She washed his feet and legs last, and then he stepped out of the water and onto the floor. Later he'd have to empty the tub, clean and disinfect it and then dry it before carrying it downstairs to the basement where he lived.
After washing him, his mother dried him vigorously top to toe with a white towel, except for the parts he'd washed himself, which he did once she'd finished with him.
'The ceremony's for tonight,' she said.
'But it's Friday.
'It's happening after midnight.'
iAfter midnight. . .' Carmine knew that meant it would be a sacrifice as opposed to a simple execution which meant this would be a Saturday Night Barons Club and he'd have to attend in full dress. 'Who is it?' But he knew before she told him.
'Jean Assad. You know how Solomon feels about thieves and drug addicts in the organization.' She fixed him with one of her immobile, cut-through-anything looks. Carmine met her stare but, as usual, found he couldn't hold it and looked away at the gleaming white bidet. He'd known Jean Assad in Haiti and they'd been on good if distant terms in Miami. Jean had been on the run for six months.
'Where'd they find him?'
'In Canada,' she said. iUimbecile. Thought he could escape us.'
The cigar tube of calabar beans was waiting for her in the middle of the kitchen table. The tube reeked of Carmine's fear, a thin metallic smell of old coins and vinegar that came from him whenever he'd done something wrong. It was so strong she could smell it from the doorway. Eva wondered if he hadn't momentarily lost the tube on his way over. It would be just like him. Clumsy.
Eva went to the cupboards under the sink and pulled out one of the brand new, white plastic chopping boards she used for her potions. She then took out a scalpel and a mortar and pestle, also all new, and brought them over to the table. She opened the tube and emptied the contents on the board oval shaped like American footballs with the ends filed down, their shiny maroon-brown skins the colour of eggplant crossed with chocolate, hard on the outside, deadly on the in, eight like she'd asked for. She put seven back in the tube and closed it.
After she was done making the potion she'd incinerate everything to make sure it wouldn't end up getting mixed with food. The beans were poisonous. It took just half a bean to kill a man. She'd once fed one to someone in a fresh salad and watched him croak. It hadn't been pretty. First he'd salivated uncontrollably, spit bubbling out of his mouth like he'd swallowed a stream, then his eyes and sweat glands had opened up, as the poison had gone into his veins and arteries, gradually constricting them as it flowed, closing down his blood flow and slowing down his heart, beat by beat, until all the life in him was throttled from within. It was said, by people who'd seen someone die of calabar
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poisoning, that once the poison started closing down the inner circuits, they had heard the flapping of wings. The closer to death the louder the flapping became until the final five minutes, when their faces froze completely and the only movement came from their eyes, which were still fully conscious. Many said they looked upwards, high above them, in mid-space, and their eyes were utterly terrified. Her victim had got that look too.
She went over to the refrigerator and took out a black clay bottle of holy water and poured it into a metal stewpot, which she then set on the gas hob and lit. As the water began to heat, she quartered the bean, put it into the pestle and ground it to a sticky paste, which was then put to one side of the table.
She went back to the cupboard under the sink and took out a packet of handmade, specially designed Charles de Villeneuve tarot cards, imported from Switzerland. They were the only ones she ever used. The packet was brand new. The cards came in an elegant dark brown wooden box which contained the cards in a drawer lined with purple baize, which never failed to remind her of a huge matchbox merged with a coffin. The cards were wrapped in a black velvet drawstring bag, closed at the side with a red wax seal bearing the company's insignia, this time reminding her of the Smith & Wesson logo on the grip of her .38. The cards were thick, high-quality cardboard.
The backs were mostly black with a deep crimson border and a small, almost cartoonish image of the sun, rendered, in gold leaf, as a round, slightly cross-eyed face set in the middle of sprouting rays. Without turning them over, she fanned the pack out on the table and counted anticlockwise from the beginning. The manufacturer always packed the cards in the same order. Minor Arcana last, in suits first Cups, then Coins, then Swords, then Wands.
Fourteen cards in each suit, face cards first, then the
numbers: King to Ace. She found the card, turned it over and smiled.
The King of Swords.
Depending on the reading she was giving, the King of Swords could either be a powerful and influential ally and friend or a fearsome enemy, one who would stop at nothing and use force if he had to.
The thing she loved second about the de Villeneuve cards - apart from their magical powers which, if the person using them had the right amount of faith, could turn them into periscopes into the future was their rich and vibrant colours. They reminded her of the voodoo paintings she'd grown up with in Haiti.
She put the card on the chopping board, then gathered up the rest and put them in a black refuse bag. She took the scalpel and sliced the card lengthwise into six strips. She then sliced each strip a dozen times, so she had something close to confetti. She added the card to the pestle and mixed it in with the ground calabar beans, before scraping the contents out into the now boiling water.
Once complete, the potion would have to settle and cool for a few hours before being fed to its recipient.
Eva was about to begin to speak her spell when she heard Carmine lumber past the door with the tub on his back, heading for the basement where he lived, out of sight and sound. He made as little noise as possible, like he always had, the little creep; even at his age he was still as terrified of her as he had been when he'd been a little boy - terrified of little old her, fifty-four years old, under five feet tall without her lifts and ninety-eight pounds soaking wet. Pathetic.
Carmine went to the basement and put the tub down on the floor. There were no windows in there and it was pitch black without the light, but that was always comforting to
him after the harsh, sterile whiteness of the bathroom. He took off his dressing gown and threw it where the leather armchair was ready to receive it. He knew every inch of the room so well he could find the smallest things in the dark.
It was a trick Solomon Boukman had taught him, back when they'd been as close as brothers, before the organization had grown into the multi-tentacled monster it was now and he'd evolved with it and in the process grown cold and distant, even with those he'd come up with, those who knew him best and would do anything for him.