Red Angel (17 page)

“What about State Security?” Pitts asked.

“No one from State Security will harm the niece of the Red Angel,” Martínez said. “They will have others do that for them.”

Baba Briyumbe’s house was located on Maximo Gomez Street, only a few blocks from the waterfront. It was a moderate walk from the hotel, along a twisting route of narrow streets, filled with the occasional sounds of barking dogs and crowing roosters. Before one house, two men busied themselves gutting a pig. A score of children had gathered to watch, and they let out squeals of delight and disgust as the entrails spilled to the ground.

“Jesus Christ, ain’t you guys ever heard of butcher shops?” Ollie Pitts groaned.

“Ah, but it is cheaper this way,” Martínez said. “And what they do not eat, they can sell. Hopefully for dollars.”

They waited at a corner for a battered truck to make its way past, its bed filled with people standing and sitting. It was followed by a horse-drawn wagon also filled with people.

“Our bus service from outlying neighborhoods and from the countryside,” Martínez said. “One of the many private enterprises the revolution now allows. This second one with the horse also confronts our great gasoline shortages. It is ingenious, eh?”

Pitts shook his head. “If you’re fucking Wyatt Earp,” he muttered.

They moved halfway down the next block. The street ran at a moderate downward pitch, and from this upper point they could see the harbor some three hundred yards distant. Martínez stopped them and raised his chin toward a dilapidated row of attached houses across the street. The houses were all two stories, but the one they faced had only a blank wall at its lower level, with narrow, steep stone stairs leading
to a gallery above. On the side of the street where they stood, the stucco wall of another building bore a painted portrait of Fidel in profile. The words SOCIALISMO O MUERTE were written beneath it.

“The
palero
must get a lot of business,” Martínez said.

“Why is that?” Devlin asked.

Martínez turned to face the portrait. “The government only puts its propaganda in places where there is the movement of many people.” He smiled at the two Americans. “To maximize its efficiency. Is it not so for politicians in your country?”

“Only when there are elections,” Pitts said. “Then the politicians are running scared, because some other hacks are trying to take their jobs away, so we see their faces and their slogans everywhere.”

Martínez nodded. “So it is the same. Except here we have only one political party, so the politicians must seek support all the time, because they never know when or from where opposition will come.” He made a gun out of his index finger and thumb. “In such a system, change can be quick without great support of the people.”

Devlin raised his chin toward the
palero’s
house. “The civics lesson is very interesting, Major. Now what about Baba Briyumbe?”

Martínez looked down the street, then back the way they had come. Devlin followed his gaze and saw two men in each direction—two in civilian clothes, two in uniform.

“Your people?” he asked.

Martínez nodded. “When we enter the
palero
‘s house, they will move toward us. If there is trouble they have been told to force their way inside.”

“That’s very good cooperation from another city’s cops.”

“We are all the same, a national police, and the senior officer here is a captain, so he is at my orders.” He smiled. “Also, he dislikes Baba Briyumbe, who was once suspected
of telling a follower to kill his uncle so a
nganga
could be made from his bones.”

“Did the follower do it?” Devlin asked.

“Oh yes.” Martínez paused, as if deciding whether to say more. “The follower was a member of the police,” he finally added. “A young man who was a secret member of the Abakua.” He shook his head. “His crime was never officially made known to the people. But of course they knew. The captain arrested the man, and he was sentenced to be shot. In reprisal, Baba Briyumbe put a curse on the captain’s family.”

“What happened to the captain?” Pitts asked. His voice sounded just a bit nervous.

“To him, nothing,” Martínez said. “But his child became very sick, and he was forced to go to another
palero
to have the curse removed.”

“Jesus Christ,” Pitts said. “I want a fucking piece. This Baba guy gives me any mumbo-jumbo shit, I wanna stick it up his nose.”

Martínez reached into his pocket and removed the bag containing the cemetery earth and the feather. He held it out to Pitts. “Take this,” he said. “It will give you more power over Baba Briyumbe than any other weapon.”

The door to Baba Briyumbe’s house was opened by a tall, slender man dressed all in white, another Abakua. There was an old knife wound running along his jawline, and his unbuttoned shirt revealed a crudely executed tattoo. To Devlin it appeared to be a solid red sphere the size of a grapefruit, bisected by five black arrows and a series of small crosses and circles. Behind the man, Devlin could see a tile-floored room, empty except for one thronelike chair facing five others. It reminded him of Plante Firme’s courtyard.

Martínez displayed his credentials. He spoke to the man in a soft voice, but his eyes were cold steel. What Devlin
caught from his rapid-fire Spanish was a request to see Baba Briyumbe.

The Abakua eyed Martínez, then Pitts and Devlin. He appeared to be in his early thirties, but the sneer that broke out on his face added an easy ten years in street time. He raised his chin toward the major and uttered one word:
“Irse.”

“The fuck is tellin’ us to scram,” Pitts said.

Martínez stepped through the door, bumping the man back with his shoulder, followed quickly by Devlin and Pitts. The man’s hand went to his pocket, but it wasn’t fast enough. The speed with which Martínez moved caught Devlin by surprise. The rigid fingers of one hand struck out, catching the man at the base of the throat. He staggered to one side, gagging, and Devlin quickly pinned his hand in his pocket. Not to be left out, Pitts took a step forward and drove his hamlike fist squarely into the man’s face. The Abakua bounced off the tile floor like someone hit by a fast-moving train.

Devlin pulled the hand from the man’s pocket and removed a six-inch gravity knife. He flicked it open and showed Martínez the razor-sharp edge.

“He thought you needed a shave,” Pitts said.

Martínez stared down at the man, his eyes still steel. The Abakua stirred and Martínez drove the point of his shoe into his temple. Then he bent down, turned the now unconscious man over, and cuffed him.

“Now, that’s definitely police brutality,” Pitts said. “You could definitely lose your pension.”

Martínez glanced up at him and Pitts shrugged. “Hell, it’s only fourteen bucks a month. I think you should kick the skinny asshole again.”

Martínez removed a nine-millimeter Beretta from his waistband and smiled when he saw both Devlin and Pitts stiffen. He inclined his head toward a door on the opposite side of the nearly empty room.

“I will shoot him later,” he said. “Now we must find Baba Briyumbe and search his house. The captain tells me that his ceremonial room is down on the first level.”

He led Devlin and Pitts to the door, his automatic held along his right leg. They entered a dark narrow stairwell and descended quietly. Ahead, they could hear the rapid jabber of two female voices. They slipped through another doorway, and into another tile-floored room. A
nganga
, almost as large as Plante Fume’s, stood in one corner, surrounded by numerous vases and statues, one a hideous depiction of a man whose face and body were covered with sores. An older black man sat in a folding beach chair, his eyes glued to a portable black-and-white television set tuned to a Spanish soap opera.

Martínez snapped out a command, and Baba Briyumbe jumped from the chair.

“
Days of Our
fucking
Lives,
” Pitts said. “The fucking witch doctor watches
Days of Our
fucking
Lives.
” He let out a snorting cackle.

Baba Briyumbe glared at them with pitch-black eyes. He was well into his sixties, his head shaved to a shiny, gleaming brown. His face was grizzled and lined by years in the sun. He was of medium height with a large belly that pushed out against a white Miami Dolphins T-shirt, which he wore over baggy white cotton slacks and bare feet.

Martínez snapped out another command, which seemed to have no effect on the Abakua
palero.
He grabbed the man’s arm and spun him around, then quickly patted him down.

Pitts had walked over to the statue that stood beside Baba Briyumbe’s
nganga.
He pointed to the hideous figure covered in festering sores. “This is the ugliest fucker I’ve seen in a long time. It looks like it’s got a terminal case of crud.”

Martínez had pushed Baba Briyumbe back into his beach chair and shut off the television. “It is BabaluAye, the god of sickness and death. One of the most powerful and feared of the
orishas.
”

“Yeah, well, he don’t look too fucking scary to me.”

“That is because you are a son of Chango, who plays tricks on all the other gods.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Pitts said. “I’m a regular fucking jokester.”

“Over here,” Devlin said. He was standing over a small
nganga
that had been covered by a white drop cloth. “Looks like one of those baby
ngangas
the other
palero
was growing in his courtyard.”

The others crowded around. Baba Briyumbe began to shout at them in rapid Spanish.

Martínez leveled his pistol at the
palero
‘s head.
“Silencio,”
he snapped.

The
palero
stared at the bore opening of the pistol and snapped his jaw shut.

Devlin pointed down into the cast-iron pot, which was two feet in diameter and, like Plante Firme’s, had a ring of small bones tied around its lip. The interior was filled with sticks, herbs, and old bandages, mixed in with clusters of bird feathers. Beneath the mass, they could see a glimmer of white bone.

“If we find bone and body parts, you’re capable of running DNA tests, right?” Devlin asked.

Martínez nodded uncomfortably, and Devlin glanced at Pitts.

“My pleasure,” Pitts said. He lifted one foot and kicked the pot over, sending the contents scattering across the tile floor.

Baba Briyumbe jumped from his chair and began shouting in a mix of Spanish and Bantu. Again, Martínez leveled the pistol at his head, but this time it had no effect.

“What’s he saying?” Devlin asked.

“He is placing a curse on Detective Pitts,” he answered.

Devlin looked over at Ollie, who was smirking. “In three days your dick will fall off,” he said.

Pitts narrowed his eyes, and Devlin could see that catching the witch doctor tuned in to a soap opera had dispelled any voodoo threat.

“Yeah, well, you tell old mumbo jumbo that if it does, I come back here and shove it down his fucking throat.”

Baba Briyumbe took three steps toward them, waving his arms and chanting. Pitts reached into his pocket and withdrew the pouch Martínez had given him outside. He held it up so the
palero
could see the red feather protruding from its top.

“Plante Firme,” he growled. “Ooga booga.” He pulled the pouch open, dipped two fingers inside, and withdrew a small portion of earth, which he then smeared across his forehead. He took two steps toward the
palero
and let out a lionlike roar.

Baba Briyumbe shrank back, eyes wide.

“Hey, I like this fucking mojo.” Pitts’s lips were spread in a wide grin. “Next time I go to the South Bronx, I’m gonna take this mother with me.”

Devlin jabbed a finger at the
palero.
“Sit,” he snapped.

Martínez repeated the order in Spanish. The
palero
, now ashen-faced, obeyed.

They knelt before the contents of the small
nganga.
A human skull lay in a mix of smaller bones. Devlin removed a pen from his pocket, fitted it into an eye socket, and lifted it so they could see it more clearly.

“It is an old skull,” Martínez said. “It is not the Red Angel.”

Devlin nodded. He turned the skull so he could see inside the cranial cavity. “You’re right. This one’s been in the ground for a while. If it was fresh, there’d still be bits of dried flesh attached somewhere. Even acid wouldn’t get it all.”

Martínez pointed to the other bones. “Feet and hands,” he said. “Large ones. More likely from a man.” Another small skull lay off to one side. It appeared canine. Then the bones of a bird, mixed among the black feathers. “We will search the house,” Martínez said. “Then we will take Baba Briyumbe somewhere where we can question him in privacy.”

Pitts raised his eyebrows and gave them a fast flutter. “I like your style. You get any openings on the Havana PD, you give old Ollie a call.”

“You’ll have to become a communist,” Devlin said.

“Hey, communist, right-wing Republican, what’s the difference? So long as I get to use my rubber hose.”

Baba Briyumbe sat in a straight-backed, wooden chair, his hands cuffed behind his back. They were in a front second-floor room on Calle Aguilera, diagonally across the street from Santiago de Cuba’s provincial palace. It was the “private place” Martínez had chosen to question the Abakua witch doctor.

Devlin stood at the window, watching people mount the high marble stairs to enter one of three arched portals guarded by provincial police. A large Cuban flag hung from an upper balcony. Beside it, a banner proclaimed EL PODER DEL PUEBLO. ESE SI ES PODER. Devlin gave it a rough translation: “The Power of the People. That Is Real Power.”

He glanced back at Martínez. He was standing in front of the
palero
, peppering him with questions. Devlin drew a long breath. Something in this whole scenario just didn’t jibe with what he’d been told. In the States, if a cop found a “private place” to interrogate a subject, he’d be on a oneway ride to the unemployment line, perhaps worse. Still, this wasn’t the States, and Martínez didn’t seem at all concerned. Yet Martínez had told him that Cubans weren’t lacking in civil rights. Police powers were certainly greater, but strict rules existed. Suspects in a crime, for example, could be held only for seventy-two hours before evidence had to be presented to a grand jury, which would then either indict or release them. Civil libertarians would howl, but it was a far cry from a police state.