25
Our hotel was coming into sight when my cell phone lit up with a No ID call. At that moment, I had the visceral sense, the hair-raising-on-my-forearm kind of sense, that it would be important. I pulled into the hotel parking lot, found a spot, and took the call. When I picked it up, I put it on speakerphone so Heather could hear it too. If my daughter was going to work this case with me, I needed to loop her in.
The voice at the other end jolted me back against the headrest. It was a deep, metallic, basso profundo voice —the kind you would expect in a dark opera starring monster robots or Darth Vader.
I recognized the ultra-low digital tonality. The caller was using an electronic voice distorter. Like the person who had called Dick Valentine at the beginning of this creepy case.
“Trevor Black?” the caller asked.
“Yes,” I responded.
“Good. You’ve got me on speaker. Now you both can listen.”
Lucky guess? I wondered . . . but no, nobody’s that lucky. The caller knew that Heather was with me. I waited for more.
“Two federal prosecutors are dead. Children are disappearing. Lives destroyed. Get moving on this.”
Time to bring the caller out of the shadows. “Give me a reason why I should?”
“Get serious. This is your thing. You live to expose this kind of terror. Voodoo. Exploitation of young, defenseless girls. Murder. That’s why I pulled you in.”
“Where do I go from here?”
“Think Batman and Gotham City. Except the Jester is not out in the streets. He’s on the inside, running things.”
“How inside?” I asked.
“Touchy question. You find it out. You’re on the outside looking in, so that’s good. But time’s wasting. Just be careful who you trust.”
Sudden silence. The call went dead.
Heather was agape and staring at my cell.
I asked, “Are you sure you’re ready for this kind of ‘field experience’?”
My daughter nodded but looked shaken and had to take a second before asserting, “I’m ready.” Then she added with a bit more certainty, “Yes, I’m ready for this. But please,” she said, pointing to my cell, “tell me what just happened.”
“Okay, now we know some things. First, the caller with the voice distorter knows you’re with me. And knew something about me and also wanted me on this case. And must be the same person who originally called Dick Valentine after AUSA Jason Forester’s death. Believes voodoo is behind this and that it involves child exploitation. The kind of abduction crimes that Morgan Canterelle is handling for some grieving families.”
Then I tossed her a cleanup question. It was meant to be professional courtesy to my new partner. “Did I miss anything?”
“Only one.”
“Which is?”
“Batman,” she said. “Did you catch it?”
“Which part?”
“The part about the Jester. I saw every Batman movie. That’s not what the character is called. He’s called Joker, not Jester.”
I chewed on that. My partner was impressive.
“Interesting. The fact that the caller said that, it may have been a Freudian slip.”
Heather smirked. “So you believe in Freud?”
I gave that a think. “There’s a Sigmund Freud quote I remember. He said that no one who confronts ‘demons that inhabit the human breast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed.’ I agree.”
Heather raised an eyebrow. “Sure, but I bet he meant demons metaphorically.”
“Which is where Freud and I part company. Anyway, the bit about the Jester could be important. Do a word search using Jester plus New Orleans and see what you come up with.”
She noticed that I was climbing out of the car. “Where are you going?”
“To the hotel desk. Be right back.”
I fast-walked into the hotel lobby and talked to a desk clerk to confirm the extension of our stay. Yes, she said, our rooms were extended, per my telephone call. “Good,” I said. “Now, please change our rooms to a different floor.”
With Heather joining me, extra precautions had to be taken. I had to keep our whereabouts unpredictable. The clerk churned out two new keys, one for each of us. I asked for doubles. She complied. Heather would have a key to both her room and mine, and so would I.
By the time I climbed back into the car and explained the new room situation and handed Heather the keys, she explained what she had found.
“Okay, there’s a connection between Jester and New Orleans. The Jester was a roller-coaster ride in Six Flags amusement park here in New Orleans. It’s still standing, but the whole place was totally wrecked by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina and was closed down.” She added, “So maybe your Freudian slip idea is on the mark. And by the way, there’s a Gotham City section of the theme park.”
A memory flashed. My first telephone conversation with Morgan Canterelle’s law clerk, Kevin Sanders. Something he said. A random comment.
I started the car and wheeled it out of the parking lot.
Heather asked, “Where now?”
“The voodoo museum.”
I called Kevin on the ride over, making sure he was working there that day. He was. He said there was another staffer on duty and tourist traffic was slow, so, yes, he could chat with me. I gunned it over to Bourbon Street, and Heather and I strode into the lobby.
Kevin greeted me and then turned to Heather, whom I introduced. He shook her hand and stood there staring at her. I suddenly realized that Heather was not just my daughter. She was also a woman, looking every bit as attractive as her mother, Marilyn, ever did. I had to refocus Kevin’s attention.
I said, “Tell me about Six Flags. You mentioned something about people who worked there. Do you still have contact with any of them?”
“Yeah. I think so.” He thought on it for a moment. “Sure. One of my classmates has an older brother. He used to work there.”
“Does he know a lot about the park?”
Kevin gave a covert smile and lowered his voice. “The place is closed down. Kids go in there because it’s so spooky-looking. But the cops have been cracking down. More patrols. Even so, Bert —that’s the older brother of Tom, my classmate —he’s like this amateur filmmaker type. I heard he’s still slipping into the park to do this horror movie of his.”
“Call him,” I said.
“Now?”
“Yes. Right now. Tell him I want to find out when his brother Bert is going into the park next, and anything else he knows about Six Flags.”
Kevin shrugged. “Okay. I’ll try.” He took a few steps away and started making some calls.
That gave Heather and me a chance to glance around the museum. The place was covered with cultic statuettes, “magic potions,” herbs, and talismans for sale, along with the typical tourist trinkets like T-shirts and coffee cups sporting a variety of images of skulls and magic symbols. I spotted “spell kits” on the wall, to cast curses against former spouses —like one called “hex your ex.” Heather thought it was strangely amusing. I, on the other hand, had a very different take.
Once upon a time I would have snickered along with her at the seeming old-world, flat-earth stupidity of it all. But not now.
Ever since the spiritual turnabout in my life —and my own battle with the underworld —things were different. I knew that behind the veil, there was a swirling sinkhole populated with forces that were energized by a horrible mission and a ruthless master. The danger of voodoo lay in its portal of entry, even if unintentional, not in any innate power that its ceremonies and potions possessed. Either way, the consequences could be just as devastating.
Kevin trudged back to us, cell phone in his hand. “Okay, Mr. Black, I called my classmate Tom. Bert shares an apartment with him, and he works at a little local film distribution company. What he actually wants to do is either go the indie film route, you know, like the kind of movies they preview at Sundance, or else go to Hollywood someday —”
“Kevin,” I blurted. “Sorry to cut you off, but time’s of the essence. About Six Flags. What can you tell me?”
“Okay, well, Bert told Tom, who just told me on the phone, that he still has to finish shooting his little homemade horror movie at Six Flags, but he knows the schedule of the police patrols so he doesn’t get caught. Anyway, some of the girls he’s using in his movie kind of got scared about going there. . . .”
“Because of the rumors.”
“Explain that.”
“It’s about this guy who shows up, hanging around the abandoned Six Flags ruins, wearing a hat and sunglasses. Tries to get girls to come with him. Tells them he’s with a legit movie company and that they’re holding auditions.”
I said, “I’d like to talk with this Bert fellow. Immediately, if possible.”
“That may not be possible, Mr. Black.”
“Why is that?”
“Because he’s on his way to Six Flags right now to finish shooting his film.”