Don’t judge a book by its cover or a palm-leaf penthouse by its exterior. The inside would have rivaled any suite at the Playboy mansion. When we walked through the threshold, we stepped into a different world from the tainted one behind us.
Chief had erected a thriving, tropical paradise right in the heart of cancerville; his own jungle sanctuary where the walls shielded out all the unbiased hatred and scorn. Even the air smelled pure, not like the necrotic halitosis outside. It reminded me of small town country air where we’d set up the show. Cletus and I both breathed in deeply. Chief had covered his home with floor-to-ceiling jungle feng shui. Exotic birds swooped and cawed between the circuitous network of mangrove branches and man-size ferns. There was a python with a head as wide as my waist curled up in the canopy above us. He flicked a forked tongue our way, and then returned his attention to an unsuspecting cockatoo. A small creek bubbled and churned in front of us. The water so pure I wanted to scoop it up in my palm and drink greedily. Cletus must have had the same idea, because he walked to the creek’s edge, bent over and meant to have a drink.
“I wouldn’t get too close to them waters, my giant friend,” a voice said from just within the jungle’s shadows. “There are piranhas as big as wild boar in there. They’ll strip a man of all his flesh in minutes.” A soft clap of the hands and subtle light from a dozens torches lit up the countenance of our host.
The Chief in all his glory.
Chief sat on a thrown constructed from the bones of would be challengers, after his place at the head of the tribe. He was a man of enormous girth, his entire body was a roadmap of piercings and tattoos. Giant copper rings dangled from stretched out earlobes. Each finger lined with ruby and sapphire rings; offerings from the common to the venerated. He gave off an air of authority and respect that even I felt obligated to respect.
“My names Eddie Gnash,” I told him, resisting the urge to add my tag, “I’ve been hired by Cletus here to help out with some clientele issues. I think your patient, Mrs. Lurmann, might be able to help.”
He took a few moments to lazily take the two of us in. What a sight we must have been, a pinhead giant who was pretending to be a pimp, and his pet dog who was convinced he was a detective. But I had a feeling Chief had seen a lot more motley of a crew than us.
With a deep sigh he jabbed his giant head to the side. “Come, she’s over there, but I don’t think for much longer.”
Madam Lurmann occupied a reinforced, steel hammock strung between two thick mangroves. Chief had reset her jaw, but you could tell she had about an ounce of life left in an ocean full of death. Her arms and legs were pulled up tight against her, an obese fetus. She’d go out the same way she came in. It was probably futile to try, but she was the only witness to whatever atrocities took place in that alley.
“Madame Lurmann, it’s Eddie… Eddie Gnash…I’m trying to find out what happened to your son. Marty.”
Nothing. Might as well been talking the trees.
“Madame Lurmann, can you hear me? Do you dig?” I was about to abandon the cause when her mouth opened and slammed back closed. I heard a slight mumble and leaned in closer to her. No more than an incoherent whisper. She didn’t even have the energy to open her mouth again. I placed my ear right against her dry, cracked lips and listened.
“She’s trying to say something, but she hasn’t the energy to move her mouth…”
I was thinking out loud, but the Chief was suddenly there beside me.
“I can help with that,” he told me. Then he rammed his hand into her chest and it disappeared all the way to the shoulder.
I was going to ask him what the fuck he was doing, but the look on his face told me better. His eyes were glazed and he was shifting back and forth, like a man hunting for that last fork in the washing up bowl.
Then his finger tips appeared behind Madame Lurmann’s lips, and he began to help her talk like she was a ventriloquist’s dummy.
“The…Devil’s…Garden…”
It all came out in one long, raspy breath, and then nothing. Her last words on this Earth must have held some importance, because the pain of saying them finally made her body quit. I thumbed her milky white eyes closed and turned to Chief. He pulled his arm out of her… there was no entry wound. Psychic surgery at its finest.But not fine enough to save her.
