In addition to his mother, the other major influence on Raymond Beltran’s character—the bolt of lightning that zapped the latent murderer’s brain to life—was witchcraft.
Witchcraft, or more properly brujeria, came to Raymond in the person of Victor Vega, a fellow Cuban who looked to young Raymond to be about a hundred years old. Vega was bony, twisted and stooped. One leg dragged behind the other, the legacy of a long-ago car accident. His brown face was a cartoon exaggeration of brows and cheeks. All in all, an unprepossessing exterior for a man who commanded the respect—even fear—of those who knew what he was.
Vega was a witch, a padrone in the religion of Palo Mayombe. Palo Mayombe, like the better-known Voodoo and Santeria, is an African belief system whose gods wear the guise of Christian saints. Like its two sister religions, it concerns itself with magic, but in Victor Vega’s hands it was magic of the blackest kind.
He lived down the hall from Gloria and Raymond; they saw each other often in the elevators. They greeted each other in Spanish, exchanged comments about the weather, but not much more than that. But the old man always looked at them with curiosity, as if he recognized them from somewhere. One day, when they were waiting for the elevator to arrive, Victor said, “I see you are a follower of Santeria.” He was pointing with a sinewy finger at a huge carved bracelet on Gloria’s wrist.
“I light my candles,” Gloria said. “I ask now and again for guidance.”
“Do you know about Mayombe?”
“Yes. I have a cousin who is a padrone. My father and mother did not believe, however, so I did not learn much about it.”
“Still, I could see it is in your family.”
“Oh, yes?”
“Your son’s eyes. He has the kind of eyes that can see the future.”
“Well, it’s true he sometimes knows things he should not know.” She turned to Raymond. “Even as a little boy, Raymond. Even as a child, many of the things you said had a habit of coming true. There was the time—long ago, this was back in Havana—you pointed to the mulata Lena Lindo and said, ‘But she is dead, that woman.’ And the next day she was indeed dead.”
“I saw it in a dream,” Raymond said. “I thought it was real.”
“Yes, of course,” the old man said. “Of course you did. But I will tell you something right now, something that is true: One day you are going to be a padrone.”
“I don’t think so,” Gloria said. “Raymond is not a religious person.”
“Oh, yes he is. He may not know it yet, but it is obvious from those eyes. One day he is going to be the most powerful padrone we have ever seen.”
After that day, the three of them became more friendly. Vega took a kindly interest in the boy, taking him to Blue Jays games and teaching him how to fix cars and all kinds of motors. It was the most sustained attention Raymond had ever had from an adult, and he thrived under it. He got along better with the old man than he did with boys his own age, and Gloria was happy to see him spend time with someone from the old country. The three of them became very close.
Victor often paid Raymond to help him with his work. For, in addition to being a witch, the old man was in charge of grounds maintenance at the housing project. From the outside, his tool shed seemed nothing more than a cramped, concrete structure with a metal door and a roof of corrugated tin. It was heavily padlocked at all times unless Victor was inside; no one else had a key. If any of the local teenagers had decided to break in, they would have found the usual assortment of clippers, lawn mowers, weed whackers, shears, gloves and hoses.
But no one ever did break in, and it is unlikely that anyone would ever attempt it, because the place smelled so bad. Bags of sheep and cow manure were stacked against the entire back wall of the shed, and in summer it stank to high heaven.
That was Raymond’s first sense of the place, how the smell hit you in the face like a wall of cement. The lungs closed off in self-defence and the gorge rose in the throat. The first few times he stepped inside, he was consumed with fear, fear strong enough to set his stomach tumbling even before Victor opened up the back room, the secret room, the place he referred to as his “temple.”
Whenever Raymond and Victor were together, the old man talked to him about magic. He taught him that you could affect the events of this world with help from the creatures of the next. All that was required was a knowledge of how to control them. This knowledge, Victor hinted strongly, was something that was his to convey. Raymond began pestering Victor to teach him. Eventually, Victor agreed to show him his temple.
That first day—Raymond was not yet twelve—Victor squatted beside him and gripped his shoulder hard. His breath smelled of onions, but it was nothing compared to the stench in that shed.
“Little Raymond,” he said. “What I am about to show you is a great secret. You have told me you wish to learn about magic. To learn how to command the spirits. To employ them in bringing good things to the people you love, to your mama and to me. To learn how to protect yourself from enemies. To see the future. Are you still interested in these things?”
“Yes, Uncle.” Victor had told him to call him uncle and, by now, it came naturally. “Uncle, why does it smell so bad?”
“When you understand magic, you will know that that is a good smell, not bad at all. But now will you listen to what I am telling you?”
“Yes.”
“Because it is the most important thing you will ever hear me say. I repeat: What I am about to show you is a great secret. So secret that if you ever tell anyone what you see in here, or what I do in here, or what you do in here, I will kill you. Do you understand me? I will kill you, Raymond.”
Uncle Victor’s face, seamed and brown as a walnut, drew closer. His black eyes looked into Raymond’s, and Raymond knew he could see his fear.
“I won’t tell, Uncle.”
“I love you, my child, but if you tell, I will kill you with no more hesitation than a butcher kills a pig. You will die, you will be buried, and your mother will weep endless tears for you and she will never be happy again in her life. You don’t want that, do you?”
“No, Uncle.”
“So, if someone says to you, ‘Hey, that Victor is a strange old bird. What does he get up to in that shed of his?’ what do you say to this person?”
“I don’t say anything.”
“They may force you to say something. What will you tell them if they twist your arm and hurt you to make you talk?”
“I will tell them I don’t know what you do in here?”
“No, you will tell them this: ‘Uncle Victor keeps his gardening tools in there.’ That’s all. Not a word more. It is the truth, after all. No one can call you a liar. So what do you say?”
“‘Uncle Victor keeps his gardening tools in there.’”
The bony fingers gripped his shoulder; it was like being squeezed by a hawk. “Good, Raymond. You are a good boy. You are worthy to learn about magic. Now I will show you my temple.”
Victor slipped a foot under a rack of manure bags and pressed on a pedal. Something clicked, and the back wall shifted on a pivot. The smell became ten times worse, and Raymond gagged.
“It’s all right,” Victor said. “You will get used to the smell. In time, you will come to love the smell. It is the smell of power.”