bird watchers, one might say."

“You watch birds, huh?"

“Yes. We've been all over the world, looking for birds."

“No kidding."

“Today on a little field trip we saw a small specimen of Anoüs minutus!” He emphasized the words this time quite a lot. Heads all through the bar snapped around to look at us. But he went on, unperturbed, “My wife thought it was stolidus, which of course is ridiculous. The same thing happened with our first sighting of a rufous-sided towhee in the States. She insisted it was—"

“Joshua!” His wife's tone was sharp. “Perhaps Mr. Scott isn't interested."

“Of course he is,” Joshua said. “Aren't you, Mr. Scott?"

“Well, uh ... I, uh...” He had me in a bind. I didn't want to lie to these nice bird lovers. I said, “Well, I, uh ... don't know a hell of a lot about, um, our little feathered friends."

“It's the most fascinating avocation imaginable,” he told me earnestly.

“No kidding."

“And the strange thing is, I probably never would have become interested, except that my name is Burder. With a ‘u,’ Burder. Isn't that fascinating? Perhaps in another lifetime I was a bird watcher, and thus came to be named Burder in this life.” He stopped and gazed at me with joy flickering in his eyes.

Obviously I was supposed to say something. I said, “Maybe you were a bird."

He laughed. “Well ... In any event, it's easy for people to remember our name. Burder."

“I won't forget."

“Perhaps you'd enjoy going out with us one of these mornings?"

“Me?” Silence. So I continued, “I'm afraid I'll be pretty busy."

“Well, if you get time, we'd love to have you."

Farrow—much too late, I thought—finally spoke. “We've some things to do now, in fact. Nice to have talked to you, Mr. Burder, Mrs. Burder."

He smiled, she nodded, and we walked away.

“They were lots of fun,” I said to John. “How long have they been livening up the place?"

He grinned. “Only since the ‘Wander's’ last trip. Just a week."

“And already they've seen a white-capped whatsit. What else have you got for me?"

He had half a dozen more couples, but none of them were as interesting as Rule and the Burders. When I'd been introduced to enough people to be practically one of the family, I told John I was going to pick up Vanessa, and maybe he'd like to join us for dinner. He said he would, and if I didn't mind he'd bring along Dria, who was still working in her office. I told him I didn't mind a bit, then walked up to the third floor. When I rapped on the door of Suite Thirty-eight there was the immediate sound of footsteps, and Vanessa opened the door, giving me a big smile.

“I just this minute got my face on,” she said. “Perfect timing."

“Perfect face. Ready for chow?"

“I'm starving."

“Let's go."

Ten minutes later, John and Dria, Vanessa and I—the introductions and hellos, and the sharp glances of female at female, having been concluded—were all seated in the main dining room. It was a beautiful room, the walls coral-colored, ten-foot-high potted palms strategically placed, and some primitive but colorful paintings on the walls. Most of one wall was glass, and beyond it was visible a stretch of white sand and then a clump of thin-trunked palms, their fronds swaying gently, both sand and trees illuminated by amber and green lights. The dining room had been open for over an hour, but there were still forty or fifty people at the tables.

Well, that dinner just didn't go the way it should have gone. John and I were all right, but the women kept saying damnfool things to each other. Like, from Dria, “I don't know anyone who could wear that shade of lipstick like you do.” And, from Vanessa, “Do you natives stick pins in each other to hurt little dummies?” Lots of stuff like that, and though most of it was amiable and apparently innocuous enough on the surface, it was like anything else: not much of it was surface.

At least the food was delicious, but even that—well, here's how it was.

The chef had done himself proud, and there was a very fetching variety of vittles. Vanessa had shish kebab, and I ordered some kind of roast squab stuffed with wild rice. John settled for a two-inch-thick filet mignon, and Dria chose a crab Louis.

We were just starting to dig in, and my nostrils were twitching, taste buds salivating, stomach fluttering in anticipation. The fowl was admirable, a bit crisp on the outside, golden brown and juicy, and the ends of the legs had those little paper doohickeys on them, and I'd sawed off one leg and was raising it slowly, lingeringly, tantalizingly to my chops. And Joshua Burder stopped by the table.

My mouth was open when I craned my head around and looked at him. He didn't say anything. Just looked—with an expression of vast sorrow—at the bird on my plate. The detached leg was two inches from my teeth; its magnificent aroma ravished my nostrils; I could feel the heat caressing my lips.

“Well, hi, Joshua,” I said.

He sighed, and walked away. Behind him walked Mrs. Burder, with a frown on her face and her lips pursed together. To hold in the gas, I guess.

Naturally, that raised the hilarity of our table to a peak of dullness unnerving to experience. Probably we were all going to have gas before this orgy was over.

When it was finally over, I deliberately walked to the Burders’ table and took a look, several biting phrases on the tip of my tongue. The sly dog was eating lettuce, peas, and asparagus.

Ten minutes later Vanessa and I had said good night to John and Dria and trudged up to her door. She was in a dull mood. “That bitch,” she said. “That foul bitch."

“Now, Vanessa—"

“I'm going to bed."

“Now, Vanessa—to where? Well, let's have a drink first, hey?"

“No. I'm tired. I'm going to bed."

“Now, Van—"

“Good night, Shell."

“Now—"

In she went, clunk went the door.

Hell, it was still early, too. I borrowed a hotel station wagon from Farrow and drove to the local funeral parlor in the capital city of Verde, ten kilometers away, and looked at Paul Yuré. He had a flat, squashed-looking nose and a boomerang-shaped scar on one cheek, and he was dead. Big night.

So I went back to the hotel and went to bed, and dreamed of big birds eating me.

CHAPTER SIX

The morning was glorious.

My first breath of that fresh, clean air, and the sight of sand and sea from the open-air terrace where breakfast was served at the Sunrise, not only killed all the big birds but put hummingbird wings on my corpuscles. I hadn't even phoned Vanessa's room, since I hoped to digest breakfast, and after that expected to be pretty busy. Besides, last night she could at least have offered me a drink.

The curving terrace was lined at its outer edge with small tables big enough for two, larger tables filling the rest of the cement floor. It wasn't yet eight a.m., and only a handful of guests were up and eating.

But I spotted Dria at one of the little tables, drinking coffee. I walked over to her.

“Alexandria Maria Ducharme,” I said. “Hello."

“Hello, Shell.” She smiled brightly, those dark sapphire eyes shining. “Join me?"

“I was going to ask if I could. After last night."

“Last night was all right. The food was delicious."

“Yeah. And I was glad to see you and Vanessa hit it off so well."

“Yes. Miss Gayle is lovely."

“Have you eaten?” I changed the subject.

“Not yet. Just having coffee. We can order together."

Our waitress—a millionaire's wife, Dria told me—pinch-hitting for one of the gals who'd walked off the job night before last, took our orders and came back with coffee for me.

I said, “Dria, you know why I'm here, don't you?"

“Yes. Because of the so-strange death of Mr. Wylie."

“Did you think it was strange, too?"

“Only because it was so sudden. He was healthy all of the time. Until he died. It happens like that often, of course. But it was so sudden it surprised us all. And..."

“And what?"

“Only that there have been two more, of a similar nature, in the few days since then. As you know."

“John—Farrow—said there was no connection among the three people who died. Is that right, as far as you know?"

“Yes—Mr. Wylie was already dead before the lady, the one who died last night, came to the island. He knew Paul, certainly. But only as everybody knew Paul."

“Wasn't he a hunsi or something like that?"

She nodded. “He was Mordieux’ confiance."

“That's pretty close to the Count?"

“Oh, yes indeed. Most trusted, the one who does all things of administration, the loyal right hand of his hungan. Paul intended to become a hungan himself, as soon as he could. It requires much money; he must have money to buy land and for the buildings of the sanctuary. He said many times that before he was through he would be the most powerful and respected hungan on Verde."

“Didn't make it, did he? Would you say he might have—if he'd succeeded—become a threat to Mordieux? That is, too much competition to the Count?"

She pursed her lips. “Oh, I doubt that. I suppose Paul himself might have thought so, but it is not likely Mordieux himself did. But I do not know."

“Farrow said something about Paul's being a little trouble during the last two or three months. Right?"

“Yes, of those who worked here, twenty or thirty were members of Mordieux’ sanctuary. Paul told them many times that they should not work for Mr. Farrow and Mr. Wylie, should stay with their own people. He spoke, of course, for Mordieux, but it seems odd Mordieux would not want them to work here, for in this way they earned much money. So they could then afford to pay him much for his services when they needed them."

“They pay the old Count, huh?"

“Oh, yes, when they need his help—and when they can. But all the hungan and mambo, even including Mordieux, give their services free when necessary."

“That's nice. Anything you can add to what you told me about Mordieux last night?"

“Oh ... it is just that I do not feel he is good, Shell. Not honest. I think he uses his people for his own gain, for money, yes, but for—for power over them more than anything else."

“Almost like politics back home."

She smiled. “Perhaps. Mordieux, he is not a good man. I cannot give you argument and evidence, as one would in a courtroom. But it is something I know. I feel it."

Our breakfast arrived then, and we started on the hot food. “Has the Count lived here all his life?” I asked her. “Was he born here?"

“Born here, yes. But two years or more ago he went to the United States, to make money with which to establish his humfo."

“What's a humfo?"

“The sanctuary. When one becomes hungan or mambo, one must have money to buy lands and build the buildings of the sanctuary, the peristyle, perhaps rooms for powerful loa, for living quarters and such things. There must be the proper buildings and room for ceremonies and dancing."

“I see. What did Mordieux do in the States?"

“He took others with him, some of them fine dancers, both men and women. It was an act for hotels and night clubs. Dances of Verde, songs, and what they called voodoo. It was only the surface ceremony or ritual—not the real thing. Just for a show, you understand?"

I nodded.

“That is another reason I do not think well of him, Shell. A true hungan would not make an entertainment of what he believes, would he?"

“Doesn't seem likely. How long was the troupe in the States?"

“Six or seven months. They went to many big cities—Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco, places in Oregon and Washington. Mostly in your West, but I do not know all the cities. He has been back here a year and a half, perhaps."

“You told me last night your stepfather died a year and four months ago. So Mordieux had been back from his tour of the States for maybe a couple of months then, right?"

She looked toward the sea. “Yes. About two months, it was. As I told you, he then became hungan of what had been Papa Lurin's sanctuary."

“Pretty convenient for the Count. He wound up with a going humfo, and it didn't cost him anything."

“That is true. But, still, he spent much money. He bought more land, erected other buildings. And he prepared feasts at which whole oxen were cooked, and many hens, and at which there was drinking of much kal and wine. This brought more members into his colony."

“Uh-huh. So because he had the fine big sanctuary, the biggest buildings, and gave parties for the voters—the members of the colony, I mean—a lot of other people turned to him. Is that it?"

“In part, yes. But it is more than that. He, Mordieux, has some quality.... The people follow him easily, they trust in him, believe in his powers. He is strong, very strong. The people will follow a strong man and, even if he sometimes is not good for them, often they do not care."

“Yeah. Well, how about Mordieux’ troupe, the ones who toured with him in the States—any of them here on the island now?"

“Paul Yuré, the one who is now dead. He went, and became confiance upon their return and establishment of the sanctuary. And Michel, too, who is now Mordieux’ la-place and may become confiance."

"La-place?"

“It is from commandant général de la place, the commander in chief of the city. He is what you call the master of ceremonies. He leads all processions, directs them, sees that the others are m their proper places, that all is orderly."

“Those two, then?"

“There is one other. A young woman, of much knowledge, and a dancer of renown. She is called Chicha. Chicha is Mordieux’ hungenikon—the trusted one, who in all ceremonies identifies and names the loa that appear and determines which songs shall be sung to each loa. She herself begins each song and also stops the songs by her command."

“Two still here, then. Michel and Chicha."

“Yes."

“You know where they might be found?"

“At the humfo. At Mordieux’ sanctuary."

“Where is it?"

“Not far from here. Four, perhaps five kilometers.” She pointed to the west and described the route, up Hyacinthe Road to the sanctuary.

When we'd finished breakfast and were having more coffee I said, “Well, thanks for the info, Dria. Now, though it may wreak havoc with digestion, I'd better get on my way to see Mordieux."

The dark shining eyes widened. “You are not going there, are you?"

“Sure."

“After last night?"

“Yeah. I can't just sit here and enjoy the balmy—"

“But you must not."

“Look, Dria, I've a lot of questions to ask, not only of Mordieux but the other people out there. About Paul and this strike or whatever it is, and..."

I stopped. A black car had pulled up in front of the hotel entrance, and gaudily uniformed Sergeant Rivera popped out and trotted up the steps. He went inside in something of a hurry, I thought.

Dria was saying, “Shell, already Mordieux is hating you, it will be worse if you go there. Besides, those of his humfo—and others here on the island—now know what occurred. Most are loyal to him; they might do you harm—"

“Dria, I appreciate your concern.” I smiled at her. “But I'm here to do a job. To dig around in corners, ask questions—and if it means going to see our gleaming Count, then I've got to go see the Count."

She started to protest, but I interrupted. “Wonder what Rivera wanted. He just flew inside the hotel."

I was looking toward the entrance, and as I spoke the sergeant came back out with Farrow. Dria and I were sitting about a hundred feet from the entrance so I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I saw Rivera wave his hands and shake his head.

I thanked Dria again, told her to keep calm, and walked toward the two men. As I reached them Farrow was saying, “That's the damndest thing. What about Miss Underwood?"

“No, she is all right. Only Paul."

She's all right? I thought. Hell, she was dead as a doornail. I said, “What's up?"

Rivera looked at me and waved his hands again. “My body, it has been stolen."

I blinked. “Your ... Is this another damned voo—"

Farrow broke in. “He means the body he was going to have Dr. Otter perform an autopsy on. Paul Yure's body."

“It's been heisted?"

He nodded.

I looked at the sergeant. “When was this? And why in hell would anybody steal his body?"

“Why, indeed? Why? It is crazy, no? Yes. But it was last night. Not anyone knows when, since not anyone was watching the body. Who would think it necessary to watch a dead body?"

“That makes sense."

“It was in the funeral parlor at the beginning of the night, but at the end it was no longer there. It was gone.” He waved his hands again. “Vanished."

“Well, a dead guy doesn't get up and go for a stroll all by himself. Somebody had to go in there and haul it out so it could vanish. Any signs of forcible entry?"

“My man is checking."

My man, he'd said; not my men. That was another difference between here and Los Angeles. There were a lot of differences. Rivera continued, “The locks are not difficult, however. Many keys would open them. Any keys. For who would think it necessary—"

“You've no idea who snatched the stiff, or why?"

“None. Perhaps it was no one. Perhaps...” His eyes flickered, and he shut up. I wasn't sure what he'd started to say. But I had a hunch.

Rivera scratched his cheek, then said to Farrow, “I must return. But I felt you should know of this.” He trotted back to his car.

“How about that, John?” I said.

“You tell me. You're the detective.” He didn't speak with real sharpness, but I could tell he wasn't feeling as jolly as could be.

I told John where I was going—just in case I didn't return until moonrise or something—and then added, “Have you got something I can use for transportation?"

“Sure. Take the blue station wagon again. It's yours while you're here. The other one's all we'll need."

He got me the keys, and I was on my way.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Mordieux’ sanctuary was inland four miles and a thousand feet or so above sea level, near a small settlement or village called Vincenne. About half of the two hundred people in Vincenne were members of Mordieux’ “colony,” and there were a number of others from more outlying parts of the island. According to Dria, usually from half a dozen to a dozen of Mordieux’ followers lived on the two-acre sanctuary itself, in a building set aside for that purpose.

These were the indigent, those with nowhere else to go—at least, until they were able to provide for themselves—and the ill. Mordieux took care of them at his own expense, ministered to their needs—which was a plus for the Count, I figured. If, that is, he was doing it out of the goodness of his heart, and not simply because it was the traditional role of the hungan.

Basically, the institution of the hungan was, I thought, a good one—at least in a place that our planners back home would call an “underdeveloped” or “emerging” society. The hungan was a kind of combined Congressman, priest, judge, doctor, and psychoanalyst of and for his small community; its political, medical, and religious leader.

In addition to food and shelter, the people needed someone to hand down decisions and, hopefully, justice; to minister to their ills of mind and body and, maybe, cure them; and to lead them into—or at least toward—religion. As for the religion itself, I guessed it was as good as any other, for Verde. Different people require different symbols, different dreams and rituals and hopes. Voudon was, I guessed, at least for this time and place, as good as any.

The question was: How about Count Mordieux? What kind of cat was he?

The drive to here had been the kind honeymooners should take on the day after the wedding. Half a mile from the hotel, Hyacinthe Road had curved away from the sea and then started rising in slow stages toward the west. For the last three miles it had wound through thick growth of palms, bananas, and ferns, the deep green relieved by splashes of color that were the biggest and most vibrantly tinted orchids I'd ever seen.

In order to get four miles west I had to drive about twice that far in every direction but east. Twice I passed other dirt roads that intersected the one I was on, but I didn't see another car in all that time. I did pass half a dozen people walking toward the coast.

Then I came around the last curve, and the road straightened out. On my left the land was flat, but at my right a hill, covered with thick brush and a few crooked trees, rose to a height of perhaps a hundred feet. Straight ahead and slightly above me were Vincenne and what had to be the sanctuary of Count Mordieux.

The village was half a mile or so distant, on my left, while the sanctuary itself was no more than three or four hundred yards away. Over breakfast Dria had told me quite a lot I hadn't known about voodoo and had also described the sanctuary; she'd said it covered perhaps two acres, but it looked bigger to me. I could count six separate buildings grouped around an open area that was at least half an acre in itself. On its far side was the biggest building of all—that would be the peristyle, where the major ceremonies, dances, and classical rituals of voudon were held. A slightly smaller building was on its left, adjacent to it, and two of the other wooden structures were at each side of the cleared space. At the edge of the clearing nearest me was a big bushy tree—called an oraflora tree, Dria had said.

Three or four people were visible near the buildings, but I could see many more moving around in the dirt streets of the village beyond or sitting next to the small houses. So I drove on, headed for Vincenne.

Only part of my reason for coming here was to see Mordieux; I also wanted to talk to some of the members of his humfo, and I figured by talking to them first I would be better prepared for whatever the Count's welcome for me might be. After last night it wasn't likely he'd throw roses at me, and it seemed probable I'd get more cooperation from others than from the Count.

So I thought.

I drove slowly—to avoid the scampering children, squawking chickens, and half a dozen small pigs—to the center of the village, then parked and got out of the car. The village looked a lot like many small towns I'd seen in Mexico, away from the big population centers. A few small stores along the main dirt street, some houses that had the homemade look, and other houses farther away, scattered in no particular pattern. Directly across from me was a bar with a faded sign over the door, the door hanging crookedly on its hinges.

Two men sat in front of the bar; several other men and women were in sight, walking, and the kids played noisily. That's the way it was at first. For about ten seconds. No more than ten.

Then, magic. At least it was like magic. One moment I was standing there looking at the people strolling and lolling about, and then I was alone in a ghost town. Swish, hop, crash, people moved, and doors slammed and, zip, I was alone.

No, not quite alone. The raucous noise of the kids got even more raucous and earshredding, briefly, then died to bearable decibels. When I turned around, four kids were disappearing beyond a corner half a block away, and two more stood looking at me. Those two were a boy and a girl four or five years old—something in that general area. Whatever their years, they both seemed to age a bit when I turned around.

The girl pointed at me and screamed something horrendous. The little boy started to run, then turned and grabbed the girl's hand—maybe little, but brave—and hauled her after him, their four heels flying.

“What the hell?” I said mildly. But there was nobody around to hear me. So of course, I knew what the hell. Old buddy. Count Mordieux. I didn't know what he'd told them, but it must have been marvelous.

I walked across the street to the bar and started to go in. I didn't. The door was locked. On my left was a somewhat scummy window, but by cupping my hands over my eyes I could see through it. All that got me was a scummy nose. The back door was just closing; the inside of the joint was empty.

I walked up a block and back, tried a couple doors, but it was a losing game, and I knew it, and I knew who was losing. It was also apparent to me that, by now, the steel-choppered Count would have been apprised by numerous of his subjects that the white-haired monster was contaminating the area.

So, O.K., I'd go contaminate the Count

I drove to the sanctuary but didn't park in the grounds or even near any of the buildings; this was their sanctuary, not mine. I pulled up near that big tree, and as I cut the engine a dozen roosters, hens, and doves flew from its branches. Getting out of the wagon I looked up to see skulls of animals and birds affixed to the tree's limbs. Hanging from others were sacks and strips of colorful cloth. Bird droppings were thick underneath the tree and on a ring of small stones surrounding its base.

Some kind of sacred tree, apparently. I hesitated, but then in I walked.

Mordieux wasn't in sight, but in front of the biggest building, straight ahead of me, stood a group of about twenty men. No women, no kids. As I walked over the bare earth, three guinea hens ran like sixty, going pa-traack, pa-traack! From somewhere beyond the peristyle I could hear the bleating of goats.

All of them—roosters, hens, goats—waiting for the days of sacrifice. Waiting to be killed. When I got near the men I noticed that, though several were scrawny specimens, several others were not; and there were a couple of big guys wearing only faded blue jeans, and above the jeans appalling masses of muscles that looked like writhing black boa constrictors.

I wasn't looking for trouble. Even if they'd all been scrawny guys, twenty was at least a dozen too many. I stopped a few feet from the gang and said, “Where's Count Mordieux?"

Eyes rolled, whites of eyes flashed, heavy lips moved. There was almost inaudible mumbling from a few, but no remarks were really directed to me. I got the impression, though, that they weren't glad to see me.

They all seemed to be waiting for something to happen. An air of expectancy hung over them. Maybe they thought I would soon vanish or turn into a stick. But then the event for which they'd apparently been waiting occurred. Count Mordieux put in an appearance.

The men were all standing in front of me before the peristyle. It was a big building with a thatched roof, the entire front unwalled and open to the air. Inside I could see some colorful posts which seemed to be holding up the roof—posts striped and dotted with a lot of color—and on the left was the slightly smaller building faced with three doors, all of which opened into the side of the peristyle. The sanctuary proper and Mordieux’ living quarters would be in there. The middle door opened.

All the Count did, really, was walk out that door, move through the peristyle and then the group of men, and stop in front of me. But you'd have thought he'd come soaring out flapping his wings, to judge by the group's reaction. Eyes rolled faster, the mumbles got louder—and teeth flashed white in the sun. They were happy, happy. The Count was going to fix me.

I guess he thought so, too. Because before he had stopped in front of me, his lips were flapping, and he was spewing invective at me—I couldn't understand the words, but the tone was nasty as could be. His audience loved it, too. Most of them nodded and made softly explosive ejaculations of agreement.

The Count was going up one side of me and down the other in some vaguely familiar language. It was probably a combination of Creole, French, African, Spanish, and miscellaneous cuss words, none of which I could understand.

Oh, I can say “Hello,” and “How are you?” and “Would you like to dance?” in Spanish—but that's not what the Count was saying.

Well, I'll go along with so much, but when we'd reached my sticking point I stepped a foot closer to Mordieux, leaned forward till our chops were only inches apart, and said, “Watch the mouth, Count, or I'll pop you in those wild teeth again."

It got pretty quiet. Pretty quiet. I heard a bird cheep maybe a mile and a half away.

Then Mordieux spoke again. And this time it was in pretty good English. “You are a dead man.” It came out, “You arre a did mon,” but I got the message.

“You could have fooled me,” I said. “I feel pretty lively."

“Now, yes. To be sure. Tomorrow, no. Tomorrow, you will be a did mon."

“Oh knock it off, Mordieux. That jazz won't work with me—and you must know it so don't go out on a limb in front of your fans."

“Tomorrow. You die."

Of course, I didn't believe this joker would dance around a pot and shortly afterwards I'd kick the bucket; but I did get a slightly creepy feeling from his words. The reason was that he made his statement with such lack of histrionics; he didn't make a big production out of it, merely said flatly that I was going to die. He spoke like a man with lots of self-confidence, with certitude, as if he really believed it. Clearly his fans believed it.

Which gave me an idea.

Obviously—judging by their attitude now, and the reaction of those people who'd spotted me in the village—I had maybe one chance in seven thousand of merely catching up to one of them, and even less that I could get them to confide in me. As long as they figured the Count could remote-control people or knock them off with a kind of lethal radar, the situation wasn't going to improve. But if I could convince them the Count wasn't such great shakes after all, some of them might swing over to my side. And until some did, I was going to play hell getting any information from them.

So I spoke to the assembled men, not to Mordieux. I waved a hand at them. “Listen to me.” I pointed at Mordieux. “This clown has got you all buffaloed.” In case that had slipped by them, I rephrased it, “He, the Count, is a big nothing. A phony. He is a faker. He is full of hot air. He lies through his steel teeth. He says I will die. Well, I will not die. I will be alive tomorrow—and the day after that, and many days after that. Then you will know Count Mordieux merely crows like a rooster but lays an egg ... talks large and does little. Merely by staying alive, I will prove to you that Mordieux is a fraud and a liar."

The members of Mordieux’ colony were not impressed. Mordieux himself didn't seem to be impressed. He showed me his steel teeth in a not very winning smile, then started to turn and go back into the big building. “Hold it a second,” I said. He paused.

“What's the score with Paul Yuré, your former confiance? I guess you know somebody swiped his body last night."

Mordieux looked blankly at me. “Someone spirited his body away?"

“No, not spirited. Somebody laid hands on the corpse of Paul Yuré and hauled it off somewhere. You wouldn't know anything about that, huh?"

“Certainly not. It has not anything to do with me.” Maybe so, maybe not so. But whatever he told me, I'd be inclined to believe the opposite. More important, when I asked the question I hadn't been looking at him but at the other men near us. And there had been much rolling of eyes and swift glances exchanged.

“One other thing, Mordieux. Leave Dria alone. Alexandria Maria Ducharme. Quit bothering her, friend, or I'll come back here and climb all over you."

He shook his head. “You are powerless to interfere. Nothing can be done. She will return to this place, where she belongs. It is already determined. Nothing can be done."

“Don't kid yourself.” I paused. “Incidentally, you must know when you start shoving people around, trying to run their lives for them, you're asking for trouble. To put it another way, for bad loa."

I stopped, but when I'd said, “bad loa,” the gang here assembled had gone through some more of the mumbling and eye-rolling bit. So I built it up a little for them.

“It is true,” I said to them. “Count Mordieux has tried to use for evil powers which should be used for good. Because of this, the evil will come back and rest upon him.” I was trying to put this in a way they could understand and perhaps even believe, but I didn't think I was doing too well. I tried to remember some of the things Dria had said to me about the Count last night.

“He is bad hungan,” I continued. “Not good, as was Papa Lurin. I have heard of him and the good he did. Were things not better for you when he was chief hungan of this island? Count Mordieux works with both hands, he uses the bought loa—and this will bring pain and trouble to him. And to you."

I wasn't sure what effect my words had on the other men, but they got under the Count's skin a little. He clicked his shiny choppers, scowled, spun around and barked something at the men, and went into the big building and then into his own quarters again.

I'd have liked to know what he barked at them, because for a few seconds I wasn't sure whether they were going to continue staring at me or start trying to dismember me. But I held up a hand and said, “It is true. And I will prove that what I have just told you is true."

Then, just as briskly as had Mordieux, I spun on my heel and walked away from them. I couldn't resist one peek back to make sure the gang wasn't creeping up on me, but all of them still stood where they'd been.

I felt rather pleased with myself. I had maneuvered old Count Mordieux into a pickle. I felt I'd at least planted the seed of doubt in his followers, and Mordieux couldn't let the seed sprout into open disbelief and then, inevitably, defiance and disaffection. No, sir, if he wanted to stay king of the mountain he simply had to prove his words were true. He simply had to loll me.

I'd maneuvered the Count into a real pickle, all right.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I pulled up in front of the Sunrise Hotel, stubbed my cigarette out in the ashtray, and started to open the door. But then I heard somebody calling, “Mr. Scott. I say, Mr. Scott."

The voice was from my right, and I leaned over, looked out the car window. Tall, long-armed Joshua Burder was hurrying down the steps. He had a square leather case in his right hand and was waving the left one at me.

He stuck his head through the open window and said, “I say, could you do me a very great favor, Mr. Scott?"

“I suppose. What is it?"

“Could you drive me into Verde? My wife and I are going on a little field trip and there's some equipment I must have repaired before we go.” He paused and smiled happily. “Why, you could come along this afternoon if you'd like, Mr. Scott. We'd love to have—"

“Uh, thanks. But I won't be able to. I've some other things to do this afternoon. Well, hop in. Or if you'd like, why not take the station wagon? I'm sure John wouldn't mind."

“Oh, no.” He seemed flustered or embarrassed. Then he added, “I—well, the truth is, I don't drive. Silly, I know. I have absolutely horrid depth perception ... always be smashing into things.” He'd opened the car door and climbed in, then looked at me and said, “Is it all right?"

“Sure. Where do you want to go?"

“I'll show you when we get downtown."

As I started the engine, he put the small kit on his lap and opened the lid, peered inside with the expression of a mother cooing at her infant.

“Got a bird in there?” I asked jovially.

He laughed. “Oh, no. But I do have my field guide, binoculars—they're what I must have repaired—color charts, wee tripod and such."

“Wee tripod?” I didn't really want to know about it. But, as I was pulling away from the hotel entrance and heading down the drive, I asked merely to make conversation.

He rose to the bait, as I'd feared he would. “Even when lying prone, it is sometimes difficult to hold binoculars completely steady. But, with the binoculars firm upon a small tripod, much greater clarity of detail can be observed. Particularly when sighting from a distance. Especially at a small bird."

“Yes. I can see that.” The drive slanted downward to the road, and as I glanced into the rear-view mirror I could see the bottom floors of the hotel's front reflected in it. I saw something else, too. A man came out of one of the third-floor rooms, stood on the sundeck while looking left and right quickly, then climbed over the low rail separating that sun deck from the adjacent one. He appeared to be in a big hurry.

I kicked on the emergency brake and got out of the car. The man was just vaulting over the rail and onto the sundeck before the last room, the one at the very end of the south wing.

At the outer edge of each wing of the Sunrise Hotel were flights of stairs which rose from the ground to the top of the hotel, with a small landing at each floor, for the convenience of guests who preferred to climb them to their floor and walk inside, rather than going clear to the hotel's entrance and into the lobby and then from there on up to their rooms.

But this was the first time I'd seen anybody galloping from sundeck to sundeck to reach those outside stairs. More, my own suite was on the third floor, fourth one in from the end. My rooms, Vanessa's, somebody next to her, and then the corner suite.

I counted in from the wall to the sundeck where I'd first seen the man. One, two, three, four—my deck. The guy, whoever he was, had been in my rooms.

I sprinted back up the drive, headed for the bottom of those outer stairs. The man I'd seen was out of sight, somewhere on them now, going down. Maybe the guy was drunk, and lost. Maybe he was a jolly acrobat, doing the Tarzan bit over the front of the Sunrise. But maybe he wasn't. So as I ran I reached under my coat and pulled out the .38 Special.

“Mr. Scott! What's the matter?"

That was Joshua Burder, fifty yards behind me. I didn't tell him what was the matter; I'd tell him later, maybe. But I must have covered those fifty yards—and the next fifty as well—with the speed of a cheetah, because when I reached the base of the stairs the guy was still above me. Looking up, I spotted him, just clattering down to the second-floor landing.

He spotted me, too.

He was moving pretty fast and slid up against the rail at the stairs’ edge. He could hardly have missed seeing me, since I was moving pretty fast myself and had dug in my heels as I neared the steps. I was skidding over the ground, looking up, and he bugged his eyes in the direction of the racket and spotted me. Spotted my gun, too.

He couldn't very well have missed the gun. As I skidded to a stop I shoved the Colt toward him and yelled, “Hold it! Freeze right there."

He didn't freeze; he melted away. He gave a great bound toward the door a few feet ahead of him, yanked it open, and disappeared inside the hotel. I jumped up the stairs after him.

When I got into the second-floor hallway there was nobody in sight. An unmarked door was closed opposite the stairway entrance. All the other doors I could see were numbered, and also closed. The hallway curved right fifty feet away; another fifty feet beyond the angle were the stairs to the lobby. The man might have made it that far while I'd been clattering up here, considering the speed at which he'd been traveling.

So I sprinted down the hall, angled right, and stopped, panting, at the head of the wide stairs. Below me people sat in couches and chairs, a couple moved leisurely toward the bar. If anybody had gone through the lobby in a hurry there'd have been more commotion down there.

So either he was still up here, perhaps on ahead in the north wing, or—I spun around, ran back the way I'd come. With the south wall again in sight I could see the door on my right at the hall's end—that unmarked door I'd noticed, which had then been closed—standing, wide open.

As I thundered past it again I could see the small room inside, shelves on which were stacked sheets, blankets, towels and such. It hadn't taken me much time to run to the lobby stairs and back, though it had used up quite a lot of wind, so when I stopped momentarily outside on the second-floor landing the man was still in sight.

He was running like hell, legs swinging somewhat awkwardly—but speedily—tearing off toward the south, away from the hotel. He darted into a grove of slim coconut palms, kept running. Twenty yards past the grove, light glinted on something there—an automobile, brown, a sedan. The car was parked just off the edge of a dirt road. I stood on the landing a moment more, following the dirt road with my eye to where it joined Sea Drive, which curved in toward the hotel. Then I shoved my gun back into its holster, jumped down the stairs, sprinted back toward the wagon.

As I slid in under the wheel, Burder said, “What happened? Where did you go? What's the matter?"

I waved a hand at him. Right then I had no breath for conversation and not a hell of a lot for breathing. The engine was still idling. I slapped it into gear, and as we picked up speed I pushed my foot down on the accelerator. I was sucking in air and whooshing it out my mouth with the sound of a busted irrigation pump.

And now that I wasn't running like crazy, I had a moment to consider who the guy had been. When I'd spotted him bugging me over the rail, the picture had registered; it was somebody I'd seen before. But I'd seen too many faces lately, and I hadn't yet been able to match the picture with the memory of any specific individual. He wasn't one of the hotel guests, though; he was one of the local natives, one I'd seen somewhere.

Burder was pushing both feet against the floor boards and had one hand on the door frame, the other braced against the seat. He wasn't even hanging onto his precious bird kit.

“Oh-h,” he said. “Please slow down, Mr. Scott. Please slow down. Truly, I'm not in this ... much ... of a hurry."

“I am. I spotted some character coming out of my room. That's where I went a little while ago. I was trying to catch him—still am."

“Out of your room? Why would anyone be in your room?"

“That's what I want to ask him."

He shut up and just hung on. I passed the dirt road but didn't slow down. Swirling dust was evidence that a car had recently moved over it. Except for short stretches, both sides of the road were lined with palms, bananas, other tropical trees and shrubs, so the only clear view was straight ahead. It was a curving road, too, following the natural slope of the terrain, and I hadn't seen the car yet.

But as we reached the end of Sea Drive, where it entered the main road to the city of Verde on our right, I spotted him. The brown sedan was to my left, at least a half mile away.

I swung in after him, jammed the accelerator to the floor boards. Hyacinthe Road—up which I had traveled for the first time an hour ago, was only a mile ahead. The brown sedan was there—and heading up it—but I'd narrowed the distance between us when he turned.

By the time we got into the shaded stretch of Hyacinthe, a mile or so up that narrow road, he was out of sight again. But I knew he must be closer now than he had been, because I hadn't slowed down at all. Burder looked a bit gray.

A minute later I was wondering why I hadn't caught the guy. We'd passed one of the side roads I'd seen earlier this morning; I knew another was somewhere close. Unless the guy had turned off—or perhaps simply driven off the road and into the thick growth somewhere along here—I should be practically on his tail. But the way the road wound and curved, there was never a stretch where I could see more than a hundred yards straight ahead.

At a sharp curve I had to slow down in a hurry, and the tires squealed. We skidded, then straightened out. I started to slap my foot down on the gas pedal again—and Burder yelled in a surprisingly loud voice, "Stop!"

He was looking to the right of the road. "Stop!" he yelled again. "Stop, quick!"

He had his head stuck out the window, was staring back at something behind us. I hit the brakes. There'd been something almost like panic—or at least a kind of wild alarm—in his voice. The car skidded, slowed, and Burder was out the door before the car came to a stop.

I climbed out. By then Burder was well down the road, still running, but bent double, like an infantryman sprinting across an open area under the guns of the enemy.

When he slowed, stopped, then began moving toward the trees and brush off the road—still bent way over—I looked for a sign that a car might have been driven into cover there. I didn't see anything, but where Burder was skulking forward was fifty yards or more distant, and perhaps from there he could see things I couldn't.

And then it occurred to me that if Burder had spotted the car or the man, and if the man happened to have a gun, Burder, who was armed only with his little leather kit—at least so far as I knew—might get his head shot open.

I ran toward him, gun in my hand again.

He heard me when I got close and turned with an expression of alarm. He shook his head and waved his hand at me, as if to hold me back. I stopped running, and moved forward more slowly. He disappeared into the undergrowth.

I waited a minute, but didn't hear any shots, then started in after him. At that moment he came out onto the road again.

“Did you see him?” I said. “Or did you just think you saw something?"

“I saw him,” he said. “Just a glimpse. He was gone when I got here."

“You mean he left the car?"

“Car?” He eyeballed me blankly.

“What happened to him?” I said. “He's gone—where?"

“Who knows? He just flew away. I got only a glimpse—"

“Wait a minute.” Coldness, as of Arctic air, fell over me. “He flew away? Flew?"

“Yes. It was a ring-tailed woody-pooper,” he said—at least that's what it sounded like to me, in my shock.

“It ... was ... a ... what?” I said. My voice was gravelly.

“A beautiful ring-tailed woo—"

“No. Don't tell me."

You know how it is when you get hit on the head? The way those oddly swirling little lights swoop, comet-like, before your eyes? Maybe you don't get hit on the head much; so take it from me, some of those lights are very colorful, and with all of them swirling, comet-like, at once, it's a pretty sight. But not so pretty you can't wait to get hit on the head again.

Anyway, I saw the pretty lights. It can happen even if you don't get hit on the head. I felt my teeth crunching together and setting up dangerous stresses and strains in my jaws. I felt my legs move, taking me toward Joshua Burder.

His eyes grew wide with alarm. They focused on my outthrust right arm. At the gun in my right hand.

He said, “What ... are you doing? What's the gun for?"

“It's to shoot you with,” I said.

CHAPTER NINE

Joshua Burder's Adam's apple jumped up and fell down, jumped up again and stuck.

Finally he said, “Don't. What did I do? Don't. What's come over you? Don't."

I sighed. I put my gun away. I turned and started walking back to the car. Burder caught up with me and said, “What—"

I cut him off. “Don't say anything for a while, Mr. Burder."

“Joshua. Or call me Josh if you want. Most of—"

"Mr. Burder!" I stopped, started over. “You seem to have forgotten I was chasing a guy. Vigorously, speedily, even perhaps at great peril to our lives and limbs. It should not have required genius for you to assume that possibly I desired to catch him. Not to catch a ring-tailed poopy-whooper. Or whatever the fool thing was."

“A ring—"

“Never mind."

“Dear me,” Burder said. “I did forget. Indeed, I did. But when I saw it, I could think of nothing else. Everything else went completely out of my mind. I've never enjoyed the good fortune even to sight one before. My wife and I had hardly dared hope...” And so on.

All the way to the car. About the second or third time he said, “I really am so terrible sorry, I do hope you'll forgive me,” I said, “Oh, shut up. I forgive you. Forget it. Just shut up."

In silence, then, we got into the car.

There was little point now in chasing after the guy. Either I wouldn't spot him till we reached the Caribbean on the far shore of the island, or else I'd spot the ear. But not him; of that I was reasonably certain. Not far ahead was Mordieux’ sanctuary, and beyond it the village, Vincenne. Maybe he'd been headed for there. And maybe not. But the guy wouldn't be bouncing around out in the open where his pursuer might spot him. And his chums in the area weren't likely to be lots and lots of help to me. The hell with it.

I jockeyed the car around in the narrow road, headed back the way we'd come. Burder made no comment. When he did speak, we'd reached the main road into Verde.

He said, “Perhaps you would rather not drive me into Verde, Mr. Scott."

“Sure, I'll run you in.” I even said it with reasonable pleasantness. I'd simmered down by that time. No sense staying mad, and steaming and fuming, and snarling inwardly. Keep it positive, I thought.

“Why, sure,” I went on, “drive you anywhere. Drive you all over. Drive you to Birdland. Drive you any damn—” I cut it off.

“I would greatly appreciate it,” Burder said. “It's my binoculars, you see. They won't focus. That is, not together. Through one you can see the ... um, object, but through the other it's blurry."

“Have to get that fixed, all right."

Soon we reached the outskirts of Verde, then we were in light traffic downtown, some of it composed of cars which weren't even being manufactured any more. But mostly it was people on bicycles and burros, and on foot.

Verde was a pleasant little city, about as close to Mexico's Cuernavaca as any place I'd seen. Except that most of the signs were in French instead of Spanish. But it had the same narrow streets, small stalls, idlers sitting at open-air tables.

When we hit the main square, with the church at one end and a lot of shops on both sides of the street, Burder pointed. “There, that little place, Mr. Scott. Mr. Farrow informed me there's an American there who does excellent work of this nature."

It was a photographer's shop with framed eight-by-tens and some camera equipment in the window. I pulled up in front of it and parked. “Want me to wait for you?"

“Oh, no, thanks, Mr. Scott. You've done quite enough. I'll be some time—probably wait while my glasses are repaired, if it doesn't take too long. I'll call the hotel when I'm through. They'll send someone for me, I'm sure."

“O.K. See you later, then."

“Yes. And I do thank you sincerely, Mr. Scott.” He started to say something else, but changed his mind.

“Sure.” I waved at him and drove away.

* * * *

Walking into the lobby of the Sunrise, I was surprised when my eyes fell on the clock over the registration desk. The morning had been so busy I'd thought it must be afternoon. But it was only ten-thirty a.m. Too early for lunch, even—and I was already hungry. All that running around, I guessed.

I peeked into the bar. Ordinarily bars are, if not empty, not very full in the a.m., even at luxury hotels. But, in part because the local help had walked off the job, many activities that ordinarily would have been in full swing—exciting things like ping-pong tournaments and gin rummy on the terrace—were in abeyance. Consequently several people who looked like ping-pongers and gin rummy addicts were gathered in the bar.

At two or three tables card games were in progress. A few groups were engaged in what might have been hair-of-the-dog drinking, judging by the number of Bloody Marys in evidence. I started to turn away, but a waving hand caught my eye.

The hand was attached to the white arm, attached in turn to the splendidly swooping and protruding form of Vanessa Gayle, my blonde companion. Which was interesting. More interesting, however, was the fact that her companions of the moment were Marcus Rule and his square-headed chum.

The three of them were chummily gathered around a table in the corner, beyond the far end of the bar. Vanessa waved again. Rule and his friend didn't. I walked over to their table anyway.

“Shell, damn you,” Vanessa said.

Some greeting, after we'd been separated for at least twelve hours. “Why?” I said cheerfully.

“Where've you been? I've been looking all over for you."

I glanced at Rule and the other guy. “I can see you have,” I said.

“All over,” she said. She blinked the big, pale green eyes. She'd been drinking a bit, possibly a bit more than a bit, and was slower than usual. But then she gave me the haughty, imperious glance she could turn on when she wanted to, the high cheek bones seemed to get even higher, and she said, “What do you expect me to do, sleep till noon? Play solitaire in my room while you're out enjoying yourself?"

“It wasn't exactly the most enjoy—"

“Sit down and have a drink."

Marcus Rule was all ears. He was smiling. It occurred to me that this was the first time I'd seen him smile. I hadn't been missing much.

“Little early for me, Vanessa,” I said.

“Oh,” she smiled, “I haven't introduced you. Shell, this is Mr. Rule, Marcus Rule, and...” She knitted her arched brows and turned toward the square-headed guy. “What's your last name, Charley?"

“Just Charley."

“We've met, anyway,” I said.

“Oh, that's nice."

I didn't tell her it wasn't really nice. Instead, after some more rather flat conversation, I managed to haul her out into the lobby.

“Vanessa,” I said, “if you've half the good sense I give you credit for, you'll stay away from those guys."

“Why? Marcus—Mr. Rule is the most interesting man I've met here. Except for you, of course."

“Thanks. But to be more interesting than Marcus Rule is not the height of my ambition. He knows so many top mobsters so well he probably knows how to spell their real names. He's loaded, sure, but how—"

“Mobsters? You mean criminals?"

“You've got it."

“He's a criminal?"

“All I know is, most of his close friends have records longer than a giraffe's neck."

“Records? With the police?"

“Yeah."

“Does he?"

“No, not a jail record, anyway. However, since ninety per cent of his chums and associates are either ex-cons or working up to that low estate—"

“But, Shell, that's ... that's guilt by association."

“Yeah, I guess it is."

“That doesn't mean he's a criminal."

“It's a hint."

She snorted delicately. “He has an investment here, in the hotel, hasn't he? If he's some kind of crook, why is he so interested in the Sunrise?"

“That's what I'd like to know."

“Well, I like him,” she said flatly. “He's a charming man. And he's strong, he's got—electricity in him."

“So does an electric chair, dear."

She sliced me with her eyes, and two small pink spots grew in her cheeks. I could tell her fuse was lit, so before the explosion occurred I said, “The hell with Rule. If you want to drink and get electrocuted, and live on the edge of madness, do it with me."

The heat in her subsided somewhat. “I'd like to. Let's go water-skiing."

“Well, I didn't mean this minute. I told you, I've got work to do here."

“Oh, work!"

“That's what I'm here for."

“Well, you work then. I'll ... amuse myself."

“Have fun,” I said.

She pursed her lips, and let a little steam out her nose. But then she bit her lip and said, “Shell, I don't want to fight. All right, I'll keep Marcus at—at arm's length. But you'd better pay some attention to me.” She paused. “Do your old work, then. But you'll take me out tonight,” she said bluntly. “You'd better."

“O.K. I'll take you out tonight.” I looked at her in silence for a while and added, “But don't get too damned demanding, baby."

And on that ecstatic note we parted.

I headed across the lobby toward the stairs. She, I observed, turned and walked back into the bar. I wondered if “arm's length” was length enough.

I continued up to Suite 36 and spent twenty minutes going over the place, sitting room, bedroom, bath, even bar. The place had been searched, that was evident A few items were out of place; contents of drawers were a bit mussed. But nothing of mine appeared to have been swiped. At least I didn't discover anything missing. Maybe something had scared the creep off.

Then I went back downstairs to the desk. John Farrow was in the back room and came out when I asked for him. I briefed him on the morning's events, then said, “Phillips show up yet?"

“Yes, finally. Had breakfast about an hour ago. Think he went up to his room. I didn't say anything to him, Shell. Thought you'd want to do that yourself."

“I'll go up now. Anything from Sergeant Rivera on Paul's body?"

He shook his head. “Damndest thing, isn't it?"

“Yeah. Well, at least we've got Phillips. If that means anything."

“Let me know."

I nodded, walked to the stairs and up to the second floor. Phillips’ room, I recalled, was next to the one which had been occupied by Miss Underwood. I knocked and heard bed springs creak. Then a tall, heavy man about fifty, with a tired face and bloodshot eyes, opened the door and looked out at me.

“Mr. Phillips?"

“Yes."

“My name is Shell Scott. Could I talk to you for a minute? It's about Miss Underwood."

He didn't seem surprised. After a moment he nodded, then turned and went back into the room. I followed him inside and shut the door as he stopped by a dark walnut dresser on which there was a tray with glasses, soda, and ice, and a bottle of bourbon.

He poured a shot or two of booze over an ice cube in one of the glasses, added some soda, and looked around at me. “Drink?"

“No, thanks."

He walked to the rumpled bed and slumped down on its edge, sipped at his highball. I sat in a chair near him and said, “You're a hard man to find, Mr. Phillips. Where did you go after phoning the desk about Miss Underwood's death?"

A weak smile twitched his lips as he glanced at me. The implied assumption in my question had been obvious to him. “You some kind of policeman?” he asked me.

“Detective, yes. Policeman, no. Private, from Los Angeles."

“L.A., huh? Doesn't make any difference, I guess.” He sipped some more of his drink. “All right. Sure, I phoned the desk, Mr.—Scott, did you say?"

“That's right."

“I suppose you know we arrived in the same bunch, were together, that she worked for me."

“Some of it."

“Naturally you know we had adjoining rooms. That's how I happened to find her—went right through there.” He pointed at a door in the wall between this room and the next one. “Thought she was sleeping. Walked over and...” He stopped, then went on in a quiet voice, “kissed her. Knew she was dead right away. Right away."

“You have any idea what caused her death?"

He shook his head. “No. It's not important, is it? She's dead. That's important.” The weak smile moved his lips again. “Downstairs, I heard them talking. As if it was something exciting. Wild talk about voodoo, black magic baloney, witch doctors ... What the hell difference does it make?"

“She worked for you?"

“Yes. I own Phillips Aluminum in Montreal. Canada. She worked for me."

“Uh-huh. You married, Mr. Phillips?” I'd assumed he was married, but not to Miss Underwood, and had thus kept his silence because of the old, old reason: not wanting to get involved and so on. I was wrong.

“No,” he said. “I'm not married. Oh, I was. Divorced eight years ago.” He finished his drink in two long swallows, got up and walked to the dresser and made another. “It's none of your business, but I suppose I'll have to explain it to somebody. I wanted to marry Ellen. But she couldn't make up her mind—or else she'd made it up and didn't want to tell me the bad news. Maybe I was too old for her. But, well, we decided to take a vacation together. Came here, and that's it.” He paused. “We had a few good days, anyway."

“Do you know how long she'd been in her room?"

“No ... Don't suppose it could have been very long, though. You know how it was yesterday; all the waiters and maids and other help walked out. Everybody was pitching in, doing a little of everything."

“Yeah."

“Ellen and another girl volunteered to clean up some of the rooms. You know, make beds, straighten things around. Guests are used to maid service and leave the beds torn up, wet towels.... That's what she was supposed to be doing. Next thing, I found her in her room, like—the way she was.” He lay back on the bed, balanced the glass on his stomach. “Hell, we were all just trying to help out a little. It was kind of fun—most of us were a little drunk, anyway."

“When was the last time you saw her, Mr. Phillips?"

“I was in the kitchen—making a salad dressing.” He smiled slightly again. “My big contribution. But I do make damn good salad dressing. She poked her head in and waved, said hello. She was working on the second floor then, she said. Next time I saw her was about an hour later ... when I phoned the desk."

“When she left the kitchen she was coming back up here to the second floor? Or had she finished here?"

“Back to the second, she said. Three or four more rooms to do—then she was going to quit. Found out it wasn't much fun after all, she told me."

“I don't suppose you know what rooms she was going to work on then."

“She didn't say."

“I don't think you said where you've been since you called the desk last night, Mr. Phillips."

“No, I didn't I just ... walked. When I found her—” he waved a hand limply toward the adjoining rooms, “I, well, I was pretty shocked. Managed to call, then I left and just walked awhile. Down to the sea. Sat on the beach. Slept awhile, on the beach, too. Walked some more.” He stopped.

I thanked him and left.

Back at the desk, I filled John Farrow in and got from him a list of the guests on the second floor. Not that it meant anything to me. Ellen Underwood's death would have been merely an unfortunate but natural passing—except that it was the third in a sudden row, which was passing strange.

There were twenty-four guests on the second floor, ten married couples, a single woman, and three men each in a room alone. The only name I recognized was one of the three men. Marcus Rule. There was also a “Mr. Charles Brown,” who I supposed was “Just Charley,” Rule's chum. And that told me nothing at all. At least not yet.

I kept busy until six o'clock, checking the names on the list Farrow had given me, talking to other hotel guests, trying to dig up more info on Mordieux, Paul Yuré, what might be behind the employees’ walkout. The most enjoyable—and strange—half-hour was the time I spent over coffee with Dria, in a corner of the dining room.

I told her about my meeting with Mordieux this morning, and she was quite interested. She even seemed pleased that I was apparently still hale and hearty, and hadn't shrunk to a hundred and six pounds. At least that was the impression I got, though she didn't actually say, “Shell, I'm glad you haven't shrunk to a hundred and six pounds."

She did say, “Mordieux, he is one bad enemy."

“He is one creep, I'll tell you. I don't know if I made any impression on his followers or not—I tried to remember some of the things you told me last night.” I paused. “Like, I told them he works with both hands, and such, but I had to fake some ... hey, is it both feet?"

She laughed. “No, it is as you said. They say of the bad hungan, the boko, that they work with both hands.” She laughed again. “Not feet."

"Boko?"

“It means—a sorcerer. One who uses bad magic, black magic. He is aided by the diab, or devils, and makes use of the âmes zombis, and the baka such as Ezili-jé-rouge and Simbi-yandézo, and others of the petro nanchon."

“Yeah, uh ... Baka. That's—” I hazarded a wild guess—"a girl boko?"

She laughed again. Dria was having lots of fun. “I think I must educate you. If you are to speak as one versed in voudon."

“I'm game."

“The baka are bought loa and zombi souls,” she said, and as she spoke the smooth lids fell more heavily over her brilliant dark eyes; her voice became just a bit more hushed. “Sometimes they may be caused to work for a sorcerer or one who practices the black arts, and sometimes they roam at night, in the woods and darkness, assuming the forms of familiar animals or even the shapes of terrible things.” She was silent for a moment. “If one of these you should see, you must not fear, but must look it straight in the eyes. Then it will be defeated and disappear."

“That's ... good to know. What if he's got, oh, seven eyes in the middle of his forehead?"

“I have not seen one of those."

“Me neither."

She went on, speaking quietly. And I'll confess, though I'd been treating the subject lightly, I was glad brilliant sunlight filled the room and splashed the palms and thick green banana leaves outside. Dria didn't raise her voice, but there was behind her words an intensity that, for long seconds at a time, made me unaware of the sunlight while half-imagined forms and horrors turned and pirouetted in my mind's eye.

She spoke of the voodoo pantheon, of crippled Legba—first-named of all loa, who carries messages from the gods to men and makes it possible for men to speak with gods; of the Guédé spirits of death and Baron-Samedi, King of the Dead, and his wife Big Brigitte; of Damballah-wèdo the serpent god and his wife Aida-wèdo; of Agwé, Sogbo, and Badé, gods respectively of the sea, the lightning, and the winds, and of Agau, whose anger causes the earth to shake. She told me of the rada loa and petro loa, and even of werewolves, and of vampires known to suck the blood of children. I heard of midnight ceremonies when chickens were plucked alive; when a black goat was sacrificed and, after the swift thrust of the knife, its hot blood was drunk by all participants in the rite.

She mentioned long-dead voodoo priests of Haiti, well known here in Verde: Macandal, who was thought to be immortal and whose name had come to mean “poison” or “poisoner” and sometimes “magician"; Romaine; and Hyacinthe, who could not be harmed—so it was said—by bullets from guns or the shot from cannon. She told me of the zombis, the living dead, and informed me they must never be given salt, for in that instant they would become “alive” and, realizing what had been done to them, become possessed of terrible fury. And she spoke more of Papa Lurin, and much of Count Mordieux.

When she fell silent again, neither of us spoke for about a minute. Then I shook myself a little, as if spraying water from my fur, and said, “Well. That's ... well. Uh, Dria, is this mostly folklore, myth, just ... stories? Or is it supposed to be true?"

“Much of it is from the old times, things told around the fires at night. But some of it is true."

She didn't tell me which part was which. And I kind of wanted to know. But the sun was splashing the big green banana leaves outside, so I finished my coffee—cold as ice, it was—then went back to work.

I found a couple of people who'd seen Ellen Underwood yesterday afternoon, but they couldn't even tell me if it had been on the second floor. That was my big achievement, and by six o'clock I was very nearly where I'd started this morning.

If there'd been only one strange and sudden death I might have thought all I was doing was a waste of time. But three was two too many, and with that as a starter there were the other things—my reception at the dock, that guy in my room. Rule's presence here intrigued me, too. But even aside from all that, I had a strong and persistent hunch that the deaths of Ed Wylie, Paul Yuré, and Ellen Underwood were murder one, murder two, and murder three. Murder, each and every one.

Sure, it was just a hunch. But what's a hunch? Sometimes it's too many pickles with your hamburger, true. But more often it's that vast power and mystery we call the “subconscious mind” giving our conscious noodle a nudge; sometimes it's an answer trying to get born. Maybe that was it: My brain was pregnant. Whatever was wrong with my brain, too many hunches in the past have nudged me in the right direction for me to ignore any of them. So, while I wouldn't have been too shocked to learn that all three victims had died of seven-minute pneumonia, I intended to keep digging, in the hope of uncovering murder.

In the meantime there was little to do except shower and shave and get ready for my evening out with Vanessa. Which I did—with one small hitch.

I laid out a lightweight blue suit and all the trimmings, and looked for the pale blue shirt I meant to wear with it. But I couldn't find the shirt. It was a good-looking hunk of cloth, with a little extra rise to the collar, and a small monogrammed SS in slightly darker blue where the shirt pocket would have been, but wasn't. I was sure I'd packed the thing in a suitcase before leaving L.A. But I couldn't find it and settled for a white job.

I didn't even think about the guy who'd searched my rooms earlier in the day.

Not then I didn't.

CHAPTER TEN

Vanessa opened the door of her suite and gave me a big smile. Apparently I was forgiven—for whatever the hell I'd done. Half the time with women you don't know, you just know you must have goofed somewhere.

But she was radiant and smiling, and when I said, “Wow,” she tilted her head back, patted her smoothly upswept hair, and said, “I do look good, don't I?"

She looked better than good. She looked—well, wow. The blonde hair was looped into intricate contortions, a kind of disarray that looked planned and neat but at the same time a little wild, and I guessed she'd spent a lot of time on her face. The lips were smooth, more pink than red, and she'd done something to make the cheek bones appear even higher and more prominent than usual.

She'd gone perhaps a little heavy on the eyes, but in the dimness of a bar or softly lighted room the mechanics would be hidden while the magic remained. Her dress was some kind of cloth that looked metallic but wasn't, with every shade of color in it from indigo to scarlet, and maybe even infrared and ultraviolet, blending into what you might get if you stirred a bunch of grapes, tomatoes, plums, oranges, watermelons and such together in a pot.

Wide straps went over her shoulders, and the neckline wasn't scooped or V, but square, the bottom of the square low enough to emphasize the V of Vanessa. It was a V from the same alphabet used to spell Vim, Vigor, and Vitality, and it went practically down to Z. Man, the natives were going to be restless tonight.

I've mentioned that this lovely had the sweetly savage look of a high priestess testing the sacrificial knife, and now I said the same thing to Vanessa, or words to that effect.

She smiled. “I think I like that."

“I like it. What I mean, you look as if you just sacrificed a virgin in the Temple of Xanadu."

“It wasn't a temple,” she said, still smiling. Then she raised a limp hand, flicked long, red-painted fingernails at me, and her lids lowered an eighth of an inch. “But I did that a long, long time ago, darling. Shall we go?"

* * * *

The joint was called Joe's. I guess in a thousand places in the world there are a thousand bars called Joe's. I've been in a hundred of them. But I'd never been in a Joe's quite like this one.

Vanessa had chosen the spot. When we'd wheeled away from the Sunrise in the Dodge wagon, I'd said, “Honey, the way you look tonight, I should take you to the most splendid dump on this island. I know a spot on the beach where absolutely nobody—"

“I want to go to Joe's."

“Joe's?"

“Yes. Someone told me about it this afternoon. It's completely—native. You know, primitive. It sounds just darling."

“It does, huh?"

“There's a bar, and rickety tables, and the musicians play on steel drums and washbasins and gourds and things. Real drums, too."

“That's nice."

“People in the audience can even join the band, or dance, or anything."

“Crazy."

“It sounded like lots of fun."

“Yeah,” I said, my voice not exactly bouncy with enthusiasm.

Vanessa went on, “Oh, I almost forgot. There's a kind of show, too. Dances. Girls dancing."

“You almost forgot?"

“Really wild dances, I was told. Hardly any of the tourists even know about this place."

“Really wild, huh? These dances?"

“Absolutely sensational. Sexiest thing he'd ever seen, this fellow told me."

“Fellow? What fellow?"

“Just some man. He said the girls are simply beautiful. Especially one of them, called Chicha or something."

“Chicha?” I'd heard that name. This morning, Dria had told me Chicha was Count Mordieux ... what was it? His hungenikon, the gal who led the singing and such. And, apparently, did a little dancing, too.

“Something like that,” Vanessa continued. “He said the dances they do probably wouldn't even be allowed back in the States.” She paused. “But maybe you'd rather go someplace nicer, Shell. Maybe you'd rather not go to Joe's, if it's that kind of place."

“Oh ... I wouldn't mind."

I glanced at Vanessa. She was looking straight ahead, but on her pale-red lips was a trace of that high priestess smile. Ah, she was a clever one. It was almost as if she'd carefully guided the conversation so that, just in case I wasn't wild about going to Joe's, I'd go to Joe's.

Anyhow, we went. Following Vanessa's direction I drove to Verde and straight through the town, then on for another mile or so to where a rutted dirt road led left, away from the sea. Joe's was another half mile up the dirt road, almost hidden in a grove of palms and coral trees. We parked in a cleared area where there were two vintage automobiles, a newer station wagon, and a mule.

We could hear the slightly tinny but rhythmical pulse of music from the low square building a few yards away, and the odors of food mingled with the night smells, the heavy green odor of vegetation, scent of flowers. And, from somewhere not far away—not far enough—the cloying stink of something decaying.

Vanessa squeezed my arm as we walked toward Joe's. “Isn't this fun, Shell?"

“Yeah, it is kind of exciting."

I kicked a coconut in the darkness and it rolled, rustling, over the ground. We went up three wooden steps and inside a screened porch, then through a doorway in which hung strips of beads made from segments of thin bamboo—real moving-picture stuff—and were in the main, and only, room of Joe's.

After seeing no more than three cars and one mule outside I'd expected a lot of emptiness in here, but the place was jammed, and jumping. There was a wooden bar on the right with a dozen stools before it, not one of the stools exactly like any other, and behind the bar a cracked and fogged mirror plus shelves loaded with all kinds of bottles. The rest of the room was filled with small low tables and wooden chairs, except for a ten-foot circle in the middle where at the moment four barefooted and bare-chested men were getting remarkably peppy music from a fifty-gallon steel barrel, a long oval drum topped with some kind of animal hide, a notched stick that one guy scraped with what looked like part of a coconut shell, and a battered brass cornet.

Between bare feet and chest each man wore a pair of white pants, and each had a brightly colored kerchief around his neck. It was warm in the room, and the black skins of the two drummers and the guy with the notched stick glistened with sweat. The cornet player leaned lazily against a wooden post apparently meant to help hold up the roof, one hand hooked into his trousers and the other holding the horn to his lips. Smoke made the air hazy, and there was a murmur of conversation in French, Spanish, English, and a couple of other languages.

A short brown-skinned woman about forty pounds overweight came up to us and smiled as if glad to see us. “You like a table."

“Let's sit at the bar, Shell,” Vanessa said.

“Makes no difference to me."

“You can see better. The tables around the floor are filled."

Yeah, there were those wild dances, after all. If they were even half what Vanessa claimed, I didn't want to be looking eagerly at a bald man's head or a fat lady's neck. Only half the stools were occupied, and we got two together in the middle of the bar and ordered drinks.

Vanessa asked for some kind of rum-and-fruit-filled concoction—called a Volcano, which is Verdean for volcano—and I went along with her choice. When in Rome, do as Caesar does; drink the drinks, see the dances, go to all the orgies. The drinks arrived in glasses approximately the size of milk bottles, with all kinds of plant life in them. Almost as colorful as Vanessa's dress.

“This ought to fix us,” I said.

She sipped her bottle and said, “Mmm."

I hadn't tasted mine yet. I was a little leery of it. “I suppose we can't hope they boiled the water,” I said. “Much less the ice cubes."

“Oh, drink it, Shell. It's good."

It was, by golly. Moreover, I estimated it had approximately a pint of rum in it. By the time I'd had half a Volcano I was looking at it and saying such things as, “It's pretty, isn't it? Like a garden.” And Vanessa, with half a Volcano in her, was agreeing with me.

The boys in the dishpan band had been filling the smoky air with a lot of brassy bounce and twangy rhythm, but then the music stopped and an announcement was made. I swiveled around on my stool and took a look. The cornet player was saying something which, though I couldn't understand it, was greeted with shouts of approval and much clapping by those who did.

And I happened to notice a familiar face just a row back of ringside. The man was clapping vigorously, while his wife pulled indelicately at her lower lip, as if plucking the kiss of death off it. Joshua Burder, and his ghastly wife.

I turned to Vanessa. “Hey, get Mr. Burder. I guess he's human, after all."

“Who's Mr. Burder?"

“The long, silky-voiced guy who stopped by the table last night. When we were having dinner. I was eating a bird he knew, I remember."

“Oh, him,” she said, and I indicated the table where he sat.

The musicians had left the floor by now, and from somewhere in back, weaving her way casually among the tables, strolled what at first glance appeared to be a naked woman. Naturally I took a second glance, and noted she wasn't really naked. But in the dim and smoky light it had sure been a good imitation of the real thing. Good enough to suit me. And that's pretty good.

She was maybe five-six or five-seven, with a lot of long black hair, thick and coarse, falling down her back. A band of cloth was pulled tight over her breasts and under her arms and tied in back; aside from that she wore what amounted to about an eighth of a Bikini bottom, at the rear of which were attached a dozen or more long, brilliantly colored feathers, which arched into the air like a rooster's comb and then drooped toward the floor. That was all. Just that, and velvety brown skin gleaming, long, smoothly tapered legs, slightly rounded stomach, and superbly rounded hips. The face was striking, beautiful, with the expression of innocence battling lust and losing.

Her eyes were enormous, bright and black, dark brows heavy above them, and as she looked around the room she pulled the brows up, stretched the black eyes even wider, staring with a kind of hot and happy glitter at one man, then another, and another. Her lips curled, either in a sensual grimace or scornful smile, it was hard to tell, but whatever her emotion she seemed to be enjoying it.

She hadn't done a damn thing yet except come out and stand on the floor, but I felt like applauding. Some of the customers were still applauding, in fact. Maybe this was all she did. O.K. Fine with me. I turned around and looked at Vanessa, so she wouldn't think I was thinking what I was thinking. She was eating a cucumber or something from her Volcano, however, so I craned my head around toward the floor show again.

I heard the sound of drums. Three of the musicians who'd left the floor were clear over near the far wall, by the door through which Chicha had entered, their hands moving as they played on three drums of different sizes. I guessed they were the authentic voodoo drums, the rada drums, which are always played in groups of three.

There was just enough light back there so I could see one of the men standing with the big manman drum, thirty or forty inches high, held at an angle in front of him by a rope over his shoulder while he struck it with one bare hand and a wooden hammer. The two other men were seated, one with the smaller ségond clamped between his legs, beating it with one hand and with a little forked stick; on his left the third man sat before the bula, the smallest drum, striking its top with two sticks.

I heard a bell, too. That would be the ogan, which sets the rhythm for the drums. The fourth man was standing a little apart from the three others, striking his bell with a short iron rod. Each of the drummers seemed to be beating out a different, unique rhythm; each sound alone would have seemed complete, but together they blended into an intricate harmony that was more than the sum of its parts. The different pitches of the drums, the individual patterns of the beats, joined in a sound that was strangely satisfying and stirring.

As the drums began, from several spots in the room male—and even female—voices called out, “Chicha! Chicha!” And she put her hands over her head and walked slowly around the perimeter of the floor.

That's one way to put it. There's no way to tell the whole truth about it. But it wasn't a walk, it was more a kind of violent stroll, hips snapping from side to side, those red and yellow and pink and blue and green and black feathers swishing and rippling in the air. When she raised her arms the cloth pulled even tighter over her breasts, and it was thin cloth, because even from the bar I could see the points of her breasts thrusting against it.

She made one circuit of the floor, striding slowly, and then another—but this time she circled faster, the tempo of her movements quickening as the drum tempo quickened. The circle tightened as her hips and arms and legs flashed faster in the hazy light, and at the end she was in the center of the floor. Then she just—well, I don't know exactly what it was she did. She swayed and wiggled and trembled at the same time, bending forward and then rising erect and finally bending backward, arching her spine till her thick black hair and the brightly colored feathers touched the floor, the mass of hair hanging still while the feathers rippled and quivered.

With bare feet flat on the floor, balanced on widely spread legs, she slowly pulled herself erect again, without any sign of strain or even noticeable effort. It was a smooth, easy, fluid movement—and as she came erect again her body continued that sinuous snakelike movement, hips trembling, shoulders rocking.

Then she simply started walking around the floor again. Only, of course, “simply” isn't the word. That stroll was all it had been before, and something more this time. Her hair was more tangled, the blood beating faster in her face and through her body—and that face where lust and innocence had seemed to battle was now a face where lust raped innocence, enthusiastically. She simply looked hotter than a branding iron in hell, black eyes staring, white teeth pressed together and lips twisting in a wise and wanton smile, a smile of hot, wild, undiluted enjoyment.

It was a strange dance. In part because there was no change in lighting, no colored spots, not even the dimming of the bar's normal illumination. Just the hazy, smoke-filtered luminescence that filled the room. And, too, there was no music, at least no melody. The only sounds now were the ones the dancer herself made, the hiss of air through her teeth, the slide and slither of her feet, or the solid fleshy thump like a drumbeat when she jumped or stamped on the floor—and the rada drums themselves.

I had been kind of hypnotized. I'll admit, by the exhibition on the dance floor, but from somewhere far back in my fevered think-pot one little word crept forward and whispered at me. The little word was: vanessa....

Vanessa ... I thought. I've heard that word before. Vanessa? Yeah. It hit me then. I rearranged my chops and put on a smile—a different kind of smile—and turned toward Vanessa. Only Vanessa wasn't there. Maybe I'd goofed again. It's a funny thing. Women will let you take them to joints where gorgeous tomatoes dance about in very little; sometimes they'll even suggest the joints. But let me give you a tip: You're not supposed to watch.

I looked around, but Vanessa wasn't in sight. Probably she'd gone to the ladies’ john, I figured. As a matter of fact, if she had, after three fourths of a Volcano that was very clear thinking. Her nearly empty milk-bottle-sized glass was on the bar, but her handbag wasn't. Something else was on the bar, though—almost in front of me, in fact. Looked like a small bundle of rags. Oddly shaped. Almost like a little figure, a doll or wee mannequin of some sort. Boy, I thought, no second Volcano for me. Probably shouldn't even finish this one.

Well, until my date came back, I could give my attention to Chicha without fear of setting off an explosion in Vanessa. If the damage hadn't been done already.

On the floor, Chicha was standing in one spot and turning around very slowly. And her previous exertions had caused another change in her appearance, which had been splendid to begin with. The cloth band was no longer tight around her upper body; it had loosened, started to fall. Now, as she moved, the big breasts moved, too, sliding and trembling beneath the thin cloth. She rocked her shoulders gently back and forth, and at the same time thrust her hips slowly forward and then back, forward and back, gradually increasing the speed and intensity of the rhythm and swinging her hips in a slight arc and then a sensuous oval.

But even as I watched, something nagged at me. And, oddly, it wasn't that I hadn't yet seen Vanessa. It was that other thing, the funny little bunch of rags or whatever it was. I turned my head and looked at the bar top again. Yeah, it was still there. And after a good look at the thing, there was no longer any doubt. The goofy item was a wee mannequin. A doll.

Oh, nuts, I thought. This is ridiculous. A doll? Here in Voodooland? Somebody had to be pulling my leg. So, O.K.; I'd go along with the gag. I picked the little doll up and winced. I'd stuck hell out of my finger, on something.

I transferred the doll to my left hand and looked at the finger I'd pricked. A tiny spot of dark red blood welled from the end of my middle finger. I licked it off, saw another small spot ooze out, pressed my thumb over the finger's tip. Then I held the doll a foot from my face and looked for whatever it was that had stuck me.

I saw both things at the same time—more accurately, I noticed all three interesting items at once.

First was the pin. More than a pin, a long fat needle it was, thrust through the doll's chest. And the doll—white cotton was the hair, little shreds of cotton were the brows, and two small gray pebbles were the oddly staring eyes.

Who else?

The third thing was the tiny, not very well tailored shirt the dummy wore. It was pale blue, and over the doll's heart were the slightly darker blue letters, SS. S, then the second S, but with the needle driven between them.

Right through the heart.

So, I guessed, the dummy was supposed to be dead.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Now I knew what had happened to my blue shirt. Maybe that creepy character had even scrounged around and found some old whiskers, or a white bristle from my comb. For a gag, somebody had gone to a lot of trouble.

But, of course, many of these people on Verde actually believed people could raise hell with people by doing things to things. That thought struck me as not quite as sharp as it should have been.

The power of suggestion is a marvelous power. Looking at the damned doll, with its rag heart skewered on a needle, I actually started feeling a little woozy, just a bit weak and dizzy. Naturally enough, I told myself. Anybody foolish enough to drink most of a Volcano, and who then didn't become a little woozy, had a bad leak in him somewhere.

The bartender was a few feet away. He was so intent on Chicha's floor show I had to throw a cigarette at him before he looked at me. Then I waved him over.

I showed him the doll and, smiling as if this was lots of fun, asked him, “Where'd the guy go who left this thing here?"

My cleverly worded question didn't work. He looked at the doll in my hand and shrugged. “Ah wouldn't know,” he said. “Ah sure wouldn't know about that."

I stuck the doll into my coat pocket. Something else was nagging me. Vanessa had been gone a hell of a long time. I asked the bartender, “How long is Chicha on? I mean, how long does her dance last? That is her name, isn't it?"

He nodded to the last question, then said, “She dance maybe half-hour, sometimes hour. Depend how she feels, and if customers want more."

“How much time has she been on already?"

He looked at a battered round alarm clock behind the bar. “Twenty minutes, now. She dance a long time tonight, ah think. You can tell the way she goes."

I looked around at Chicha, and the way she was going would have been five minutes after the end of any ordinary act. She was arched backward again, the upper half of her body nearly parallel to the floor, hair swaying as her shoulders rocked in a slow, easy rhythm. The cloth band hadn't come completely untied at her back, but it was very loose, and one gleaming brown breast was nearly bare.

I turned back to the bartender. “You know where the girl went who was with me? The one who was sitting here.” I indicated the seat next to me.

“No,” he said. He shook his head. “Ah saw her there, while ago. Hair like yours, almost, huh?"

“That's her. Blonde. Had on a kind of low-cut dress, lot of color in it."

He shook his head again and shrugged.

“Where's the ladies’ rest room?"

He pointed past the end of the bar, toward the club's entrance. My attention had been directed the other way, and Vanessa could have gone there without my seeing her. I climbed off my stool—and got dizzy as hell for a few seconds. It passed, but there remained a mild ache at the base of my skull.

I pushed what little remained of my big highball across the bar and said, “Could you bring me a couple aspirins?"

He blinked. “Aspirins?"

I guess he didn't even know what the things were. The people here didn't get headaches. Probably they didn't drink Volcanoes, either. “Forget it,” I said.

The thought occurred to me that, judging by the way I was starting to feel, Vanessa might have become ill herself. We'd planned to eat, but hadn't gotten around to it yet. I felt a little pang of guilt. If she'd been sicker than a dog while I was bugging my eyes at Chicha ... I walked to the front of the bar, found the door of the ladies’ rest room, and knocked. Nothing happened, and I knocked noisily again.

A few heads turned toward me, mostly guys with hostile expressions. I waited a few seconds, but since there weren't any waitresses in view, or any other women except those sitting with guys at tables, I screwed up my courage and stepped into the ladies’ rest room.

It was empty.

Right then I started getting worried.

I was virtually certain Vanessa wouldn't have walked out on me. Even stretching the possibility out of shape, and assuming she'd gone wacky upon becoming aware of my preoccupation with Chicha's anatomical marvels, she wouldn't have trotted out. She might have hauled off and slammed me a good one—which was more Vanessa's direct way—but she wouldn't have torn off into the night, sulking.

So where in hell was she?

I stepped into the club's big room again, and a chill licked over my skin. It wasn't one of those quick things, but a slow coldness that seemed to start in my legs, or maybe even my feet, and rise. It chilled my loins, bored into my gut—and I had the sudden wild and almost insane feeling that if it reached my heart I would die.

Not only was that funny coldness something I'd never experienced before, but even the crazy thought wasn't like me. I almost never, believe me, think about dying. I think a lot about living. So I pushed the unpleasant idea from my thoughts, and then plain pushed that coldness down and out of me with a kind of mentally grunting will power. At least that's what I had in mind, but whether it actually helped I'm not sure. All I know is that the creepy feeling went away after a minute. One thing was sure; those mental grunts hadn't helped anything else.

That ache at the base of my skull wasn't mild any more. It was a dandy. It had sneaked around to the front of my head, too, and was starting to work on the temple area. When I looked around the room, hoping to see Vanessa's blonde head, everything went out of focus for a second or two. Just a little fuzzy, then back to normal. I guess it was normal. I wasn't sure I was thinking with all the logic and clarity and order that, I love to think, characterize my usual mentation.

I was trying to spot Vanessa, and while I looked, thoughts sort of rambled through my head: If she feels anything like I do, she might even be outside under a coconut tree, wiggling limply, with her tongue running in and out ... There's old Burder, seems to be enjoying himself more than seems decent, probably watching all those feathers.... No more cucumbers and cantaloupes for me, or whatever they put in those concoctions.... Ugh, this must be what people feel like when they're sick; no wonder they're sick.... Vanessa, not here, not here, it's crazy, but she's sure as hell not here.... Burder, maybe old Joshua saw her....

Right then my senses sharpened a little. Just a little but enough so I became aware that my thoughts had been rambling, that my reactions, and my brain, weren't as up to snuff as they should be. The realization gave me a very queer feeling.

I went around the room, then stooped over and walked to Burder's table, squatted next to his chair. He was staring at Chicha with an expression—the thought flitted through my frazzled mind—in which were blended shock, joy, dismay, hope, and disbelief. His jaw hung down only slightly and swayed to and fro, apparently in time with Chicha's swaying.

Slowly he became aware of something squatting on the floor beside him. He turned his head toward me, but his eyes followed only later. Finally he got a good look at me, and his expression soured.

I whispered to him, explaining the situation, and asked if he knew where Vanessa was or if he'd seen her. Burder told me he'd noticed us when we came in and had seen us at the bar. But that was all he knew; he had no idea where Vanessa was now.

I had him check with his cow-faced wife, but she didn't know a thing except Why had they come to this dirty place, anyway?

My knees were quivering a little—in fact, there was a quivering sensation all through my body, as though something was gently strumming my nerve network like a harp. When I rose to my feet I wobbled a little. There was an unenjoyable feeling in my stomach, in that whole general area. I didn't know how to describe it, even to myself; it just felt—gray. Gray, goofy though it was, that was the feeling.

The rada drums seemed to be pounding inside my head. I was standing facing the dance floor. Its outer edge was only about four feet from me. Two feet farther was Chicha. She moved around the floor a lot, and now it was this side's turn. In a way, it was my turn. She could hardly have missed me, even if I hadn't been the only man standing. And I sure couldn't have missed her.

No more than six feet from me, she stood with her hands lifted and wound in the thick black hair, eyes half closed now, smooth brown body wet and shiny with perspiration that glittered like silver where it caught the light. That one breast was completely bare now, the cloth band slanting from beneath her right shoulder down to her left side, and even as my eyes met hers she swayed with the grace of mist in the wind, and the cloth fell to her waist.

She had magnificent breasts. Full and firm, jutting forward as if trying to rise from her now nearly nude body. Her nostrils flared as she breathed rapidly and deeply, the heavy, conical breasts lifting with every quick inhalation and falling, trembling, with each audible exhalation.

Chicha, her black eyes still on mine, reached for the cloth at her waist and jerked it, jerked again and pulled it free. She dropped it at her feet, then with her fingers spread wide rubbed her hands over her stomach and pulled them up over her breasts, cupping and kneading them.

And you know what?

It just didn't get to me.

I couldn't give it my full and undivided attention.

My mind was less on Chicha's truly beautiful body, and the brazen promise in her eyes, than on the strange and unusual events transpiring in my own body.

Here was this fantastically female lovely eyeballing me, toying happily with her remarkable bazooms, her glance hot enough to boil eggs in the kitchen, and I was thinking about my kidneys and bladder and such.

Me, Shell Scott.

That's when I knew: I was really sick.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Let us skip over the next while.

Let us say only that I spent some time in the men's room—batting a hundred per cent on johns this night—and some time near a fragrant bush outside of Joe's, and breathed a lot of night air, and got strong enough to go back inside the bar, briefly.

I left word with Joshua Burder to keep at least one eye looking for Vanessa and if he saw her to tell her I'd gone back to the hotel. I left similar word with the bartender and a couple of waitresses. I borrowed a flashlight and looked all around the building, even out in the trees. Then I went to the station wagon.

I'd checked it before, when I was outside, but Vanessa hadn't been in it then. Nor was she now. I hated to leave when there was a chance she might still be somewhere around here; but if I didn't leave pretty soon I'd be no use to her or anybody else. My knees had weak springs in them, and my face and forehead were cold, moist with sweat. My mouth felt as if it had old shoelaces in it, and there was restless misery in my stomach.

I started the car and drove back through Verde, kept going. I don't know why for sure, but I didn't think about going to John Farrow, or finding a doctor. What I thought about was Alexandria Maria Ducharme.

Dria had told me, during our conversation this morning, where she lived. But I'd driven clear past her house before I was able to remember what she'd told me.

Her place was a mile south of Verde, a small white house with an old-fashioned porch in front of it. Not many homes were along the road here, and the nearest house was over a block away. I parked at the edge of the street and walked over a gravel path to the porch, knocked at the front door. Lights were on inside, and in a moment I heard quick footsteps.

Dria opened the door, light behind her bouncing off her long, chestnut-colored hair.

“Hi, Dria,” I said. “Mind if I come in?” My tongue was a little thick.

“Why, Shell.” She smiled. “Of course, come in.... What's the matter?"

As I stepped inside she moved close to me, looked up at my face. “What's wrong with you? Are you ill?"

I tried a grin. “Feels like it,” I said. “That's what it must be. I think I've caught a case of illness."

She put a hand on my forehead. “Why, you're burning up!” she said.

Burning up, huh? You could have fooled me. I felt like a large icicle. A big sick icicle. Which was something I had not ever felt like before. Dria took my hand and led me to a couch against one wall. I barely noticed the room, but I got the impression of warmth and neatness, cool tones with spots of color.

“What's happened to you, Shell?” she said softly. “You're pale as a ghost."

“Don't say gho—don't say that. I feel fine. No I don't, either. Honesty is the best policy. And to the victor belong the spoils. And I think somebody's going to get me. Spoiled, I mean. Or spoiling. I can feel it doing. I almost missed your place. Didn't found it, I mean. Went right by."

I was just chatting away like that, normal friendly conversation, but as she looked at me and listened, Dria suddenly got a little pale herself.

It was very odd. She stared at me, and her eyes widened, and she slowly lifted one hand and pressed two fingers against the hollow of her throat. “Oh, my God,” she said.

There was something in her voice—or else merely another twitch of whatever seemed to be eating at my innards—but it was as though a cool breath washed over me.

Then she did another kind of funny thing. She scowled, pressed her lips together, curled one small hand into a little fist and banged it into her other palm.

“Just sit there, Shell,” she said. Then she got up and went out of the room. I heard a clink and clatter, the sound of water coming out of a faucet. In a minute she was back. “What happened tonight, Shell? Tell me. And where have you been?"

I told her the whole story as best I could—lacing the telling with a lot of amusing things she appeared not to find even slightly hilarious. A couple of times she went fuzzily out of focus, and I thought that was amusing, too.

When I got to the part about the little doll she said, “A wanga doll? What happened to it?"

I started to stick my hand into the coat pocket where I'd put it, then remembered I might stick the sticker that had stuck me, and slyly sneaked my fingers in and pulled out the doll.

Dria took it from me. “Ah, it has surely been rangé—arranged. Yes, it is wanga—"

“I kept it,” I said sagely. “It bit me. With its sharp steel fang...."

Simultaneous with the word “fang” I got a clear impression of Count Mordieux, smiling metallically. It was almost as though his gruesome face was dangling disembodied in the air before me. “That Count Mordieux,” I said. “He's a caution. I hope his gums rust. I hope he bites himself and gets lockjaw. What is it, tetanus? Titinus? Tatunus? Hell, lockjaw. In fact—"

“Mordieux? Did he have anything to do with this? I mean, did you meet him, or see him tonight?"

“No, not since this morning. When we talked this afternoon. I told you about the jolly time, didn't I?"

She said abruptly, “Go into the bedroom and take off your clothes."

“Take—"

“All of them. There is a blanket on the bed. Put it around you and come back."

“But—"

“Quickly. Do not argue."

I didn't argue. I went into the bedroom, stripped, and returned clad in a light gray blanket. Feeling quite silly, too.

Dria wasn't in the room, but I heard her somewhere nearby. I could also hear water bubbling, I thought. Or else something new was going on in me. In my ears this time. Dria came back with a small cup in her hand.

“This is hot,” she said. “Almost boiling. But drink it down, all at once."

“What is it?"

She smiled. “You wouldn't know if I told you. It's mainly some dried herbs, plus jasmine flowers, powdered almonds, and a little strychnine."

“Strychnine? You trying to poison me?” I laughed.

“No, Shell. I'm trying...” She left it hanging and said, “Drink it."

I drank it, throwing it down like a shot of bourbon. It went down fast, but not fast enough. I could feel it slide down my throat like living lead. There were little prickly bits of something in it. Herbs, I guessed. Or hunks of strychnine. It burned like fury, but even before the burning stopped, the most horrendous bitterness bloomed acridly on my lips, in my mouth, and definitely throughout the entire length of my alimentary canal.

“Uhhh, uhggh,” I said. “Hoo. Hah. My throat is puckering. What if I can't breathe? We may have to cut my neck open. Hoo. What—"

“Just be quiet, Shell. Try to rest for a few minutes. I have to leave, but I'll be right back."

“Leave? What for?"

“Something I must get now. I have none in the house. It must be fresh, besides."

I was curious, but not all that interested. I leaned back on the couch and closed my eyes. I heard her go out and close the door, but it didn't seem very important.

I don't think I slept. I just sat there, my thoughts zipping every which way, occasionally colliding and clanging off in angular directions. After a while I opened my eyes. My head was bent forward, and I was looking down at my pale gray blanket. Only in spots it wasn't pale, but dark. Light gray, and amoebic spots of dark gray ... I seemed to remember something else about grayness, but that felt as if it had been a long time ago.

Finally I put a hand on the blanket and realized why it was mottled. It was soaked in spots, wet with sweat. I sat up and could feel the wetness all over me. Hell, I thought, a guy could drown like this. Drown asleep and wake up dead.

It was almost the same kind of thought that had been rolling around in my mind for quite a while now. Almost; this time it was a little different. This time I realized it was just a little crazy.

And another thing. I didn't feel so cold. There was something like remembered warmth in my stomach, radiating up into my chest. My face felt—like a face again. I hadn't realized it until now, but not long ago it had felt quite a bit like congealed mush.

So, finally, I started wondering about Dria, where she had gone—and even if she was all right. There was no reason to assume she wasn't O.K., but still I was becoming more than a little concerned about her. Then I heard her quick step on the porch, and she came in.

She had a big gob of something that looked like anemic grass in her hands. She didn't say anything, just looked at me and winked—she was really cuter than seemed legal, I was beginning to realize. Or remember. Then she popped into the kitchen again. I'd figured out, whatever she was doing, she must be doing it in the kitchen.

After a while she joined me again, pulled a chair over near the couch and said, “That will have to steep for a few minutes.” Then she looked me up and down, noting that I was all wet, and said, “Oh, good. Good."

“Good and wet, yeah. What has to steep?"

“You feel better, don't you?"

“Yes, I guess I do. I don't feel so ... nutty. I was a little sappy, wasn't I?"

“A little. Don't worry about it."

“I don't know what got into me, Dria."

“I do,” she said.

It startled me—I knew I'd been away, sure; but I still wasn't all the way back. “What the devil was it?"

“I don't know what it is, I mean not really. My father—that is, my stepfather, Papa Lurin—called it fire bane. It grows on Damballah-Loa, down low, in places where the old lava flows once covered the earth. Except for a very few people, like me, only the hungan and some hunsi know of it."

I noticed again the peculiar change that came over Dria, at least in her expression and the tone of her voice, when she spoke of hungan, or of anything concerned with voudon. I'd become aware of it last night when we'd been speaking in the car, before the entrance of the Sunrise Hotel. And this afternoon, when we had again talked for a while of voodoo. It was the same now. Her voice softened, and she sort of crooned as she went on.

“Only they know where to find and how to prepare it. But only an evil hungan would use it. Only the kind of hungan who make zombis of men and use their mindless bodies. Of those few who know, only an evil would so employ it. One like Mordieux!” She spat the name out, and her face—though I don't think it could really have gotten ugly—certainly became less delightful to look upon.

“Mordieux,” I said, thinking of those steel teeth again, and then the steel needle. “Dria, did I get the whatever-it-is in me from sticking myself with that pin?"

She shook her head. “That would not be enough. Besides, I have examined it, and there seems nothing on it. But of course it had been rangé."

“You said that before, but I didn't get it then either."

"Rangé, arranged. You would say—charmed, fixed with a spell, inspired with evil. It is done ... in many ways. Sometimes only with thought. With much thought. Sometimes with ritual, which is most complicated. And sometimes again with poison, not merely the poison that is wanga—things treated with magic so they will bring harm upon one—but with the poison such as you know.” She paused. “No, I think it is not that. You must have had something to eat, to drink."

“Uh-huh. You hit it. I had about a gallon of some gunk in a quart jug. For all I know, there could have been dead bats in it.” I paused, then said soberly, “Dria, that stuff could have killed me, couldn't it?"

“No, I do not think so.” She smiled. “Not you. One who is smaller, weak, often a sick one, yes. But you are a large one, there is more of you. And you have not been long hungry, with only bad things to eat."

She rubbed a hand against her cheek. “What it does is not to hurt the body, the flesh of the body. It eats at the nerves. And in the brain it first merely dulls the fire, as if to fill one's head with smoke—that is the only way I know how to say it. And that is why you said strange things and did not think them strange. But in time it burns too deeply and eats too much at the little nerves."

I shuddered. I thought of tiny steel teeth, nibbling at my nerves.

Dria turned those sapphire eyes on me and said, “No, you would not have died. But had you not come here you would have been very ill, Shell. For a long time. And perhaps not ever well again, not truly well."

I swallowed. “And ... you gave me that stuff, and cured me."

“Oh, no. What I gave you was merely to stop the working. Before it could hurt. And to give you strength for what is to come. But you will be cured before this night is over."

“I've, um, got to drink some more of that stuff, I'll bet."

She laughed. “Not of that stuff. Of that which I went to gather fresh. I am sorry I was gone so long, but it was necessary to go to the cemetery, and it is a mile west of Verde....” She stopped suddenly, as if thinking she might have said too much.

“Cemetery?” I said. “A ... a graveyard?"

She started to speak, hesitated, then went ahead. “Yes, just to a place near it."

“Near it, or in it?"

Finally she smiled again. “Near, Shell. I do not know why, but there is the only place I have found it to grow."

“It. What is this it? Believe me, I'm interested."

I was, too. I had read, in old, leather-bound tomes, of concoctions concocted of lizards’ eggs and moss scraped, in the time of the waxing moon, from a murdered man's skull. Jolly recipes like that. Rather than have something eating at my little nerves, I would bite smack into the moldy old cranium; but I simply had to know what I was getting into—or into me.

Dria, however, reassured me, not only with her words but with another dazzling smile. “Near the cemetery. It is only a—a kind of grass."

“What's it called? Not that it makes any difference."

“No, no difference. I do not know what you would name it. We call it spider weed."

She added quickly, “But only because it is thin and pale, like the web of a spider."

She sighed, looked at her watch. “In a few minutes now you will drink. Now, you, into the shower. A hot shower, then wrap yourself in another blanket. A dry one."

I could sure use a shower, I thought.

And I thought something else, finally. It was of Dria leaving here and walking a mile—to a graveyard—and then back. In darkness. Carrying her handful of grass. And coming in to greet me with a smile and a wink.

I stood up, still a bit unsteady on my pins, but feeling better than I had not long ago. Before showing me to the shower Dria brought two full glasses of water from the kitchen and made me drink them both.

“You have lost much fluid already, Shell. And soon you will lose much more. You will have to drink more water then, but much of the time you will be ... asleep. So drink now."

It all sounded just a bit ominous. But I poured the water down, then followed Dria through a very feminine bedroom, pink and lavender and white, to a shining-clean bathroom, where she left me.

Fifteen minutes later, feeling clean—and more than a little weak—I was wrapped up in a blanket, sitting on the edge of Dria's bed, and holding a tall glass in my hand. In the glass was a murky-looking mess that resembled a glass of swamp.

“Well, blah, awp,” I said, “here goes."

She laughed merrily. “You won't mind this, Shell. It is not like the other. This is sweet."

I gurgled it down. She was right. Sweet. And almost immediately I could feel a kind of spicy warmth spreading through my stomach, warm and glowing, like a small gingery sun in my middle.

Dria had taken the bedclothes off and put some kind of oilcloth or plastic over the mattress, then sheets and blankets. Then me. Now she said, “Lie down. Let me cover you."

I lay back on the bed and she put a blanket over me. Then another, and another, and another. Then another. Finally a thick comforter, and a last blanket.

“I may melt,” I said. “You'll come back and there'll be a concave depression where I was. You'll look for me, and feel through dozens of blankets, and finally when you've decided it's no use, you'll hear a thin, high voice from way down near the foot of the bed, crying, ‘Yoo-hoo,’ and, by golly—"

She put a cool finger on my lips. “Hush. You are better, but you are still crazy. Sleep, and become well."

I kissed her finger. “Dria,” I said. “You're a sweetheart, you know. You really are."

She squeezed her lips together, and something happened to her eyes. Then she said again, softly, “Hush,” and pressed her finger lightly upon my lips. And left.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I dozed, grew wider awake, dozed again. And then...

Then, something. Sleep, and dreams.

A thousand landscapes formed, grew and dissolved, and formed again. Scenes, things, people were born, and died, in my mind.

Huge, roseate-tipped breasts hung over my face, swinging with the sound of hissing breath. They brushed my cheeks, burned, became lips that kissed my mouth. Then they melted and were gone.

A dying doll, larger than life, walked mechanically in a weird gray wasteland. It was a white-haired doll, with white-cotton brows over gray-pebble eyes, with a sharpened steel stake thrust through its heart. From within the rags of its body blood flowed around the steel and dripped to the earth.

It fell and died. Then it split open and another identical with the first popped from it. It too fell, and one more popped from the second. It happened again and again; it was like those pictures with the same picture within it and another within that one and the next and the next forever—and each doll was born mortally wounded, with the steel dagger through its rag heart. Finally one appeared without the wound, appeared and disappeared.

And all the time in the air around the dolls had floated mists and fogs of thought, in wonderful shapes and colors. One small cloud among the others was dark, nearly black, and laced with worms of red. It floated closer and closer and the bright worms turned to streams of blood....

I awoke trying to sit up. I was fighting the coverings over me, trying to throw them off, when the sleep left my brain and I realized where I was.

The light went on, and Dria walked to me, gave me something to drink, said a few words, and straightened the blankets over me again. Then she went out.

When I awakened again, the room was in darkness, but this time I immediately knew where I was. My head was clear. Clear enough so that for the first time I seriously wondered who it was that had tried to kill me—and started planning what I'd do to him when I figured it out.

* * * *

Half an hour later, after another hot shower and dressed in my own dry clothes, I sat on the couch again in Dria's front room.

I told her I felt immensely better, and she said I might have moments of weakness or dizziness for the next day or two, but the poison was gone, was out of me now. We talked a few more minutes, then I said, “That stuff was supposed to kill me, wasn't it?"

“Yes, probably. And if not, at least to make you nearly dead."

“I take it you think it was Mordieux?"

“Perhaps not, Shell. But who else?"

“Yeah."

“Besides, it is not likely anyone but a hungan would know of the fire bane and how to prepare it."

“Uh-huh. You know, Dria, that sonofa—the Count told me this morning I would soon die. Maybe he had all this set up then, when he told me."

“It could be. And it would impress his people if you should—after his prediction—die, or become as one dead."

“Could this fire stuff have been used on the three who died at the hotel?"

She shook her head. “They died too suddenly. And besides, it would have been obvious something was wrong with them before they died. No, it was something else, Shell—or they simply, as some say, died of other, natural causes."

“Well, I won't buy that. Not now I won't.” I glanced at the little doll, on a table before the couch. “You know, if that creep is trying to kill me—maybe thinks I'm dead already—I'd better ruin him before he tries something more fatal on me. Does he spend most of his time at his sanctuary?"

She didn't answer immediately, then she said, “That is where he lives. In his bagi next to the peristyle. Most of the time he would be there."

We were silent for a minute or so. Then I said, “What about this Paul Yuré, the corpse that disappeared? He was one of Mordieux’ right-hand men. Can you think of any reason why Mordieux might have wanted him out of the way? Or might want him dead?"

“I can think of many possible reasons. But I know nothing."

“Well, why would anyone snatch his corpse?"

I thought she started to answer, but then she looked away from me and shrugged.

“Dria, can you think of any reason at all why Mordieux might have had somebody steal Paul's body?"

Again that hesitation. Finally she said, “You would not understand, Shell."

“I don't give a hoot if I understand. Would Mordieux have any reason for wanting Paul's body?"

Still not looking at me, she said, “Yes."

“Then for Pete's sake let me in on it."

“Well ... he would have to remove the loa."

“Remove ... He'd have to what?"

She sighed and pressed her lips together. But after a few seconds she looked at me and said, “When Paul Yuré was initiated, he was possessed—so say Mordieux and the others—by an important and powerful spirit, or loa, which remained his own, so to speak. Even though others have since possessed him or made him their ‘horse’—as they say. Now that Paul Yuré is dead, that ... union, that bond, between him and his own loa must be broken. They must be made separate, not one any longer. Or it would be bad."

“Bad for whom?"

“For the relatives of Paul Yuré, possibly those of his close friends—and for Count Mordieux. The loa might make great trouble for them if the bond were not broken, might bring sickness upon them, bring misfortune, maybe even death to them."

“Whatever has to be done requires the body?"

“Yes. And it was at the funeral parlor. The body would be needed for the ceremony.” She paused. “I knew, immediately when it was said the body of Paul Yuré was gone, why it must have been taken. But I did not say anything, so that others at the hotel would not think me...” She shrugged again. But I thought I knew what she'd started to say. So that others wouldn't think her cuckoo.

It didn't make any difference to me whether the loa went in or out of the guy or not—maybe it did, for all I knew. My concern was knowing what Mordieux, among others, was up to. And why. So I said, “This ceremony you mentioned. What is that?"

“It is the déssunin. There are chants and dances, and certain rituals, then the loa which first entered the one now dead is withdrawn. This is accomplished by the hungan."

“Who would be Count Mordieux."

“In this case, yes. For Paul Yuré was Mordieux’ confiance. So Mordieux would perform the ceremony and withdraw the loa from the head of Paul Yuré. The loa might then enter another."

“Like whom? Mordieux? Anybody?"

“It might be the choice of the loa. But whoever is chosen would then have the duties of the one previously mounted by the loa."

“Just a minute. Paul Yuré was the confiance, the right-hand man, of Mordieux. This Michel we talked about is now Mordieux’ confiance, right?"

“Yes."

“Well, if the loa of Paul latches onto somebody else, where does that leave Michel?"

“He would still be confiance, unless Mordieux determined otherwise. But it is probable that the loa of Paul will mount Michel tonight. Or so is the claim of Mordieux. He avows he has that control over the loa."

Something in what she'd said shook me up a little. Apparently she knew even more than she'd already told me. She'd said, “tonight,” and, “so is the claim of Mordieux."

“Dria, when would this take place, this—ceremony of the déssunin?"

“Why do you ask that, Shell? It is not of importance to you."

“Maybe it is. Any damn thing Mordieux does is important to me. He and I have got a war on, and so far he's winning. If he keeps winning ... well, all my loa, or whatever I've got, may desert me permanently."

She smiled slightly. “If I told you, you would not be foolish enough to go ... where it is."

“I might. I haven't decided yet. But I'd sure like to know what the Count is up to—and where. If you know, Dria, tell me."

“I do not wish you in more trouble."

“Honey, if people are trying to kill me, and pouring fire bane into me, and carving up little dolls that look like me and such, I'm not exactly sure how I can get into more trouble."

“I think you could find a way. But ... all right. The ceremony of the déssunin is to be held at the Valley of the Dead."

I swallowed. “Sounds ... enchanting. Uh, when is this supposed to happen?"

“Tonight, I would think. I am not sure. But probably tonight."

“Why tonight?"

“It is the night of the full moon."

That gave me a kind of pinched feeling in my bladder. But it figured. During a full moon, crimes of violence and crimes of passion increase. There is more restlessness in crowds. Attendants in asylums report greater difficulty with patients; mania and irritability increase. Perhaps we don't know why, but we know strange things do happen when the moon is full.

Dria went on, “Not only because this is the night when moon and sun are opposite each other in the sky, but Mordieux would wish this accomplished before tomorrow. For tomorrow, beginning at noon, there is a ceremony of the humfo society. Not a sacred ritual, but more—you would call it a festival, a party. Count Mordieux provides food and drink for all in his humfo, and there is singing and dancing."

“Uh-huh. Well, this thing tonight—could the ceremony be over already? What time is it, anyway?” I'd put my watch back on but hadn't checked it yet. I didn't even know how long I'd slept. It was only a few minutes after midnight. I'd slept possibly three hours, no more than that. But I was as refreshed as if I'd snoozed for a week.

Dria said, “It is probably beginning already. Probably at midnight it began."

“How long would the ceremony normally last?"

“Perhaps till dawn."

I sat quietly for a while. Then I said, “Does it seem significant to you, Dria, that two odd things—no, three things—should happen at about the same time? I refer to my finding that doll and then going a little out of my skull, or getting sick. And this ceremony of the déssunin, the withdrawal of the loa from Paul Yuré. And finally, the disappearance of Vanessa.... Ye gods, Vanessa!"

I started to jump up and charge off—somewhere.

But Dria stopped me. “You spoke of her, of this Vanessa Gayle,” she said.

“I did? I don't remember."

“It was while you were in the bed, before you slept. You told me of Joe's, and her being gone. I have phoned the hotel, spoken of it to Mr. Farrow. And I have spoken also to those I know at Joe's."

“Has she shown up?"

“No. I am sorry. You must be greatly concerned about her."

“Yeah, I am. She was there, then ... she was gone.” I paused, then said, “Thanks for that, too, Dria."

“It was nothing.” She was quiet for a moment. “But your question, why these three things should happen all at once. I do not know, Shell. I do not see how, or why, the disappearance of the lady would be connected with the ceremony. Mordieux would have no reason to wish the loa of Paul Yuré to possess the lady. Not any reason I can comprehend. And the ceremony should have no connection with you."

“Well, I'd like to know what goes on out there, anyway. I don't know where the hell else Vanessa might be. And, frankly, I don't know what else to do. I've a feeling that damned Mordieux is the key to everything. Or could be.” I paused, thinking. “If I did go out there, what would happen if they spotted me?"

“That is difficult to say. It would much depend upon Count Mordieux. And if he has tried to kill you, Shell, does it seem wise to let him see you, and know he did not succeed?"

I grinned. “Maybe not. But it would sure give the Count a shock, wouldn't it? And ... maybe that isn't such a bad idea all by itself."

She was frowning. “Perhaps. But it would not be well for you to—make fun of the ceremony. Even if you do not believe, they do believe, and it would not be well—"

“Dria, to make fun of their belief is the last thing I want to do. I wouldn't destroy their belief, or even try to. But I would destroy their belief in Mordieux if I could. And there's a difference."

She nodded. “Yes, that would be well. I have said before, he is bad for them. He leads them into the wrong ways, I think."

“Yeah. He leads me into the wrong ways, too, I think. Like wherever I was a few hours ago. Where I'd still be except for you."

She smiled sweetly, but didn't speak.

What I'd told Dria was true enough; I didn't want to ridicule the ceremony, the religion of voodoo or its practices, but I'd have given a lot to be able to show up Mordieux for the power-hungry phony I believed him to be. But I didn't know quite how to do it—though some kind of fuzziness was fermenting inside my skull, trying to become an idea.

“Well, if nothing else,” I said, “if Mordieux actually has Paul's body out there, maybe I can stick him for stealing a corpse. Must be at least a misdemeanor."

“It might be very dangerous for you to go there, to the Valley of the Dead."

“It seems a little dangerous just for me to be on this island, as long as Mordieux's loose."

She was frowning again. “Why would he want so to harm you, Shell?"

“I've been wondering about that, myself. Of course, I socked him, but that hardly seems reason enough. Not for a normal man, anyhow—which I guess the Count isn't."

When I mentioned socking him, my eyes had fallen again on the little white-haired doll, and for a moment that fuzziness in my head almost became an idea. Almost, not quite. But I picked the doll up, put it into my coat pocket.

I asked Dria where the Valley of the Dead was, and she said, “About ten kilometers from here.” She told me how to get there and added, “What do you plan to do?"

“Beats me.” I looked at my watch. “But if I'm going to get there before the last dance, I'd better be on my way."

I used Dria's phone to check with Farrow at the Sunrise Hotel and at Joe's without getting news of Vanessa. I also called the police and reported her disappearance. Then I told Dria I'd see her later.

“Please, Shell,” she said soberly, “no matter what occurs, you must return here, if—” She stopped suddenly, then finished. “You must return here."

“Sure. Besides, I'm getting half an idea, I think. Something you can help me work out. Maybe I'll know what I want to do before the night's over."

“Anything you wish. I will help if I can."

I smiled at her. “As I vaguely recall saying before, Dria, you are a sweetheart."

Then I went out, and she shut the door behind me.

Before getting into the wagon I took the Colt from under my coat and checked it. The metal glittered in the moonlight, and I looked up.

There it was, the big, bright, full moon, an orb of cold fire overhead.

Yeah, full moon. Lunacy cackling over there, near the graveyard. I could hear it. Sounded like the rustling of skeleton wings.

Valley of the Dead, huh?

And voodoo, too, huh? Fire bane, déssunin, loa, corpses...

For a few seconds—only a few, really, while I stuck my gun back in its holster and climbed into the wagon—I almost wished I had a few silver bullets.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Ten kilometers, Dria had said. She'd also told me the road would end over a kilometer—about a mile or less—from the place of the ceremony in the valley.

I drove the last mile or more with the car's lights out, the moon bright enough to make the road a faint path of silver before me; then, at the road's end, I parked and started to walk over a narrow path leading downward.

I stopped, looking around me, a queer prickling sensation creeping over the skin of my back. Here another path crossed the one I was on. And at the intersection of the two paths, in the dirt, something lay. Four posts, several yards apart, formed a square around the crossroads where I stood, and I could see something atop each post. They were chickens. Dead chickens, two dark ones and two white, one on each of the four posts.

In the center of the square where the two paths met was another dead chicken—but this one was in several parts. Wings, legs, severed head, and around them small stones arranged in some kind of design. I didn't know what it all meant. I had a hunch it wasn't supposed to be anything very good. Not good for me, anyway.

But, after all, it was only some dead chickens.

I walked around the bits of fowl, back to the path and on down it. Dimly ahead I could see the flickering that meant a fire burned there, perhaps two hundred yards away and a little below me. The reddish light flared slightly from time to time and I could see the shapes of rocks and trees and shrubs on the side of a steeply rising hill to my left.

Then I heard a queer chanting, and stopped, listening. It was the rising and falling jumble of many voices, and it had a queer sad sound in my ears. I listened a moment longer, then moved forward slowly, careful to make as little noise as possible. The persons sing-songing the strange sounds ahead of me wouldn't be likely to hear me, not with their own chant covering my movements, but I moved with care nonetheless. Straining my eyes ahead, too, in case one or more men were nearer to me, separate from the others.

But finally I was there; for nearly a mile I had walked deeper into the valley, shrubs and trees lining the path becoming thicker and more densely packed, and now the path turned sharply left and slanted downward more steeply—and they were below me.

The fire flickered not fifty yards away, and I squatted low to the ground. Around the fire were massed at least a hundred men and women, standing silently in row on row. The chanting had stopped and I could see what appeared to be three men, two standing and one lying prone on the ground beneath a white sheet or blanket which covered his legs and chest.

Still bent low, I left the path, moved around a clump of thickly massed banana trees and through low bushes that caught at the legs of my trousers. In another five minutes I was as close as I could get without exposing myself. I lay prone between two low green bushes, the men in the center of the group ahead, near the fire, now no more than twenty yards from me.

I could see that the taller of the two men standing was Mordieux. The other was facing away from me, but then he turned, shaking something in his right hand—and the sight of his face sent a small shock through my nerves.

It was the man who'd met me at the dock the other night, the spook who'd tried to freeze my blood or perform something equally unpleasant upon me. But more: In that moment I finally put the face I'd seen above the Sunrise's second-floor rail this morning with the man to whom it belonged. The guy who'd searched my room—and, of course, stolen the blue shirt, some of which later appeared on my little doll—was also the spook who'd shaken his rattle at me when I arrived on Verde. The same bushy hair and brows, the same sharp-featured face. And he was, I had been told—and now could see for myself—Count Mordieux’ confiance, Michel, the man who'd taken the place of the dead Paul Yuré.

Mordieux, and Michel—and was the third man, the one lying flat, and very still on the ground, Paul Yuré? The body of Paul Yuré? I could just barely see the man's face, but I couldn't tell who it was, or even if the man was alive or dead. But he lay there as still, as unmoving and apparently lifeless, as a dead man.

The main fire burned in a pit, which was, from where I lay, beyond all three men; there were several torches ringing the area, adding their wavering reddish glow to the scene. The men and women gathered here watching the ceremony, or participating in it, stood three or four deep in two lines, one on either side of the area where Mordieux and the others were. I'd chosen a spot from which I could look straight ahead at Mordieux and Michel and the one I assumed was the dead man, and between the two groups of men and women to my left and right.

Michel moved to one side and Mordieux walked closer to the man lying on the ground. It was very quiet. On my left I could see three men with different-sized drums before them, but they weren't beating on them, and none of the natives made a sound.

I looked over both groups but couldn't see anyone even remotely resembling Vanessa. I hadn't really expected her to be here, but there certainly wasn't a blonde white woman in this gathering. All of those here were dark-skinned, most of them simply and even drably dressed, but a few of them, especially among the women, wore brightly colored outfits that looked as if they were made of shiny silk or satin.

All eyes were on Mordieux.

He stood at the feet of the man under the white sheet, facing away from him and looking straight ahead between the two lines of people—looking, it appeared, straight at me. And I started wondering seriously what these people would do if they spotted me.

Mordieux raised his hands and called out something in a strong voice, half-singing in a kind of rolling chant. When he stopped it was quiet for a second or two, then the three men simultaneously pounded on their drums. Each man struck his drum with a different beat, but all three sounds blended into an odd rhythmic pattern I'd never heard before. It was strange, compelling, pulse-stirring but eerie at the same time.

Then a strong clear voice sang out, and in response all the other people gathered here joined in, chanting in unison, the hundred voices rising and falling in an impressive cadence that seemed to mimic the previous rhythm of the drums. And I noticed who it was that had begun the singing, taken the lead. Chicha. Of course. Mordieux’ hungenikon. She who led the choir, started and stopped the songs.

Twice more that was repeated, Mordieux speaking, then the drums talking, a strong rippling phrase from the hungenikon, followed by the chanting of the crowd. But when all the voices stopped for the third time there was a kind of finality to it, and the silence seemed suddenly heavy, deeper and more still. In the silence Mordieux spoke softly, but I clearly heard the name Paul Yuré. Dria had been right about this much; so she was undoubtedly right about the rest of it, what was to happen now.

I could see Count Mordieux clearly enough in the light from the fire and torches—and that brilliant moon over us. Near the corpse was a small group of items to which Mordieux now moved. He picked up something—a chicken. A dead chicken. It hung from his hand, head swinging limply as Mordieux moved back to the corpse and kneeled by it again. He passed the dead bird over the man's head several times, chanting in a low voice, then pulled a handful of feathers from it.

In total and almost oppressive silence, Mordieux took, from a little bag or box, a white powder. With the powder he made a cross on the man's head, and then plucked a bit of hair from the head of the corpse. He placed the bit of hair in a small white pot, added the chicken feathers and some other things I couldn't see. He held the pot in both hands, raised it up and down before him, and spoke solemnly for a full minute.

I almost forgot that I was an uninvited, and unwanted, guest at a secret voodoo ceremony, forgot what the special significance of Mordieux’ actions might be to me. I became simply a spectator, just as rapt in attention as the others now silently standing, staring at Mordieux. I don't know what I expected to happen. But clearly the men and women here assembled were now at a peak not only of attention but of emotion. I could feel the emotion that held them and moved through their minds and bodies, and maybe in a strange way some of what they felt was transmitted to me.

Mordieux stood with the little pot in his hands and spoke into the night, and I heard the name “Paul Yuré” again, and the word “loa,” and several other names, some of which were familiar to me and some of which were strange. Then he placed the pot to one side and turned to the corpse. In his right hand he held a rattle, the asson, and with his left he made sweeping passes over the body. He leaned over the corpse, then bent and got under the white sheet with it.

As he crouched over the dead man he shook his rattle and called out again the names of the loa, calling upon them, invoking them. Then be bent forward and with his mouth to the dead man's ear whispered something I couldn't hear. I heard only the sibilant rustle of his voice. Then he raised himself erect and moved back toward the feet of the corpse.

I could see the hump of Mordieux’ back, the sheet over him and the dead man, and beyond Mordieux the dim blur of the man's face. I was breathing through my mouth, and my lips and tongue were a little dry.

Suddenly Mordieux called out, in a voice shockingly loud, “Paul Yuré!'

And an awful thing happened.

I couldn't believe my eyes. The dead man moved. A shudder ran through the body. I saw the arms twitch and the shoulders heave. The head lifted from the ground. I could see the face, the oddly shaped scar, the flattened nose of Paul Yuré. There was no sound. Mordieux and the crowd were completely silent. No sound—except the faint rustling movements of the corpse. Those shudders still moved the body's arms and shoulders. The head lifted a little more, even more. And the corpse sat up.

My God, I thought, is he alive? Alive now—or still alive? Was he never dead? Was I imagining all this? Was it the silver moonlight, the drumming and chanting, the eeriness of this place and the almost hypnotic ritual?

I was standing.

I hadn't been aware of getting to my feet, but in the moment when the corpse moved and sat up I must have risen from the ground. I had not only seen the dead man move but I had seen his face. And it was the same face I'd seen in the funeral parlor last night. It was Paul Yuré. And he had sure as fate been dead then or I've never seen a dead man. The shock must have made me stand, or maybe jump, to my feet.

Whatever I did, it was seen.

Michel, standing near the group on my left, moved his hands suddenly, as if clapping them, but didn't make a sound. Then he pointed. At me. The corpse fell back, suddenly. I heard the head hit with a dull thump. It didn't move any more.

But Mordieux did. He got out from under the sheet, stood erect, turned and faced me.

And there was a low sigh from the crowd.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

All the men and women had seen me, were looking at me now.

I felt like running. But if I turned and ran, if I even tried to get away, I knew they'd all come after me. And if they once started chasing me they wouldn't be individual men and women but a mob—a mob, moreover, with Mordieux at its head.

No, this was not a time to run. At least not yet

So I walked forward. Toward the now still and silent corpse. Toward Count Mordieux. And the hundred men and women around him.

The silence was total, unreal. It seemed I was the only thing in this whole valley that moved. The men and women stood like dark statues silvered by the moonlight. Mordieux too was unmoving, staring at me, as if frozen in shock. In that strange and unnatural silence I moved forward and I could hear only the sound of my footsteps, and my breathing. It was as if the earth itself was hushed, as if the winds had died. I felt as though I were the only living thing in this dark valley, as if I walked among the dead, one man moving in a clearing filled with silvered corpses standing in silent rows.

But then Mordieux spoke.

He raised a long arm toward me, extended finger pointing, and cried something that sounded harsh and vicious. I could see his steel teeth gleam and glitter as he spat the words at me—at me, but to the crowd. They heard, and there was a sigh from them, a rising and falling whisper from the hundred throats or more.

And then Mordieux spoke again—to me, and so that I could understand him. But it was clear he not only wanted me to understand, but wanted his followers to understand as well.

He said, “You have come to a sacred place, of your own will, and alive. But you will not leave alive. You will not leave to speak profane words of what you have seen."

He spoke in a rhythmic chant that had a truly hypnotic quality. And there were words from the others now, words of anger. There was violence in the sound of the voices, the sharp crack and guttural rumble of the words.

“You will be killed,” Mordieux called in a loud voice. “It is right that you be killed! Killed!"

I didn't like his saying that word over and over. These characters had already been worked up into a kind of cold lather, and in another second or two the Count would have them jumping up and down on me. But I wasn't exactly sure what I could do about it.

My arms were at my sides, and I squeezed my hands into fists, pressing them against my thighs—and I felt against my right forearm the lump of something in my coat pocket. As soon as I felt it I realized what it was. The little white-haired death doll.

So before Mordieux could say anything else—like more of that “Killed! Killed!” bit, I said, “It won't work, Mordieux. You're a fraud, a fake hungan—and I'm here to prove it."

I spoke very loud, too; in fact, I shouted, because I wanted all these people to hear me clearly. I pulled the little doll from my pocket and held it over my head. Looking from one group of men and women to the other, I shouted, “Some of you were at Count Mordieux’ sanctuary this past morning. There you hear Mordieux say I was to die, and you heard me say he lied, that he is a bad hungan, a boko, a false and evil one who works with both hands and uses bought loa."

I was only three or four feet from Mordieux and I could see anger twist his features. He cried something I couldn't understand, and there was more muttering from the crowd. But I got in just as many shouts during the next minute as he did.

I yelled, “Your hungan wishes to kill me—that is true. He sends the dead to eat upon the living, he works black magic and makes wanga to harm and kill. But because his roots are in the petro loa and he works evil, the good loa, and even his own, are deserting him. This night he has tried to kill me—but not as would a true hungan. No, with the method of a common murderer, with poison...."

Right then the fuzziness which had been floating in my head earlier congealed into an idea. Maybe not the best I'd ever had, but something that just might help get a few of these people on my side. Mordieux had interrupted my spiel a couple of times and was still yelling, but when he stopped for breath I moved in again.

“He did poison me,” I shouted. “But the poison did not work on me. It was poison to kill, but it did not kill! I am here to show Mordieux—and all of you—that his poison is too weak to kill, that he is the one who will be destroyed when his loa turn upon him."

The two lines of men and women had moved closer and now surrounded Mordieux and me and the corpse on the ground. I could see the firelight flicker on the dark, almost expressionless faces. I could smell them. I could literally feel their heavy and ominous presence. They hemmed me in now; I'd have no chance of getting through those massed bodies—unless they let me through.

And that idea, which had just congealed, was something that couldn't be done now. It would take planning, a lot of planning. Tomorrow I could do it. If I could manage to stay alive till tomorrow.

A few feet from me I saw two men standing together, big men with barrel chests and plenty of muscles. They were the same two I'd noticed this past morning, bare-chested and wearing faded blue trousers, at Mordieux’ sanctuary.

I looked at them and said, “You were there, at the humfo.” I tossed the small doll toward them and one of the men caught it. “That is your hungan's work. He—” I looked around till I spotted Michel—"and your hungan's confiance, Michel, made this to work magic upon me, that I would die. But you see I live. And Mordieux will not—he cannot—kill me. All of his work is for nothing. To me this wanga is like salt to the living dead."

When I mentioned the salt there were mumblings and soft ejaculations from many near me. They knew what that meant. Perhaps some were even wondering if what I said was true.

Mordieux was yelling—almost raving. He didn't quite come out and say that some of these husky guys should throttle me or stomp me to death. Not in so many words. But his implication was transparent, and when two or three men moved toward me I held a hand out toward them and said, “Is Count Mordieux so weak he must have men do his work for him? Perhaps he would like the women to do his work?"

I looked at Mordieux. “Is that your power, Mordieux? To have women do the things your weak loa cannot do? Ah, you are a fine hungan. A fine weak hungan who hides behind the skirts of women."

That got him. He clanked his choppers together several times, as if in a toothy little anvil chorus—and suddenly I had another idea. Again, however, it was something that would have to wait till tomorrow.

I glanced around, looking at the women this time, and my eyes stopped on a familiar face. The woman was in a baggy, shapeless dress that fell to the ground like a Hawaiian muumuu, but I'd seen her leading the songs here. And dancing earlier. Chicha.

The black eyes blinked.

Directly to her I said, “Let us hear from the women themselves. Should you, or your men, do for Mordieux what his loa cannot do? He speaks of my death, of killing me. I say he cannot. I say your hungan is weak and has no powers that can harm me. His magic is weaker than my magic; his power is less than my power."

I was almost starting to enjoy it—getting corrupted by power, I guess—and was going on, but decided to cut it off there. A hint was enough.

I was still looking at Chicha. She pressed her lips together, then looked at Mordieux. She said something in that combination of French-based Creole and Spanish and what sounded like pure African, and when she finished several others, both men and women, commented in what sounded, even though I couldn't be sure, like agreement. Judging by the sour and unjoyous expression on Mordieux’ face he wasn't happy with the comments. But he was on a spot now, too. His authority had been challenged, he'd been called unpleasant names; it was up to him to make me waste away and die, or vanish, or whatever he had in mind.

So I said to him, “I say you can do nothing to me, Mordieux. I say before the members of your humfo that you tried to kill me tonight—with the common murderer's poison—and failed. I say not you nor all your bought loa can bring harm to me."

Of course, if he tried to stick me with a stiletto, or strangle me, or anything like that, I intended to haul out my gat and plug him. But I figured he would—later—try more devious ways.

At least he then spoke not to me but to the people, waving his arms and even striking his chest a couple of times. I couldn't understand a word of it, but it seemed clear he was giving them the big-man bit, telling them he was the greatest and such. And, of course, would fix my wagon.

I let him say it all. And when it seemed likely the gang wasn't going to attack me and pull off my arms and legs I interrupted him. “Where is Vanessa Gayle, Mordieux?"

I let my eyes fall on Chicha's face as I went on, “The woman I was with at Joe's tonight. Then—when I was given the poison which did not kill—she left, or was taken away. If harm comes to her, greater harm will come to those who are responsible.” I paused. “And if anyone knows of her, knows where she is, there would be much reward for telling me."

Well, nothing happened; but at least I'd gotten that message in, too. I still didn't think any of these people were on my side enough so they'd tell me anything. Not yet. But maybe they would tomorrow.

And with that thought in my mind I looked around and said—with as much confidence and as casual an air as I could muster, which wasn't as much as I'd have liked—"I have said many things of your hungan, Count Mordieux. And I have said his power is less than mine. This I will prove to you. This I will prove—tomorrow."

Then I turned and walked toward the mass of men and women seven or eight feet away on my right. If they didn't move, I was going to be pretty well deflated.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I didn't move with real speed, just slow, even steps. Perhaps two dozen men formed a clump of flesh I had to get through.

I took the first step, the second, the third. One more step and I'd bump into a thick guy with a very sour expression, but I didn't slow down. I took the step—and at the last moment he was out of my way.

There was a little bumping and shoving as the people edged to one side or the other. But I didn't have to touch any of them. They formed an open space, a path about three feet wide, and I walked through. I felt some very creepy sensations up and down my spine, and in my tightly coiled gut, and even in my extremely dry mouth. But I got through.

I just kept walking. There was utter silence behind me. I walked back the way I'd come, up the narrow dirt path. Only when I was a good hundred yards from Mordieux and the people around him did I turn and look. The men and women still stood in a ring, clustered around their hungan. He was exhorting them, his arms waving. Really cutting me up, I supposed.

Well, tomorrow we'd see. There simply had to be some kind of confrontation tomorrow. I'd asked for it. So now, I thought, to see if I can figure out the answer tonight.

The lights were still on in the front room of Dria's house. She let me in, and I saw a blanket on the couch; apparently she'd been napping there while I was gone.

She looked at her watch, then at me. “It is all right?"

“It's all right. There and back. I saw ... Well, I'm not sure what I saw."

“Sit down, and tell me. Do you feel well?"

“I'm O.K.” Actually I was still a bit weak in the knees, but there didn't seem to be anything seriously wrong with me.

I sat next to Dria on the couch and told her what had happened in the last hour. Then I said, “I'm not quite sure what the devil happened. It was a little ... spooky. What was that bit with Paul Yuré?"

She smiled oddly. “It is supposed to be the moment when the loa leaves his body. That is when he shakes, trembles and seems to try to sit up. Some say that is the answer. Some say the hungan sits over the dead one and holds his fingers, pulls him up with a movement those watching cannot see. I do not know, Shell. Perhaps it was a little of both."

“It was plenty of something. I thought he was going to get up and walk, and I just about went straight up into the air. Guess I did, in fact."

“You were fortunate something very bad did not happen."

“I thought for a minute or two they might figure out something fatal for me. But we reached a compromise."

“Why was it you told them all you would prove Mordieux to be ... what was it? Incapable of harming you?"

“Drunk with power, I guess. Besides, I kind of wanted out of there. But I had an idea if I could somehow show him up his people would get more cooperative with me. They've been a little less than cooperative so far. I asked about Vanessa, but if anybody knew anything it's still a secret."

“I have heard nothing more. While you were gone I again spoke on the phone to Mr. Farrow and called Joe's. And sent word to some whom I know, to friends. But there is nothing."

Dria was quiet for a few moments, then looked at me. “Is there something you plan to do tomorrow? Regarding Count Mordieux, I mean. Or were you, what you say, bluffing with them?"

“Partly bluff. But I've got a couple ideas stewing around. It'll take some work. And I'll need your help."

“I will help if I can."

“You know a lot about voudon and about Mordieux and how he thinks—maybe equally important, how the members of his humfo think. Educate me a little more. Here's what I've got in mind."

We bounced ideas around for half an hour, and the upshot was we both agreed there was a chance I'd fix the Count's wagon. About a chance in a thousand or so. Or maybe that was overly pessimistic; maybe there was a chance in a hundred.

So I left Dria and, after stopping by the Sunrise Hotel, went to Count Mordieux’ sanctuary—assuming, and hoping, he and all his people would still be at the Valley of the Dead—while Dria started working on the dolls.

* * * *

Dria had breakfast with me on the hotel's terrace. Neither of us had gotten any sleep, but as far as I was concerned it had been a well-spent morning. I'd found the sanctuary dark and deserted, and after two hours of work and frustration thought I'd done part of my job well enough so there was a fifty-fifty chance the gimmick would work when the time came. If, that is, the time ever did come. Dria had labored, apparently happily, till dawn.

I had been pretty dirty on returning from my trip so I'd taken another shower before coming here for breakfast. That was three in one night—if I got killed today, at least I would die clean. Actually, I would rather live and be a little dirty; but you can't have everything.

Over our after-breakfast coffee Dria said soberly, “Perhaps, Shell, this is not so crazy. At first, when you told me what was in your mind, I thought, ‘I will help, but it is of no use.’ But now I am beginning to consider that this may work, it may be well."

“Hell, anything's possible, Dria. It depends on the members of the colony. I think I can handle Mordieux. As for how the people around him will react, I'll just have to trust your knowledge of them, or your intuition, or good fairies."

Still soberly she said, “The more I think of this—how they will react—the more of encouragement I get. They will be in a mood to believe whatever strange things happen. There will be much dancing, the effect upon them of the drums and dancing, the ceremonies. By the time you arrive many will be possessed, dancing in the trance, possessed by their loa. And, as I told you, they will be drinking the kal, which will make them more open to suggestion or belief."

“The ceremony starts at noon, right?"

She nodded.

“Then about one p.m. would be a pretty good time for me to show up."

“One, one-thirty. The rites and dances will go on all day, into the night."

“Yeah, but I don't want them to get too worked up, too wild. If they get suggestible as can be and Mordieux tells them to dismember me, they might just do it. Until we take him down a peg or two, they'll probably do nearly anything he tells them."

“That is true. That is the danger."

“Dria, I asked you before, but you've got to give me a straight answer. If this goes wrong, will there be any danger to you?"

“No,” she said. “And no and no. I am one of them; I will be back among them. This is what Mordieux has asked, demanded, what he wishes. They would not harm me anyway. It is you who may—"

“That's not important. I mean, that's not the question. I just want to be sure I needn't worry about you while I'm making like a magician.” I paused. “O.K., tell me the truth about this, too, Dria. Despite the good reasons I've got for setting up this kookie confrontation, is it something I shouldn't do? I don't want to feel like I'm going into a church and outshouting the preacher. After all, these ceremonies are important to your friends. Some of the ceremonies and dances are sacred to them in a way, components of their religion. And if—"

“Oh, stop,” she said smiling. “I have told you twice already it is all right. It is better than all right, it is good. If you ... fail, no harm will be done. And if you succeed, good may be done, much good. Even if Count Mordieux did not kill Papa Lurin, even if he is doing what he thinks is well, I tell you it is bad. Bad for my people."

She laced her fingers together and leaned slightly toward me. “This you must decide for yourself, not by what I say. But would you consider good a doctor who makes men ill and then asks that they pay him to be healed? Mordieux does this; I say it is a certainty. You talk of a preacher. He is that, too, for his colony. But if a devil were in the pulpit, would you fear to say he was evil? You would not be tearing down the church, only the evil one. And think of what Mordieux has done—or tried to do—to you. Think only of that and you should have no doubts. Think, too—"

I held up both hands and grinned at her. “I surrender. That's enough to think about already. Maybe too much."

“Good,” she said. “Oh, while you were gone last night I found the muumuu. It is white, which should be well. Do you wish to tell me what to paint on the cloth? Or shall I do it when I do the sleeves and pockets?"

“Do it yourself. I wouldn't have any idea what to put on the thing. Besides, I'm not exactly an artist."

She smiled. “I will make it artistic.” She stood up. “I have paints for posters in my office. And some other things I wish to get. I must speak with John, too, before I go. He will give me the day off, I know."

“You sure there are still boxes of those balloons around here?"

“Yes, John knows where they are. He had them for last New Year's, but as I said he has no more of that which made them go up, I think."

“Out of gas, yeah."

“Some people used all of it up at the New Year's party. But, still, a few weeks ago there were more balloons let go for a dance, but I do not know how he made them go up."

“I'll ask him. Maybe he can do it again."

She nodded, turned and walked toward the hotel's entrance. I watched her all the way. Then I took a deep breath of the clean, cool air, realizing I felt remarkably clear-headed. There was a slight weariness in my muscles, and a kind of tingling of nerves throughout my body, but that didn't bother me; it just made me feel more keyed up, more alive.

I glanced at the sea sparkling a hundred yards away, at the irregular white arcs of combers spreading on the sand, brightness of orchids, hibiscus, bougainvillaea accenting the deep green of shrubs and trees around me—and wondered where I would be now, and how I'd be feeling, if it hadn't been for Dria.

But enough of that, I told myself. There were too many other things to think about. Assuming no hitches, we'd be set in another hour or two. I covered the major points mentally, then got up and followed Dria into the Sunrise.

Several people sat in the lobby, a few reading, some apparently just sitting and looking blankly at the atmosphere. The “fun” of waiting on themselves, mixing drinks and making beds and cooking and serving and such, had, it seemed indisputable, begun to pall. Unless Mordieux’ people came back to work soon, the Sunrise—which meant John Farrow—was going to be in big trouble. Come to think of it, the Sunrise Hotel meant me, too.

Well, I thought, maybe the hotel's problem would be solved this afternoon, too—if any of the problems were. I started toward the desk, passing by long, lanky Joshua Border sitting in an easy chair, reading. I glanced at the book's jacket and saw a picture of two birds who were either feathered in chartreuse and pink or the jacket had faded. The title was Know Your Birds: The Caribbean.

He looked up and saw me, put a finger in the book to keep his place, and got to his feet. “Oh, Mr. Scott,” he said in his mellow and musical voice. “May I speak to you?"

“Sure, what's up?"

“Nothing, really. Except that I've been so disturbed about—yesterday. I'm so terribly sorry to have delayed you in your, well, your pursuit of that chap. I don't know what got into me. That is, I know of course, but I shouldn't have let my emotion overcome—"

I broke in, “It's all right, Mr. Burder. Forget it. I have. More important, have you heard anything about Vanessa Gayle yet? Have you seen her?"

He shook his head. “I'm sorry to say I've not. I even made inquiries at that, er, night club. And later here at the hotel as well. You seemed so distressed last night.... I was sure something was wrong with you. Were you ill?"

“I was a little under the weather then, all right. But the clouds have rolled away today. Probably something I ate and drank."

“I think it's the water. We must be careful of the water."

“Maybe. Whatever it was, it has, uh, passed, you might say."

“Well, that's splendid,” he said smiling. “That is a relief."

It was odd, but though the words were nice and chummy I got the wee twitch of a feeling that he didn't really mean the nice chummy words. No reason for me to be so uncharitable, I supposed; and after all it was just a wee twitch.

A few moments ago I'd noticed John Farrow at the desk, and now he was walking toward us. So when he stopped next to me I said, “Hi, John. Haven't got an old barrel of gas around, have you?"

“What?” But that wasn't John speaking, it was Joshua Burder close on my right. He was gazing at me with the usual peaceful expression on his chops, but his eyes got that distant look which indicated he was looking straight through my head at something miles away.

“Gas,” I said. “You know, like air—only lighter, like helium, hydrogen. Barrel was a loose word. Actually I guess I'm hunting for a tank of compressed gas."

“Ga...” He didn't finish the word. He seemed to be shrinking. Actually getting shorter. In a moment I was looking down at him. Ah, yes, he was sitting again, but going down as if his legs were dissolving beneath him.

I said, “It's for balloons, Joshua. So they'll float. Like Zeppelins."

“Zeppelins?"

“Of course,” I said mysteriously, and walked with John toward the desk. I wasn't about to tell Mr. Burder I was playing with dolls.

“What got into him?” John said.

“Beats me. I think there's something about this island. There are twitches in the air. But at least there's no smog."

“Speaking of smog, what was all that about gas, Shell?"

This was the first time I'd seen John since going to Joe's last night, so before answering his question I told him in detail about my sudden malaise, and Vanessa's equally sudden disappearance.

He nodded, soberly. “I've put lines out everywhere I can think of,” he said. “No results. Police haven't turned up anything, either. You don't have any idea what happened?"

“Not any."

John told me several policemen—there were more than just Rivera and his partner, it turned out—were looking for Vanessa, questioning people, doing the routine. The routine that they could do better than I, even if I'd had any real idea where to look, I figured. Besides, I was working on that problem, too, in my own way.

Thinking about that, I explained I wanted some kind of gas with which to inflate balloons, so they'd float in the air. John said he still had plenty of balloons in a storeroom downstairs, two gross of them, and I told him a couple dozen would be enough for me.

“You throwing a party?” he asked.

“Sort of."

“Balloons, huh? What are you up to now?"

“Working for you, John. Just trying to do a job for you—believe it or not. If I said any more, you'd probably believe it not. Just trust me. If I get killed, it won't matter. Not to me, anyway."

He squinted, and started to ask something else, then let it go. I said, “Dria tells me you're out of whatever you filled them with."

“True. I had ten gross of balloons shipped from the States for the last New Year's Eve party, along with a tank of compressed helium—noninflammable, and lighter than air. Would have been more than enough, except for one thing I hadn't counted on. A guest with a somewhat unsophisticated sense of humor discovered you could open the cock on the tank and squirt a cold blast of helium at the other guests. Especially at a woman's fanny."

“In the manner of those wits at fun zones, hey? The guys who push the button when a gal's standing over the air hole?"

“Exactly. Well, it tickled some fancies—"

“John, please—"

“Of other male guests, Shell. Their imaginations, that is. The idea caught on, and that was the end of the helium—half a dozen guys taking turns aiming that tank, fifty screaming women, people spilling drinks."

“No wonder. They were probably all gassed."

“Shell, please—"

“Yeah. O.K., we're even. Just goes to show what one slob can do, John. When drunk among drunks, anyhow."

He chuckled. “It was kind of fun at that, and nobody got really upset. Oh, one of the gals slapped Marcus, but it didn't bother him."

“Marcus? Marcus Rule?"

“He's the one who started the thing. Of course, he was loaded."

“Of course. Good old Marcus. Incidentally, if all the helium was squirted last New Year's, how'd you fill the balloons for the party a few weeks back?"

“It was a problem for a while, but I figured out a way. Used nitrogen."

“Nitrogen? Where'd you get that?"

“Right here. We've got a modern refrigeration plant, because I wanted something nearly foolproof. It's hard to get parts here—and if our freezers went out we'd be in a bind. Anyway, we use liquid nitrogen, which is colder than the North Pole in a blizzard. Just open the valve, and some of the liquid boils off through the coils and pipes, cools whatever's near it. We also dip fresh vegetables in it for quick-freezing. Come on, I'll show you."

We went downstairs to a storeroom, where John opened a cardboard box. There was a pile of little rubber balloons in it, all colors of the rainbow. I grabbed a handful and stuffed them into my coat pocket, then followed John out and down the basement's cement walk to another solid-looking door, which he unlocked with a key on his ring. Inside he flipped on bare overhead lights and led me to a squat, thickly insulated tank. From its top a pipe, also heavily insulated, led to a series of small pipes that passed through the wall into another room.

John pointed upward. “Kitchen's up there, and steps go down to the freezing and cold rooms.” He pointed straight ahead to where the pipes disappeared in the wall. “Tank's full of liquid nitrogen under pressure. Very little loss, and it's no trouble. More over there.” He nodded to our right, and I glanced at other tanks against the wall, as he went on. “Plenty of it available, too. Nearly eighty per cent of the air is nitrogen."

“I'm delighted. But ... does that mean it's lighter than air? What if my balloons float down—"

“It's lighter. Just a little, though, but this is the best I can do. O.K.?"

“So let's go,” I said. “Fill away. I'll hold the balloon while you squirt the gas in."

“And freeze your knuckles clear up to your ears. It's not quite that simple.” He slapped the insulation covering the big tank and said, “The stuff in there isn't a gas yet, Shell. It's liquid, under pressure. When we open the vent the pressure's relieved, and some of the nitrogen boils off as a gas and goes through the pipes—but it's cold. This stuff boils at three hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit. That's three-twenty below zero."

“O.K. You hold the balloons, and I'll—"

He laughed. “We'll bleed some gas from the end of one of the pipes in the cold room. Have to run it through a hose or a coil so it'll be warmed up enough when it comes out."

That's what we did. But it took us over an hour to fill two dozen balloons. We had to run the gas through several feet of coiled tubing, as John had suggested, and in addition we found it necessary to heat the tubing so that when the gas came from the tube's end it wouldn't freeze the rubber. I was glad John half knew what he was doing, but even so we ruined eight balloons and I damn near froze a thumb off.

Despite complexities, however, the job was done by ten a.m. I thanked John, warmed my thumb in my mouth some more, then found a big box to put my twenty-four prizes in. I simply didn't want to walk through the lobby with two dozen gaily colored balloons floating over my head.

There was one more thing John helped me out with, too. I wanted a big, powerful magnet, and he had nothing like that available, but called a friend at the local radio station, learned they had a monster, which was about what I'd asked for, and arranged for me to pick it up. Before leaving the hotel I got a can of tomato juice and a six-ounce bottle of fine, clear olive oil. I'd have preferred glycerine, but it wasn't available, and the olive oil would do.

Then, with my box in the back of the station wagon, I picked up the long, thick bar magnet at the radio station and drove back to Dria's house.

She let me in, and I put my equipment on the floor and beamed at the heaped table in front of the couch. She'd done a marvelous job. Starting with six-inch-high dolls, already available at the hotel, and working only with steel wool, tinfoil from cigarette packs, paints, and her deft fingers, she'd produced two dozen of the dandiest little dolls you'd ever hope to see. The tightly curled hair was dark gray instead of black, but even so they were unmistakably Count Mordieux dolls. Especially with those square, gleaming tinfoil teeth.

“Dria—well, what can I say? They're almost as good as if you'd shrunk the Count himself."

She beamed. “Thank you. Even the noses came out better than I expected."

Somehow she'd pinched and pushed and painted till she'd got the curved-hook or sickle appearance of the Count's sniffer. They were works of art, and I told her so.

“I have almost finished with your dress, Shell,” she said. I mean, your—what do we call it?"

“Just don't call it a dress.” I shuddered. “Tunic, robe, overall bloomers—please, not a dress."

“Well, I will finish in a few minutes and bring it."

She went out of the room, and I took my can of tomato juice and bottle of olive oil into the kitchen, poured out most of the oil, and filled the bottle with tomato juice. I shook it vigorously and examined the concoction. A little too pale; so I poured off a bit and added more tomato juice. Then I pulled two of the extra and uninflated balloons—a red one and a white one—out of my coat pocket, and from the six-ounce bottle poured half the juice into the white balloon and about two ounces into the red one. That done, I tied the balloons with string, squeezing the knots down as much as I could. I had to do the job over a couple of times, but finally the fluid was held tightly inside the bottoms of the balloons, the thin rubber stretched into the shape of a lopsided ball by tension from the fluid inside.

Back in the living room I started using more string, two-foot lengths of it, to attach Mordieux dolls to the gas-filled balloons. One end of each string went around the sealed and knotted end of a balloon, and the other around Count Mordieux’ neck.

I finished before Dria came back in and I called to her, “Hey, I've got four balloons left over. Let's have a party."

“Tonight,” she called back. “Tonight we have a party, maybe."

Yeah. “Maybe” was right.

I'd stuffed my gassy creations back into the box I'd carried them here in, so they wouldn't be floating all over the room, but now I took one out and let it go. For a moment my heart, and hopes, sank. Because, with the weight of the little doll beneath it, the balloon just sort of sat in the air by my hand. I thought it was going to sink, like my heart and hopes. But, slowly, it rose. It took about half a minute, but finally the balloon reached the ceiling and stopped there, little Count Mordieux hanging beneath it, noose around his neck.

Just enough lift; maybe just enough sink. It was beautiful.

Make dolls of me, will he? I thought.

Dria came back in, holding my new outfit in front of her. I didn't even point with pride to my handiwork, not after seeing hers.

First, for those who don't know what a muumuu is, it is a feet-length gown originally worn by Hawaiian tomatoes and other Polynesian females, designed for them by a joyless missionary and imbued with slightly less charm than a large potato sack. A muumuu is usually loose and billowing enough so that a guy could get inside it at the same time as his chosen tomato—if she'd let him, of course—thus producing precisely the salubrious event that the missionary had designed the things to prevent in the first place.

Anyway, the muumuu is large and expansive. But I'm kind of large and expansive myself, and this was little Dria's muumuu. She'd let it out and sewed a yellow strip into the front of the thing, but even with the added width it wasn't going to leave any extra room for my chest and shoulders and would come just about up to my knees. On me it was going to be merely a muu. Still, it looked marvelous.

Dria had used red and yellow and black paints on the white cloth, and had covered it with some of the damndest symbols and figures I'd ever looked upon. There were zigzags and circles and squiggly things and even—right in the middle, on the yellow strip—a drawing of a guy in a black suit with a funny-brimmed hat on his head and a cane in his hand. Attached at numerous places were little white spinal columns—yeah, real little spinal columns—and there were at least ten or fifteen good-sized rattlesnake rattles dangling in what struck me as grisly fashion from the shoulders and long loose sleeves that Dria had added to the muumuu.

Finally I said, “I'm speechless."

“It is not what you wanted?” She looked almost hurt.

“You've got it backwards,” I said. “That's the damndest thing I ever saw. It's marvelous."

A big smile chased the hurt look away. “Oh, good. You see—” She pointed to the guy on the yellow strip. “This is Baron-Samedi. He is the King of the Dead. On the back I have the symbol of Damballah-wèdo, the serpent god. And there, and there, are drawn many symbols and signs that will mean much to those who see you today."

“They'll see me, all right. Even the blind may see me."

“Is that good?"

“That is good. It is fine and dandy, not to mention stupendous. I wonder if it'll hurt when I put it on. Where in the world did you get those little spines, the vertebrae? And those rattles?"

“They are from snakes—they have long been among my stepfather's things. They were of Papa Lurin's possessions."

“Oh. Maybe I shouldn't—"

“You should.” She cut me off. “You will."

“At least I'll look like—well, powerful."

“You will. You will be powerful."

I didn't know whether she meant I had healthy muscles, or if it was some kind of voodoo comment, or just a compliment. Anyhow, it sounded nice, so I beamed at her and said, “Dria, this is, well, it's all marvelous. The dolls, my muu, every bit of it. I could kiss you for all you've done."

“I think that would be nice,” she said.

It almost went by me. Only almost. So I kissed her.

Then she said, “Oh,” and took the painted outfit from between our bodies, and I kissed her again.

Awhile later I said, “Well, I guess things are beginning to pop at the Count's humfo. It won't be long now."

“Should we leave, then?"

“Not just yet. In a few minutes."

There was one more thing to do. Then I'd get dressed in my—oh, hell, call it a dress—and gather up my goodies and sally forth. As Shell Scott, white witch doctor.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

As soon as Dria promised not to peek, I went out behind the house, carrying the painted muumuu, and took off my coat, shirt, and tie.

I put the shirt inside my coat and then the coat inside the Polynesian gown, and laid the outfit flat on the ground. Farthest inside was the shirt, then the coat, then the muumuu, just as if they were on a man—a very flat man, of course.

Then I cocked my .38, stood over the garments, aimed, holding the gun's short barrel about six inches away, and shot a hole in the flat man's heart. He twitched a mite, almost as if he were dying—so I thought, and immediately decided not to think anything like that again. Especially not here, and not on a day like this.

Then I put on the shirt, tie, and coat, and finally my impressive robe. Carrying gun and holster, I went back into the house.

While Dria clapped her hands and told me I looked simply stunning—which I already knew, having peeked at my stunning self in a mirror on the way to the front room, and having then gone into a state of near-shock—I pried the slug from another cartridge, pressed a little cotton in on top of the grains of powder, shook it to make sure the business didn't fall out, then put the cartridge back into the Colt's chamber. Carefully back in, to be sure it would be the next one to revolve under the firing pin. All things considered, that was vital.

Then I gave the Colt Special to Dria. She already knew what to do with it and handled the gun with care, put it into her yellow woven-reed handbag. Then she placed some colorful china beads around my neck and a wide-brimmed straw hat on my head and handed me my “master asson,” an impressive-looking rattle. In the two pockets Dria had sewed to the front of my robe I had my two oil-and-juice-filled balloons, and in a coat pocket some extra cartridges for the .38, just in case.

I took a deep, deep breath, let it out, looked at Dria.

“Let's go,” I said.

* * * *

It was two p.m.—a little later than I'd planned—when I finally got settled atop the hill east of Mordieux’ sanctuary, the brush-covered mound I'd noticed when down below with the gang yesterday morning. There was little wind at this hour, only a gentle breeze, but it was blowing from my back directly toward the buildings and trees of the Count's humfo, three hundred yards west and perhaps a hundred feet below where I squatted.

Squatted, surrounded by nitrogen-filled balloons, hanging dolls, a pair of binoculars; without my .38 but with a monster bar magnet strapped to my right wrist; and wearing a sorcerer's smock—the tools of my trade. Whatever it was. I took one of the balloons from the box and released it, to see what, if any, exciting things would happen.

It was a bit difficult to dig into boxes and such with that magnet strapped to my wrist. Even if I'd had my gun—or had anyplace to wear it where I could reach it in less than two minutes—a really fast draw might have broken some of my ribs. The magnet was hidden by the long and billowing sleeves Dria had added to her muu-muu, but it felt like an anvil pulling on my arm.

I hadn't spotted Dria yet.

I'd let her out of the car a mile from Mordieux’ then driven ahead, parked the station wagon out of sight, and trekked up here, huffing and puffing. She was to walk that last mile and go on into the sanctuary grounds, presumably to be welcomed with cries of gladness by her friends. And with clucks of I-told-you-so from Count Mordieux. At least, that was what we'd assumed.

My balloon, with the little figure below it, was about fifty feet away now and had risen perhaps another twenty feet above me. So far, so good. High, but going in the right direction. As I watched, it kept rising. I had a hunch it might go directly over the humfo at about twenty thousand feet. But it had been a fat one; maybe some of the others would droop more suitably, or leak better. So I sent half a dozen more on their way.

Then I saw Dria. She walked briskly along the side of the dirt road, swinging her yellow-reed bag, bright and colorful in her shiny red dress—red, so I could easily pick her out of the crowd. Even so, she hadn't been noticed by the others yet.

There were a lot of others, but they were pretty busy at the moment. The scene below me was quite impressive. In two ragged arcs before the peristyle, reaching almost to the center of the clearing, stood at least two hundred men and women. Ninety per cent of them were in the usual plain country clothing, but the rest, standing or moving at different places in the crowd, gave me the impression that a solid rainbow had fallen, bounced, and cracked up into people. They wore clothes of shimmering blues and greens and yellows and such, which appeared to be made of silk or satin; and some of them looked as if they'd cracked up even more, judging by the way they were moving around and dancing and jiggling. A few were all in white. The activity going on now, and soon to end, I understood, was the acceptance of some new members into the humfo, accompanied by the eating of mango and papaya and guava and other fruits, and the drinking of much kal. Kal, I gathered, was something like fermented kerosene with a little hashish in it.

At any rate, a time when new members were being embraced seemed an ideal time for an old member to return to the colony. And that was what Dria was just about to do.

While waiting to see what her reception would be, I picked up the binoculars and looked over the crowd briefly, then turned my eager gaze on the big oraflora tree. I wanted to be sure last night's handiwork was still wired, primed, and ready—and undiscovered. All appeared to be well.

My two hours’ labor last night—actually, early this a.m.—had been simple enough in principle but difficult of execution. All I'd done was fashion a snare. Just about like the ones trappers use for catching little animals, or that the Indians used to fix back in the wild West. Similar, but a giant one, such as Daniel Boone might have put together to catch a b'ar.

I'd bent down the biggest limb I could control, letting all my two hundred and six pounds hang from it, and kept it pulled down with wire—not thin, uncovered wire, but regular electrical cord of the kind you plug into light sockets. It wasn't invisible, but neither was it obvious. I could see it up in the tree, through the glasses, though. It ran to the base of a lower limb and then down the tree trunk to the ground and disappeared.

There was a lot of loose earth and leaves, and plenty of droppings from the birds always roosting in the branches above, and I'd simply scooped out a little trench for the wire—and the noose at its end—and covered all with the earth, leaves, and birdy camouflage. It looked normal and undisturbed to me.

The crux of the operation was a thin wire—much more “invisible” than the other cord—slanting from the base of the tree trunk out and down to a stake I'd driven into the earth. Anything hitting or kicking that wire hard enough would pull free a crude trigger well up in the tree, which would in turn release tension on the limb. The limb would then—so I hoped: I hadn't tried it out yet—spring vigorously up into the air, returning to its former place, yanking the noose up with it, of course. The noose and whatever was snared inside the noose. Such as a big hunk of air.

I began to have misgivings.

But I put them out of my mind. Out of my mind; that was it.

It was a big limb. Lots of snap in it. Bent the living hell out of it, I did. Damn near ruptured myself. Theoretically it would work. Worked on little animals, didn't it? Sure, it was great. Foolproof. Which meant maybe I couldn't ruin it.

Movement at the upper arc of my glasses caught my eye, and I raised my sights. Heads—and people—were turning. They'd seen Dria walking toward them.

Well, that part at least was going well enough. It seemed as though all two hundred or so were happy to see little Alexandria Maria Ducharme. Joy reigned, white teeth sparkled in the sunlight, hands clapped. Men and women surrounded her, and I saw the flash of red moving from one group and person to another.

I suppose it was partly that her stepfather had been the much-loved Papa Lurin, a good man, a truly helpful man, a real hungan. But much of it, if not most, was surely just because she was Dria. She was a sweetheart, all right. The reception took one of the loads on my mind; I'd been a little worried. And I was beginning to realize that a little worry about Dria was a lot.

Anyhow, she was there. So I sent the rest of my balloons on their way. All seventeen of them this time, half of them leaking delicately. Surely at least one would get to its destination, I thought hopefully—especially since, unlike the other celebrants, Dria would be looking for them.

Dria's welcome finally simmered down, and the celebration of the rites got back to normal—having been kept simmering for some time by Mordieux waving his hands and apparently telling everybody how great he was and what a powerful hungan—hadn't his power brought Dria back to the fold? No other exciting things happened, though, and I started thinking not quite so hopefully.

But suddenly there was a swirl of activity down there.

A girl in a flashy red dress—Dria—ran away from the others, pointing into the air. I bent and grabbed the binoculars and focused them on Dria, then on the air above her. There was the little beauty, a green one. When I caught it in the glasses it was only about four feet over her head and descending quite rapidly. From here it almost looked like the real Count Mordieux was hanging by his neck beneath it.

I pulled the glasses down, past Dria to the others. Four men and a woman were trotting toward her now; behind them others were looking slightly upward, several pointing. When I looked at Dria again she had the doll in her hand and was just passing it to a little, black, gray-haired, and rather startled fellow. He wagged his head over it, dropped it to the ground. Somebody else picked it up and handed it to another man.

I'd seen enough.

I smoothed my magic robe, patted Baron-Samedi on his hat, adjusted my own hat, gripped my rattle, and started down the hill.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Friends, they saw me coming.

Dria had been only thirty yards or so from the entrance to the humfo when they'd spotted her; but they saw me when I was more than a hundred yards away.

I'd gone down the hillside out of sight of the colony then started toward the buildings. I left the road and walked over open ground to a point where I could turn and head straight for the open space among the buildings, with the mass of kal-filled humanity directly in front of me.

There had been drumming, and the sound of happy voices.

There was silence now. No drumming. No happy voices.

I kept walking, slow and solemn.

I could see Count Mordieux’ black head above all the rest. I saw him move through the crowd, stop in front of them, stand facing me. He stood with his legs spread, tall and erect, hands on his hips. Behind him the mob moved forward in a slow surge, like one many-celled organism.

By that time I'd cut the distance in half, and I walked the rest of the way in a silence like that between the worlds.

When I got really close—twenty feet or so from Mordieux—it was borne in upon me that never had I observed at close range so many and such varied expressions, attitudes, and contortions of features.

Well, no wonder, really. I must have been the most intriguing sight these good people had seen since the last tropical thunderstorm. Besides, Dria had worked all kinds of “power” into my robe, and I wasn't sure what it all meant. I wasn't sure what any of it meant. But there were bugging eyes, and closed eyes, and squinty eyes. Outthrust jaws, and grimacing jaws, and dangling jaws. One old gal had her mouth open and her tongue way out, hiding half her chin. It wasn't a very appetizing sight.

But I guessed it was approximately the effect I'd been angling for. I wasn't sure. It was hard to know what it meant. It was hard to know what it was.

No words had been spoken yet. I walked the last few paces and stopped six feet from Mordieux. Me here, I thought; and him—and two hundred other people—there. We stood facing each other. White witch doctor against black witch doctor. Hero against Villain—or so I liked to think of it, at least. Who would win? Would Civilization be saved? Equally important, would I?

I wondered whether a little of that stuff I'd drunk at Joe's was still nibbling away there inside me. And right then it occurred to me that I'd planned everything—except my speech. Here I was. O.K., what are you going to say, you genius? You can't just stand here and look at them.

Of course, I hadn't been standing there long, really. It only seemed like a week. It had probably been little more than half a second. O.K., no speech. I'd make it up as I went along.

So, scowling until it kind of hurt my neck, I said, “I warned you, Mordieux!” And I rattled hell out of my rattle.

Well, friends, I don't know if the words were right, but the sound was splendid. I had meant to sort of hiss at him, like what I imagined would be the hiss of Damballah-wèdo, but I failed to send even a hint of that desire to my lungs and larynx.

Loud? Boy!

I've got healthy lungs and larynx and all the trimmings to begin with. And I've been told that when I get stirred up and really let it go it sounds as if it's not coming back. But in that moment I was more stirred up than I realized, and I guess every nerve from my little toes on up was yelling “Go!"

Whatever the reason, the result was stupendous. Three words cracked out of me like bolts of aural lightning, then a pause like thunder, and then the last word: “Mordieux!” The words boomed and crackled in the air and rolled back from the hills like distant earthquakes. Those were four of the loudest noises I ever made—it was practically a cataclysm of nature—and when you consider it started out to be a hiss, it was surely the grandest hiss in the history of the entire planet.

Every time I spoke after that I tried to do it again. But no soap. There's only one of those in a man. One in a lifetime. But I had that one. I had my moment. More, I got the shock of the year, at least.

It wasn't merely the sound of my voice shredding my ears. It was the sudden, automatic movement. That entire crowd, all two hunderd of them, surged again, moved back as one. Not far. A step, half a step. But they moved.

All, that is, except Mordieux.

Yeah, he was a toughie. Which was why he was hungan, I guessed. He stood his ground, and even bared his shiny steel teeth in a snarl at me, but even so his eyes were rolling around and around and even way up into the sky, as if he were wondering, “Who said that?"

This whole affair, the wanga doll and then my appearance, had shaken him a little. But he wasn't the kind to stay shaken. So, before he recovered completely and went on the attack, I got in all I could.

You can't top the perfect moment, so I didn't say again that I'd warned him. Instead, I boomed—at about half the decibels of which I now realized I was capable—"I said for you to leave Alexandria Maria Ducharme alone. I said it. Now it will not be well with you, Mordieux. Now you must pay for your bad work."

I paused for breath, and he pulled his features into harder lines. His jaw firmed; it was going to open in a moment. But I got another few lines in.

“Here, yesterday morning, you vowed I would die. I did not die. I live. I will continue to live.” I looked around at the faces. “Many of you men were here when this happened, here at this humfo. I spoke the truth. What did your hungan speak?"

Some of the people, in these few moments, had moved farther back, but I saw someone moving forward, squeezing into the front row. She was in a red dress. Dria. She held her right hand against her thigh, palm out, and opened it a little. I could see the remains of a pale blue balloon in her fingers.

Good girl. She couldn't be sure I'd seen the capturing of that balloon, and wanted me to know. I risked a quick wink at her. She looked scared, but the start of a smile moved her lips.

And I remembered that the balloon I'd seen floating down had been green. Which meant at least one more had landed somewhere around here.

Beyond Dria there was further movement. This time, I noted—with interest, I'll admit—that it was Chicha. She stood behind Dria and a little to one side, and stared at me, expressionless except for the smoldering eyes.

After the short pause I continued, “And last night, in the Valley of the Dead, many of you who are here, perhaps most of you, heard Mordieux again say I would die. Again it was an empty boast. I said then that I would come here today. And I have come. I—"

That was as far as I got.

Mordieux turned his back to me and spoke directly to the men and women. He spoke in that tongue I couldn't understand, with the same almost hypnotic rhythm I'd noted last night, and they listened intently to his words.

They listened, and many nodded. Several spoke softly in what was obvious agreement. Naturally enough. They were, after all, his people, in many cases his friends. He was of them, had ministered to them, perhaps healed or helped to heal many of their ills. He was their spiritual adviser, their counsellor and leader. I, on the other hand, was the outsider, the stranger. I was the big ape who'd popped Mordieux in the kisser, stomped into the sanctuary, messed things up at the Valley of the Dead. I had a long row to hoe. But I wasn't through hoeing.

After talking to his people Mordieux turned and spoke to me. “You are a fool. Yesterday I said you would die today. It is not yet tomorrow."

Yeah. He had a point there. And it had stuck his people. Kind of stuck me.

“I speak the truth,” he continued. “And I then spoke the truth. This day you die. You arre a did mon."

I turned to face Dria and slowly raised my left arm—the left, because my right arm now felt as if it weighed a ton—and pointed at her with my extended rattle. I didn't say anything, just slowly turned and pointed east. Back the way she'd come. It should have been evident to all that I was ordering her to return, to leave the sanctuary. Of course, nearly everyone present felt it was the Count's power that had impelled her here and thus would surely keep her here.

Dria stood her ground. As planned. It would take more than merely my pointing with a rattle and Dria walking away to convince these people. But I felt sure that some, at least, were wondering, and that was enough for now.

So, when Mordieux turned to look at me, as I pointed toward the Sunrise, I started the next bit.

From here on it was going to get a little rough.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Mordieux shut up briefly, and I started in, and when he got back on the track again, I raised my voice and managed to be heard. “I have come to send Alexandria Ducharme back,” I said. “To her true place. If she wishes to return here of her own free will, she may, but you have no power over her, Mordieux—as you have none over me. I turn your power off. I unplug you. I make dead your battery."

I wasn't sure I was saying it exactly right, but none of it appeared to please Mordieux. He peeled his lips back like a man trying to scare me with his teeth—he did that a lot—and his sickle-nose seemed to curve downward even more, as if his nostrils were trying to peek into his open mouth.

I raised my right hand and pointed with a rigid index finger at his peeking nostrils and went on, “Your people think you are a good hungan. I say you are a boko. I call you macandal. I say again your roots are in the petro loa."

He'd sputtered a bit, then started jabbering back at me.

He was getting all worked up, his face stormy and those huge eyes filling with something very much like hate. So I started moving closer to him, rigid index finger extended as I yelled, “Some say you helped Papa Lurin, the one who gave you your asson, your teaching. Some say you helped him—and some say you helped him die!"

I'd moved close enough that my finger was only about a foot from his nose, so I curled the finger back in but kept my hand extended. And that last crack went into Mordieux like a spiny corkscrew. His previous expression had been laughter compared to the new one.

Well, it had to happen pretty quick. My arm was getting tired. That big magnet was heavy enough with the arm hanging straight down, but with it extended it was murder. I slowly moved my hand closer to his chops—and his steel teeth.

“I shrivel you up with my power,” I yelped. “I turn you on—off. Your body will shrivel, your teeth will fall out, your arms and legs will fall off, your teeth will fall out.” The damn magnet was only a foot from his chops. Be hell if those choppers were made of lead. No, they had to be steel teeth. Big magnets simply grab onto steel, even steel teeth. They had to be steel. So grab, damn you, I thought.

“Your hair will disappear. Your skull will crack open.” Six inches now. “Your teeth will fall out. Your teeth, dammit—"

He laughed. His mouth was wide open, and sunlight glittered on his molars. He laughed and laughed. Then —

It happened.

It was truly like magic.

He was laughing, was Count Mordieux. Masterful, confident, virile—and you've no idea how virile steel teeth can be unless you've seen some. He was all that. But in the next moment it was as though a small, localized typhoon hit him right in the mouth. His laugh became a gruesome pucker, and his hearty "Ho-ho-ho" turned into “Hoooo!"

I didn't really see them go. Neither did he. There was just a flash and a zip in the sunlight, simultaneous with the tinny cling-angk as his upper and lower plates flew through space like little silver-winged bats and disappeared in my drooping sleeve, hitting the magnet and biting it firmly.

Maybe he didn't see them go. But he felt them go, and his features showed sudden and addled amazement. Then astonishment. Then a wild surmise. And finally horrified comprehension.

He grabbed his chops. “MFFFF!” he yelled.

Confused wasn't the word to describe him. He gobbled something to the crowd, then to me again, swinging his body one way and his head the other. I'm sure he didn't actually know yet what had happened. He knew it must have been my fault. And he knew something had happened—hell, he had ten or eleven fingers in his mouth there for the first half-minute after the catastrophe, fingering, probing, feeling, going back to an already probed spot with a last twinge of hope or just on a hunch. But, inevitably, hope and even hunches died.

I almost knew what was going through his mind as he probed and fingered inside his face there: Gone ... gone. Gone? Yes, gone. Nothing there, either. That's gums. And that and that and there. And there. Gee, nothing but gums. Ah, there must be at least one tooth.... No ... just gums. Let's face it, Count.

And then: Where? Where'd they go? How? A guy's teeth can't just go zing, pow. I know damn well I had ‘em just a minute ago. I couldn't have swallowed ‘em, could I? Ah, that's ridic—They got to be there. I'll feel just one more time....

By then, of course, he not only knew but knew that he knew. And he was positive I was involved somehow. He glared at me, then turned and harangued the crowd—and they were a grand sight to see, too, you can bet—trying to convince them that nothing had happened, nothing important, anyhow; but he got it all gummed up and there was no real bite in his attack upon fate and circumstance, or whatever he was blaming his metamorphosis upon.

Inside his noodle, of course, he blamed it on me. And when he turned toward me again there was no anger on his face, not this time. There was something almost like fear. Maybe he was wondering, just a little, if I really had some kind of power. Maybe I had the super-duper granddaddy of all loa up my sleeve. But I didn't want him fearful, I wanted him furious. I wanted him raging, manic, frothing at the mouth.

So with my left hand I took him by the elbow and pulled him around me, pushed him farther from the silent people. He moved right along, not resisting. And when he was facing the crowd and I had my back to them, so they couldn't see what I was doing, I showed him what I really had up my sleeve.

It was not a super-duper granddaddy loa. It was only his teeth. Only?

He bent forward with the sudden snap of a door slamming. His eyes bugged. His mouth flew wide open. It looked as if he meant to go right up my arm and gobble his choppers. But to the people behind me it must have looked like another bit of wizardry. Count Mordieux was being yanked about by invisible forces.

I pulled my arm away, letting the sleeve fall, and stepped back. And when Count Mordieux straightened up, he was close to being in control again. He knew I'd merely played a trick on him, a simple trick. And had made him, at least for the moment, look very bad. He knew he'd lost a round. And he looked like a quiet, almost controlled madman.

Those enormous black eyes caught mine. Yeah, he was a boy who could commit murder. Any old time. But especially right now.

So I said, softly, just for him, “How about that, chum? And that's only the beginning."

That was when he flipped all the way.

Not a raging kind of flip, not howling and yelling. But he reached for me. He wanted to get his hands on me, or around my neck, and see if he couldn't squeeze the loa out of me.

I shrank back, avoiding his hands, and let him see the sudden consternation on my face. He moved toward me. I turned fast—but by the time I was facing the audience I'd put on a grin and had tried to pull up my eyebrows like little horns, to let them see what I hoped was an expression of satanic glee. I started toward them, then veered to my right, glanced back at Mordieux.

He was still coming after me. That was good. I showed him how scared I was—and ran toward the oraflora tree.

And then the crowd broke its silence. They really didn't know what the hell was going on, or who was winning, but there was action, and something dandy was going to happen.

Things happened pretty fast from that point. Almost too fast. I slowed. He almost caught me. The crowd yelled. I speeded up, got away. He gobbled furiously at me. One fat thought occupied his brain: Kill! The crowd roared, screeched, whooped. Count Mordieux was winning. The home town boy had the outsider on the run. I led him on, to the oraflora tree. Under its spreading branches. Skimmed lightly, inches above the wire. Bounded two gazelle-like bounds. And stopped. And turned—throwing my magical hands at him, then up over my head. Damn near spraining my right elbow.

Just as it happened.

Spong!

His right ankle hit the wire...

Spong-dwwangg!

...then his left foot...

“Bluhhph!"

...and Count Mordieux expressed, again, his sudden astonishment.

I watched. Fascinated. Thoughts whizzing in half-formed fragments. He tilted in air. Started down. Only started. The limb, unleashed, sprang upward, noose tightening, flying skyward. Since the noose had tightened like a starved boa constrictor around his ankle, his ankle flew skyward. All of Mordieux flew skyward.

Bluhhph! And Count Mordieux was dangling by one foot from nothingness beneath the oraftora tree, his head nearly six feet above the ground.

Again, he didn't know what had happened. Not yet. These things take time. It's kind of hard to think clearly when you suddenly find yourself in a situation like that. I guess. But, again, he knew something distressing had happened. And he had a hunch who the culprit was.

He waggled up there. Finally I realized he was trying to waggle around to where he could see me. After a bit he got his head swiveled around enough, and gave me that old evil eye.

But I had no time for him right now. The crowd was pretty attentive. Some moved forward, some moved back, but they all did something. The important thing, however, was that, while all were impressed, and some might have been convinced already, most were only half convinced. And half wasn't good enough.

I had to apply the convincer—which, incidentally, is a phrase much used among confidence men. It's the hook, the twist, the added gimmick that wraps the con up in a neat package. And all of this, of course, was simply the old smog-jungle con game—complete with blank cartridge and “cackle-bladder”—transferred to a more lush and primitive setting, from L.A. to Verde, from vice to voodoo.

I walked away from the tree, then turned toward Mordieux, taking my cackle-bladders—the two balloons—from the pockets of my muu. I raised both hands as if doing something secret. I was doing something secret. I slipped the red cackle-bladder into my mouth, kept the white one in my left hand. Then I turned and walked toward the crowd.

They were silent now. Or—almost silent. As I got near I could hear mutterings and mumblings. Some looked past me to Mordieux in the tree, then at me with expressions—well, they were puzzled. Some, of course, by now looked at me as if I was something they'd sure better get on the good side of. But not enough of them; not yet enough.

I caught Dria's eye.

She was wonderful.

She stepped out in front of the crowd. "Kill him!" she yelled.

CHAPTER TWENTY

As though still under Mordieux’ spell, Dria shrieked and tore her hair and yanked at her clothing—with one hand. The yellow-reed bag was still in the other.

“Kill him,” she yelled. “He has tricked Count Mordieux. He has destroyed our hungan's power. For this he must die. Kill him!"

Half a dozen men edged forward. Hesitantly, but forward. They looked like guys I would rather have had moving backward. I figured Dria had better shut up and hurry and kill me herself before somebody else did it for her.

But finally—as more men and one damnfool woman moved at me a little faster—Dria let out a piercing shriek, dug into her bag, and yanked out my Colt Special. She dropped the bag and jumped toward me, skidding to a stop only a few feet away. Still shrieking, and with her face twisted, she aimed the gun squarely at my chest.

She looked pretty well worked up. I wondered if maybe she was a little too worked up. What if she got carried away? Man, if she pulled that trigger, and then pulled it again ... and again ... and pumped about four into me....

Blam!

She fired. Straight at my heart. I felt the powder and the cotton wad I'd put into the blank cartridge earlier hit my chest. I got ready to jump way off to the side. But then Dria let out another shriek and, dropping the gun, threw her hands over her eyes.

I threw one hand, myself. I chewed down on the red balloon in my mouth and slammed my left hand hard against my chest. Blood—that is, tomato juice and olive oil—spurted from my lips. Gobs of it. I could feel it gushing from my mouth, drooling beautifully down my chin.

But the cackle-bladder in my left hand hadn't busted. I banged it again. Nothing. Then I just held it over my heart and banged my left hand with my magnet-weighted right hand. That did it. Ruined my hand, and felt like it caved my chest in, but the devil busted. That did it, but it took time. I was dying hard. I'm hard to kill.

I glanced down before I fell. Hoo, the blood. It was—ahh, ook, what a mess! I wavered, reeled, spun, and flopped. Flopping on the ground I went, “Ohnnk! Ork.” I made all kinds of dying noises, and managed while flopping over to let go of the balloon I still held in my left hand and to get my back down on it a time or two. Then I flopped onto my chest as I retrieved the shredded rubber and tucked it away in my pocket, along with the other balloon from my mouth.

This also took a while. I'm hard to kill, all right. But slowly, shudderingly, I rolled over onto my back for the last time, and lay still. For about five seconds. Remembering Paul Yuré shortly after midnight, I quivered and vibrated a bit and raised my head from the ground. But, unlike Paul Yuré, I didn't flop back.

Instead, with much straining and grimacing, I sat all the way up. And, finally, got to my feet. I picked up the gun and dropped it into my pocket.

I stretched a little. Then I turned and faced the people.

Ah, now the expressions on at least a hundred faces were what I had fondly hoped for. The guys in the forefront of the group that had been considering killing me now edged forward. In a few moments they surrounded me. “Romaine,” one sighed, and, “Hyacinthe!” said another. Dria was sobbing and shrieking—hands still over her eyes. “I've killed him. What have I done? I've shot and killed him!” Something like that. Then she peeked, and was magnificently surprised to see me standing on my feet, bloody and dead, but unbowed. She let out another shriek.

Then it was quiet. Except for some funny noises from under the oraflora tree. I glanced around. Yeah, still dangling there. I considered it encouraging that none of his followers had yet dared to try getting him down. Besides, I wanted to shoot him down myself. I didn't want to leave him hanging there too long, either. Enough blood appeared to have rushed to the Count's head even before he got up in the tree.

But I had to wait until the examination was concluded. About ten men—and that one foolhardy woman—were gawking at me now. One of them, a thin, brown-skinned fellow of about fifty, with gray hair and small eyes, walked right up in front of me and leaned close and stared, examined the hole and icky blood, and his lips went out and parted and then, like the wings of a big, fat, dying butterfly, slowly flapped.

Tentatively he raised a hand, stuck out one finger and poked it into the hole in my muu, and probed. He found the hole in my coat, then the one in my shirt. But no hole in me. No, sir. That one was healed already. He moved around in back of me, then up front again, and again he looked at the gory hole. Clearly the bullet had gone right through me.

Those weren't small eyes, after all. Beneath those bugging eyes his mouth was a gaping red cavern with a tonsil in it and he said, “Hhhhh."

He moved in among his friends and whispered to them, mumbling and then eyeballing me and mumbling some more. While probing my holes, he'd gotten some of my vitamin-packed blood on his fingers, but I doubt it would have made much difference at that point if he'd tasted it.

Anyhow, I didn't think they would try to kill me now. Not again. So I took the Colt Special from my pocket and sneered at it, looked down the barrel—to the sound of more “Hhhh” from guys who, I suppose, thought I was going to shoot myself in the eye for an encore—then turned and walked to the tree. There I moved around until I had a clear shot at the wire descending to Mordieux’ ankle, aimed carefully, and fired. And missed. It was a thin wire. But at least the slug hit a limb above and twanged off into space, carrying bits of the limb with it. Wasn't quite the effect I'd hoped for, but it helped; they were real bullets, all right. I aimed and fired—and missed—again. It was a damn thin wire. Bang! Um, this was getting serious.

There'd been an empty chamber under the hammer to begin with. That was one. Then the blank. That was two. Bang-bang-bang. Three more. If I could add, that was five of the six now useless, and I had one bullet left. I wasn't wild about climbing up in the tree and spending half an hour getting Mordieux down, either. It would kind of destroy the magical air.

I planted my feet firmly, took a breath and held it, squeezed....

Blam—and clunk.

That one got the wire, and down came Count Mordieux. He kind of landed on his head. And you might say Mordieux was down for the count. For about ten seconds, at that, he lay splayed out there, and then slowly he managed to sit up.

But something else was going on. Over there among the crowd—about fifty feet from me—there were motion, activity, ejaculations. As I looked up I saw something dropping out of the sky. What the hell? Had I shot a duck? No—I figured it out when I saw Dria running forward a few steps, looking up. She stopped and waited. Down it came. A little Mordieux.

Well, I would almost have believed some kind of voodoo champion had taken pity on me and come to my aid, except that I'd just been spraying bullets all over the sky. One of those shots must have hit a balloon—I could see four or five others still floating up there. But, man, that's pretty good shooting. Especially when you have a hard time hitting a wire only fifteen feet away.

The doll, with a fragment of rubber flapping above it, landed, and Dria ran forward and picked it up. She was doing something to it, but I couldn't tell what. Besides, I had a couple of other things to do. First, I gave dazed Mordieux back his teeth—it seemed the least I could do now. Then I took the wire snare from his leg and gathered up all the handy evidence I could, leaving the clues—including my heavy magnet—under a heap of bird droppings, for the moment. There was nothing I could do about the wire high in the tree, but it wasn't obvious anyway.

The whole gang of people was walking forward. Dria was between them and me and she held the doll out to them, saying something. The doll dangled from the string in her hand—and then I got it. I realized what she'd been doing a few seconds ago. A sweetheart? You bet she was. She'd switched the string.

The tiny, sharp-nosed, tinfoil-toothed little Count Mordieux dangled upside down in the air. Just as the big Count Mordieux had done until a minute ago. Dria dropped the doll, and it landed on its head.

Well, that's about as close as I expect ever to get to what truly seemed magic. The people were, without any doubt now, impressed. Hell, I was impressed. Then Dria laughed. And, after a brief moment, someone else laughed. Maybe it was partly a cessation of strain, one way of releasing tension. Maybe there was some anger in it. Or maybe it was all that plus a lot of kal in a lot of bloodstreams. Whatever, the laughter of Dria, and then of that second person, acted like the fuse on a bomb. Laughter crashed suddenly from two hundred throats, from the entire crowd at once. It was a shock, an explosion, truly an awesome and almost frightening sound.

And it was cruel, too.

What went before hadn't been exactly kindness and compassion, I'll admit. And, after what I learned in the next few minutes, maybe it wasn't cruel enough. But, still, it was terrible what it did to Count Mordieux.

He wept. No kidding, he howled and gobbled and hooted and roared. And he wept. Tears of anger and frustration and helplessness, I supposed, and of loss.

So I stepped to him and knelt on the ground at his side. “You asked for it, you bastard,” I said. “Don't tell me you didn't get what was coming to you."

I think he hardly heard me. But he turned his head and looked at me. Those eyes—when I'd first seen him I'd thought they were the biggest eyes I'd seen on a man. They were still just as big, but they were not as bright; the black fire in them seemed dimmed, as if covered with a film of ashes. Or as if the fire was dying, was nearly dead.

I said, “You want to tell it to me, friend? Or shall I tell it for you? Now. To them."

I nodded toward his people, and he looked at them. They had stopped ten or fifteen yards away, and were milling around, talking among themselves, some still laughing. They would come to us soon enough, but for now they couldn't hear what we said if we spoke softly.

Count Mordieux let out a sigh that shook his body, as if the rushing breath were physically painful to him. When he looked at me again I said, “You killed Papa Lurin, didn't you, Mordieux?"

The black eyes stared dully from under the straight brows at me. For long seconds he said nothing. Then he spoke one word. “Yes."

I waited.

“It was his humfo I wanted. It was the biggest and best. It would take time to build one so fine."

“Was it poison, or some other way?"

“It was the fire bane. I myself placed it in his drink. Before the end, he knew. But I gave him much, and when he knew it was too late."

“The same stuff you put in my drinks at Joe's?"

“Not I, but it was I who arranged that it be done. By the one who mixed your drinks there.” Another sigh. “But it did not harm you. Truly, you have much power—"

“Wrong. I was just ... lucky.” Luckier even than I'd realized, I thought. I said, “And what of Vanessa Gayle?"

The brows bent over his eyes.

“The woman I was with. The tall blonde woman."

“I know nothing of any woman."

“You don't know where she is? The woman I was with last night?"

He shook his head.

“All right. I know you tried to kill me. But why, Mordieux? Why did you want me dead?"

“It was not I who wished it. I acted for another."

He stopped then and jerked his head away. And no wonder. The whole crowd of people had surged forward and was forming a ragged circle around us. One had come forward—it only takes one to start it—then another, followed by the whole bunch.

They were not in a lovely mood.

There were more snickers, laughter, comments I couldn't understand. A man pointed at Mordieux, still seated on the ground, and in a high voice said something that drew laughter from many of the others.

I got to my feet. “That's enough,” I said.

They were too unruly to suit me. Besides, I was a little griped they'd interrupted the conversation just when it was getting damned interesting. And, too, I guess I thought even Mordieux had taken about all he should have to take—maybe because I'd given it to him.

Dria was moving through the others toward me as I said, “Stop the jabbering. You were fawning all over him a few minutes ago."

Dria was close to me then and whispered, “You must tell them in their own way, Shell. Speak as they would speak. Or as a great hungan would speak."

Yeah, sure, I thought. But she was right; there's one language for the streets of L.A. and another for a sanctuary on Verde. Only Dria meant more than that. Quite a bit more, I began, with some apprehension, to realize.

“They are all very shocked now,” she said. “Hurt—inside, where we cannot see. Their guide and leader, their trusted one, has fallen. Now they wait for your wise words, so they will know what to believe. They are not—not sophisticated people, as you must know. You must help them over this bad time.” She paused. “But tell them in their own way. Speak of the loa to them, and speak as one who knows. They will listen."

Great. I didn't have anything to tell them. Except to shut up. But Dria was right: I didn't sound much like a wizard. Didn't feel much like one, either.

“What the hell can I tell them?” There was quite a lot of noise around us, but I whispered.

There was an expression almost like the beginning of panic on her face. “You must tell them something. You. It can be no one else now.” She hesitated, shaking her head as if in exasperation, then went on softly, “Think. Mordieux is done. You have made him one they laugh at. Now you must explain. You must give them something else. They must not think, because their hungan is a fraud, an evil, and one to laugh at, that all he once told them is a fraud, and also to laugh at. He told them many things that were true, things that they need now."

“Uh..."

“You would not take a man's crutches, then leave him. You would not make him lame, then—"

“Yeah. That's enough. Don't tell me any—"

“You must make them understand. Shell, they are my people. I know them. Now, the way they feel, they might do anything.... You must!"

She was right. I saw that. Sure. And I stood there with, I was positive, an expression almost like the beginning of panic on my own face.

Mordieux got slowly to his feet, drew himself erect. He tried; but he only looked smaller. It didn't come off. For a moment the noise and scattered laughter diminished. Then it sprang up again. Louder. And when several guys close to us pointed at Mordieux and made hooting sounds and some obviously derogatory comments, I decided to tell these characters something after all.

I held up my hands. “Listen to me.” It was about half the voice I'd started out with here today, but was effective enough. They shut up, prepared to listen. To a lot of nothing, I figured.

I said, “You have seen what has happened to Count Mordieux. It is because he did evil. I told you he used the bought loa, the bad ones. It is true. It is also true that he—or you, if you do the same—must pay the price they demand. It is not the loa, or voudon, that is bad. It is only that Mordieux was bad, and therefore bad came to him."

I stopped. That was it as far as I was concerned. But the brown and black faces were serious. The men, the women were intent on my words. Solemnly, soberly, they looked at me and waited. They looked at my marvelous robe—which was a lie. At my rattle and beads—which were props. At the blood—which was a con man's trick. And waited expectantly. Trustingly. Hopefully. For the words of wisdom.

And I was suddenly frightened. Two hundred of them—and I couldn't just turn and walk away. Not now. For one thing, if I tried that, they might just tear Mordieux’ arms and legs off for sport. And maybe afterwards, start on me.

But that wasn't really it. That wasn't it at all.

My throat was as dry as the sun-bleached skulls in the big tree behind me. Because I wasn't the guy to tell them what to think or how to live. Maybe Mordieux wasn't, either, but that didn't help much. It didn't help at all. Dria had said, “They will listen"; and I knew it was true. I knew that whatever I told them now they would believe. Believe at least for this moment, for a while, and maybe for a long time.

I have been in pickles. But I'd never been in a pickle like this. Because the simple truth was that I hadn't any words of wisdom.

I took a deep breath, let it sigh between my lips. Well, maybe ... Maybe I didn't have the right words, but others have had them, those words of wisdom. If I stole some and turned them around and sideways, and waved my arms a little, perhaps I could get away with it.

I looked at the waiting faces and said quietly, “I wish you to understand. To understand why the mighty Count Mordieux has fallen, and why you must not yourselves now pull him lower.” It wasn't going right. I stumbled on.

“The loa are as powerful as thought, and some perhaps even more powerful. But thought, that which each of you thinks, of yourselves, of others—and even of one such as this one—” I pointed to Mordieux—"that too is loa. It is a real thing, it is a great loa. But the loa one sends out comes back in through the same door. So you must not open the door of evil loa; you must never send evil, not even upon your enemy. For if you do, then back to you will come the same evil, through the door you yourself opened."

I was sweating almost the way I had last night under the piled blankets in Dria's bedroom. I couldn't read anything in the unsmiling, intent, and serious faces. Only that they were all listening as one. It was so still I could hear their breathing.

I licked my lips. “It has been said all men are brothers. It is not words only, it is true. All of us—even this one, Mordieux, and I, are brothers. Sometimes we must fight our brothers to prevent them from doing us harm or leading us into wrong ways. But that does not turn the truth around so it faces away from truth. It remains what it is."

I stopped, and tried to swallow. It wasn't easy. But I went on. I finished it. “I know you have many loa. From Legba the messenger and interpreter, who helps men understand the gods, to Damballah-wèdo and Baron-Samedi; the petro loa, the rada loa, the high ones and low ones, great and small, some of magic and sorcery and of many strange things. And I have said that your thought is a great loa, which is also true. But of all these loa, some are good and some are evil; and I say to you: Send only the good ones. Not merely so that you may yourself do good, not that only. But because it is the law that the ones you send out come back to you."

I sighed, about the way Mordieux had. “Because this is true, use, feed, honor the good loa only, use them for yourself and others. Deny the bad loa and they will die. But you cannot kill the good ones. And the loa you use will in turn use you. And I also say to you, these things are not my things. They are true, but they are very old. They are of the time before you or I can remember, even in the part of us we do not know. They are very ancient. And ... they are very true."

And that was all there was, too. For now, anyway. All from me, for sure. I'd shot my wad. But it was then that the silence of the crowd ended. It was broken gently, with soft sounds, whispers, a few words I could hear but not understand. Many turned their heads to look at the person next to them, and spoke. A few heads nodded; a few shook back and forth. Some of the people just stood still, looking silently at me.

Then Count Mordieux stepped forward. I didn't stop him. It didn't seem quite the time to walk over and rap him. Besides, I could catch him if he tried to skip. Those in front of him moved aside, then the others, and he just kept walking. At first I didn't know where he was headed, but then I saw he was walking toward his peristyle. He walked slowly, but steadily, without looking back. He went through the peristyle and on to the door of his bagi and inside. In a way, that march of his was quite impressive.

Now that the people were talking more, and milling around a little, I moved a few yards farther away, wiggling a finger at Dria so she'd come with me.

We stopped, and I mopped my moist brow and said, “Well, I suppose I made a splendid ass of myself."

She didn't smile. All she said was, “No. I think it is well."

I swallowed. “That's a relief."

“I think ... you have a good head."

I grinned down at her. “I have a fat head—and a good memory."

She smiled. But again all she said was, “It is well."

Just, I thought, so it isn't catastrophic. And there was still work to be done. I wanted some more words with Mordieux, taking up where we'd left off. First, though, there was information I might be able to get from the people here near us.

But even before doing that I told Dria what a great job she'd done—showing me the burst balloon in her hand, her marvelous flip before and as and after she'd shot me, and the topper, her tying the string to the foot of that Mordieux doll.

She didn't say much. But her eyes sparkled. Finally she said, “How did you shoot the balloon when it was so far away? It was wonderful."

“Oh, it wasn't so much,” I said. “Hell, I missed three of them.” But then I told her the truth, adding that her shooting had been the shot of the day.

She shook her head, face sober. “My heart, it was in my mouth when I pulled the trigger."

“At that moment I kind of wished mine was up there, and you were aiming, instead, at my cackle-bladder.” I grinned at her. “But ... it was well."

Then we walked over to the people. I had some questions to ask them.

And this time, of course, they answered.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

For a while I spoke to Michel, the Count's confiance.

He spoke freely and told me why he'd met me at the dock. Count Mordieux had sent him. He was to put badness upon me—in public, where many would see—and prepare me to die. The dead were to be sent upon me, that I would waste away to skin and bones, little thin bones. Of course, then he did not know I could not be killed. I tried to look immortal. He did only what his hungan had told him was necessary.

“Why was it necessary?” I asked him.

He shook his head.

“Michel, if I was to die, Mordieux of a certainty wanted me dead. But tell me this—how did he know it was I coming? How did he describe my appearance so you could know me?"

“He say he has the sight. He say he is a divino, and thus, while being still, he watched you come over the sea."

Well, the Count might have heard from one or more of the Sunrise's employees that somebody named Shell Scott was on his way to Verde. He might even have got my description—which could be pretty wide of the mark and still hit me. But none of that explained why, well before I'd arrived, he'd proclaimed that I was going to die. Of course, I had a hunch why.

It was Michel, as I already knew, who had searched my room—for some of my clothing, bits of hair or fingernails or anything like that he could find. Again, of course, following the Count's instructions.

From him, and others, I learned that Mordieux had spoken ill of Papa Lurin on many occasions after returning from the States, had tried to turn them against their then hungan. And, when that failed, had “become still” and stated that he'd seen the dead waiting for Papa Lurin. He had predicted the hungan's death, and the hungan had indeed died.

I asked Michel, “Were you the one who brought the wanga doll to me? In the bar called Joe's?"

He wasn't—Mordieux had thought I might too easily recognize Michel—but another man near us said he'd brought it and left it on the bar.

“The girl I was with, the blonde one. Did you see her? Do you know what happened to her?"

The man who'd brought the doll told me there'd been no one next to me when he left it. He didn't know anything about Vanessa. But another man said he had seen two men of Verde, whom he didn't know, leaving Joe's with her, one on each side of the blonde woman. However, he had no idea where they'd gone then.

I said to Michel, “I must know what happened to the woman, where she is now. And if she is ... all right. Among these people may be one who saw her and the two men later. Ask them; find out what they know."

He nodded, but looked puzzled. “Why do you not become still, and look, and see where she is?"

“Uh, well, I'm, um, going to be too busy to ... become still.” Which was true enough. As far as it went.

Michel seemed to think that not a very good excuse, but agreed to ask questions of his people anyway. Dria, still standing beside me, said she would do the same. “You are much worried about her, are you not?” she asked me.

“Yes, I am, Dria. And I'd at least like to know who those two guys are who were seen with her. If I could find those boys, I'd get the truth from them."

“They must not have been of this humfo,” she said. “I will learn what I can."

“There are some things I want to learn myself—from Mordieux. For example, just a little while ago he admitted killing Papa Lurin with the fire bane."

She gasped, and her face got very pale. She put out a hand and steadied herself, her fingers squeezing my shoulder.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “It just popped—"

“It is all right. I knew. I knew, but still ... It is still a shock.” She took her hand from my shoulder. “I am fine, Shell. It was only a moment. I will ask."

She moved into the crowd. I walked toward the Count's bagi, the sanctuary proper, passing through the peristyle on the way, as he had.

Sunlight filtered through a few small openings in the thatched roof, a ray of light falling on the brightly painted center post or poteau-mitan, around which the voodoo dances were held. It was painted in many colors, as were the other posts holding up the roof, but the lines of color ran around it in spirals, while the other posts were pale gray with bright dabs of various colors up and down their lengths. It differed from the others, too, in that its base disappeared into a round, foot-high slab of concrete resting on the earthen floor.

Faded strips of paper, gourds, and drums painted with vivid designs hung from the low ceiling; on the rear wall were several cloth and paper hangings that bore crude drawings or intricate patterns that I didn't understand. Despite the confusion of colors, designs, and objects hanging overhead, the place was very clean, and even the jumble seemed ordered, as if there was a place for everything and everything was in its place.

As I walked through the peristyle to Mordieux’ bagi facing it on the left, I couldn't help thinking of how the Count had, time after time, presided in all his glory, the center of prestige and power, over the voodoo rituals, dances, initiations here. Time after time—and surely for the last time now. It was perhaps difficult for a man like me to understand how important that power had been to a man like Mordieux. But I supposed he must feel something like a guy who'd been shot in the stomach.

I had walked through the peristyle and was now at the closed door of the bagi, his personal sanctuary. The door wasn't locked, and I went in. The light was dim, flickering from two oil lamps with their wicks low. I didn't see Mordieux and assumed he was in his living quarters adjoining this room. But I did see a weird conglomeration of what I guessed were holy objects of voudon.

A sword stood upright in the earth near me, and beyond it against the wall were chests and boxes with clothing and other items heaped upon them—a top hat, bright satiny shirts and dresses, a pair of crutches, a derby, several cloth and wicker bags. Wires were strung beneath the ceiling, and from them hung dozens of hunsi necklaces, their china beads reflecting the faint light. On the walls were many hangings similar to those in the peristyle; some of them looked very old.

Directly ahead of me were two stone altars with apertures or niches cut into the base of each, strange objects and figures resting in those recessed places. The tops of the altars rose in tiers, and on the various levels were scores of pots, jugs, platters, jars, more of the hunsi beads, bottles, decks of playing cards, holy rattles. From what Dria had told me I knew that some of the little jugs, the pots-de-tête, held bits of fingernails and hair from Mordieux’ hunsi, and that the small pitchers, or gòvi, that had been “dressed” in varicolored cloths were supposed to contain certain of the voudon gods. In some of the jars were thought to be essences of former members of the colony who were now dead.

I looked at it all for a moment, then turned toward the door on my left. But from the other side of the bagi came the Count's voice. “Have you come to destroy this, too?"

I turned. He was seated on a low stool, in shadow, against the wall to the right of the door.

“I've come to destroy nothing,” I said to him. “Except the phony front you put up for the members of your humfo, Mordieux."

“That is done,” he said. “That is done."

“I guess you know you're through here, as far as your colony is concerned.'

“I know."

I could see him, but not very well. In the shadows his dark face caught only a little of the dim light. I thought I saw the burning wicks’ reflection in his big eyes. "Hungan," I said, “tell me now if you know where Vanessa Gayle is, the blonde woman I was with last night."

“I know nothing of her. I have told you.” His voice sounded odd, thinner than normal, more hushed than merely soft, as if he spoke in a church or cathedral.

“All right. Then tell me this, hungan. You said you tried to kill me but that you acted for another. Who was that other one?"

“The white American who stays at your hotel. Marcus Rule. It was he."

Rule. I'd expected it, but the words still shook me a little—in the same way that the expected words about her father had shaken Dria. And I was puzzled that Mordieux would so calmly tell me the name of the man for whom he'd tried to commit murder. I could understand his spilling about Papa Lurin immediately after being tossed around and pulled into a tree and such, with the laughter of his followers in his ears. He should have had time to pull himself together a bit, though, if he'd wanted to. It seemed strange, but I didn't ask him to explain it.

Instead I said, “Where did you meet Rule? Here on the island?"

“Not the first time. The first time was in the United States. When I was in the night clubs, to make money for this humfo. It was in Las Vegas we met. He asked many questions, was much interested to know I was of Verde. He asked much, and I told him much."

“Was it for Rule you killed Papa Lurin?"

“It was for myself."

“What did Rule ask you to do for him when you met in Las Vegas?"

“Nothing. Not then. It was later, here, he asked. Then, he merely listened when I told him of Verde and that I would be a great hungan here. But he gave me money. It was to help me become a hungan, he said."

“When did he ask you to do a little something for him, Mordieux?"

“After we met again, here. It was two month ago, maybe three month. He wanted my people taken from the hotel, that they not work there."

“Did he say why?"

“No. He gave me money, that was all. And said there would be more; he would be of much good to me."

“Was it for him you killed Mr. Wylie, hungan? And then Paul Yuré, and the woman guest at the Sunrise?"

“Them I did not kill. Of them I know nothing."

“You did not kill them? Who did?"

“I do not know."

“How were they killed?"

“I do not know. I know nothing of that. They died, that is all."

They died, that is all.... His voice was like a loud whisper now, and it was an eerie sound here among the little jugs and the strings of bright beads and the voodoo talismans.

“If you tried to do a job on me for Rule, it was he who must have known I was coming. When did he talk to you about me, hungan?"

“It is enough. I have no more time."

“You're not going anywhere, Mordieux."

I was wrong. He was going.

“There is little time,” he said. “I have taken the fire bane."

I blinked at him in the near darkness.

He was slowly rising to his feet. “I must talk to my people. It is the last time. You will not stop me."

That last part wasn't a question. He was telling me. And I didn't try to stop him. When he opened the door the bright light outside hurt my eyes. I squeezed them shut for a moment, and when I opened them he was gone.

I followed him out. He was walking through the peristyle. He stopped before it and called something to the men and women massed nearby, standing in small bunches that together made up the crowd of two hundred or more. Then he walked back under the thatched roof and stood with his back to the brightly striped poteau-mitan, the center post. It was said that, during ceremonies and invocations, down that post came the loa who were called by the hungan or his hunsi. I thought I saw Mordieux waver slightly. He did press his eyes shut and for a moment he held one hand against his chest.

A few men left the group and came toward the peristyle. Soon more followed. By the time the first ones arrived, Mordieux was standing erect and with his great eyes wide again. I walked over and stood next to him.

In another minute or two the whole group was pressed around us, some of them standing outside the building itself. When the soft flutter of voices and sound of shuffling feet stopped, Mordieux raised both hands and said a few words, then dropped his arms to his sides and continued speaking.

I didn't know what he was saying, but be spoke for about five minutes, and in all that time there wasn't a sound from the people. At the end he paused more and more often for breath, and it was longer each time before he began to speak again. Then, after a very long pause, he said one short sentence, as if in conclusion, and stopped.

He simply stood there. Weaving slightly, but still erect. He stood there for what I guessed was a full minute, but there was no way to be sure how long a time it really was. We all knew he was dying.

At the end his eyes were nearly shut, his face was twisted. His lips parted in a small sigh. The people were so quiet I could hear the faint puff of breath when he fell.

After a moment I knelt and felt for his pulse. It was still.

Count Mordieux, hungan of Verde, was dead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I parked the station wagon two hundred yards behind the Sunrise Hotel, got out, and walked to the base of the cable lift stretching up toward the cabins and private homes. Above me Damballah-Loa rose in the air almost like the side of a cliff. Steep? Boy, it was steep. I'd never stood this close to its base before.

But I could see the house. Part of it, anyhow. Way up there, a dot of white and pink and green. I could see the tops of all three palm trees, too. Yep, I thought, this is the place.

The long lines of the double cable were still, hanging in slight arcs. The three top cars hung in the air above me, two of them, to my right, where they'd stopped on the way down. The fourth rested by the little shack where, on normal days, a native boy dozed in his easy chair, waiting for the infrequent customers.

Well, the expert wasn't available, but I figured I could get the thing going somehow. It wasn't really difficult. A heavy gasoline engine provided motive power to drive the cables taking the cars up and down the side of the dead volcano. All I had to do was start the engine, then hop in the little car.

I managed it in barely more than twenty minutes. I'm not exactly a whiz with engines and big hunks of metal and such. But I got the engine started, threw a long lever forward to engage the gears, and the big discs turned, the cables started moving.

Of course, you're supposed to be in the car when that happens. It got away from me. I watched it start up the mountain side, but the two on my right were descending. I'd catch the next one. They weren't moving very fast, and all it would take was a little agility.

When the first of the descending cars reached bottom and curved around toward the shack, passing one of the squat metal supports that held the cables in the air, I was ready. I moved with alacrity and agility and clambered inside the small oval buggy. Barked my shin severely, but I made it.

Now there was nothing to do but wait. It would take about five minutes to reach the little house. I pulled out my Colt and checked it again.

After leaving the sanctuary I'd removed my fancy robe in the station wagon and reloaded my gun with the bullets I'd been carrying in my coat pocket. I hoped I wouldn't have to use the gun, but I had a hunch I might need it. Because, unless she'd been moved from there, Vanessa Gayle was in that house up above me.

During Mordieux’ last speech to his people, there'd been no opportunity for Dria to tell me, but when she came up to me afterward she had with her a small fat woman who had seen the two dark men and “the blonde woeman” at an hour which, according to her story, must have been just about when I was peeking into the ladies’ rest room in search of Vanessa. The two men and the blonde woeman had gone into the little car on the wire and up it.

She had then seen lights go on in the house most high on the side of Damballah, the one with the three palm trees. How did she know at was Vanessa? She did not know; but how many woemen with pale hair were there, and with two dark men? She had me there. And how had she happened to be where she could see the three people in question? She had been with her man, on a green place; it was a good place, with much grass. I didn't pursue the matter any further.

But I did find her man and talk to him. Same story; somebody had of a certainty gone up in a cable car to the highest house. And, of a certainty, I figured, it had been the guys taking Vanessa with them.

I would soon know. In another two minutes I'd be there, leaping from my buggy, charging forward. It was kind of creepy hanging from what seemed a small wire now, way up over the ground. Behind me was the hotel; I could look down on its curving wings and past them to the beach, the slips filled with what looked like toy boats from up here. A little scary, yes, but I could handle it. I was feeling able to handle pretty near anything. And soon I would see again my lovely Vanessa. I'd save her. I'd crash in through the door, or maybe wall, and rescue her from the villains. At least, I would if she was still alive. She had to be alive.

I wouldn't say that the complete success of the affair immediately behind me had gone to my head. I just knew I was invincible. And, boy, I thought, wasn't Vanessa going to be overwhelmed when I came crashing in through the wall? Probably she'd given up hope; if she was alive, that is. But I'd save her, by golly. Ah, she had to be alive. When I zipped in, maybe shooting all around, she'd probably—faint. That was going to be a grand moment, all right. She was crazy about me already, anyway—at least, so she'd said. She'd even double-martinied me into bringing her along, hadn't she? But now, after this—ah, she had to be alive. Be no damned good to me dead.

Almost there now. I could feel the blood beating in my arteries, pulsing in my forehead, grabbing at my loins, squirting all over. I was keyed up. There was the house. Pretty big house, now I was this close. It faced the sea and seemed to hang over a precipitous drop, as if about to topple down the side of Damballah. Nearly the entire front of the house was glass; a small deck ran across most of the front, nothing but empty space for perhaps fifteen yards straight down beneath it, then the slant of earth swelling out gradually toward the sea. If a guy fell off that deck he'd bounce maybe twice and wind up practically in the ocean.

I was, by now, a good half mile from the Sunrise. And very close to the house. Didn't want the people there to see me, either—except Vanessa, of course. But she'd see me soon enough. I grinned, thinking about it. But even in my keyed-up, blood-squirting, invincible mood I realized that people peeking out through the windows might notice me in my little buggy. Which could spoil everything. So I crouched on the floor of the car as it approached the house and went past it.

It was going to be a little tricky; you were supposed to get out of the car at the side of the house, when the attendant below stopped the moving cable. There was a little porchlike affair there, at just the right level so you could climb down without breaking your neck. But there was no one to stop the cable. And I couldn't use that porch, either; a window was just beyond it, and I didn't know who might be beyond the window. Besides, the sound of me clattering onto the wood might alert them, as well as their nearest neighbor—who was a good two hundred feet below. No, I'd have to wait, then drop from my buggy behind the house, just before the cable swung right and around and headed down again. Before it headed down, though, it passed from one squat metal support to another, over a perfectly ghastly chasm. Had to drop off well before reaching that ghastly chasm, that was for sure.

I opened the car's door as it slipped past the back edge of the house. Man, it was quite a drop. But I went out the door, hung from the car's side by my hands, and at what I hoped was the right moment, dropped. For a second or two I thought I'd broken both my ankles. Fortunately, they weren't broken, merely enormously painful. Be hell if I had to crash in on my knees. That wasn't the effect I wanted at all. I wanted this to be right.

So I rubbed my ruined ankles for a while, and groaned quite a bit, then tried them out. They worked about as well as could be expected. Now! I thought. I sucked air in through my nose, and it made a little whistling sound. I wouldn't do that again. A real deep breath and maybe six or eight villains would come out to see what all the whistling was about.

I had to gather my thoughts here, that was sure. I gathered them, then mentally cried Now! again. I sucked air in through my open mouth, and it was a lot better that way. No windows back here—nothing to see. But there were two doors, and I moved toward the nearer one. When I got up next to it I could hear the soft mutter of voices from the room beyond. Gun ready in my hand, I raised my right leg and prepared to kick the door in. I strained and grunted and got all my muscles quivering for the effort, then relaxed, lowered my leg again.

I've kicked in doors before, and, believe me, it's no fun. Especially not when your feet and ankles are already aching and throbbing, and maybe swelling up. Might as well try the doorknob. The door was probably locked; but nothing ventured, nothing gained. I tried the knob, and it turned easily; the door cracked. How about that? This was going to be a breeze.

With the door open a slit, the voices were louder, and I recognized one of them. At least I thought I did. But I wasn't surprised. I'd had this affair pretty well figured out, I figured. Then, after sucking in another big breath of air—through my mouth, naturally—I slammed it open and with one big bound leaped inside.

“Oww, damn!” I said. Must have sprained one of those feet.

But I had them—him, rather. Had the drop on him. He was caught completely by surprise. He was on my left, his back turned to me, doing something at a counter or long table of some kind. And she was in a chair on my right. Vanessa. I'd saved her. Well, practically. The big part was done.

Her lovely face got, well, not quite so lovely. Those hot green eyes got great big and round, and her mouth got bigger and rounder. She looked O.K., but it wasn't her best moment by a long shot.

And in a high voice she cried, “Shell!” in what sounded like gladness mixed with pain.

“Yeah, baby,” I said. “Sit tight. It's me."

And just as I got the “me” out, Marcus Rule turned from the counter or long table where he'd been doing something. Mixing drinks, I guessed. Must be a bar, not a counter or table. And of course it was Rule. I'd figured that out even earlier. He'd snatched my girl so that, if the voodoo poison didn't kill me enough, he could use her to trap me somehow.

His heavy, dark, thick-mustached face dissolved in shock, consternation, and what was almost fright. Well, I had my gun on his middle, finger on the trigger. He had good reason to be frightened.

“Good God almighty,” he said in a soft voice.

I said, “Easy, Rule. No sudden movements. Set those drinks down on the bar—easy."

Something flickered through my mind. Why was he mixing drinks? For whom? Ah, there might be other guys here. Yeah. I glanced around, but we were still alone. In a big room that occupied the entire left side of the house, from front to back. I could look out the big windows I'd noticed while riding up here and see the blue ocean. I could see that Vanessa's lovely mouth was still open, too. I kind of wished she'd close it. A woman just isn't at her best with her mouth open and her chin hanging down. But she was impressed, I could tell that.

I turned away from her and said, “I've got enough to skin you. Rule. I know you're responsible for trying to murder me, even if Count Mordieux handled the mechanics. And that you used Mordieux to pull the help out of the Sunrise. And I know why.” I moved toward him as I continued. “Hell, it's simple. You've already bought out Hale and Beard—with the help of muscle, no doubt. Ruin John Farrow—knocking me off along the way—and buy him out, and you're it. A little work, and a murder or two—or four—and you'll own the Sunrise all by yourself. An investment of maybe a million, and you're the whole cheese of an operation worth at least three million, maybe twice that when you get through."

I stopped a yard from him and said, “Maybe even more. What were you planning to do, Rule, bring in tables and wheels and set it up for gambling in the Caribbean?"

He surprised me a little. “That's the idea,” he said. “Millions in it, Scott. But what's wrong with it? If Farrow'll sell out, why not?"

“It's just that you shouldn't murder so many people, Rule,” I said amiably.

“Who says I murdered anybody?"

“Me."

“Who'd I kill?"

“How about Ed Wylie, Paul Yuré, and Ellen Underwood for a start?"

“You're nuts. They just died. Natural. You make like a jerk and say I killed ‘em? So how did I kill ‘em?"

It was a good question. “I'll ... get to that,” I said. “Never mind that now, Rule. You're going to—"

I didn't get to tell him.

There was the most horrendous and painful crack against the back of my skull. It felt as if I'd been dropped into that ghastly chasm. It felt as if my skull segments parted enough so my brain could drop out: at least an eighth of an inch.

Then I was down on my knees, nearly paralyzed, but not out. I had just strength enough to raise my aching head. And with my head up I could see, first, the round shiny thing. It was the base of one of those blenders, the kind you use for mixing frozen Daiquiris and brandy alexanders and milkshakes and such. Heavy as hell. They must weigh twenty or thirty pounds. And after seeing that I could see the slim-fingered hand holding it, and the long red fingernails.

Fascinated, I saw the blender bottom rise into the air, go up past her face, and start down again, smack toward my staring eyes.

Yes, slim-fingered. Yes, red-tipped. You know, don't you? Yes, you're smarter than I am. Vanessa. My girl. Rescued—and fighting it. Fighting pretty damned effectively, too. Already I was paralyzed, and in a split second that big blender bottom was going to go clunk smack between my eyes and that would be all she wrote. But I can think a lot in a split second. Yeah, I can think plenty when there's no damn point in it.

And I thought: Ah-ha! Now I got it!

Vanessa's startled cry when I'd come in, half sprained but still invincible? A cry of gladness mixed with pain? Phooey. It had been pain mixed with nausea.

I faced it: She wasn't really crazy about me.

Sure. Now I could see it. Even back there in Hollywood, in the Harem. It had all been set up, planned—that was why she'd worn that soupy dress, wiggled her thingumajigs around, let me get a good fat look at her. Hell, even the phony phone call—there wasn't anybody named Frank. Or Tommy. Or Tony. Or whoever she'd said. “The hell with you. Tommy!” Or Tony. Or whoever. Hah. Probably she'd been talking to the mouthpiece.

So it had all been planned, the meeting, even the trip here to Verde. But that meant ... What did it mean? My head was splitting, splitting.... That big blender bottom was only inches away now. I didn't have much more time for figuring this out. In half an instant now it would be all over. Just clunk. But in that half-instant of consciousness, and maybe of life, I did pretty well.

I thought: Planned ... and she's here with Rule ... so it had to be planned with Rule, the whole thing from the beginning. Sure, Rule must have known—even before I did—about George Knowles’ bequest of his piece of the Sunrise to me. So Rule had sicced Vanessa on me, hoping I'd sic back. Especially when she was wearing that black invitation-to-sudden-madness. But how had he known of the bequest? What did that mean? And how had he known ... There wasn't time to finish it.

Not only was the improvised sap just about to kiss my forehead like the gooey smack of death, but at the last splitting second another series of instant-thoughts sparked through my mind.

I thought of Joshua Burder, catching me in front of the hotel just before I would otherwise have gone up to my rooms. The rooms even then being searched by Michel. And Joshua's startled cry on the road to Mordieux’ sanctuary, which had caused me to stop—and lose Michel. There was something else, too, but I didn't get that far.

Clunk!

I'd had that right. I'd figured out almost exactly what the sound would be. And the lights went out, and even the darkness somehow seemed to go away. Even so, in the final flashing moment before the darkness, one final bit of wisdom spun in a tiny arc within my brain.

“Hell,” I thought, thinking of Joshua Burder and his frantic hunt along the curving, tree-lined road yesterday morning, “I'll bet there's no such thing as a ring-tailed whoopy-pooper...."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I knew when I was regaining consciousness, because I didn't like it. My head was splitting: That was so obvious I couldn't even feel any pain in my feet or ankles. Besides, I could hear conversation.

The man was saying, “He's coming to. Bastard wasn't out as long as I expected."

“I hit him hard enough. You know, he really is a tough one. Got a tough head, anyway."

That was she. My love. Vanessa Gayle. The gal I'd swept off her feet. Ah, you Romeo, you, I thought. Wherefore art thou, Romeo? Casanova was a piker. Just wiggle your little finger and they land all over you. Clunk. I've got to quit believing everything these babes tell me. Maybe I'd better give up babes entirely. No, I'd rather die. Yeah, and maybe these two can fix it so I do both at once.

That seemed to be the idea. Because I could hear Rule saying, “So, O.K., I'll do the job on him while he's awake. Can't hurt to let him in on the secret now, huh, baby?"

Baby, he'd called her. There was something going on between those two, all right. And I had a feeling I was about to find out how Wylie, Yuré, and Miss Underwood had died. I was curious about how it had been done, I'll admit. But not all that curious. I was pretty sure they were getting ready to kill me, though. It helped that Vanessa-baby was laughing at Rule's last sally and saying, “Why don't you just kill him now and get it over with?"

“Keep your pants on. I got to get this thing set up."

“Marc, you listen to me. This ape is tough. What if something should go wrong—"

“What in hell can go wrong? Sure, he's marked up a little, but it don't make no difference. He's the last one. Maybe I ought to just drop him off the deck instead of going to all this trouble—"

“Don't be a damn fool. He goes bouncing down the hillside and the fuzz'll spring up here—"

“Yeah,” Rule agreed. “You're right, baby. We'll do it this way."

I couldn't resist cracking an eye. It hurt, just to crack it. But at what I saw I opened the thing all the way, and the other one, too. I was flat on my back, and Rule and Vanessa stood above me, elongated and out of proportion from this angle. But between them was something else.

At first I couldn't figure out what it was.

It looked like a tank of some kind, about four feet high, maybe less, with part of a nozzle or valve barely visible to me at its top. It was much like those bigger tanks I'd seen in the basement of the Sunrise, when John Farrow and I had been filling those balloons....

And then I got it.

My spine got as cold as my thumb had when I'd barely sprayed it, accidentally, with just a whiff of that warmed-up gas.

They looked down at me.

Rule grinned and said, “Yeah, I killed the others, Scott. At least, I did the job on Wylie myself. Somebody else took care of the last two."

Maybe I'd been wrong about the name of that bird. Maybe it hadn't been called a ring-tailed whoopy-pooper. But I hadn't been wrong about Burder.

Because I said, “You mean Joshua?"

And Rule, still grinning, replied. “Figured it out, huh? That's not his real name."

“Of course not. What is it, Danny Pratt?"

He hesitated, then said, “You called it. You figure out how we took care of the others yet?"

I didn't answer him. He'd tell me himself, I supposed. Or show me.

Rule turned his head toward Vanessa—or whatever her name really was—and said, “You better blow, baby. You don't want to watch this."

“Who says I don't want to watch?” A real sweetheart.

“Beat it, I told you. Tell Danny what the hell's been happening. He'll have to help me haul this guy off somewhere. Can't have him found here."

She went out of the room, and Rule said to me, “You got any idea what this is?” He slapped a hand against the side of the heavily insulated tank.

“An idea,” I said.

My head hurt like fury, of course, but my thoughts were a bit less jumbled. The longer I could hold him off, the more time I'd have to get my wits about me. I had wit enough to know by now that I was bound hand and foot. My ankles were tied so tight I had a hunch the circulation was cut off. But one good thing was the fact that my hands were bound in front of me. Probably Rule had done a fast job on me while I'd been lying flat on the carpet, and it was an indication of the depth of the pickle I was in that I considered my hands being bound before me a good thing. But it was better than having them twisted behind my back.

Anyhow, I wanted to keep Rule talking as long as I could. So I took some time telling him about filling those balloons. And then, when his dark, heavy face began to show impatience, I said, “So it's my guess you've got liquid nitrogen in that tank. Or something similar."

“Not similar, Scott. You called it.” He seemed disappointed that I'd guessed, but he went on, “I got the idea after that New Year's party, when we were squirting the twists with the helium. That was just compressed gas, not liquid like this, not freezing. Hell, if it had been, we'd've froze their fannies right off of them."

“I'll bet,” I said encouragingly.

“It was only half an idea then,” Rule continued. “Then I got to thinking about the nitrogen Farrow uses in those cold rooms of his, and I did some checking. Even talked with a doctor I know back in the States, a dermatologist You know they use liquid nitrogen—or the gas from it anyhow, sprayed from little tanks of the stuff—to freeze warts and skin cancers and things like that?"

“No, I didn't,” I said, still encouragingly.

“Yeah, freeze ‘em and kill ‘em. Seemed to me I could do the same thing with people."

“Smart,” I said. “Smart thinking."

“You don't know how smart, Scott,” he bragged. That was fine with me; I hoped he'd brag for half an hour. “I thought, with stuff as cold as this nitrogen—must be thousands of degrees below zero or something—you could use it to kill guys in all kinds of ways."

“Yeah, I can think of all kinds myself now."

“You know how I'd kill you if you was still unconscious? You want to know?” He grinned.

“Oh—"

He told me anyway. He stumbled over some of the words he wasn't used to using, but it was clear enough what be meant. “Got some of this from that same doctor I mentioned,” Rule said. He raised one hand and with thumb and index finger touched his neck at either side of his Adam's apple. “Right here's the carotid arteries. They're the ones closer to the surface than any other major artery you got. Blood pumps from your heart up them and into your brain, then down the jugular veins to your heart again. Now, suppose I pour some of this stuff—the liquid stuff, not spraying the gas—just pour it like cold water right on your neck? What do you think happens?"

“Nothing good?"

“Makes the blood to your brain colder than hell. If the brain don't work, nothing else works, see? Chills the brain, damn near freezes it. Same with the blood to your heart. Besides, it starts to freeze the...” He frowned, trying to remember the name. “Starts to freeze the carotid bodies next to them arteries. They're the ones help control your blood pressure, so you get ... cir—circulatory collapse, and your heart stoppages. It just stops. Hell, it kills you three or four ways at once."

“Seems like it would kill you, all right."

“And it don't leave no trace, Scott. No trace. Not even an autopsy would show it up. The skin don't get burned looking or blistered, don't get red, don't get nothing. You know why?"

“I'm afraid I don't have any idea."

“Because you're dead, that's why. Don't nothing more happen. Once you're dead there's no more changes in your skin or nothing. You just die. Natural. Natural death. Pretty good, huh?"

“Oh, it's marvelous. Yeah, you're a wonder, Rule. You sonofabitch.” I'd been trying to be nice, so he'd keep talking, but I couldn't hold it in any longer. It didn't bug him, though. I guess that's what he wanted. He wanted me mad. And scared. And then, of course, dead.

Yes, Rule was enjoying himself. After all, there weren't many people he could tell about this. He went on, “It's liquid nitrogen in this tank, all right. But just the gas'll do the job. When it comes out this here—” He pointed to a thick, jointed, and flexible nozzle that looked like steel but might have been something else—"it's gas, but so cold it'd freeze you solid. Just you breathing it'll do the job in time, but I could freeze you solid if I wanted to. And that'd kill you, pal."

“Bet it would."

“Must be plenty other ways I haven't tried that ought to work. Like, pour this over a man's heart—the heart stops. On his head, and it freezes his brains so they won't work the—organs. Or spray the gas in his mouth ... which is the way you're gonna go, Scott.” He grinned, his thick black mustache spreading wider on his face.

Maybe it was a hell of a time for my mind to be wandering, but Rule's words triggered a vivid memory of something I'd seen many years ago. I'd sat in on a class demonstration in which the professor was using liquid oxygen. It rested in an open metal container and looked almost like water, except for the mist like smoke that rose from it into the air; unimaginably cold, it still flowed like water and could be poured like water. The professor picked up an ordinary red rose and touched it, tapped it gently on the table, then dipped it very briefly into the liquid oxygen. It froze instantly, of course. But when he took it out it looked normal; it was still an ordinary rose, or so it seemed.

But then he tapped it again on the table before him, and it shattered into hundreds of separate fragments. There was the tiny crisp sound as it struck the wood and burst into countless frozen bits and pieces, almost as if it had exploded. Soon the tiny bits thawed and became limp and “normal” again. Only they weren't a rose any more.

I shivered involuntarily, thinking of that happening in a man's body, and Rule noticed. He grinned, apparently with real pleasure. Well, a man who would kill like this—who already had, and was now preparing to kill again—would have to be something of a sadist, or a nut. There had to be a rotten convolution in his brain.

And with that thought another one came. It fit like a bullet into the chamber of a gun. I said, “You stinking sonofabitch. You murdered George Knowles, didn't you?'

He blinked in surprise. Then some of his grin came back. Some of it, but not all. “Not me. I was already here. Danny did it for me."

“At least you didn't guess Knowles would leave me his piece of the Sunrise, you bastard."

His face flushed. “Don't make no difference, Scott” The grin grew again. “Or was you planning to tell somebody about it?"

I wasn't planning much of anything, and he knew it. Rule held all the cards: the whole deck, for that matter. A cold deck, I thought without amusement. But ... something was trying to form in my brain. Something ... I was unconsciously holding my breath, trying to let the idea grow, trying to grab it

Rule noticed and laughed aloud. “No need to hold your breath yet, Scott. In a minute you'll hold it."

I couldn't see what he did, but he must have twisted a valve on the tank's top quickly on and off, and a jet of gas shot into the air between us. It was suddenly cold. It really was. Just that little bit, and it was as if snow were in the room.

And right then the thought that had been trying to form, did form. I remembered that frozen rose once more. But with a little hope this time. Just a little. After all, my hands were bound in front of me. Not tied to my belt, either. I could move them, lift my arms. And a sadistic s.o.b. like Rule might even let me lift them. Might let me wriggle and squirm and sink deeper into fear. That is, so long as my wrists—and ankles—were tightly bound. So long as it was cat-and-mouse, so long as it was fun.

“Rule,” I said, “don't ... don't do it. Can't we make a deal?"

“No deal, Scott. Afraid you've got to go. You know too damned much now."

“Then shoot me, put a slug in my head.... Anything. But not this way. What kind of a stinking bastard are you?"

He moved the tank a little and extended the nozzle, at the end of that thick, jointed hose, toward my face. I squirmed my head from side to side, raising my bound hands as if to hold death away. I took a deep breath, gulping air, and held it. He cracked the nozzle, and I heard the hiss, felt the freezing blast gush toward me.

It was cold as space. It would work, all right, and in no time at all. A little of that would paralyze the lungs, the nerves and muscles, would freeze the throat itself. There would be no possibility of breathing, just slow death. Slow, while the oxygen in the blood was used up, and no more came; slow, while the cold sank deeper into flesh and muscle and nerve.

But I kept my hands before my face—as close to that freezing stream as I could get them. When my lungs started to labor. Rule said, “That's it, Scott. Hold your breath—as long as you can."

He lowered the nozzle toward me, and I got my hands almost on it. I guess he was enjoying himself so much he didn't notice that the nozzle directed its stream for seconds squarely against the ropes between my two wrists. I could feel it against my flesh and I knew my wrists were freezing. The skin was frozen, the searing cold like nothing I'd ever felt before, not like a burn, but not like cold, either. It was almost like a blow.

I couldn't risk any more. It was now or not at all. Rule was saying, “Hell, I can freeze your damned face, Scott, freeze it solid—” and starting to bring the jet down lower, when I moved.

I was holding my thought on that rose and the way it had shattered, and hoping the ropes around my wrists were frozen and would shatter in the same way. That they would shatter—but that my wrists would not.

I rolled suddenly as far to the side as I could, pulling my legs up and uncoiling them, slamming my feet against the tank. They landed too low on the heavy thing to knock it over, but I'd hit it hard, and the tank wobbled, rocked. Rule jerked his head toward it, and in that moment I threw both elbows out in opposite directions, straining my wrists against the bonds around and between them.

I didn't feel a thing. But suddenly my hands were a yard apart. The ropes had parted like brittle straw. I saw a piece of flesh fall from my left wrist, a jagged piece like a bit of ice. But there was no blood. Not yet. There would be blood, but not yet

Rule saw my hands come free. He let out a hoarse shout and reached for me with a sudden, involuntary movement. That was his mistake. He should have turned and run. He should have gotten away from me. With my legs still tied I wouldn't have had a chance. He could have stood across the room and laughed at me. But that's not what he did. He reached for me.

And that killed him.

That let me get a hand on him.

It was my left hand, and it didn't work right. But it helped. It slipped off, because I couldn't make the fingers flex as they were supposed to, but by then I had my right hand around one of his thick wrists. I yanked him off balance and got my left hand around the same wrist again.

He tried to pull free then. But it was too late. He wasn't going to get away from me now. I knew if he did get away that would wrap it up for me. I'd had my one chance; there'd be no other.

But I knew, somehow I knew, no matter what he did now, no matter how hard he pulled or squirmed or kicked, no matter what he did to me or tried to do, he wouldn't get away.

He didn't.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I went up him little by little, up his arm. Over his shoulder. Got to his throat. He did me some damage: I felt a fist slam my face, felt his heel kick against my thigh, felt it rake the length of my shin. But I got my fingers around his throat and buried them there. I felt the thumbs sink into the front of his neck, and the small bones rolled beneath them, rolled and broke with the tiniest of sounds, little muffled sounds.

When I let go of him, my shoulders ached. And my wrist was bleeding from the bright red hole in it. I don't know how long I'd held him. It was long enough. I imagine he'd been dead for a minute or two when I let him go.

It was difficult to pull my hands free. The fingers seemed frozen around his throat—not from cold, not this time, but from the long-continued and violent pressure of my fingers against his flesh.

I just sat there for a while. And shook violently. And then got sick. It was Marcus Rule or me, sure; but I had never before held a man like that, with his face close to mine, and watched him die. It had taken a long time to squeeze out his life. Too long.

I crawled behind the bar where I'd first seen Rule, and by then my left wrist was bleeding so badly I left a red trail behind me all the way. The hole was deep, oddly shaped.

Behind the bar I found a knife and cut the ropes from my ankles, then cut strips from a bar towel and tied a crude bandage over the hole in my wrist, checked the bleeding. I felt dizzy, weak, still nauseous. That wrist was starting to hurt now. The whole arm was hurting. I could also feel soreness in my thigh and shin, the side of my face, even in my groin. Both arms felt heavy, tired, strained, and leaden.

There was a faint hiss behind me.

The valve on the top of that tank was still cracked. I went to it and squeezed it shut. It was cold in the room, very cold. I wondered if I'd been breathing too much of the nitrogen, if it had displaced too much of the oxygen in here. I wasn't thinking clearly, I knew. The thoughts were too sluggish, too slow, moving as if frozen themselves.

I looked at the nitrogen tank with a feeling of revulsion, of something that was almost horror. It wasn't completely rational. The tank was just a tank, and in it was merely liquefied nitrogen under a little pressure. But it was like something monstrous and ugly to me now. I dragged it over the carpet to the big windows across the front of the house, lifted it up, grunting, and shoved it out and away from me.

It crashed through the glass, thumped on the wooden deck, then went on and out of sight. I stepped through the broken window, filling my lungs with the clean air. I could hear the tank bounce as it hit below. I stepped to the deck's rail and leaned on it

Down underneath me the tank spun in the air, hunks of insulation flying away from its metal case. It soared clear over the other house below, landed—and burst.

I didn't see it break open. The other house was in my line of sight. But I knew it had burst. First, because I heard it. But also because suddenly there was a thick white cloud where there had been nothing before. A cloud resting on the ground, on the slanting side of Damballah-Loa.

The liquid nitrogen, released from pressure and suddenly free, in the warm air and the sunlight, became a gas almost instantly. Moisture in the air, suddenly chilled, condensed and became—well, a cloud. Like the clouds you see in the sky. A white cloud that hung still for a while, then moved slowly with the breeze, like something alive crawling over the slopes of Damballah-Loa.

I still felt dizzy. I went back into the house, avoiding Marcus Rule's body with my eyes, hunted up a bathroom, and splashed cold water on my face, let it sop my hair. After that I went to the bar and found a bottle of brandy. A long pull at the bottle made me gag, but it helped. Then I went to Marcus Rule and searched him.

I found my gun on him, in a coat pocket. That was all of importance. At least I had my gun back; and about time. If there'd been anybody else here I imagine my head would have been shot wide open by now. I had another pull at the brandy, a good long pull. Then I went outside. The cable lift was still in operation, humming a little. I waited for the next car, on its way up toward me now.

It was all finished—in my mind, at least. I knew the background, the story, the motives—and the methods.

There still remained finding and grabbing Joshua Burder. Danny Pratt. And, of course, my sweetie.

The car came by, and I managed to clamber in. A few more bruises—and naturally I managed to bark my shin again. Sometimes I think I'm not graceful.

Across the chasm, dangling. It was pretty scary. Then down. That cloud still hung low over the earth but it was getting thinner now, spreading. The car passed its wispy fringe on the way down.

* * * *

Shortly before my car reached bottom, I saw the “Wanderer."

It was putting out to sea. When I spotted it, the boat was only a few yards off shore but going full speed ahead, judging by the wake that foamed behind it.

And who would be roaring over the sea in the “Wanderer"? Especially right now? Why, Joshua; hunting for sea gulls, perhaps?

Could be. Could well be. Everybody for miles around would have seen that white cloud on the side of Damballah-Loa. But only Vanessa—and maybe Joshua Burder—would have known all that cloud meant. And if Vanessa, say, had seen it she would undoubtedly have looked up above it, at Rule's deck. To see there not Rule, but me. Unfortunately, I can be recognized from a long way off.

So Rule's pals would then, I figured, either have decided to stick around and try to kill me publicly or—realizing the jig was up—decide it was time to get the hell away from Verde. It was worth chasing after the “Wanderer” to find out.

Problems, problems, I thought. Always problems. At the bottom of the lift I jumped gracefully from the car and fell forward on my face. Coördination was a little off. I guessed. There was the strain of this last hour, of course. Then, too, in those couple of pulls at the brandy bottle I must have put away about a pint. But I wasn't drunk. I was tired, sure, but I wasn't drunk. There was just enough brandy in me to dull the pain a little.

But I lay there for a while, anyhow, until some of the scraped feeling went away. Then I sprang to my feet, raced straight—well, maybe not exactly straight—to the station wagon, revved it up, and zoomed to the, hotel. And right on by it. Down to the slips beyond.

I was in luck. I'm a lucky fellow. Some guy I didn't know was strolling down the dock with a shapely young chick in short shorts on his arm. He stopped next to a boat called the “SeaHeaven” as I thumped up alongside him. The “SeaHeaven” was just about perfect. A speedy cruiser, thirty-six-footer I guessed, with flying bridge and flags gaily waving. It wouldn't cruise as long or as far as the “Wanderer,” but it would go faster. Which was enough for me.

As I skidded by the happy couple I called out, “Hey, you taking the ‘SeaHeaven’ out?"

They both turned. The guy said, “Yeah, why? You ggggg—” That was all. The girl lamped me and screamed as if I'd done something horrible to her when she was least expecting it. The guy just stared. But the keys to the boat's ignition were in his hand.

“Afraid I'll have to borrow the cruiser from you,” I said, as politely as I could, snatching the keys from his hand.

I guessed I was a sight. In fact, I didn't guess, I knew. I'd seen myself for one shuddering moment in Rule's bathroom mirror. The skin of my head was split—at least, my forehead was, and I assumed the back was, too—and blood had kind of run around my chops and dripped onto my chin and shirt and coat. Some of it had come off when I'd sloshed water on my face, but not all, and I think I'd continued bleeding after that for a while. My left wrist was bandaged, and my right was raw and red and looked blistered—since I had kept on living after being frozen. There was, of course, a magnificently bulging lump right in the center of my forehead, where dear Vanessa had got me, and I guess it looked as if my brain was expanding, trying to hatch.

The girl kept yelping, as if she truly expected it to hatch and spill a lot of little baby brains down the front of me. “Gaaah! Eeek!” she yelled, in a shrill blast that must have given them the creeps back at the Sunrise.

I said, “Tell John Farrow—listen to me, dammit.” The guy kept staring at me. “Tell John Farrow that Rule and Burder killed his partner, Paul Yuré, and Ellen Underwood. Rule's dead now, and I'm chasing after Burder—I think."

He nodded, sort of dumbly. But I had no more time for explanations, so I wheeled and sprang aboard the “SeaHeaven."

Damn! Oh, boy! There wasn't enough wrong with me already. Boy, my shin! Barked hell out of it. Same damn shin as before, too. I wondered if maybe my luck was running out.

I got the engine started, fiddled it into gear, and, fortunately, found myself headed away from the dock—I'm not much for boats. It isn't that I have anything against them; I like boats, in fact; I just don't fiddle around with them much. Usually when I'm on them someone else is driving. There was a big twanging thum, and I looked back in time to see a rope part and flop into the water. Ah, I should've—No matter, I was on my way.

I shoved it up to maximum speed and soon was fairly flying over the water. This was keen! I might take up yachting after this. If I didn't get shot, that is. Or bleed to death. Or drown. Or rupture one of my concussions. Or—the hell with yachting.

This wasn't yachting, anyway. This was a desperate pursuit of—I guessed—Joshua Burder. The “Wanderer” was only about two hundred yards off now, and very soon only a hundred yards separated the two boats. I was gaining lickety-split. He'd been running under power alone when I'd first spotted the big twin-screw diesel, but now all sails were up. I hadn't seen anybody aboard the boat, though. Maybe he didn't yet know that Nemesis was behind him, gaining lickety-split.

Yeah, he knew. Somebody knew. Crack! The sound of the shot was faint, much of it drowned by the clattering noise around me, but I heard it. Well, I'd been spotted, no question about that. And even with the “Wanderer's” engines going and all that sail up, I was still gaining on him. Perhaps because he was heading smack into the wind. The fool didn't know any more about yachting than I did.

He wasn't a bad shot, though.

And “he” was, indeed, Joshua Burder. In another couple of minutes I'd pulled up close enough to the “Wanderer” so that I could see and recognize Burder as he aimed his gun at me. Crack! Closer, this time: too close.

The “Wanderer” was about twice the size of my little cruiser, and lanky Joshua was on the port side of its enclosed bridge, leaning out and blasting down at me. I was at the controls on the main deck of the “SeaHeaven,” and that second bullet crashed through the glass, slivering it two feet from my head. I could see Burder, but not very well, and I couldn't get a good shot at him without firing through the glass myself.

So I left the engine turning full speed ahead and clambered up the ladder from the main deck to the flying bridge and the duplicate controls there. The boats were now no more than thirty yards apart, not too far for fairly accurate shooting under normal circumstances, but with the damn boat bouncing like a horse the circumstances were not normal.

I squeezed off two shots at Burder anyway, leaning out past the starboard side of the flying bridge, and at least I had the satisfaction of seeing him jump back out of sight. I knew I'd missed him, but the slugs hadn't been very wide of the mark at that. Which was due primarily to luck, since the Colt Special's two-inch barrel is not designed for long-range accuracy.

In a matter of seconds, however, we were going to be at extremely short range. The distance was ten yards, and narrowing. And I began wondering what I was going to do now. There was no chance I could stop the guy unless I got aboard the “Wanderer."...

I didn't stop to figure it out. He who hesitates is lost, and all that jazz. What they don't tell you is that he who doesn't hesitate is sometimes lost a lot sooner. But I had a hunch that, if I tried to analyze all the factors, determine the angles just right, get into geometry and trigonometry, plus the possibility of getting drilled by a slug or two, I'd simply putter along after him until I ran out of gas.

So I just did it. I swung the wheel around and angled the “SeaHeaven's” bow in toward the “Wanderer” amidships, hoping it would kiss the big cruiser's port side near the bridge. Then I climbed over the starboard side of my boat and, with my feet planted on a narrow runway and left hand clinging to the downward-curving glass window to the right of the wheel, aimed my right hand—and gun—at the spot where I'd last seen Burder.

In that somewhat embarrassing position I saw him again. He appeared in the doorway into which he'd ducked earlier, and blam. This time I heard it clearly. The gun was the usual killer's cannon, a .45-caliber automatic pistol, and he let go with two shots, one right after the other. Both missed, but I felt the second one go by, whispering like Death's lover.

I emptied my gun. It wasn't an especially good idea, but it was better than letting Burder, undisturbed by returned fire, take his time and pick me off. Even a nick from a .45 slug would drop me into the water, which would have been equally as fatal as getting drilled in the head. So, as he fired those two shots and got off a third, I blazed away at him with total ineffectiveness—at least, as far as hitting him was concerned. But it's a pretty good bet I didn't help his aim.

I barely had time to cram my empty gun back into its holster before the bow of the “SeaHeaven,” slicing through the water, slammed at an angle into the “Wanderer's” side. I had already picked my spot—a pile of tarpaulins directly aft of the other boat's bridge—and I jumped. It wasn't a jump so much as simply a flight through the air, from a combination of the “SeaHeaven's” speed and its sudden slowing when it cracked into the other boat's planking, but it did the job.

Oddly, when everything up to and including trigonometry seemed to be against me, it was perhaps my best jump of recent history. I flew through the air like an impala and landed like a gazelle, right on those tarps. Of course, then I fell all over the place, and cracked my head somewhat, and just about busted an elbow, but none of it was more painful than I could bear—and I was aboard the “Wanderer.” Aboard, and on my feet.

Joshua Burder came racing after, spotted me, stopped, leveled his big .45 at me, and: nothing. He squeezed and squeezed, but the slide stayed open, clip empty. So, we were even, just him against me—I thought. For a little while I thought that. I jumped for him, and he threw the gun at me, and it bounced off my side, and then I slid to a stop before him and ducked the right hand he threw at my head. I cocked my right fist, dropped my shoulder and pivoted, and—Pow!

Only that wasn't my pow. I missed his long chops by about eight inches, as something landed on the back of my neck. I didn't turn, though. I measured Burder in a hurry and got him under the chin with my left fist—and my wrist felt as if it had exploded—then I turned.

Because I already knew what a vista of joy and delight I would find behind me. Besides, I'd been smacked a couple more times, on the neck again, on one shoulder, and squarely on the mess she had already made at the back of my skull. Yeah, she. And she was not alone. There were two shes—at least.

You know the sounds women make when all excited? Yips and squeals and bloody-murder screams and such? Well, there was all that—in at least two tones of falsetto hysteria—plus, “Kill him, hit him, scratch him, bite him, gouge him, get his eyes ... ears...” and even unmentionables, in the sweetly feminine spirit of fair play women sometimes evidence in the heat of emotion.

I turned around, ducking, wincing, and yelling. “Dammit to hell! Quit it!” Pow, right in the kisser. “Quit it!” A beefy hand—Mrs. Ghastly Burder's—and the long red fingernails belonging to Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, otherwise known as Vanessa Gayle, flew at me from seven or eight directions.

Joshua had gone down from that left to the chin, but not for the count, and I could hear him scrambling up. I turned around just in time to yank my head out of the way of a right hand that might have damn near done me in, and then I got him once in the gut. Once.

Damn those women. It wasn't enough that Burder was doing his best to kill me, these babes had to be swinging at me with odds and ends of movable equipment they'd found aboard. Joshua was on his behind, groaning, but trying to get up again. I got ready to bust him good.

Smack! Right on the back of the damned head. Right on that sore spot. Well, I have never gone around hitting women; but a guy can change.

I cranked my head around and shouted, “Listen, you babes, if you don't get the hell off my back, I am going to pop you. And if I pop you, I guarantee you will stay popped. And I am not kid—Ow!"

Burder hadn't had time to get up. He'd just stayed there on his fanny and banged one heel into my kneecap. Damn near broke my leg.

O.K., I thought. Fair's fair, but I have had it. Joshua, happy to have broken my leg, was about halfway up off the deck. I took a short step forward and swung my right leg, the one he hadn't kicked, up and forward. The toe of my big shoe dug into his solar plexus like a ditch digger's pick, and he was back on the deck once more. He still wasn't out, but he wasn't springing lightly to his feet, either. Now, I told myself grimly. Now there was time for those babes.

I swung around, face alight with the joy of battle—but, whatever joy it was alight with, it was not experienced vicariously by Vanessa and Mrs. Burder. Vanessa looked at me, and her eyes got very wide. She screamed. Nobody to hear and help her—except Mrs. Burder. Naturally old Ghastly was screaming, too.

Women. Phooey. Beat hell out of you. That's all right. That's fine. But then, when you're merely going to murder them, they start screaming.

I reached out—fast—and got hold of Vanessa.

“Shell!” she screamed. “You don't understand!"

“HA!” I roared.

Boy, I'll tell you the truth. I wanted to hit her. I really wanted to hit her. But I didn't. I picked her up and hoisted her over my head and walked to the rail. For the first time I realized that Joshua must have killed the engines before racing back to find me, because there was no sound from them, and we were drifting. Faintly I could hear the engine of the “SeaHeaven” and I caught a glimpse of it way, way off toward the horizon.

Vanessa was screaming magnificently. Then, as I reached the railing, she stopped and yelled, “Shell, don't. Shell—darling!"

Would you believe it?

I leaned over the rail and yelled, “Sweetheart!"

“Darling—you wouldn't!"

“Sweetheart—wait and see!"

“But—I can't swim!"

“So drown!"

I tossed her in. Yes, I did. Gave me a great deal of satisfaction, too. Probably she could swim. But even if she couldn't, people can usually stay afloat for a little while, even without swimming. Either that or they drown. Vanessa hadn't come up yet. Ah, there was her dear blonde head. Pretty wet, of course.

She was blubbering and splashing ineffectually.

“I'm drowning!” she yelled.

“O.K.,” I said.

“But—blub—blut—I'm drowning!"

“O.K. I'll throw you something."

Then I chased after Mrs. Burder, and caught her, and carried her back to the rail, and threw her to Vanessa.

Vanessa was still afloat.

Burder was just getting up again.

And now, with time to really concentrate on him, I moved across the deck, set myself, and gave Joshua's chin my entire attention.

* * * *

I had both the “Wanderer's” engines started again, and we were cruising west, back toward Verde and the Sunrise Hotel. It was the same view as the one I'd had two nights ago—hotel curving toward the sea like a segment of a white skull, tall cone of Damballah-Loa rearing up behind it, lush green vegetation everywhere—but the view was about all that was the same.

In fact, there was even a little difference in the view, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. To the left of the hotel I could see what I thought was the dock where the “Wanderer” had tied up before, but it seemed much more colorful than I remembered it. Maybe this was a big market day or something. No matter; another mile and we'd be there.

We. All four of us. Yeah, I'd hauled the two miserable women out of the drink. Burder was tied up, and I'd searched the boat for more guns and not found any, so I'd left the women untied. They had promised not to swat me any more, and I didn't believe they would. They both looked pretty sick and weak, anyhow.

So, with me at the wheel, I headed for the Sunrise with my cargo of Pratts. Mr. Pratt, Mrs. Pratt, and Miss Pratt. That's right. Joshua Burder was Danny Pratt, Ghastly was his legal wife, and his daughter had adopted the snazzy name of Gayle as part of the equipment with which to bewitch me. The least important part, really.

During the heat of battle I'd heard her yell “Daddy” a couple of times. “Hit him, Daddy!” and, “Kill him, Daddy!” Like that. But it hadn't penetrated, till I'd found time to think about it. Then, of course, it made sense.

All three of them had talked freely, two of them while dripping. They knew Rule was dead, that Count Mordieux was also dead, and that the jig was entirely up. According to Joshua—Danny Pratt, that is—the whole operation had been Marcus Rule's idea; Danny himself had merely carried out orders. Sure, orders which had included such things as killing George Knowles—with the same “white man's voodoo” that Rule had intended to use on me and had in fact used on Ed Wylie.

Behind all the muscle and murder had been Marcus Rule's plan to take over the entire Sunrise operation, making a fat initial profit for himself; and, of course, I knew he'd also had plans to turn the lovely spot into a gambling center bigger and flashier than pre-Castro Cuba—which meant the Mob would have moved in.

I got most of it from the women even before Danny-Joshua came to. It had been necessary merely to lift one of them up and walk to the rail in order to elicit from her perfectly ear-ripping flows of conversation. Vanessa—I couldn't quite think of her as Miss Vanessa Pratt yet—admitted that Rule had ordered George Knowles's murder and then left for Verde Island so he would be here when Knowles got it in L.A. Also that her father had learned of Knowles's bequest to me as soon as the will was read, and thus even before I had; he'd sicced Vanessa on me, telling her to stick to me like a plaster and keep him informed of my reactions, and actions. She had done that, all right, and more.

As soon as she informed him that I'd received a letter from John Farrow and was going to the island to investigate Ed Wylie's death, Daddy Pratt and his wife grabbed a plane to the Caribbean and made connections with the “Wanderer,” which was making its last regular trip to Verde prior to the special one that brought me, and my Vanessa, to the Sunrise.

By the time the Pratts, traveling as Mr. and Mrs. Burder, sweet bird watchers, checked into the Sunrise, Rule had knocked off Farrow's partner. That was the only murder originally planned for Verde Island, and it was assumed—correctly enough—that the one murder would get by as a natural death. But Paul Yuré, as Mordieux’ confiance, was privy to much that passed between Rule and the Count, and he finally got—in Rule's opinion—too large an earful. Since Rule figured he couldn't afford to be seen with Mordieux, Yuré had been their go-between, carrying messages, arranging meetings and such. Certainly he knew plenty, and Rule decided—at least, he decided as soon as Pratt told him I was on my way to the hotel—that it was too much, and Yuré also had to go.

Danny handled that job, then the killing of Ellen Underwood, who had simply run into bad luck. While making her rounds as temporary maid on that boozy Friday afternoon, the day after all the help had walked out, she'd been in Rule's suite, cleaning the bedroom, when he and Pratt had come into the living room and started discussing a murder—the murder of Paul Yuré on the preceding night. When they inevitably spotted Miss Underwood, it was obvious she'd overheard their “business” conversation. It just wouldn't do for anybody to learn that the “voodoo” deaths had been plain old murders. Especially, murders done by Rule and Danny Pratt. So, exit Miss Underwood.

At any rate, except for a few odds and ends that could be taken care of at my leisure, the case was wrapped up. Now all I had to do was maneuver this big boat in to the dock and get myself on dry land again.

The dock was only two or three hundred yards away now, and...

There was something different. When we'd started sailing in, I'd thought something was awry there. Finally I realized what all that color around the dock was. It was people.

All kinds of people. Looked like half the island's population. What the hell? I hoped they didn't think I'd stolen the boat. Well, maybe one boat. But not both boats.

We were getting pretty close now, and I was trying to see all that activity up ahead, while at the same time sort of practicing with the wheel and the gears and levers and such.... I'm not very good with machinery.

But this was a great big boat, practically a damned ship, so I'd been practicing throwing her into reverse and whipping the wheel around, then nudging her ahead again, just as if I were landing her—or parking her, or whatever it is—at a dock. I believe in planning ahead, I do. But the wind had kicked up somewhat, and the seas were rougher than on the way out, so I'd reasoned a little extra practice was in order. I wanted to do it right.

Anyhow, the last time I threw her into reverse and whipped the wheel around and all, we were maybe a hundred feet from the dock—and now I could see very clearly. I'd been wondering if perhaps that gang was waiting for me to kill me and cut me up, things like that. But, no. There was—yeah, a band playing!

It could have been the tin-can band from Joe's. Hell, it probably was, because there, gyrating around in splendid gyrations, was—Chicha.

I spotted other faces. John Farrow, smiling. Alexandria Maria Ducharme, looking beautiful, and waving. In fact, damn near all of the people were waving. I could hear the band's music, peppy and twangy and dandy.

Why, hell, it was a welcome!

I wondered how come, how it had happened. Dria had probably had something to do with it. And, judging by the happy expression on Farrow's face, the word must have reached him about Rule. Maybe about Mordieux, too, for apparently he knew his troubles now were over. I could also see what looked like the whole gang from the late Count Mordieux’ sanctuary. It would appear that the word had spread from person to person, from group to group....

A welcome. Imagine that. For me. It made me feel kind of good. After all, nothing like this had ever happened to me before. How many times in a guy's life does he get welcomed by an island? I could even hear some voices shouting over the sound of the band. There was a gang of natives shouting something that sounded like “Sail Coat.” Or “Shales Goat.” Something like that.

Ah, then I got it. It was “Shell Scott,” only the accent made it sound a bit gargled. Who cared? I thought. And then I thought: Careful here. Mustn't let this whooping and waving go to your head. Don't want to go getting a swelled noodle. But it was grand. There must have been a couple of thousand people out there, on and near the dock, gay and happy people, welcoming me, their hero. Careful, I thought again.

But at least I wanted to make them glad they'd come. I had it all planned. I'd cut the engines at just the right time so the boat would coast to the dock, slowly, slowly, as I coaxed the old steering wheel around, and then gently kissed the bumpers against the dock.

I gave myself plenty of time, whipped the engines into reverse briefly, then supped her into neutral, and coaxed the wheel a bit. She came around just right. Maybe a little fast, I thought, but good enough.

This was a moment when—I'll be honest—if somebody else had been coaxing the “Wanderer” into her berth I'd have been way up for'ard, close to my people.

Once I saw Errol Flynn aboard the “Sirocco,” coming into the harbor at Newport Beach, California. It was late in the afternoon, about an hour before sunset—like this—and he'd been standing clear up forward on the bow or spit or boom, whatever's up there, gazing off into space, the wind ruffling his hair. It was a grand sight. That man knew how to do things, all right.

Just my luck, I thought. Got to be stuck here in this stinking wheelhouse. At a time like this, too. The yelling began to sound a lot louder. A lot louder. Some of the people even appeared to be trying to get off the dock. We seemed to be going damned fast out here, at that. I'd cut the engines, hadn't I? Yeah. No noise—except for all that wild screaming. I mean, the cheers and huzzahs and such. Well, maybe there were a couple screams in it.

If I hadn't known it was impossible I'd have thought we were picking up speed. How could it be? One crazy guy jumped off the dock and started swimming. We were awfully close. Going fast as hell. How could it be?

I kept smiling. Couldn't think of anything else to do. A hero should smile! — careful. Besides, I was remembering Flynn. Ah, how he'd looked up there on the bow or spit or boom, with the wind ruffling his hair, filling the sails....

Uh-uh.

Something had stuck me there.

How had it gone?

...Filling the sails ... That was it.

I knew I'd get it in a minute.

Meanwhile, more people were jumping off the dock.

Not enough, though. Even then I knew it wouldn't be enough.

What was that thought again?

Filling the sails!

Sails?

SAILS!

Oh, nuts, I thought. I left all those sails up. I've got to get them down. I've got to get those sails down fast!

There were at least three seconds remaining in which to do it. I don't know why, but I really did start out to yank them down, like a madwoman bringing in the wash. I got two steps outside the wheelhouse. And...

I guess you know what happened. Sure you do, you smart thing. Yeah, I merely knocked down about three fifths of the dock. And I won't tell you how many people. And I knocked a big hole in the bow—or spit, or boom, whatever the hell it is—of the “Wanderer II."

Of course, due to my wisdom in leaving the wheel-house to take in the wash, I was out in the open when we hit. Not only in the open but moving briskly. One foot touched the deck, then the other, kind of on tiptoe, and then—away I went.

Over the side, and down. Hit some crumbling wood, like pilings, on the way. Then I was in the water. Wondering if I should stay there. Seriously considering staying there. No, I decided, I'd have to face it

So I went back up.

My head popped up above the water, and I dog-paddled, feeling a little unhappy.

But there was one consolation, if that's the word: I had lots of company.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“Well, actually, Dria,” I said, sipping my after-dinner drink, “in a way it's a good thing it happened. If it hadn't, I might have gotten a swelled noodle."

“They were remarkably good-natured about it, weren't they. Shell?"

“Yeah. Only one guy hit me. And he was a little guy, anyway.” I rubbed my nose. “He would aim at the only spot everybody else had missed, though. I was kind of hoping I could save my nose."

“That's an odd—"

“Skip it. Did they find the ‘SeaHeaven’ yet?"

“Not the last I heard, Shell. But it must be out there."

“Yeah. That's what I figured."

Dria and I were sitting on the terrace before the Sunrise Hotel. It was well after dark, and the torches were lighted and waving in the damned wind. After I'd made a speech at the dock—which wasn't bad, all things considered—I'd showered, shaved, and dressed in dry clothes. Then I'd picked up Dria for dinner.

The Pratts, and Rule's chum Charley, were in the custody of Sergeant Rivera; in time they might be hauled to the States for just disposition of their various cases pending there. The new corpses were at the local funeral parlor. I'd explained everything nine times. I guessed I'd be on my way to the States myself—as soon as they got the “Wanderer” repaired.

The interim would be a good time for me to get healed, I thought. I had several patches on my head, both wrists were bandaged, and there were a few items larger than Band-Aids elsewhere. It hurt to breathe—but breathing this clear air was restorative all by itself. Here there were millions more stars than are seen from smoggy L.A. Millions of millions.

I looked up at them, thinking. In the days ahead there was much I wanted to do. Heal, for one thing. But also I looked forward to swimming, lazing on the black-sand and white-sand beaches of Verde, roaming the island, maybe learning a little more about voodoo, the real voodoo.

There were things to settle with John Farrow, too. The way it had turned out, I was one of the few remaining owners of the Sunrise. We weren't sure what would happen to Rule's interest. But at least it wouldn't be Marcus Rule's. Or Danny Pratt's. That, too, would be worked out.

I guess the local citizens of Verde had decided not to elect me King of the Island, but there was, still, a kind of giggling rapport.

Odds and ends. It would all take time. But I had the time. Time to climb Damballah-Loa and look down into the dead volcano. And visit a rain forest I'd heard was on the north end of the island. Odds and ends.

And time to get to know Chicha a little better, maybe. Earlier she'd said hello, and a little more.

And, of course, much time for that which was, perhaps, most important of all. Time for Alexandria Maria Ducharme. Dria of the mystic eyes, and sweet lips, and good heart. Let it happen, I thought. Take it as it comes. There was no rush; lazy days stretched ahead. I looked at the bright stars and thought about it....

* * * *

Well, that didn't happen yesterday; none of it happened yesterday. But it was not so very long ago. When I got back to the States, to L.A., the old life went on. But often I remembered another life, a different way of life, on Verde. And I hear of Verde, once in a while.

They tell me that sometimes at night, around the fires in the sanctuaries, or even in the Valley of the Dead at the full of the moon, the old hungan speak of that day, while the loa Mordieux still walked upon the earth of Verde, when there came the white-haired hungan of strange and violent powers. Poison did not sicken him, nor did bullets wound; and there was that day when he and Mordieux met in terrible battle.

Ah, they say, that was a day of wonders, and at the end they stood before us, the black one and the white one together, and told us things that were strange, that were strange and true. Yes, and we have used the good loa, though some there are who are boko and macandal, and who work with both hands. But things have been well since that day. In strange ways these things happen.... Ah, but that was a day.

Or so they tell me.

* * * *

Maybe I'll go back myself some day, and find out what is said around the fires of the humfos. I think fondly of green and lovely Verde, and of the Sunrise—which is thriving. Dria is still there. And Chicha. And many friends in what was Count Mordieux’ sanctuary, and elsewhere on the island, too. Maybe I'll go back. It would be a good place to die.

But I'm not thinking about dying yet. No, sir. Not for another hundred years or so. No, at the moment, in my apartment at the Spartan Apartment Hotel, I was thinking...

But that's another story.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1965 by Richard S. Prather

Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media

ISBN 978-1-4804-9898-3

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five