Kiss Of Evil

27

The back room of La Botanica Macumba is a shambles, littered with wooden packing crates bearing seashell candles, Indian incense, and cheap T-shirts from Korea bearing African incantations. Amid the mess sits a slight brown man with graying hair, a rainbow skullcap on his head, his fingers and thumbs adorned with gaudy paste jewelry.

His name is Moriceau. He trembles before me.

Edward Moriceau is a man who, perhaps, once wielded some power in this life, once seduced young women with a flex of his back muscles or a wink at closing time. A man now reduced to a shuddering clerk amid a minefield of cheap trinkets and brightly colored trash.

“It is not something so easily obtained,” Moriceau says.

“I understand this,” I say. “But I have faith.”

“And you want it within three days?”

“No. I will have it within three days.”

I can see the resistance flare for a moment in Moriceau’s eyes. “And what is to stop me from calling the police?” he says. “They were just here, you know.”

“I know.”

“Then why me? Why here? Go talk to Babalwe Oro.”

“The Mystic Realm? They are bigger charlatans than even you. The truth is, I am here and I am talking to you. I am asking you to perform a service for me, to obtain an item within your grasp, just like all the other items you have obtained for me over the past year. I am not asking for this thing for free. I intend to pay full price for it, as well as some reasonable surcharge for the rush service. Each day you stand there and you sell love potions to lonely tias who think they will win the heart of some elderly gentleman of means. Do you care that you sell them false hopes? No. You just pocket their money like a common thief.”

“Yes, but they want to believe it works. Are you saying there is no magic here?”

“I am not saying that,” I answer, knowing enough to fear even my own practice of the dark arts. “But your drugstore magic has no true power. This is Potions-R-Us. Don’t insult me again.”

“But what if I cannot get you what you want? What if it is completely out of my hands?”

I cross the room, towering over Moriceau. “Then I will visit you. Perhaps in a month. Perhaps a year. One day, I will be in the closet when you open it. One day, I will be in the kitchen when you descend the stairs in the middle of the night for a drink of water. One day, I really will be the man sitting behind you at the movies.”

I genuflect, kneel, stare into the man’s small, sable eyes.

“Listen to me, Edward Moriceau. If you do not bring me what I demand, I will be more than the sum of your earthly concerns.” I take my small knife from its ankle scabbard, touch its razor-sharp tip to my right index finger. Blood responds. I touch this shiny dot of scarlet to my mouth, lean forward, kiss Moriceau on the lips. “I will be the shadow within the shadow you fear the most.”