“There’s a party. He will be there.”
“He’s free to be wherever he wants. We can’t pick him up again on bogus charges. He’s onto us. We need something that’ll stick. We’re getting pressure from the Park residents. We’re putting pressure on DPD. Nothing’s happening. Now, what you got for me?”
“He’s going to be selling drugs.”
“He will have drugs on his body?”
“Yes. If he’s not at the party, then you can’t arrest him, right? But if he is at the party, then he’s there to sell drugs.”
“Okay. But Fabiola, you gotta be careful.”
“I am fine. I am strong and brave,” I say.
“I see. Good job,” Detective Stevens says.
I hang up the phone. The bathroom is hot and steamy now.
B is for brave, I think.
TWENTY-SEVEN
THAT NIGHT, I pretend to wake up from a bad dream. I toss about on my mattress, even though my body is still sore from the fight. Then I sit up and breathe heavy. Chantal can’t see me yet, but I get myself ready for the role. I’m a good actress.
“Chantal!” I whisper-yell. “Chantal, wake up!”
She groans.
“Chantal, you can’t go to that party!”
“What?” she whispers.
“You can’t go to that party. Something bad will happen.”
She sits up. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s in Papa Legba’s song. The doors have to open just right. You can’t try to knock down closed doors.”
She leans over her bed and throws something at the opposite wall. It makes a loud bang. “Pri. Donna. Wake up. Come over here.” She whisper-yells, too.
Nothing.
She turns on her lamp, reaches for her phone, and dials a number. I can’t believe she’s calling them from next door, but someone answers.
“Come in here. Wake Pri up,” Chantal says.
No one comes into the room. Then Chantal calls again. We hear shuffling next door.
“If that was Dray calling, Donna would’ve been downstairs already,” Chantal says.
Pri and Donna shuffle into the room and they both plop down on Chantal’s bed, yawning and rubbing their eyes.
“Tell ’em what you just told me, Fab.”
“You can’t go to that party.”
“Because . . . ,” Chantal says.
“Bad Leg . . . he’s Papa Legba, and he says to beware.”
“Wait a minute,” Pri says. Her voice is like sand. “Was this in a dream, or did you hear him say that shit?”
“Both,” I lie.
Pri gets up to look out the window. “Oh, shit. Turn off the lights. Turn off the lights!”
Donna turns them off and runs to the window along with Chantal.
“Is that nigga looking straight at us?” Pri says.
I ease up from the mattress, clenching my jaw from the soreness in my back and arms.
“He’s there?” I ask. “He’s still there?”
“What’s up, Bad Leg?” Pri says into the closed window. Then she turns to me. “What? You want us to go down there and ask him if we should go to that party?”
“She already told you he said not to,” Donna says. “Right, Fab?”
I nod.
“You’re into that voodoo now, too?” Pri asks, and goes over to turn on the light.
“Pri,” I say, “this is not the ‘voodoo’ you see in movies. This is the stuff my mother practiced back in Haiti. She is a mambo, a priestess. This is how we pray. We see the magic in everything, in all people. And this Bad Leg has been singing songs and no one listens to him. I listen. And the more I listen, the more they make sense.”
Donna comes over to me and sits on the mattress. She touches my cheek and it hurts. “Ezili-Danto,” she whispers. “I get it.”
I hold her hand there and press it hard against my face so I can feel the pain. Donna knows, and I remember. “Ezili-Danto,” I whisper back.
“I’m not going,” Donna says. “If Fab doesn’t think it’s a good idea, then I’m not getting mixed up with no bad juju.”
“Bad juju? The fuck?” Pri says.
Chantal is quiet. She goes back to her bed. “All right. Fine. We’ll think of something else. That place will be swarming with cops anyway.”
I watch as Chantal slips back under her covers. She knows and remembers. She believes what I am saying.
The twins are back in their room, Chantal is snoring, and it’s dark and quiet again. This time it’s not Papa Legba’s words that are swirling around in my head. It’s Chantal’s: That place will be swarming with cops anyway.
This party will be in Grosse Pointe Park, where Detective Stevens works. She asked for proof that Dray is selling drugs in Grosse Pointe. She will get her evidence.
I thank Papa Legba, and Ezili-Danto, and God, and all my other spirit guides who have yet to reveal themselves to me, and I fall into a deep sleep.
TWENTY-EIGHT