The Murder Artist

CHAPTER 38

The car’s xenon lights tunnel into the night, illuminating unmarked roads that seem indistinguishable to me. I get lost a couple of times, despite Pinky’s painstakingly drawn map. I left plenty of spare time, though, and even with the wrong turns I arrive at Diment’s place fifteen minutes before midnight.

I step out of the car into the warm night. A sibilant insect hum rises up around me, followed by some kind of animal or bird, some jungly cry of distress that makes the hair on my neck stand up. The BMW’s lights stay on for a few moments, as if to light my way from my driveway to the door of my suburban manse. In reality, they illuminate with brutal clarity the concrete-block structure before me.

It looks like a great place to get killed. Only a dim, flickering light is visible through the one small window. A candle? I wonder for a moment if the structure has electricity, but then I remember the string of Christmas lights on the altar. I think about the weird collection of objects displayed. It is impossible to assign significance to them. What could the comb mean? A baby bottle?

On the scuffed ground in front of the door, a single tennis shoe rests on its side. It reminds me of Kevin’s Nike, the one I spotted by the gate outside the jousting arena. That creepy resonance jumpstarts an intense wave of paranoia, and it’s all I can do not to bolt.

The car gives a little click and the lights fade. I step forward a few steps and rap on the siding next to the door. No sooner have I touched the house than the beads are pulled open with a clatter. It’s as if the two men were standing just inside, waiting. They smile at me.

“Welcome, welcome,” one of them says. He’s a skinny man, with a fuzz of graying hair. He’s so thin he looks skeletal. He speaks in a high squeaky voice. “Come in.”

“I’m here to see-”

“The houngan not here,” the second man says. He’s a big man and so dark skinned the light glints off the broad planes of his face. He’s at least six-five, two-fifty, and while the skinny man scared me, I find this big man reassuring. “But first you have to get dressed,” he says in his booming baritone.

“I am dressed,” I tell them.

But, no. They tell me they have something special for me to wear. I follow the two of them, tiptoeing past the patients lying in a row against the wall. Someone moans. Another, off to the left, coughs – a terrible sound that concludes in a kind of gasping wheeze.

“In here,” the big man says, opening a door. He pulls the string and I see what I’m being shown into: a john. “You change,” he says. “We’ll wait outside.”

My new outfit is hanging on the back of the bathroom door: a white tuxedo with a red carnation in the lapel. Now I understand the reason for the question about my size. Still, it’s not reassuring. A white tuxedo…?

I’m drenched in sweat; it’s coming off me in sheets. And suddenly, I have all kinds of questions:

Why do I have to change clothes?

Why the white tuxedo? Something Karl Kavanaugh said pops into my mind, something about white doves and blood.

Just what is “an initiation ceremony”? Skip the details, just give me the general idea.

And can you really just join a bizango, or was Diment putting me on?

And how can I join something if I don’t know what I’m joining? Isn’t there… a catechism, or something?

Diment said I had to enter into the evening with trust. How can I put my trust in Diment? I don’t even know him.

And why midnight?

Some not helpful portion of my brain chimes in: It’s the witching hour.

None of these questions makes it past my lips. What I say instead, hesitating at the threshold of the bathroom before I close the door is: “Uh, I’m not sure about this.”

“You change in there,” the skinny man says, as if I haven’t spoken at all. He gives me a gentle push.

“I’m just-”

“We’ll wait out here,” the big man says, with a reassuring pat on the arm. And then he nudges me a little farther inside and closes the door.

It’s a cramped, utilitarian room: a toilet, a sink, a paper-towel dispenser, a pump bottle of liquid soap. A sheet of reflective metal hangs over the sink instead of a mirror. The door shudders and creaks and I realize the two men are leaning against it.

I fight off a reflex surge of claustrophobia and try to calm down. Maybe they’re just leaning against it because… it’s just a place to lean.

It’s hard to calm down. I’m breathing too fast, and a voice inside my head is screeching: What are you doing?

The men outside the door mumble. The big man laughs, a hearty chuckle that seems absent of any note of malevolence. I take several deep breaths. You came to him, I tell myself. You sought out Diment, not the other way around. You asked for his help.

I put on the tuxedo, fastening the suspenders and the crimson cummerbund. Not surprisingly, it’s a perfect fit. I put my clothes on the hangers and put my shoes back on. Then I step back and regard myself in the sheet of metal over the sink. There’s something so goofy about the white tuxedo, a Liberace kind of excess, that for a moment I feel giddy.

I rap on the door.

It’s pulled open. The skinny man cocks his head and contemplates me. “Awright,” he says, with a kind of cackle. “My man! You look good! Doesn’t he look good?”

“Ummhmm,” the big man says, and then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a bottle of Deep Woods Off. “Close your eyes,” he says. Before I can protest, he’s spraying me head to toe with a perfumed mist that stinks of deet.

Skinny turns off the light, and then we pick our way through the clinic again, single file, the big guy leading.

The BMW gleams in the moonlight, my getaway car. I finger the keys in my pocket, but I’m not seriously tempted to pop the lock and drive away from this. I’ve crossed some invisible barrier. Whatever I’m into here, I’m committed.

The big guy has a Maglite, but its batteries must be almost used up because the light it casts is a watery yellow disk that doesn’t do much to illuminate our way. The moonlight barely penetrates the thick canopy. We’re trudging along a narrow dirt path through a vine-tangled wood. The trees are spooky, shrouded with Spanish moss. The path is full of roots. The insect hum rises up around us, a rich vibrant tumult.

“The hills are alive,” the skinny guy says, and then cackles with laughter.

The big guy chuckles.

“Where are we going?” I can hardly see the two men, but me? I practically glow in the dark.

“To the place,” the big man says. “Don’t worry, we’ll be there soon.”

I can’t see much, but I can tell we’re getting closer to water. The disk of light bounces off tangles of mangrove knees and occasionally I hear a frog splash. The air smells different, too, funky and dank.

After a few more minutes, I smell wood smoke, and hear the murmur of voices. And then finally, we emerge from the dark woods into a clearing. Diment and a dozen others, men and women, sit around a fire. A couple of bottles of what looks like rum are going around the circle, and in fact, I can smell alcohol. Out in the darkness, when the fire throws up a flame, I can see the gleam of water.

Seeing me, Diment gets to his feet. The rest of the bizango follows suit. Diment embraces me, then holds me at arm’s length. “Damn, you look fine.” He smiles, teeth gleaming. Everyone embraces me in turn, introducing themselves and offering a formal welcome. I feel at a remove from myself, as if I’m looking at this from above: a collection of happy people sitting around a fire, drinking, led by a man who lost his upper lip to a zombie. Then a man dressed in white comes out of the woods and joins them. It’s a scene of visual extravagance, like something you might see in the Corcoran or the National Gallery, some nineteenth-century painting of an exotic crowd scene: Initiation.

My heart feels unsteady in my chest and over and over again, I hear that little voice saying: What are you doing?

After all the hugs and bows, my legs feel shaky. I’m more than happy to sit down next to Diment, as I’m invited to do. The skinny man and the big man join the circle. The rum goes around in both directions. This time I drink as much as I can when it’s my turn, and my thirst meets with enthusiastic approval. I realize, after a few minutes, that most of the bizango is drunk.

Finally, Diment raises his hand, and everyone falls quiet. He turns to me and puts a hand on my arm. “Alex, are you ready?”

I nod. What I’m thinking is: Let’s get this over with.

“Bon!” The big man distributes torches – these constructed of thick bamboo, with some kind of cloth wrapped many times around their ends. The members of the bizango dip the torches into the fire, and then we’re on the move again, heading even deeper into the swamp. We have to duck under the limbs of trees and tread carefully over the rooty ground. The insects roar, and I’m grateful for the Off, which keeps them more or less at bay.

“Ho!” says a voice from the front of our file. And then, a minute later, I follow Diment around a big tree and into a clearing. A crude wooden cross stands waist-high, stuck into the ground at an angle. A few feet away is a freshly dug grave, and next to that, a pine casket.

It takes me a second to grasp what I’m seeing and when I do, I take a reflexive step backward. Everyone laughs.

Diment faces me. His bizarre smile is anything but reassuring. “Have faith, my friend.”

It’s a call-and-response thing, and the rest of the bizango chants its reply to Diment in unison.

“Have faith!”

“And trust in your brothers and sisters.”

“Have trust!”

“Without faith, there’s no resurrection.”

“Without faith we are doomed.”

“Without faith, we have nothing.”

“Have faith!”

It goes on like that for a while and then everybody falls silent. Diment claps me on the back. “Don’t worry, man! We dig you up quick!”

“Quick!” I say. “You mean, like, right away, or-”

Diment laughs, throwing his head back, exposing all of his teeth. “No,” the doctor says, barely able to speak over his laughter. “See, you spend the night, restin’ underground. We be up here, makin’ music. Moving with the loa. When the sun comes up, your brothers and sisters here get you out.”

“Amen!”

“Oh, yes!”

“Sweet sleep!”

“Lord on high!”

I take a deep breath. Jesus. Ever since the boys were taken, I keep venturing further and further away from what seems normal. I am so far out on the edge of anyplace I expected to be… I’m in the middle of a swamp in a white tuxedo. I stare at the coffin.

I take another deep breath. I think about the M.E. out in Vegas speculating that Clara Gabler had been in a pine box, maybe a coffin, but that she seems to have waited for her fate willingly, without struggle. “I don’t think I can do this,” I say.

The jolly look evaporates from Diment’s face. Suddenly he looks grim with disappointment. “Then I can’t help you,” he says.

“Hell,” I hear the skinny guy’s voice say. “The last guy got buried just to get a number! Shit.”

“I know,” starts another voice, “this one jumpy, like that…”

Diment holds up a hand to silence them.

Standing in the moonlight, with my improbable tuxedo seeming almost to absorb the moonlight, I fumble for the words. “What I’m being asked to do,” I start. My mouth is so dry, I can hardly speak. “What I’m being asked to do – will it be worth it?”

“That up to you,” Diment says to me. His face is stone. His eyes glint in the torchlight. He looks tired and angry. Around us, the others murmur.

I feel like I’m at the top of a cliff, about to leap into space. “No,” I tell him. “It’s not up to me. It’s up to you. Can you tell me how to find Boudreaux?”

Diment shakes his head. “You out of turn, son. That a question for after; you understand what I’m saying? First you got to prove your trust.” But although the old man dodges the question, his rheumy eyes don’t. They remain fastened on me. He stares intently, holding my eyes. There’s no malevolence in his gaze. “If you trust me,” he says, “I help you.”

I don’t know why, but I believe him.

A drumbeat starts up, a slow steady rhythm from somewhere to my left. Voices murmur. Someone chugs rum. The skinny guy cackles. A woman hums the tune of a lullaby.

I keep my eyes on my feet as I walk over to the casket. And then, before I can change my mind, I climb into the box. The whole crowd leans over me. I can see the big man, bending to lift the wooden cover. I close my eyes. I’m crazy.

“Alex!” Diment says, and my eyes snap open.

He’s looking down at me. Behind him, the big man and a couple of others hold the lid of the casket. Diment drips some liquid onto my face from his fingers. It feels cold, but it seems to burn as it hits my skin. Tetrodotoxin? Are my lips beginning to feel numb?

“Wait!” I say, trying to sit up. Three men push me gently back down.

A clear soprano sings “Amazing Grace.” Panic rolls through me. Isn’t that for funerals? And then I think: This is a funeral. They’re burying me.

“Trust me,” Diment says, and then the lid clatters into place atop the casket.

I keep my eyes shut tight. Maybe I’m hypnotized or something. Because this is how people disappear.

Suddenly, I can feel my breath against the wood, and my heart vaults into my throat. Maybe they’re going to let me out now, I think for one glorious moment. Maybe all I had to do was prove I’d do it, and then…

But no. That hope evaporates and it’s all that I can do to stop myself from panicking and hurling myself against the wood as they begin to nail the top of the casket into place. Why is that necessary? If this is some kind of fake funeral, why real nails? Big nails, too. I saw them. And the coffin looks brand-new. Why wouldn’t they use the same coffin over and over again if this is a regular thing? Because this coffin is going to stay here. The swamp is probably full of buried bodies.

It’s so loud, amazingly loud, each blow of the hammer a deafening concussion. There’s also the impression – which makes me cringe down, away from the lid – that the nails might plunge right through the wood. The nailing starts at my head and goes down around to my feet and then back up toward my head. In the background, when the man driving the nails moves to a new site, I can hear the drumbeat, and singing.

The hammering starts again. It’s so loud. I’d like to put my hands over my ears, but the coffin is too tight for that.

I count the nails as they’re driven in, eleven so far. Isn’t that excessive?

It’s so loud.

And although I really can’t stand it, somehow I endure the noise. When it stops, I find to my shock that I am praying. Praying in a mindless, stumbling way, repeating the Our Father over and over, a tumble of meaningless syllables. I’m not religious, and the rush of words in my head seems like a cheap trick. And a sort of collapse. I don’t think I should be allowed to pray if it’s not something I do regularly. It’s like I’m borrowing something I’m not entitled to.

OurFatherwhoartinheavenhallowedbethyname.

Still, I can’t stop.

Thykingdomcomethywillbedoneonearthasitisinheavengiveusthisdayourdailybreadandforgiveusourdebtsasweforgiveourdebtors.

I have the impression that if only I can say it fast enough, perfectly enough, if only there are absolutely no silences between the words, nothing bad will happen to me.

Andleadusnotintotemptationbutdeliverusfromevilforthineisthekingdomandthepowerandthegloryforeverandever.

Did I mess up? I think I did. I start over. OurFatherwhoartinheaven…

The casket shakes and there’s a smell of plastic as a pipe, or something like a pipe, is fitted into a hole in the casket, just above my face. I never noticed the hole, which surprises me. You’d think I’d be all tuned in to anything like that. See, your prayers are answered, the voice in my head says.

I can’t touch the hole, I can’t see it, but I can tell it’s there from the smell of plastic and the slightly cooler drift of air through it. With some effort, I can raise my head up and fasten my lips around the pipe and draw in air.

It’s as if my entire body has been clenched like a fist while the coffin was nailed shut. Now, realizing there’s a pipe for air, I begin to let go a little. I’ve been so clenched up, though, that relaxing my muscles makes me start to shake. I’m still caught in this spasm when I feel the casket sway as it’s lifted into the air.

It seesaws back and forth, yawing right and left. I can hear voices, a shout, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. And then the coffin is lowered. It yaws gently as it descends, but then, with a couple of feet left, they let go. Newtonian forces prevail: I slam into the top of the coffin, my nose crashes into the breathing tube hard enough to make me cry out. I have a terrible fear that I’ve dislodged the tube. I squirm up, to see if my lips can reach it. Yes.

And then a shovelful of dirt crashes onto the wood. I wince, as if it might come through the wood and hit me.

Then another, and another.

Then… nothing. Just the darkness.

And the sound of my own breathing.