… after they have… lost all this fear, they are so artless and so free with all they possess… Of anything they have, if you ask them for it they never say no; rather they invite the person to share it and show as much love as if they were giving their hearts.
Ben deYampert telephoned his wife Fiona, letting her know that all was well and that he and Alex were going to have a few beers and he'd be straight home from there. Ben insisted on taking Alex to a nearby tavern, a place called Maxine's, where the music was country and western, the clientele generally down on their luck and toasting to better days. Alex recognized the neighborhood-fairly seedy, the streets lined with shops of every size and stripe, signs littering the doorways and windows as far as the eye could see, all vying for attention and gaining none, save maybe the Root Mon's store. Root Heaven. Alex pointed it out to Ben as they were entering Maxine's, and together they laughed at the memory associated with Root Heaven.
Once inside and sipping dark Guinness beer, Alex asked Big, “You remember the call we got on that place?”
Ben laughed heartily. “ 'I know where the hearts are bein' kept. And I know what they're doin' with 'em!' Slow down, lady, I told her. She almost busted a gut having to give me her name. Never did get an honest answer to that one.”
“ 'Too 'fraid of the whoo-doo mon. Him make yo' life hell or him make yo' life heaven.' “
“ Took those damned shriveled, dried-up old hearts all the way downtown for Frank Wardlaw's inspection.”
“ Frank'll never let us forget that.”
Ben, eyes watering with laugh tears, gulped his beer. “Turned out to be goddamned big buffalo hearts! Where you reckon the Root Mon got buffalo hearts, Alex?”
“ Don't ask me.”
“ Oughta be a law…”
“ Probably is…some where…”
Alex thought back to the day they'd stepped into the Root Mon's world, to confront a lanky, huge-handed black man with a Jamaican accent and polished white teeth, two of them gold, each with an initial on it: R and M for Root Mon. Inside his shop hung every imaginable item from pegs and ceiling, half on and off shelves filled with vials, boxes, jars and baskets.
“ What yooooou gentlemens need for? Whatever it is, you come to de right mon.”
“ Hearts,” Alex had said.
“ I got plenty of demon, but what kind you need?”
“ What kind you got?”
“ Come on back to de back, Officers, and we see what we can find, mon.” He looked nervously around as if expecting someone to come rushing in. At that moment, someone did. It was a well-dressed TV newscaster whom Alex had seen many times before both on the tube and at crime scenes. She was generally a pain in the ass.
“ How the hell did you people find out about this call?” asked Ben, glaring at Edna Lowery of It Takes 2 News.
“ It's our business to find out,” she curtly replied as her camera team began to set up in the shop, one with a large but portable camcorder panning the amazing array of items found in the collection of herbs, spices, cures, medicinal potions and magic lotions.
Alex knew at once that the entire call was a publicity ploy for the Root Mon's store. “You better have some recently hocked, hot hearts,” he warned the tall, smiling proprietor of the shop, who flicked on his CD player, rushed the camera and began a spiel like nothing Alex had ever heard before. He broke into a reggae singsong of poetry and commerce, further underscoring the bogus nature of the complaint that the store dealt in human hearts. The owner's “rap” went on and on, and he did a little dance for the cameras as he spoke of his Root Heaven, saying:
“ You carryin' a curse? Got urgent pain? / Can't make water? / Jus' you come down to Root Heaven, / the famous Root Mon's store!”
“ That's enough of that,” Alex began in his most serious detective's tone.
But Big put up a hand and said, “No, Alex, I want to hear this.”
The Root Mon smiled wide and continued, playing to the cameras. “Here's a broth, / here's a stew. / You want both, mon, / for what you gotta do. / You got needs? / Plannin' big sac-ro-fice? / We got seeds / and chickens on ice. / We got bugs, scrubs, herbs, / all kinna spice. / Need dem magic words? / Hav' a dose-a-crawlin' lice. / Eat a canna magic rice, / a pinch of snuff for dat oF wart, / jus”nough for de heart.”
He was on a roll now, unstoppable.
“ Toad sweat'll get you up'n fit / with no shivers, shingles or sneeze. / Get whatever you please / wid heavenly ease.”
As he droned on, Alex stepped through the curtained rear and began digging amid an amazing assortment of ancient and filthy artifacts stacked on shelves and boxes here too. From the other side of the curtain he could hear deYampert's amused laughter. Meanwhile, the camera panned from the proprietor to a huge wall sign which was a poetic listing of all the services and
items provided his customers. Later that night, when Alex would see himself on the late newscast, they also flashed the big sign, which read: ROOT HEAVEN CREDO
We got fat slugs and tobacco plugs.
Got fuzzy cut worms for cuts, scrapes 'n burns.
For fever it's de poltice and de crucifix Christ
Got many things for stings: herbs, toots, roots 'n strings.
Go-head, make your day wid dat fat bottle of turtle-nip spray.
Toss the snake rattle over your left shoulder onto a big boulder beside a flowing river at the midnight hour.
Get whatever you need.
No talk, guilt or greed.
Join de Root Club!
Special on de belly rub.
Special on de herb'n'potion.
Jus' whisper who gets dis notion, dat lotion, hex on/off jus's you wish.
Got stalks and stones minerals and bones, cat tails in pails wid good'n'plenty snails.
Got a clip of royal bangs, eyelashes from Queens, nose hair from de King,
Bob Marley's gol' ring…
Take dat magic tobacco, wrap it in fine calico, tie it wid de cat gut.
Finna fine ol' cemetery, dig dare a big rut, an' quick bury it up.
Wid dat per-scription filled, you got your enemy killed…
Fix you up wid a hex sign!
Tack to the nearest pine.
Throw a magic lotion into the closest ocean.
Come back for more when you're cravin' de additional cure from your Root Heaven…
COME TO ROOT
HEAVEN
“ Guard your fleas. Curses comes in threes, missy! Get even how eva you can, and Glory be, see me, mon. /So, if you wants to regain de health, life an' prosperity, den listens to me! forget dat 7-Eleven, mon, get yow-self to my Root Heaven!”
He finished with a flurry and a full, rich laugh. Ben deYampert and the camera crew joined in the laughter, several of them poking about the curious shop as Alex announced, “Are these the hearts you got us down here for? You got anything fresher?”
This only cracked everyone in the place up. After the laughter, the Root Mon, Anton Eugene “Mystick Ruler” Dupree, said, “You want fresh, you got to go to de butcher, mon.”
Everyone laughed heartily again.
Anton Eugene approached Alex, grabbed up two of the larger hearts and said, “Mostly dese are use for grinding into powder.”
“ Powder?”
“ Big hearts like dese help the fine ol' wife dat's gone slack wid the rheumatoy back. Also for ill odors and to end de ol' man's snores.” Ben, tonight on his bar stool, remembered every line and every laugh from the time in Root Heaven as it all came back to him now. Alex had to catch him when he fell off the bar stool while they both helplessly laughed together.
“ Newspapers and TV guys had a lot of fun with that one too,” Alex added. “Come on. Take yourself home. I've got to get some sleep myself.”
“ You're okay then, Alex?”
“ What's not to be okay about, Ben?”
“ Nothing… everything… hell, life.”
“ Life's a bitch.”
“ Got that right.”
They said their good nights back at Tully's place, which by now was dark and empty, closed at past midnight. Alex located his car and drove home, the voice of the Root Mon playing in his head. They'd played out the voodoo angle on the Hearts case, and if anyone had his ear to the voodoo grapevine, it was Anton Eugene. “Try de KKK, maybe,” was Anton Eugene's last suggestion on the day they'd returned his buffalo hearts to him.
The music at the Blue Heron was ear-wrenchingly loud, wonderful for private conversation. It was also a terrific place to meet old friends and make new friends in more ways than one. It wasn't unusual for Thommie Whiley, a.k.a. Mademoiselle Marie Dumond, to be approached by a stranger, but seldom one as good-looking as the one across the table from him now. He thought it a little quirky, the way their conversation had gone from the drinks the guy had bought him and the band to a dead guy he'd known only briefly a year ago, a guy named Victor Surette. He wondered if the pickup was a ruse, if this guy was an undercover cop or something, looking for dirt among the gay and transvestite world of the French Quarter; the guy knew immediately, even though Thommie was in full regalia as Marie, that he was hitting on a cross-dresser, as if he had some sixth sense about such matters.
But suddenly all such suspicion was put at bay when the guy said, “I'm Vicki Surette's brother, EmanueL”
“ His what?”
“ You didn't know he had a brother?”
“ No, I swear, I had no idea…”
“ I'm surprised; you might've guessed. Look closely, the high cheekbones.”
Their conversation was fimneled through the cacophony of noise coming from the band, the wailing sounds of Janis Joplin and Judy Garland wannabes and female impersonators, live on stage, the house packed so full that to communicate you had to shout, yet no one could possibly overhear any single conversation, unless the table were perhaps bugged-and even then it would take a sound expert to clarify the words from the cascade of gibberish all around them. But somehow Thommie Whiley could hear every word spoken by the guy who'd asked to buy him a drink, the guy now claiming to be Victor Surette's brother, Emanuel.
“ Well, I heard a guy took his apartment soon after his death,” Thommie said, “but no… I never knew you were his brother, no… and nobody around here seems to know anything about you either.”
Thommie glanced about the room, his fake eyelashes catching everyone's attention. “Vic… he never spoke about you either, man. Said his family pretty much disowned him. Did say they had money, but that was all.”
The other man giggled lightly. “He wasn't always proud of me or the rest of the family. Look…look closely, around my eyes, the cheekbones, the way my lips are always pouting.” He posed for Thommie. “Now you see the resemblance, don't you? Don't you see it?”
The noise of band and screaming performers filtered in one ear. “Yeah, now you mention it… yeah, you do look a little like Vic.”
“ He never liked being called that, Vic, you know. Never really liked Victor either. He preferred Vicki or Victoria, but never Vic… never.”
“ Yeah, you're right about dat; he surely didn't like being called Vic, no. He sorta put up with me calling him Vic, though.”
“ He was tolerant of others.”
“ Yeah, he was… and he was really a sweet guy, really. I loved him for that.”
“ You loved him?”
“ Yeah, anybody would,” Thommie said.
“ You took a piece of his heart, didn't you?”
“ Yeah, you could say that, but he took a piece of mine too. It works both ways, but you probably know that, right?”
“ Took his sweet heart and you broke it, I'll just bet.” He puckered and feigned a kiss at the air, and this excited Thommie.
“ Well, it was an amicable split, actually. You see, we both wanted out of the relationship. You know how it gets a little too heavy at times, so you back off s all.”
“ Broke his heart according to his diary.”
“ He say that in his diary?”
“ That and more, yes.”
“ I'm not so sure I want you or anyone else reading about me in Vic's-Vicki's diary. Cops couldn't find it. How'd you get it? Fact of the matter is, the cops didn't ever say a word about you either.” Thommie's natural suspicions reignited.“They didn't know about me.” Emanuel drank from his pink drink, shrugging at the same time. Even his shrug was alluring, coquettish, Thommie thought. “And as for the diary, well, Vicki sent it to me a few days before his horrible death, almost as if… as if he knew, as if he'd had some sort of strange premonition, you know?”
“ Did he say anything about a premonition?”
“ No, never.”
“ Not even in the diary?” Thommie was curious. He thought hard on Vicki Surette's face and recalled it with great fondness. He was so gentle, meek even in bed. The meek shall inherit the earth, he silently chanted. “So, you didn't at first know-that is, hear about his death?”
“ Not until I came to visit, no.”
“ God, that must've been tough. Getting it in the face like that, I mean.”
“ Learned it from the landlord of his building,” Emanuel almost sniffled.
“ So what're you doing now? Staying on in the Big Easy? Sorta doing your own thing?”
“ Sorta conducting my own, you know, unofficial investigation, if you want to know the whole story?” Emanuel's lips were large and full and sensuous, Thommie thought, the more so when he spoke.
“ Gee, that's kinda neat, like in the movies or something, kinda romantic in a way. But don't the cops notify next of kin?”
“ How could they? He was living under an assumed identity. His family would have nothing to do with him. He was completely cut off, alone, except for his lovers… except for you and the others.”
Thomas Whiley dropped his gaze. There was so much fire in this guy's eyes, so much pent-up energy. He did remind Thommie of Victor Surette; he brought back old memories which had haunted Thommie on and off since Victor was found mutilated a year ago.
“ Well I guess you read the papers,” Thommie said. “You know about the others since your brother, don't you… others like us found murdered?”
“ Their hearts dug out of them with some kind of nasty carving knife, yeah… I know all about it now. I've been interviewed by the cops, a million questions about Victor's friends, acquaintances.”
“ Did you give 'em the diary?”
“ Yeah, sure… soon as they asked for it. But I kept some of the information, like about where you live and where you hang.”
“ Jesus, you don't think I had anything to do with Vic's getting killed, do you? The cops talked to me; they must've told you I'm in the clear.”
“ They're actually worried about you, Thommie.”
“ Worried? What a ya mean?”
“ They think whoever's doing this Jack-the-Ripper number could come after you too.” Thommie shook his head slowly from side to side, his mouth for the moment not working. Finally, he squeezed out his thoughts. “I… me, no… nobody's getting me like that, no way.”
“ Whoever this maniac is, Thommie, he likes sweethearts like you. Frankly, I can see why.”
“ Whataya mean by that?”
Thommie felt Emanuel's hand rising to his groin below the table. After a brief massage, Emanuel said in a heaving voice, “I wouldn't mind digging around a little for your tender heart myself, Mademoiselle Dumond.”
Thommie smiled coyly and leaned in over the table, asking, “Why, sir, what are your intentions?”
“ Strictly dishonorable, madame, I can assure you.”
“ Then maybe I'll take a piece of your heart too.”
“ Hey, you've got some line, Marie.”
“ So do you, Emanuel. Pretty name, Emanuel…”
“ So's Marie… I much prefer Marie to Thommie.”
“ Really? Good ol' sweet-tassled Vic…Vicki, in a way it's like he's working from the grave, you know?”
Emanuel looked strangely at him, eyes questioning.
“ You know, the way he's led you to me?”
Emanuel smiled, eyes alight with fire now.
“ Come on,” said Thommie, finishing his White Grenache. “I know somewhere where we can be alone.”
Emanuel countered. “I know a make-out spot where we won't be disturbed.”
“ Why not my place?”
“ Is it nearby, because I'm extremely horny.”
“ Getting very hot in here myself, hon. It's just around the corner.”
“ First, I need to use the little boy's room.”
“ C'mon, you can take a leak at my place.”
“ All right, if you insist.”
“ I insist… and if things work out, I may insist again.”
The stranger laughed sweetly at this, and Thommie Whiley laughed with him. Others seeing the pair took them for lovers having a good time in one of New Orleans' oldest gay nightclubs, but no one paid very much attention when they got up and left together, as everyone was after his own conquest tonight.
They couldn't wait for the privacy of Thommie's bedroom, or at least Thommie couldn't, and in the elevator he tore at Emanuel's clothing with his hand, and then his mouth with his own, but E, as Thommie had teasingly begun to call the other man, kept him at arm's length, saying, “Calm down, baby… whoa… you want to have the neighbors complain-ing? Take it easy… we've got all night. Besides, like I said, I need to drop a loaf. But I did bring something to wear.”
Emanuel snatched a red teddy from the brown leather bag he carried slung over one shoulder resting on the opposite hip. “How'd you like for me to wear this?”
“ Jesus, I like… I like… think you can fit into it?” Thommie half joked.
“ Don't worry, I'm slim at the hips and I brought falsies.”
“ Good… good and plenty and sweet…” Thommie's mouth was watering now. “Maybe later, I can try it on?”
“ Sure… sure, sweet thing. Whatever turns your crank.”
The elevator deposited the would-be lovers at the top floor and Thommie worked the lock open with nervous fingers. He kept talking nonstop. “Vic…Vicki was a tender guy and a great, great lay, and we respected each other tremendously, like I told the cops, but like I said, we just grew a little apart… you know… shit happens…”
“ Grew a little apart,” Emanuel repeated, nodding. “Sure, I understand. Don't worry about it, Thommie Marie.”
As soon as the door closed behind them, Thommie Whiley, a.k.a. Marie Dumond, was at him again, forcing him against the door, kissing and caressing, his tongue finding Emanuel's deep throat, jabbing in and out, enjoying E's intoxicating, provocative perfume. E knew how to give what he got, and he smelled so damned good.
“ Wait… easy… back off and let me get situated and dressed for you, Marie… and Marie, get out of that dress…” He spoke through gasps and kisses.
“ Sorry…just so… I don't know… turned on by you. What's that perfume you're wearing? God, you're good-looking, you know that?”
“ Thank you; now, I'll see you in a moment. Why don't you get undressed and pull the covers down, huh? Got anything to drink? Why don't you pour us something to drink?”
“ Coming right up. Bathroom's that-a-way.”
Thommie Whiley impatiently and breathlessly waited, going naked about the room, pacing and moving several times from the bed to the bathroom door, almost knocking, speaking through the door, asking if everything was all right inside, wondering how long E was going to take and just what he had to do to freshen up. He'd never known a guy with so much cool and restraint before.
“ Everything all right in there, Ms. E? Am I going to have to come in after you? Spank your behind? Can I call you EZ?”
“ Just a minute,” Emanuel repeated in his most feminine voice for an insufferable third time.
When he finally came out, E was stunning with long, smooth legs and an incredible shape, dark, alluring eyes and sensuous mouth, filling out the little teddy like a pro on the runway at the Blue Heron, Thommie thought as he went for him, or rather her, Thommie's hands outstretched, the drinks he'd poured earlier forgotten, the ice in them melted.
“ Wait,” she said, “my bag… bring me my bag.”
God damnit, he silently cursed, but with a little frown of impatience, he glanced around and then retrieved her bag, a large, leather Gucci. “Jeeze, whataya gol in this thing? It must weigh a ton.”
“ The icing on the cake,” Emanuel replied in a soft, purring whisper as she now pulled forth first a vibrator to his delight, allowing him to take charge of this, and then she pulled forth an enormous carving knife with serrated edges, the blade glinting in the half light of the room.
“ What the hell's that for?”
“ Like I said, hon, I'm after your heart.”
“ What the fuck's that supposed to-”
''Ayyyyyyyyyyyl'' Emanuel screamed and lunged at him with the blade, but Thommie dodged the blow, lunging for the floor beside the bed where he tore from below the bed a baseball bat which he'd kept there forever for protection.
He brought the bat to bear, but he was twisted round in such an awkward position that he couldn't negotiate it properly, unable to get his weight behind it. With the swing, however, he lost his footing, and E was rushing at him a second time with that damnably huge knife, trying to find his chest and his heart, and all in that one instant, Thommie realized that Surette had been butchered by this motherfucking fiend who claimed to be Victor's brother, and that this monster had also killed and mutilated all the other Queen of Hearts victims, so Thommie put what force he could into a backswing blow from a kneeling position, lashed out at the raging madman's hairless legs, but E just kept coming, and suddenly Thommie felt a sharp pain to his temple, the bone crack sound reverberating in his brain, and next Thommie felt something sharp penetrate the skin beside his ear and sink almost to his left eyeball before he passed out.
When Thommie came to, he was lying on his back in bed, where E had placed him, blood caked at his temple; he was disoriented and seeing through a thick blur, the sound of his own blood and pounding heart in his ears, threatening to send him into deafness so loud was the sound of it along with a sentient ringing noise, as if his own internal alarm clocks were all going off at once. When his eyes fully opened and focused, he realized that Emanuel's red teddy and enormous, blood-smeared breasts were dangling pendulum fashion over him, and E's curly head worked back and forth, her hands doing something up and down along a slippery path.
Christ, atop every other indignity, he really is a she.
Thommie's eyes coming clearer now, he saw E reach into an enormous cavern that'd opened up in Thommie's chest, and he felt the other's hands tugging at his beating heart when Thommie suddenly saw only a blinding white light which he allowed himself to fall into; it was not a natural light but a light that blinded both his vision and his feelings, like a shower of mercy and Thommie gratefully retreated into it. All life was severed with the connections between his heart and body and Thommie stepped into a never-ending sleep.