“So... in a manner of speaking, he drowned?” I asked.
“In the suppuration, in the fluids of infection draining into the lungs, yes, it could be an unscientific way to speak of it.” He inspected a gold watch. “I must go. My fee will appear upon your hotel bill.” He stood up and sighed. “It is a sadness to see the strong young ones go so quickly.”
“Why did he scream?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Terror, perhaps. The feeling of slow strangulation. It is not one of the more pleasant ways to die.”
After we were alone, I knew I had to share a part of what was in my mind. And so, trying to play it for nervous laughter, I briefed Barry Driscoll on my voodoo chat with Jules Boudreau, and told him the theory Jules had come up with.
He slowly shredded a cigarette and said, “So the... essence of Kirk Morgan was slowly being packed in the cans.”
“An up-to-date, modern hex,” I said, and my attempt at a laugh died too quickly.
Barry dusted the shreds of tobacco off his hands. “I suppose... that after... seventeen or eighteen hours at the bottom of the river... a pretty fair amount of water would have seeped past the tape into those cans.”
I surprised myself by jumping up so quickly I overturned my drink. My voice was thin and high and fast, and I could feel my mouth twisting into a smiley like Jules Boudreau. “I don’t think we ought to talk about this,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it, and I don’t want to think about it. I want to get on a plane and get out of here.”
But I couldn’t help seeing the expression on his face just as I turned away from him and left. I knew his mind had followed the same horrid pattern of illogic as mine. We were both remembering our final look at Kirk Morgan. The horror was not as much in the congested bloat of his face, with the bulge of terror fixed there by a bad death. True horror was in the puddlings and spillings on pillow and sheet, the green-brown fluids that filled the silent room with the rich, jungly stink of the Congo River.
