"This chicken sure ain't a chicken chicken," Jonah said. "Hold him up good and high," Moses instructed. Decker did as he was told, and Moses took hold of the bird's head
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and stretched its neck. "Changó, kabio kabio site," he intoned, and the cockerel gave one convulsive shudder and then remained strangely still, as if it knew what was going to happen next, and was prepared to accept it.
Moses sliced its throat with his knife and its dark blood dripped quickly into the bowl. He then took the bird's legs from Decker, and began to circle it around in the air. "Changó alamu oba layo ni na ile ogbomi ," he breathed. "Kabio kabio site."
When the bowl was almost filled with blood, he laid the cockerel down between the candles. "The words kabio kabio site mean welcome to my house," he explained. "I was invoking Changó so that he knows that you are seeking his forgiveness and that you wish to wash away your transgression, whatever it is."
He looked slowly around the living room. "Do you feel anything?" he asked.
"Like what?"
"Like the presence of a great power."
Decker looked around, too. He couldn't be sure that it wasn't just the humidity, and the strange smell of herbs, but he thought he could detect a tension in the air, as if a thunderstorm were brewing. And Changó, after all, was the god of thunderstorms.
"Changó hears me," Moses said. "Changó speaks in my ear."
"What does he say?"
"He says he has been waiting many seasons."
"What for? To come looking for me?"
"You are only one among many."
"Can you ask him why he's so mad at me?"
"Changó answers no questions. There is only one way to tell what his wishes are."
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He rang his bell again and Aluya came back in. "Aluya, bring me the coconut shells."
While they waited for her, Moses stood with his eyes closed and his hands pressed together as if he were praying. Jonah kept looking uneasily around the room as if he, too, could sense the presence of something dark and powerful.
Aluya returned with a red and green silk scarf. She waited patiently until Moses had opened his eyes again and then she handed it to him without a word. He took hold of one corner of the scarf and whipped it in the air. Four quarters of coconut shell fell out and scattered on the floor.
Moses said, "I was afraid of this."
"What is it?" Decker asked. "What's wrong?"
"You see how all four pieces of coconut have fallen with their brown side upward? This is one of five patterns. When two pieces fall with the brown side upward and two with the white side upward, this is a good sign, and means yes. But when all the pieces fall with the brown side upward, like this, this means no and predicts death."
"So what can I do?"
"You can only cleanse yourself, my friend, and pray that Chango decides that you are truly sorry for whatever it is that you have done. Come back tomorrow, and I will give you the blood and the omiero."
With that, he helped himself to another cookie and stood chewing it thoughtfully, staring at Decker with his bulgy eyes as if he had already given him up for dead.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
That afternoon Decker drove around to see Maggie. He parked around the block from Cab's house, as he always did, and walked the rest of the way. Cab and Maggie lived in a single-story three-bedroom house on the south side of the river, opposite Forest Hill Park. It had an orange-tiled roof and a bright yellow door, and elaborately-tied-up nets at the windows. Maggie had a taste in interior décor that reminded Decker of the early editions of The Cosby Show.
The summer heat was still stifling and the sky was so dark that Decker took off his sunglasses. His shirt clung to his back and if he hadn't been wearing his shoulder holster he would have taken off his black linen coat.
Maggie was waiting for him and opened the door as he walked up the driveway. Her hair was braided and beaded and she was wearing a loose, flowing dress in diagonal stripes of purple and pink.
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She glanced up and down the street and then she put her arms around his neck and gave him a kiss. "I missed you, [over man."
"Yeah, me too. Any chance of a beer?"
She closed the door and led him through to the kitchen. 'Cab called and said that he may have to stay in Charlottesville until tomorrow . . . so, if you're interested in some all-night moving . . ."
He took off his coat and his holster while she took a botde of Heineken out of the icebox, and opened it. "I don't know. We're pretty tied up with these homicides. probably have to go back to headquarters later."
She came up close to him and pressed the cold bottle of beer against his cheek. "You look tired. Maybe you should take off those clothes and come to bed."
"I'm bushed, as a matter of fact."
"Not too bushed, I hope?"
"These killings, I think they're beginning to get to me. Every time I think we've got a handle on them, it turns out to be the handle on something so goddamned weird I can't even understand what we're supposed to be looking for, or who, or why."
"Cab was saying that Queen Aché might have something to do with them. Now, that's one evil woman."
"Queen Aché was probably involved in Junior Abraham getting whacked, but as for the other two . . . who knows? We don't have any evidence to connect one with the other, because we don't have any evidence."
Maggie kissed him. "You should come to bed. Ease your troubled mind. Exercise your booty."
"You're some red-hot lady, you know that? You're going to wear me out."
She took hold of his hand and tugged him toward the
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bedroom. "You know what's on the menu today? The four-course special, with extra gravy."
She unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off, kissing and nipping his nipples with her teeth. Then she unbuckled his belt and pushed him back into a sitting position on the side of the bed. "Let's get those shoes and socks off. Ain't nothing look more stupider than a bare-ass man in nothing but his shoes and his socks."
Decker swigged his beer. A large-framed photograph of Cab stood on the dressing table opposite him, smiling cheerily, and for the first time since he and Maggie had started fooling around together he felt guilty. He hadn't felt guilt in a long time, ever since Cathy was killed, and it came as a sour, unpleasant surprise, like the sudden taste of copper pennies in his mouth.
Maggie peeled off his socks. "Least your socks don't smell. Cab—whew!—you could use his socks to carry out the death penalty."
"Maggie—"
"You just relax, lover man. This is my time to take care of you. Hey—what happened to your feet? They're scratched all over."
"Oh, it's nothing. I was helping a friend clear some briars at the back of his property and I was stupid enough not to wear any shoes."
"They look sore," she said, giving them a flurry of lip-sticky kisses.
"I'll live. Teach me to wear shoes next time."
Maggie tugged down his zipper and wrestled off his pants. Maggie took hold of him through his blue-and-white striped shorts and gave him a hard squeeze. "And what do we have in here? Don't tell me we'll be having boudin blanc for starters?"
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"Maggie—" he said, but she pressed her fingers to her lips.
"You hush up. I'm the one giving the orders today."
She took the bottle of beer out of his hand and set it down on the nightstand. Then she hooked her finger into the elastic of his shorts and pulled them down at the front so that his erection was exposed.