Grimoire Diabolique

One of the blondes smiled at him, her white legs spread unabashed on the lounge chair. A blowjob maybe, but there was no way Hull would want to fuck any of the pool girls. Too young; kids weren’t his style. See? he thought, a comical testament to God. I’ve got morals. A drug marketeer, Hull was no stranger to lots of sex; he liked nothing more than breaking a couple of nuts per day into a nice, hot box. But seasoned women were more his bag. Women with experience. Women who knew themselves, and were sure of themselves. Like—

 Well, like his escort, for instance.

 He tried to catch glimpses of Janice as she led him out of the court. Great figure, great legs. Not age but more like a refinement had crept into her model’s face, tightening the mouth, etching tiny lines at the corners of the eyes. Her eyes, he contemplated again. They were probably once very beautiful. Now they looked lackluster. How long ago had she been one of the girls in the pool? Her eyes showed all the broken pieces of her dreams, but Hull didn’t feel particularly guilty about that, either. Why should he? He wouldn’t mind fucking her, though—no, indeed. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Humping a good one off up her slot. He could imagine it in his mind: wet and ready, and a gorgeous dark-blond thatch. Then maybe he’d turn her around and treat her to a second load up the back door. Hmmm. A nice thought, at least. He was probably even entitled to now that he was Casparza’s client.

But what the hell was that goddamn little thing around her neck?

She took him down the hill. As before she ignored the lit cigarette in her hand. “Here’re the works,” she said.

Casparza ran an impressive operation. This was no cokehole in the jungle; it was a complex. Whole warehouses were devoted to maturation and wash-trenches. Dump trucks one after another roared down from the fields, their beds stacked high with coca leaves. Processors in more warehouses treated and pulped the leaves to new paste. Further treatment and desiccation reduced the paste to purified powder, which would then be distilled to crack once it got to the point people in the States.

Then they passed the camp.

At first Hull thought it must be where the field laborers slept. Rows of camouflaged tents lined the field. In the middle of it all stood a single, much larger tent.

Hull spied several men in business suits walking down the tent rows. They were Americans, obviously.

“What’s with all the Americans here?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Janice told him.

A pair of bent laborers dragged big plastic garbage cans out of the central tent. They disappeared around the side. Standing at the tent’s posted entrance was Raka, the black.

“Okay, what’s with him, then? What’s Raka’s story.”

“You ask too many questions, Mr. Hull.”

I guess I’ll take that as a hint. Hull felt entrenched by the sudden weirdness. Americans in business suits? Some black stoneface in a mojo costume? This was a coke factory in the middle of Peru. But the girl was right; he mustn’t make waves. Don’t look a gift blimp in the mouth. As long as Hull got his order, Casparza could have his mystery. He could have his truth and this power and his spirit.

The tour was over. Evening came early here; the jungle darkened in dusk. “I’m impressed,” Hull admitted.

“You should be.”

Hull kept looking at the camp. More men in suits filed out of the big tent. He saw women, too, dressed like Janice. All clearly Americans.

“Don’t worry about it,” Janice repeated. It sounded like a warning. “The world is more diverse than we think, Mr. Hull. It’s really not a world at all, but a whole bunch of worlds.”

“Meaning?”

“This—this place here—is not your world.”

Hull stared at her.

“Just remember what Casparza said, Mr. Hull. Remember it well.”

Her cigarette had grown an inch of ash. Hull’s eyes darted from the pendant at her bust to her eyes, always back to her eyes. For a fractured moment he felt seized, or rather bound. He felt tied up by his own confusion. Her eyes, he pondered. There was something about her eyes.

Her eyes looked dead.

««—»»

Janice fingered the makak; it seemed to give off heat.

But Janice felt cold.

She raised her nightgown and rubbed the jelly into her sex. K-Y, the tube read. She barely felt it. The night air steamed around her, but she barely felt that either. She did not sweat. She looked at her hand and saw the cigarette burns encrusted between her fingers.

Moonlight eddied in through the window. Hull lay asleep on the bed. Janice drifted in, still not sure what she was doing. So much was instinct now—habits that sat perched behind her life like ghosts. She envied Hull in his sleep. Real sleep, she thought.

Hull reminded her of home, whatever that was. He reminded her of life.

“Mr. Hull?” she whispered, leaning over his bed. She shook him gently. What am I doing? she wondered. Why am I here?