The Black Witch of Mexico (26 page)

“Someone must know where he is.”

“The time to start worrying is when we find him. He’ll play you for all you’re worth, you know that?”

“Let’s find him first.”

* * *

They went into the tourist shop next door and Adam bought postcards for his sister and his mother. He almost bought one for Bill but he thought that might be provocative.

He asked the man behind the counter if he knew a
brujo
called the Crow.

The man shrugged. “c
omo no.
You want to see him? He’s just down the end of that street over there. You turn left and there is a villa right at the end, on the right. Tell him I sent you.”

It was as easy as that.

Chapter 71

They stood outside the gates. “He’s done well for himself,” he said.

The Crow’s new home was a yellow and green villa surrounded by a spiked fence. It looked utterly innocuous. There was a discotheque next door.

“Being a witch is a good business,” she said. “Work your own hours, name your own price, get any woman you want with a bag of herbs, and make your own private deals with the devil on the side. Perhaps you should think about it.”

“Are you coming in?”

“I’ll wait here if it’s all the same to you.”

“Are you scared?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you said they were all charlatans.”

“Maybe they are, but look what he did to you. I’ll be right here when you come out but I don’t go near these people for anyone.”

Adam nodded. He was tired now; he just wanted to get this done with.

A plain, dumpy woman met him at the door and led him inside. The waiting room was like any waiting room anywhere: some Spanish gossip magazines on the table, a television tuned to a soap opera in the corner of the room, the volume so loud it distorted the sound. There was a green porcelain frog sitting on top of it.

It all looked so banal; a cheap vase with plastic flowers, a plastic Christmas decoration pinned to the wall that they had forgotten to take down. A fan hummed in a corner of the room.

The Crow had three other clients; there was a man fidgeting with a lighter, and a woman with a listless child of about eight or nine years old. No one spoke. The man with the lighter was called in first, then a quarter hour later the woman and the sad-eyed child.

He wondered at the Crow’s change of fortune. Or perhaps there had been no change of fortune, perhaps he had come to Santa Marta for some other purpose. He would probably never know.

Finally it was Adam’s turn.

* * *

He followed the woman along a narrow, windowless passage. At the end there was a curtain, she held it aside and motioned for him to go in.

The room was dark and smelled of incense and stale sweat. It took a moment for his eyes to get accustomed to the gloom. He realized that someone was standing directly in front of him. He gasped and took half a step back. He was face to face with a skull wrapped in a hooded scarlet robe. It was a life size statue of
Santa Muerte
, the mother of death. The flickering of a hundred candles made her appear to move.

A neat trick.

He looked around the room; the walls had been covered in plaster and painted black to resemble a cave. Each niche had a candle and a statue of a stuffed owl or a Native American Indian or a
Santa Muerte
or a Madonna.

The Crow sat behind a vast desk. This was a different man to the one he had known in Santa Marta. He wore a white silk
guayabera
shirt and there were rings on every finger. He was wearing so much bling he looked like a hip-hop musician. He looked sleek and comfortable.

Adam sat down. “Do you remember me?” he said.

He blinked and stirred, like a cat raising its head from its place next to the fire. “I remember you.”

“We met in Santa Marta. You cast a spell.”

“You want another?”

“I want you to remove it. And the photograph of the woman you took? I want it back.”

“I did not take it, you gave it to me.”

“I want you to take away the spell.”

“Take it away?”

“I’ll give you another twenty dollars.”

The Crow settled back in his chair and considered. “Don’t you want the girl back?”

“Just take the spell away.”

“Very well. If that is what you wish. But I want fifty thousand dollars.”

Adam didn’t say anything for a long time.

“What?”

“That is my fee. The Lord of the Fog does not like it when you ask him to undo all that he has taken great trouble to achieve, as you asked him to do. You paid me my fee; I did your bidding. Once your will is set in motion, it is very difficult to reverse. Fifty thousand dollars is my fee.”

“You must be out of your mind.”

“Is there anything else you wish while you are here? A
limpia,
perhaps. A cleansing is twenty dollars.”

“I’ll give you a hundred dollars. Now give me the photograph.”

“The price is fifty thousand dollars. You heard me correctly. Then I will give you the photograph.”

Adam got to his feet. The Crow watched him, faintly amused.

“Give me the photograph!’

The
brujo
was a big man, broad in the shoulders and chest, but Adam was not frightened of him. He reckoned that he could overpower him, if it came to it. Where was her photograph? He guessed it was in one of those drawers.

Something glinted in the semi-darkness. It was a knife, now partially concealed in the sleeve of the Crow’s jacket.

“I know what you are thinking,” he said, ‘but should you attempt it, it will not go as you plan. Your blood will be on the floor.”

Adam got to his feet.

“A thousand dollars,” he said.

“You have heard my price. I am not like some peasant in the market, bartering for his corn. Fifty thousand is my price to give you what you want.”

“If you think I’m going to pay you fifty thousand dollars you have to be out of your mind.”

The Crow pulled a business card from his wallet and wrote some numbers on the back of it. He pushed it across the desk.

Adam picked it up, stared at it. “What’s this?”

“It is the number of my bank account in Mexico City. If you want me to do this then you will pay me fifty thousand dollars. If you do not want to pay me this money then go back to America and let the Lord of the Fog finish what he has started.”

“There is no Lord of the Fog!’

“Then why are you here?”

“Give me the photograph!’

The
brujo
sat there, unblinking.

“You have come all the way to Mexico to search for me. You must want this very badly. That tells me you have seen for yourself how effective my
maldad negra
can be.”

“You’re blackmailing me.”

“I am giving you my price for removing the spell. It will not be easy. I must return to the cave on the other side of the lake and explain to the Lord of the Fog what you want. He will not be pleased.”

“Then just give me back the photograph.”

“I cannot give you back the photograph unless I have fifty thousand dollars.”

“I don’t have that kind of money.”

“You’re a
gringo
; all
gringos
have that kind of money. If you have the money to come to Mexico, you have the money to pay me what I want.”

“I paid you twenty dollars for the ceremony!’

“You paid me twenty dollars to bring you back your woman. Is she not back with you?”

“I thought...”

“What did you think? That she would suddenly wake up and everything would be different? So her life has changed, perhaps. I don’t need to know what has happened but I know how such things work. If you wish to change your destiny then you must change another’s. All the world is connected, and you cannot change one thing without shifting something else from its balance. The Lord of the Fog has done what you asked. But to change it back is much, much more difficult. You have set karma in motion, not just yours but that of many others. Some souls must now be reborn because of you. So you see, it is expensive to change your mind. You should have thought about all this before you came to me.”

“You should have warned me.”

He laughed. He had very white teeth. “It does no good to warn people. They want what they want and give no thought to consequence. I am not a priest. I am not a philosopher. I am a witch. I use my powers as others demand, for a fee. All I command is the price.”

Adam felt like a fool. Fifty thousand dollars! It was absurd, beyond all words, beyond all comprehension. It was extortion.

“Damn you to hell,” he said.

The Crow laughed and flicked his hand at him, as if he was brushing away a fly.

* * *

Two men sat under a tree in the garden outside; tough looking boys in blue jeans with tattooed arms. So the Crow had not been bluffing about having guards to protect him. They grinned at him as he walked past them; one of them said something in Spanish and the other one laughed.

Jamie was sitting under a shade tree on the other side of the road. She got up, brushed the dust off her jeans and came over. “Satisfied?” shesaid.

He did not know what to say to her. He shook his head and stumbled away.

Chapter 72

He sat on the bed with his head in his hands while she paced the room behind him.

“You’re not even thinking about this, right?”

He didn’t answer.

“This is fucking insane! Pack your things. I’m driving you back to DF right now.”

He still didn’t answer.

“Fifty thousand dollars? I will not let you do this!’ She slapped him on the head. “Say something, for God’s sake!’

“All I can think of, all that goes through my head, is what happens if I don’t do it. Oliver dies and Elena is on her own, she’s lost her baby, lost her chance of having her own family, lost the two people she cares about most in the world.”

“And you think this
cabron
can any of change that?
Me cago en la madre que se parío!
’

“If I didn’t think he could change it, then why did I come here? I have to put my money where my mouth is.”

She shook her head in disbelief.

“If I don’t believe it,” he went on, thinking aloud, ‘if I think this man is just an ordinary man and there is no such thing as devils and curses then why can’t I sleep at night?”

“Listen to what you’re saying!’

“If I do this, and Oliver dies, then I will know I have been taken for the biggest sucker this side of the border. But I’ll sleep at night. I’ll know I wasn’t responsible. If I don’t do it, and he dies, I will have this doubt in the back of my mind for the rest of my life. Because there is something,
there is something
, inside me that is not one hundred per cent sure that he didn’t have something to do with all of this.”

“Of course he didn’t!’

“If you’re so sure then why didn’t you go in there with me today?”

She couldn’t answer him.

“And then there’s the third possibility.”

“Which is?”

“I pay him the money and Oliver lives.”

“He’s not going to live. He has terminal cancer.”

“But what if?”

“There is no ‘what if,” Adam. Look, I told my father I would take care of you, and I guess that means not having some small town conman take you for all you’re worth.”

“It’s a lot of money, Jamie, but it’s not all I’m worth.” He put out a hand. “can I borrow your cell phone? I left mine in Boston. Didn’t think I’d need it.”

“What do you need the phone for?”

“I need to make a call.”

“Who to?”

“My bank. Then I’ll need to borrow your laptop as well. Do they have internet coverage in this place? I can probably do it online. I’ll need to okay this in Boston first.”

She shook her head. “No, you’re not having my cell. Go ahead and do what you want but I’ll not be a party to it.”

“Please, Jamie. The sooner it’s done the sooner you can go home.”

“No!’