I SAT THERE quietly while Mama went to call Immaculata. To tell Max the devil was loose. Wesley never threatened. He was terror. Cold as a heat-seeking missile. He took your money, you got a body. Years ago my compadre Pablo told me about a contract Wesley had on a Puerto Rican dope dealer uptown. The dealer knew the contract was out. He went to a Santeria priestess, begging for voodoo heat against the glacier coming for him. The priestess took the dealer's money, told him Chango, the warrior-god, would protect him. She was an evil old demon, feared throughout the barrio. Her crew was all Marielitos. Zombie-driven murderers. They set fires to watch the flames. Ate the charred flesh. Tattoos on their hands to tell you their specialty. Weapons, drugs, extortion, homicide. The executioner's tattoo was an upside-down heart with an arrow through it. Cupid as a hit man.
The priestess called on her gods. Killed chickens and goats. Sprinkled virgin's blood on a knife. Loosed her death-dogs into the street looking for Wesley.
The dealer hid in her house. Safe.
Blazing summer, but the kids stayed off the streets. Winter always comes.
A UPS driver pulled up outside the apartment house where the priestess kept her temple. Her Marielitos slammed him against his truck, pulling at his clothes. Eyes watched from beneath slitted shades. They took a small box from the driver, laughing when he said someone had to sign for it.
They held the box under an opened fire hydrant, soaking the paper off. One of the Marielitos held the box to his ear, shaking it. Another pulled a butterfly knife from his pocket, flashed it open in the street, grinning. They squatted, watching as the box was slit open. Looked inside. They stopped laughing.
They took the box inside to the priestess. A few minutes later, the dope dealer was thrown into the street, hands cuffed behind his back, duct tape sealing his mouth. He ran from the block.
They whispered about it. In the bodegas, in the after-hours joints, on the streets. They said the priestess found the hand of her executioner inside the box, the tattoo mocking her. Chango was angry. So she found a better sacrifice than a chicken.
The cops found the dealer a few blocks away, a tight group of four slugs in his chest, another neat hole in his forehead. Nobody heard shots.