William Heffernan - Red Angel

“He thought you needed a shave,” Pitts said.

Martinez stared down at the man, his eyes still steel. The Abakua stirred and Martinez drove the point of his shoe into his temple. Then he bent down, turned the now unconscious man over, and cuffed him.

“Now, that’s definitely police brutality,” Pitts said. “You could definitely lose your pension.”

Martinez glanced up at him and Pitts shrugged. “Hell, it’s only fourteen bucks a month. I think you should kick the skinny asshole again.”

Martinez removed a nine-millimeter Beretta from his waistband and smiled when he saw both Devlin and Pitts stiffen. He inclined his head toward a door on the opposite side of the nearly empty room.

“I will shoot him later,” he said. “Now we must find Baba Briyumbe and search his house. The captain tells me that his ceremonial room is down on the first level.”

He led Devlin and Pitts to the door, his automatic held along his right leg. They entered a dark narrow stairwell and descended quietly. Ahead, they could hear the rapid jabber of two female voices. They slipped through another doorway, and into another tile-floored room. A nganga , almost as large as Plante Fume’s, stood in one corner, surrounded by numerous vases and statues, one a hideous depiction of a man whose face and body were covered with sores. An older black man sat in a folding beach chair, his eyes glued to a portable black-and-white television set tuned to a Spanish soap opera.

Martinez snapped out a command, and Baba Briyumbe jumped from the chair.

“ Days of Our fucking Lives, ” Pitts said. “The fucking witch doctor watches Days of Our fucking Lives. ” He let out a snorting cackle.

Baba Briyumbe glared at them with pitch-black eyes. He was well into his sixties, his head shaved to a shiny, gleaming brown. His face was grizzled and lined by years in the sun. He was of medium height with a large belly that pushed out against a white Miami Dolphins T-shirt, which he wore over baggy white cotton slacks and bare feet.

Martinez snapped out another command, which seemed to have no effect on the Abakua palero. He grabbed the man’s arm and spun him around, then quickly patted him down.

Pitts had walked over to the statue that stood beside Baba Briyumbe’s nganga. He pointed to the hideous figure covered in festering sores. “This is the ugliest fucker I’ve seen in a long time. It looks like it’s got a terminal case of crud.”

Martinez had pushed Baba Briyumbe back into his beach chair and shut off the television. “It is BabaluAye, the god of sickness and death. One of the most powerful and feared of the orishas. ”

“Yeah, well, he don’t look too fucking scary to me.”

“That is because you are a son of Chango, who plays tricks on all the other gods.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Pitts said. “I’m a regular fucking jokester.”

“Over here,” Devlin said. He was standing over a small nganga that had been covered by a white drop cloth. “Looks like one of those baby ngangas the other palero was growing in his courtyard.”

The others crowded around. Baba Briyumbe began to shout at them in rapid Spanish.

Martinez leveled his pistol at the palero ‘s head. “Silencio,” he snapped.

The palero stared at the bore opening of the pistol and snapped his jaw shut.

Devlin pointed down into the cast-iron pot, which was two feet in diameter and, like Plante Firme’s, had a ring of small bones tied around its lip. The interior was filled with sticks, herbs, and old bandages, mixed in with clusters of bird feathers. Beneath the mass, they could see a glimmer of white bone.

“If we find bone and body parts, you’re capable of running DNA tests, right?” Devlin asked.

Martinez nodded uncomfortably, and Devlin glanced at Pitts.

“My pleasure,” Pitts said. He lifted one foot and kicked the pot over, sending the contents scattering across the tile floor.

Baba Briyumbe jumped from his chair and began shouting in a mix of Spanish and Bantu. Again, Martinez leveled the pistol at his head, but this time it had no effect.

“What’s he saying?” Devlin asked.

“He is placing a curse on Detective Pitts,” he answered.

Devlin looked over at Ollie, who was smirking. “In three days your dick will fall off,” he said.

Pitts narrowed his eyes, and Devlin could see that catching the witch doctor tuned in to a soap opera had dispelled any voodoo threat.

“Yeah, well, you tell old mumbo jumbo that if it does, I come back here and shove it down his fucking throat.”

Baba Briyumbe took three steps toward them, waving his arms and chanting. Pitts reached into his pocket and withdrew the pouch Martinez had given him outside. He held it up so the palero could see the red feather protruding from its top.

“Plante Firme,” he growled. “Ooga booga.” He pulled the pouch open, dipped two fingers inside, and withdrew a small portion of earth, which he then smeared across his forehead. He took two steps toward the palero and let out a lionlike roar.

Baba Briyumbe shrank back, eyes wide.

“Hey, I like this fucking mojo.” Pitts’s lips were spread in a wide grin. “Next time I go to the South Bronx, I’m gonna take this mother with me.”

Devlin jabbed a finger at the palero. “Sit,” he snapped.

Martinez repeated the order in Spanish. The palero , now ashen-faced, obeyed.

They knelt before the contents of the small nganga. A human skull lay in a mix of smaller bones. Devlin removed a pen from his pocket, fitted it into an eye socket, and lifted it so they could see it more clearly.

“It is an old skull,” Martinez said. “It is not the Red Angel.”

Devlin nodded. He turned the skull so he could see inside the cranial cavity. “You’re right. This one’s been in the ground for a while. If it was fresh, there’d still be bits of dried flesh attached somewhere. Even acid wouldn’t get it all.”

Martinez pointed to the other bones. “Feet and hands,” he said. “Large ones. More likely from a man.” Another small skull lay off to one side. It appeared canine. Then the bones of a bird, mixed among the black feathers. “We will search the house,” Martinez said. “Then we will take Baba Briyumbe somewhere where we can question him in privacy.”

Pitts raised his eyebrows and gave them a fast flutter. “I like your style. You get any openings on the Havana PD, you give old Ollie a call.”

“You’ll have to become a communist,” Devlin said.

“Hey, communist, right-wing Republican, what’s the difference? So long as I get to use my rubber hose.”

Baba Briyumbe sat in a straight-backed, wooden chair, his hands cuffed behind his back. They were in a front second-floor room on Calle Aguilera, diagonally across the street from Santiago de Cuba’s provincial palace. It was the “private place” Martinez had chosen to question the Abakua witch doctor.

Devlin stood at the window, watching people mount the high marble stairs to enter one of three arched portals guarded by provincial police. A large Cuban flag hung from an upper balcony. Beside it, a banner proclaimed EL PODER DEL PUEBLO. ESE SI ES PODER. Devlin gave it a rough translation: “The Power of the People. That Is Real Power.”

He glanced back at Martinez. He was standing in front of the palero , peppering him with questions. Devlin drew a long breath. Something in this whole scenario just didn’t jibe with what he’d been told. In the States, if a cop found a “private place” to interrogate a subject, he’d be on a oneway ride to the unemployment line, perhaps worse. Still, this wasn’t the States, and Martinez didn’t seem at all concerned. Yet Martinez had told him that Cubans weren’t lacking in civil rights. Police powers were certainly greater, but strict rules existed. Suspects in a crime, for example, could be held only for seventy-two hours before evidence had to be presented to a grand jury, which would then either indict or release them. Civil libertarians would howl, but it was a far cry from a police state.