Krewe of Hunters 1 Phantom Evil (12 page)

Mama Matisse shrugged. “When there is a storm, I want to see a man in the ghetto—in the midst of the crack houses and the poor, picking up. I mean, really, digging in, picking up—not posing. Yes, in ghettos, you will find the crack houses. You will also find the poor, who have no chance. I believe in a man who picks up the pieces, who works with his hands, and doesn't pay others to do so. And when there is an oil spill, I want to see that man walk among the fishermen. I want to see him with volunteers, cleaning the birds with his own two hands.”

“Perhaps he was terribly busy, trying to deal with those who must find the massive machinery needed to stop a spill,” Angela said.

Mama Matisse shrugged again; she wasn't going to argue. “You have come to me for my feelings—I am giving you my feelings, that is all. But I haven't cared for those, either, who only clean the shoreline and the birds when the television cameras are rolling. I give you my opinions on this, nothing more.” She smiled. “Come. We can talk in my office. Sandra is here, and she can manage the customers. Sandra?”

She raised her voice slightly, and a young woman disengaged herself from the couple she had been helping. She smiled at Mama Matisse and waved at Whitney.

“We will be in the back,” Mama Matisse told her young clerk.

The girl nodded, and walked around to the counter and the cash register. Not even a voodoo shop was immune to thieves, but, then again, thieves plagued many churches, and every different kind of house of worship that existed.

They passed through the main body of the shop to an area that was apparently a little place of worship for the true believers. There were floor mats in the room, and against the one wall, a voodoo altar. There were several statues there—many of them of saints—along with a skull mask, African tribal pieces and an arrangement of coins and small wrapped candies.

“Loa,” Whitney whispered to her, referring to the little statues and those in other forms she didn't recognize as well.

“You wish to understand our religion and our ritual,” Mama Matisse said when they reached her office. It had all the right equipment for an office, handsome filing cabinets, computer, printer, a state-of-the-art calculator and a beautiful, hand-crafted desk along with cushioned chairs to sit before it. It was also a personal place. Mama Matisse had a wealth of pictures of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren on the bookshelves near the desk, along with an assortment of her own reading material. She had a number of books on spiritualism, a Bible, and then a host of mysteries and thrillers. Clearly, Mama Matisse liked to be entertained.

“I would love to know more,” Angela said.

“All right, I'll give you a quick course,” Mama Matisse said, her voice all business. “Are we different from our roots in Africa? Yes, definitely. The religion came from Africa, mainly to Haiti, and there it began to combine with the white man's religion. But, in voodoo, we don't see a devil the way that the
Catholic religion sees a devil. We have a spirit, Kalfu, who controls the malevolent spirits of the night. It's not a black-and-white world where there is evil and good. Voodoo is a path that teaches us what we need to know, and when one worships correctly, it's a beautiful path that leads us to be better in life.”

“I understand,” Angela told her. “From what I've learned about the world, most religions teach us to be decent to our fellow man. But people have and do practice black magic.”

Mama Matisse waved a hand in the air. “Like all religions, voodoo can be and has been used by men and women of tremendous evil purpose. Papa Doc, the Haitian dictator who ruled with an iron hand, and his Tonton Macoutes or ‘bogeymen,' was a cruel voodooist twisting the religion to keep his absolute control of the country. Under Papa Doc, every man with him became a zombie. The toxin of the puffer fish is used when those who practice black magic wish to ‘kill' a man and bring him back to life. This is not voodoo. Voodoo is filled with the great God and spirits like saints who come to us and help us through all problems in life and society, and those who practice the voodoo we teach and are looking for what is positive in life and nature. But, remember, like a
cult
arisen from a Christian religion, people twist what they believe for their own ends, and they will try to use black magic. You have the Bokor, and they are those who take voodoo, tempt evil and twist others. Remember, too, voodoo in Hollywood has brought about ragged creatures that burst forth and rise from the dead, rotten and decaying, and voodoo in Hollywood gave rise to the little dolls that we prick with pins to cause affliction. Yes, I sell voodoo dolls, but you'll note that mine are to find answers and peace, not to rip at a man's leg and cause
him to break it or lose it in an industrial accident or the like. If someone uses black magic with a ten-or twenty-or even hundred-dollar voodoo doll and it does something to someone, it's because that person has managed to slip into the mind of the enemy.”

“We've thought about that. A prophecy can be self-fulfilling?” Angela asked her.

Mama Matisse nodded gravely.

“So Regina Holloway had a banishing spell done at the house, by you, and yet she was buying voodoo paraphernalia elsewhere as well, that's odd, don't you think?”

Mama Matisse hesitated, and then said slowly, “I don't know. Regina Holloway didn't come to me for any kind of potions, spells or purifications.” She was quiet again, but Angela didn't speak, certain that there was more she had to say. And finally, Mama Matisse added, “She did come to me at the shop once.”

“She came to you?” Angela asked softly.

Mama Matisse seemed to be looking into the distance, and envisioning the time she spoke about. “She was bereft, the poor woman. She loved her son so much. Everyone knew that a piece of her died with that boy. So…so she came here one day. She was heartsick. She had been everywhere. She had been to her priest, but she was willing to try anything. She wanted me to intercede for her, to speak to a saint or a loa, and beg to know that her boy rested with the angels.”

“And you spoke to her, and said something that disturbed her?” Angela asked.

Mama Matisse nodded without looking at her. She was seeing the past. “Regina sat before me, here in the office, and I told her that certainly, everyone knew, whatever they believed,
that the goodly on earth rested in the Heaven of their choice. She was upset, and she said that if she just knew, she could be a wife again. She believed herself to be a very bad wife. I said that she was just a hurt wife, and she said that she was pushing her husband away, and she wasn't giving him comfort—he, too, had lost a son.”

“She was suffering so badly,” Angela murmured.

Mama Matisse seemed to be hesitating again. Angela fell silent, letting Whitney speak.

“Gran-Mama, please, if there is anything you can say that will help us, you must tell us what you know,” Whitney said. “I
know
nothing,” Mama Matisse said. Once again, Angela held her breath, waiting.

This time, Whitney wasn't subtle or delicate. She sat back, laughing. “Gran-Mama, spit it out, please, will you? We won't repeat anything you say, if you don't want us to—not even to our colleagues. God knows, we're careful enough about what we do. Please, tell us what you
think,
or what you believe, or what your intuition told you.”

Mama Matisse said, “Well, perhaps I am biased. I just didn't feel that the marriage was as wonderful as everyone said. You see, Senator Holloway came here to get her—with his trio of bulldogs. The chauffeur, that fellow named Grable, he was pleasant, looking at all our books and talking with Sandra. The bodyguard, he just stood with his arms over his chest. The third fellow, Martin DuPre, he was anxious. The senator was on a phone call, and Martin kept watching him, and me—this is when Regina Holloway and I came out of the office and back to the front. I think that DuPre thought that the senator was talking to someone he shouldn't have been talking to while
waiting for his wife. And I think that DuPre is more suspicious or superstitious than he'd like to be. He seemed to be afraid that I had told Regina Holloway something that she shouldn't have known.”

Angela frowned. “You think that Senator Holloway was having an affair?” she asked incredulously.

Mama Matisse shrugged then. “His wife is a lost soul, and he's a man in power. Perhaps not an affair. Perhaps he just saw another woman. Perhaps I am wrong. But I liked the senator less that day. He hung up, and came to his wife, and he was caring, but I think that he just wanted her out of the place. He wouldn't want people saying that his wife was trying to commune with the dead through a voodoo priestess. He came to her and held her, and he was dismissive. He barely glanced at me. He said, ‘Pay the woman, Regina, and let's go, please.' You could see that he was contemptuous of the shop, and of voodoo.”

Angela tried to reconcile everything she had heard about the senator with this new information. It was possible that a good man could do bad things. His wife had been beyond consolation, and he had been trying to hold to himself, to his career and a semblance of life.

He was human. No man was perfect; no politician could keep every promise, be it to his family or to his constituency.

She started to rise.

Mama Matisse stopped her. “May I have your hand, child?” she asked.

Angela settled in the chair again and reached across the table. She held Angela's hand for a long moment, hers so lean and brown, showing the signs of her age, Angela's like snow against it. Mama Matisse closed her eyes for a moment, and then
opened them. “You are strong,” she said, “and you are smart, but you've suffered tragic losses in your life, and they have left you open to many things. Good things, and bad things, if you don't learn to buffer your heart. You have great power within you because you have a great heart, and you see the suffering of others. Spirits guide us…they may be mischievous, and they have messages. You may listen to the messages, but you must never cross the line.

“The world is filled with ghosts, ghosts of times that have gone by, and the images in time and space of those events that were cataclysmic, tragic and even joyous. And spirits remain in the in-between world because they cannot or will not leave, because of what they know, or what they, in their wisdom, hope to prevent.” She paused for a moment, looking at Angela. And Angela felt that the woman was reading everything in her soul. Mama Matisse
knew
. She knew that Angela
saw
things, or dreamed them, but even in dreams, saw them clearly as when they had happened. For a moment, Angela felt a chill. And then, it seemed that warmth and power came into her hand, the hand that Mama Matisse held, and began to travel all the way through her. “You must be strong, and you must also trust in others,” Mama Matisse told her, “because no man—or woman—can take on the burdens and the tragedies of the past without the strength and vitality of life around them.”

Mama Matisse released Angela's hand. She had finished; she had said all that she had to say. She arose, arrow straight and thin and with incredible dignity. “Now, if you ever need me, you come back. With or without Whitney, and bring any of your friends. Don't worry if you believe in voodoo or do not believe in voodoo. It is a religion, as many others. We
all see our paths in different ways. A spirit may go by many names.”

Angela and Whitney stood with her.

“Thank you, Mama Matisse,” Angela said gravely. “I will come back.”

Mama Matisse flashed her a quick smile. “I'm glad, and I believe you will. Now, Whitney, child, give your Gran-Mama a hug, and be on your way.”

A few minutes later, they were out of the shop and on the street. “Well?” Whitney asked Angela. “Do you think that maybe he was having an affair—and that maybe Regina found out about it, and that was the last straw, and so she killed herself?”

“Whitney, we looked at the balcony, and we studied pictures of Regina's body
in situ,
and it would have been impossible for her to propel herself so far—backwards! No. She didn't commit suicide. It was murder,” Angela said.

“But Jackson isn't pulling the police in to point that out yet,” Whitney said.

Angela shrugged.

Whitney studied her for a moment. “You've seen something in that room,” she said.

“Sadly, I'm not seeing anything that will help us—not yet,” Angela told her.

“But you've seen something,” Whitney said, her tone matter-of-fact. “Let's go and get in somewhere off the street. My friend owns a place just down a few blocks. Nice quiet courtyard at this time of day, and best pecan coffee you've ever tasted.”

Whitney did know the little nooks of the city, certainly better than Angela did. In a matter of minutes, they were sip
ping really delicious coffee and dining on her friend's shrimp po'boys, definitely some of the best Angela had ever tasted.

“Gran-Mama was really impressed with you,” Whitney told her. “And the way she held your hand…Gran-Mama can read people. She knows that you have what is called ‘the sight.'”

“Well, not really,” Angela began to protest.

But Whitney laughed. “Why would you deny something like that? Mine is so limited. That's why I became so fascinated with all the things you can find with film and sound equipment. Oh, I have a sense of things. To most people, I'd be impressive. But I have a feeling that your sixth sense is way superior to mine.”

“Well, I'd never say that,” Angela told her, shrugging and smiling. “We're brought up to deny the unusual, and we get to be very good at it.”

“But don't you think it's obvious? Adam brought us together so that we would support one another. Adam sees ghosts, you know. Well, he sees one ghost. His son, Josh. He couldn't see his son for years, and then, finally, he did. And it's the greatest comfort in his life.”