"With all respect, sir, Honey Blackwell isn't the Afro‑
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American community. Honey Blackwell is a racially motivated political opportunist, and a fat one, at that."
"Nutritionally challenged, I'll admit. But we still need her support. I've also had the interim chief on my tail, wanting to know what we can report to the media."
"You can tell them that we're very close to a major breakthrough. We have a prime suspect and we should be making an arrest within a matter of days."
"We have a prime suspect? Why the hell didn't you tell me? Who?"
"I don't want to go off at half-cock on this, sir. The prime suspect isn't aware that he's a prime suspect, so my strategy is to keep him believing that we're still floundering around in the dark."
"You still haven't told me who he is."
"No, sir. You're right. I haven't."
Cab was about to say something when his phone rang. He picked it up and demanded, "What the hell now? Oh, sorry, ma'am."
It was the interim chief again. While Cab flustered and blustered, Decker idly looked out of his open office door. He looked, and then he looked again, frowning. He couldn't be sure, but the wall of the corridor outside appeared to be slightly distorted, as if he were seeing it through a sheet of flawed glass. He moved his head from side to side, and as he did so, the distortion shifted and altered.
He took off his glasses, but the wall was still oddly curved. He stood up. Cab pressed his hand over the telephone receiver and said, "Lieutenant—I'm not done with you yet!" But Decker ignored him and stepped outside the office.
Halfway along the corridor he saw a tangled, transparent shape. It reminded him of a huge jellyfish that he had once seen in Cumtuck Sound—a glistening and deadly distur‑
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bance that was visible only for what it wasn't, rather than what it was. He didn't know if he ought to approach it or not. If it was Chango, cloaked by a Santeria spell, then he could be in truly appalling danger.
He lifted out his gun, cocked it, and raised it in both hands. Then he edged his way carefully toward the transparency, trying to distinguish some kind of outline, some kind of distinguishing features. But it kept on rolling and unrolling, knotting and unknotting, and every time he thought he could make out a face, or an arm, or a shoulder, it unraveled itself into another shape altogether.
"Is that you, Major Shroud?" he said, with a phlegmy catch in his throat.
The distortion moved away from him, and now it became more geometrical, so that the wall behind it appeared to be broken up into irregular diamond patterns. He began to realize that he was witnessing an optical trick, a way of diverting his attention away from what he was really looking at, like a mirage, or a complicated arrangement of mirrors.
"I know you're there, Major, or Chango, or whatever you call yourself. I know you're there and I know where to find you and believe me, you bastard, I'm coming to get you."
He had no idea if this ripple in the air really was Chango, or Major Shroud, or if he was simply experiencing another illusion. Neither did he know if it possessed any intelligence, or if it could hear what he was saying—or, hell, if it could be stopped by a bullet, or stopped by anything. Maybe Hicks was right, and his mind was giving way.
At that moment, Cab came out of his office. "Lieutenant, what in the name of God are you doing?"
Decker didn't turn around. But as soon as Cab approached, the distortion in the air rolled away and disappeared. Decker waited for a moment to make sure that it had gone, and then he cautiously holstered his gun.
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"Lieutenant?"
"Oh . . . I was practicing my grip, Captain. Sergeant Bliss down at the range said that my balance needed some work."
"Your balance? Too damn right it does. Listen—I have to go talk to the chief. Give me an update on what you've been doing and leave it on my desk. Like, immediately."
"Yes, sir, Captain. It's done already."
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CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
He swerved his Mercury into the curb outside Queen Ache's house and both he and Hicks rolled out of their seats like TV cops. Two squad cars followed close behind, with four uniformed officers, three of them black and two of them female. Decker knew his politics.
George and Newton, Queen Ache's bodyguards, stood shoulder to shoulder and blocked the front steps.
"Queen Ache ain't seeing nobody today."
"Says you. I have a warrant here for Queen Ache's arrest on suspicion of homicide in the first degree."
He held it up and George peered at it closely. "Like you can read," Decker said, and whipped it away again.
"She still ain't seeing nobody. She gave me orders. 'Tell everybody I ain't seeing nobody no matter what,' that's what she said."
"George Montgomery, you are under arrest for obstructing a police officer. You have the right to remain silent—"
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"Okay, okay! Cool. I'll tell her you're here. She won't like it, though. She's holding an asiento."
"I don't care if she's holding her breath. Get her to open up."
George went to the intercom and buzzed it. "Mikey," he said. "It's trouble. We got Martin down here and half of the police department. He has a warrant."
After a while, Mikey opened the door. Decker turned around to the uniforms and said, "Give me a couple of minutes, will you? I'll whistle if I need you."
He and Hicks followed Mikey into Queen Ache's throne room. As before, the white wooden shutters were all closed, and the room was illuminated only by a few thin shafts of sunlight, like a chapel. Queen Ache wasn't there, but Mikey said, "Wait, okay? I'll go bring her." Scores of candles were steadily burning on Queen Ache's shrine, and there was a strong, bittersweet smell of herbs and spices and flowers in the air, escoba amarga, prodigiosa, yerba luisa, and cinnamon. The aroma heightened the sense of unreality in the house, as if he and Hicks were visiting a dream house together. Hicks nervously flexed his shoulders and tugged at his shirt collar.
After a few minutes Queen Ache appeared through the double doors; and she was like a tall ghost flowing into the room. She wore a headdress of blue flowers and silver stars and she was robed in flowing white muslin, with blue and white and crystal beads around her neck. Her makeup was ivory white, although her eyes were circled by crimson eye shadow and her lips were bloodred. Her face reminded Decker of a West African death mask.
"This intrusion is an outrage, Lieutenant! I am holding an asiento for my friend's cousin, an initiation. This is the dia del medio, the day in the middle, when all his family and friends will be gathering to pay tribute to his orisha."
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"Oh," Decker said. "Bummer."
"You can come back in two days. Make an appointment with Mikey."
"Sorry, Your Majesty, this can't wait. I'm here to arrest you on suspicion of the murder of Herbert 'Junior' Abraham."
Queen Ache flapped one hand in contempt, so that her bangles clashed. "You think I would soil my own hands with such a deed? In Santeria we say oddi oche—absolved through lack of evidence."
"In the City of Richmond Police Department we say that maybe a perpetrator can make herself invisible but she always leaves some evidence behind her, no matter how smart an occult cookie she thinks she is."
Queen Ache sat down on the chaise longue. She could even make sitting down appear erotic, the way she slid sideways and crossed her thighs and looked at Decker from out of those bloodred eye circles around her eyes. "Nobody knows what is at the bottom of the sea, Lieutenant."
Decker cleared his throat. "I'm not worried about the bottom of the sea, Queen Ache. I'm concerned with what happened at Jimmy the Rib's."