"Papa Legba, ouvrez vos barr ires pour Papa Legba, oh sont vos petits enfants?"
The gathered faithful in the old stone church their eyes and chant in response, "Papa Legba, violht. Papa Legba, ouvrez vos barribres pour laisser passer!"
"Papa Legba," Clotilde pleads, "open the gate,.."
"Open the gate," the faithful intone. "Papa Legba, open the gate…"
"So that we may pass through." Call and response.
Africa.
"When we will have passed…"
"We will thank Legba."
"Legba who sits on the gate…"
"Give us the right to pass."
The strong African elements in the religion.
And now a girl of six or seven glides toward the altar. She is dressed entirely in white and she holds in either hand a lighted white candle.
In a thin, high, liltingly haunting voice, she begins to sing. "The wild goat has escaped. "And must find its way home. "I wonder what's the matter.
"In Guinea, everyone is ill. "I am not ill. "But I will die.
"I wonder what's the matter."
Clotilde fell silent. The detectives waited. She drew on the cigarette again, exhaled. Piaf was still singing of unrequited love.
"Guinea is Africa," Clotilde explained. She fell silent again, as if drifting back to Haiti and beyond that to Africa itself, to the Guinea in the child's plaintive song, to the Grain Coast and the Ivory Coast and the Gold Coast and the Slave Coast, to the empires of the Fula and the Mandingo and the Ashanti and Kangasi, the Hausa and the Congo. Still the detectives waited. Clotilde drew on the cigarette again, exhaled a billow of smoke, and began speaking in a low, hoarse voice. From the rising smoke of the cigarette and the hypnotic smoke-seared rasp of her voice, the old stone church seemed to materialize again, a young girl in white standing before Clotilde, the priestess sprinkling her hair with wine and oil water, whitening her eye-lids with flour. Clotilde blows out the candles. The faithful are chanting again. "Mistress Ezili, come to guide us! "If you want a chicken, "We will give one to you! "If you want a goat, "It is here for you! "If you want a bull,
"We will give one to you! "But a goat without horns, "Oh, where will we find one.. "Where will we find one… "Where will we find one?"
The bar went silent.
Clotilde exhaled another cloud of smoke, blowing over her shoulder, away from the detectives.
"That is essentially how the ceremony goes," she said "The faithful call to Ezili until she appears. Usually takes the form of a woman being mounted…"
"Mounted?"
"Possessed, you would say. Ezili possesses her.
Goddess Ezili. I left out some things, but essentially…"
"You left out the sacrifice," Carella said. "Well, yes, in Haiti a goat or a chicken or a bull be sacrificed. And perhaps, centuries ago in Africa, the sacrifice may have been human, I truly don't know. I suppose that's what the goat without horns is all about. But here in America?"
"No."
"Here in America, yes," Carella said.
Clotilde looked at him.
"No," she said.
Yes, Carella said. "After the oil and the water… "No."
"… and the wine and the flour, someone slits the throat of a chicken or a goat…"
"Not here in America."
"Please, Madame Proteau. This is where the priestess dips her finger into the blood and makes a cross on the girl's forehead. This is where the sacrifice is placed on the altar and the drumming begins. The sacrifice is what finally convinces Ezili to appear. The sacrifice…"
"I am telling you there are no blood sacrifices in our ceremonies."
"We're not looking for a cheap three-fifty-three bust," Hawes said.
"Good," Clotilde said, and nodded in dismissal.
"We're working a homicide," Carella said. "Any help you can give us…" ats, quest-ce que je peux faire?" she said, and shrugged. "If there was no chicken, there was no chicken." She ejected the cigarette stub from the holder, and inserted a new one into its end. Piaf was singing "Je Ne Regrette Rien." Taking a lighter from her purse, Clotilde handed it to Hawes. He lighted the cigarette for her. She blew smoke away from him and said, "There are cockfights all over the city on Friday nights, did you know that?"
The interesting thing about Jamal Stone's yellow sheet was that it listed the names of several hookers in his on-again off-again stables.
Among these, and apparently current until her recent demise, was Yolande Marie Marx, alias Marie St. Claire, who left behind in the apartment of the dead Cooper her handbag and samples of hair and fiber Ah, yes, Ollie thought, doing his world-famous W C Fields imitation even within the confines of his mind, a small world indeed, ah, yes. Another one Stone's current racehorses was a girl named Rowland, alias Carlyle Yancy, whose address listed as the very same domicile Stone had while among the living, ah, yes.
Ollie didn't expect to find a working girl home this hour of the night.
