‘Papa,’ said Otille. ‘Will you and Downey take the undamaged ones to my office?’
Downey was frozen, grim-faced; Clea buried her head in his shoulder. Papa hesitated, eyeing Donnell nervously.
Three, no, four of the birds had quit fluttering, and Donnell sat watching them die, stunned.
‘Simpkins,’ said Otille. ‘Take the others out to my car.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Simpkins. He came over to the cages, and as he bent down, he whispered, ‘Poor Dularde never knew what hit him, did he, brother?’
Sick of his snide comments, his contemptuous air, Donnell jumped up and swung, but Simpkins easily caught his wrist and with his other hand seized Donnell’s throat, his fingers digging in the back of the Adam’s apple. ‘I ain’t no goddamn parakeet, brother,’ he said. He tightened his grip, and Donnell’s mouth sprang open.
‘Simpkins!’ Otille clapped her hands.
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Simpkins released Donnell and hoisted the cages, once again bland and smiling.
Donnell headed for the door, holding his throat.
‘Where are you going?’ called Otille.
He didn’t answer, intent on finding Jocundra, on washing away the scum of Otille and her pets. But he turned back at the door, waylaid by a thought. Why, while he was killing the birds, had their… their what? Make it their souls. Why not? Why had they showed no sign of injury? He stared at the bloody heaps of feathers, blinking and straining until the cages gleamed silver. They were empty. Then movement caught his eye. Up above Simpkins’ head rising and falling and jittering like jeweled sparks in a wind, the souls of the slain birds were flying.
Near the end of the second week, Jocundra ran into the Baron in the hall outside his room. He was adjusting his doorknob with a screwdriver, muttering, twisting the knob. He had never said a word to her, and she had intended to pass without greeting, but he called out to her and asked to borrow her for a few seconds.
‘You just stand there,’ he commanded. ‘Give that doorknob a twist to the right when I tell you, then step inside quick.’
He went into the room and began prying with the screwdriver at a narrow ceiling board. ‘Someone,’ he said, grunting, digging at the board, ‘someone been sneakin’ round, so I’m rigging myself a little security.’ He was wearing jeans and a ripped New Orleans Saints jersey, and his arm muscles bunched and rippled like snakes. His eyes, though, had a liverish tinge. She had presumed him to be in his forties, but now she reckoned him a well-preserved sixty.
He put down the screwdriver and held up his hands beneath the board. ‘Do it,’ he said.
She twisted the knob. The hallway door slammed shut, almost striking her as she stepped inside, and a second door dropped from the ceiling and would have sealed off the alcove if the Baron had not caught it. He staggered under the weight. ‘Sucker must weigh a hunnerd, hunnerd and fifty pounds,’ he said. He noticed Jocundra’s bewilderment.’All the rooms like that. Of Valcours he liked to trap folks.’ He chuckled. ‘And then he give ‘em a hard time.’ He pushed the door back into place until it clicked, then he stared at her in unfriendly fashion. ‘Don’t you recognize me, woman?’ She looked at him, puzzled, and he said, ‘Sheeit! Mama Zito’s Temple down on Prideaux Street. I was the damn fool used to stand out front and drag folks in for the service.’
‘Foster,’ she said. ‘Is that right?’ She remembered him as a hostile, arrogant man who had drunk too much; he had refused to be her informant.
‘Yeah, Foster.’ He picked up his screwdriver. “Cept make it Baron, now. That damn Foster name never done me no good.’ He stepped around her, opened the hallway door, and twisted the knob to the left until it clicked twice. ‘You ever get to Africa?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I quit school.’
‘Yeah, well, I figured you didn’t make it, seein’ how you hangin’ with that green-eyed monkey.’ He registered her frown. ‘Hey, I got nothin’ against the monkey. It’s just that since he come the boy have put a charge into Otille, and that ain’t good.’
‘What’s your relationship with Otille?’
‘You writin’ another paper?’
‘I’m just curious.’
‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘You keep an edge on your curious, ‘cause this one damn curious place. Huh! Curious.’ He walked over to his drawer and took out a shirt. ‘I’m Otille’s friend. Not like one of them raggedy fuckers down at the cabins. I’m her friend. And she’s mine. That’s why she take to callin’ me Baron after the death god, ‘cause she say can’t nobody but death be a friend to her. ‘Course that’s just the actress in her comin’ out.’ He stripped off the jersey and shrugged into the shirt; a jagged scar crossed his right chest, and the muscles there were somewhat withered. ‘She don’t make me do no evil, and I don’t preach to her. We help each other out. Like right now.’ He brandished a fist. ‘I’m watchin’ over you and the monkey.’
‘Why?’
‘You think Otille’s mean, don’t you? Sheeit! She got her moods, ain’t no doubt. But there’s folks ‘round here will cut you for a nickel, squeeze you for a dime. Take that smiley son of a bitch Simpkins…’
‘Baron!’ Otille stood in the door, her face convulsing.
The Baron calmly went on buttoning his shirt. ‘I be down in a minute.’
‘Have you seen Donnell?’ asked Jocundra, hoping the question would explain her presence to Otille.
Otille ignored her. ‘Bring the car around,’ she said to the Baron.
‘Nothin’ to get excited ‘bout, Otille,’ he said. ‘Woman’s just helpin’ me fix my door.’ When she remained mute, he sighed, slung his coat over his shoulder and strode out.
‘I don’t want you talking to him,’ said Otille in measured tones. ‘Is that clear?’
‘Fine.’ Jocundra started for the door, but Otille blocked the way. Her temples throbbed, nerves jumpedin her cheek, her coral mouth thinned. Only her eyes were unmoving, seeming to recede into black depths beneath her milky complexion, like holes cut in a bedsheet. It amazed Jocundra that when she next spoke, her voice was under control and not a scream.
‘Would you like to leave Maravillosa?’ she asked. ‘I can have you driven anywhere you wish.’
‘Yes,’ said Jocundra. ‘But if I left, Donnell would go with me, and even if he stayed, then I’d stay because I’d be afraid you’d hurt him.’
‘Bitch!’ Otille lashed out at the wall with the side of her fist. ‘I’m not going to hurt him!’ She glanced at the wall and saw that her fist had impacted the forehead of a screaming ebony face, and she laid her palm against it as if easing its pain. ‘I’m going to have him,’ she said mildly. ‘Do you like this room?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Jocundra, enunciating the words with precision, implying a response to both Otille’s remarks.
‘It takes so much time and energy to keep the place up,’ said Otille, blithe and breezy. ‘I’ve let it run down, but I’ve tried to maintain islands of elegance within it. Would you care to see one?’ And before Jocundra could answer, she swirled out of the door, urging her to follow. ‘It’s just down the hall,’ she said. ‘My father’s old room.’
It was, indeed, elegant. Gobelin tapestries of unicorns and hunts, dozens of original paintings. Klee, Kandinsky, Magritte, Braque, Miro. The black wood of the walls showed between them like veins of coal running through a surreal bedrock. Comfortable sofas and chairs, an antique globe, a magnificent Shiraz carpet. But opposed to this display of good taste, arranged in cabinets and on tables, was a collection of cheap bric-a-brac like that found in airport gift shops and tourist bazaars: mementos of exotic cultures bearing the acultural stamp of sterility most often approved by national chambers of commerce. There were ashtrays, enameled key rings, coin purses, models of famous landmarks, but the bulk of the collection was devoted to mechanical animals. Pandas, monkeys, an elephant which lifted tiny logs, a snake coiling up a plastic palm, on and on. A miniature invasion creeping over the bookshelves and end tables. The collection, said Otille, represented her father’s travels on behalf of the Rigaud Foundation and his various charities, and reflected his pack rat’s obsession with things bright and trivial.