Dead Nolte (13 page)

Nolte glared back at him intently, his face glowing red with
embarrassment and anger. Slowly his glare took on a strained look, accompanied
by the unmistakable sound of muffled gurgling from within Nolte’s diaper. “Fuck
you, Candy-Ass,” Nolte said smiling, as he rocked from side to side on his
butt. He rose and walked slowly to the front door. The back of his diaper
swayed heavily and shit ran down the back of his thighs. “Send me the bill for
the couch, Chickenshit.” Nolte opened the door, the sunlight reflected off his
hairy beer gut. “My future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.” He said squinting
into the sun, as he slipped on Alice’s bug-eyed sunglasses. He half turned
toward Ron, “One of these days, you’re going to learn to show me some respect.”
Nolte walked out into the noonday sun, shitty diaper swaying and flip flops
slapping at his heels. “And on the third day, he shall rise.” He said as he
walked away. “On the third day, he shall rise.”

Ron crossed the room and slammed the door behind Nolte,
before examining the mess on his couch. “How in the fuck can a ghost shit his
pants?” He asked himself, unable to believe what he had just witnessed.

Pinching his cell phone to life, Ron called his brother.
“He’s dead and he’s already back. You were right; the motherfucker came back
from the dead.” He tried not to sound anxious, but the shit on his couch had
Ron seeing red.

“Who’s back from the dead, insane man, that called my
phone?”

“Nolte died and he’s back, that voodoo mumbo jumbo was
fucking real. He’s back.”

“What do you mean, he’s back? When did he die?” Charlie
asked over the phone. “I thought you told me the witch said it would take three
days.”

Ron clamped the phone between his ear and shoulder as he
shook the contents out of a small mason jar he had hidden beneath the kitchen
sink. “I guess about six or seven hours ago, I dunno. Not long enough. The
motherfucker was just here; he took a shit on my couch.” He said, dragging the
more stubborn
pieces of paper from the bottom of the jar
with a pen. “The fuckin’ lawyer told me he wouldn’t be back until they prayed
over his grave.” Ron picked a small piece of folded paper from the pile he had
shaken out. “I’m going to swing through Louisiana on the way to Nolte’s; you
need to hit the fucking road immediately, as in yesterday. You need to get to
his house and find the coin before the Dogpatch bitches do.” Ron carefully
unfolded the square of paper. “The receipt says that it’s silver; if you can’t
find it, keep the strippers from finding it. I have an idea on how to locate
it. One each, silver Shekel of Tyre 3BC, the fucking thing’s two thousand years
old. It has to be the fucking ‘magic money’ he showed us. Nolte’s waiting on
his three days; we have to find where he hid it. If those fucking hillbillies
get their hands on it, they’re gonna sell it.”

“Well, we’ll just have to buy it back.” Charlie offered with
the generosity, only a man down to his last hundy, would know.

“What if the asshole they sell it to, doesn’t want to sell
it back?”

It suddenly dawned on Charlie. “I know why he’s back early
-----
one
of those bitches prayed over his sorry ass. Who found him?”

Ron refolded the piece of paper. “Martha found him, the
fucking church lady. She may have fucked us over good. The clock is running,
the crazy lady’s lawyers told me she wanted the coin no later than three days
after his time of death. His ass is back, so maybe it’s too late. The witch is
willing to pay a million five for this thing, and those corn mash cunts will
probably trade it for a case of beer and two NASCAR tickets.”
 
Ron pinched the bridge of his nose to help
him think. It didn’t work.

“The nasty fucker shit on my couch!”

***

R
on
couldn’t fathom why someone, who could afford to pay a million five for an old
hexed coin, would choose to live in a flood-ravaged wasteland. He sat in his
car and surveyed the ruined neighborhood. Katrina had really put the hurts on
it, the entire area looked war-torn and empty. Plumbing remnants snubbed into
the air among the weeds, short cracked sidewalks led to concrete porch shaped
gravestones and partial foundations.

Scattered among the empty lots, here and there, were small
cracker box houses, each with a door and a single window on the front and one
or two down the sides. He tried to imagine the entire area filled with these
tiny boxes, the image he conjured was as strange as the one he was actually
seeing. The American Dream didn’t fit either one, and neither seemed fitting
for a Voodoo witch, priestess or whatever she was called. Crazy rich woman
still seemed befitting to Ron. He could picture a Voodoo priestess in the crazy
tourist traps, down in the French Quarter, but this was crack head central, or
probably used to be. Maybe she was incognito, on the down low, Ron told
himself, to justify why he had his pride and joy parked in front of a shoebox
with a roof, in the middle of a festering shithole. Maybe, she’s the real deal.
Maybe, they ran her out of the Quarter for zombifing her competition and
killing chickens on Fat Tuesday.

Had Ron ever met her in person, he would probably have
believed she had somehow hypnotized him into imagining Nolte in an absurd ghost
form, but there had been no personal contact between the two. She had sent a
lawyer, complete with an appraisal of the coin, a prominence and a copy of the
contract to be finalized on delivery. All of it had checked out. The firm, the
prominence from a Jerusalem auction house, and the German appraisers. Once Fat
Ron, Ron’s own lawyer, had told him everything was legit, he was, though he
hated the cliché, in it to win it. He just had to wait for Nolte to die.

Nothing ever seems to go as planned, Nolte was back. Her
lawyer had told him; he would have a three-day window before the unholy
miracle. As miraculous as the situation was, with a million five at stake, Ron
wasn’t interested in the why’s, or how’s of it, he wanted to know if they still
had a deal, he would express his ooh’s, and ah’s, and oh my goodness’s, once he
had his hands on the cash.

Charlie had been convinced it would happen, from the get-go.
He believed in angels and demons, he was absolutely sure, a homeless man he had
tripped over outside of a convenience store, in Phoenix, had been an angel.
Though he told the story often, he would never reveal what gave him the
indication the man was supernatural.

Charlie was also convinced that seeing demons was as easy as
a dose of bad acid, or ingesting various cactus flowers. “Dark shit is just as
real as the light; the evil is just easier to get your hands on.” He’d told
him. Well, Ron wasn’t even sure the “light” shit existed and remembered
thinking Charlie was bat shit crazy and should probably step away from the
Bible, and perhaps, schedule a reality check. Ron had just assumed the coin was
about greed and nothing else. Everything was.

He couldn’t see any cars, but he could see, even though it
was midday, the bulb in the porch light was lit. She’d said it would be, when
she had given him the address over the phone, a voodoo priestess’ version of a
secret signal.

The lawyer had been indignant and acted as if Ron had asked
him for his first born, instead of a simple contact number for the witch. It
had taken several hours for him to get the okay from her and return his call.
Had this world really gone so far into the shitter that witches needed lawyers?
He asked himself. Maybe, once all this nonsense was over and he had the money,
he and Charlie could go on a unicorn hunt.

 
“Let’s do this,” he
told himself out loud, as he got out of the car. “You got this.” He coached
himself, as he walked up the small driveway. He tried to look a hell of a lot
more collected than he felt but knew that if the witch saw him talking to
himself, his cover of coolness would be blown.

“You’ll never find my nest egg, Nancy Boy.” Ron spun on his
heel, expecting to find Nolte’s naked ass, but there was nothing. The old man
could really fuck everything up if he popped up now.

“Don’t worry, White Boy, he not
welcome
in here.” Ron spun again to find an ancient black woman watching him through
the screen door. “I been lookin’ der at you for some time, Boy. Been watchin’
you try to convince yourself, you not crazy, ta to.” The woman pushed the door
open, revealing the age in her face the screen door had hidden. “Enter in here,
White Boy. I want to show you dis thing you wanna know.” She turned and
disappeared into the small house. Ron caught the door before the spring could
suck it closed and followed.

The room was empty other than an upside down, rusty bucket
positioned in the corner. The woman walked to the bucket and sat down, emitting
a slight groan as she planted herself. Her knees popped like a like a bag of
marbles. “You stand, White Boy, I only have
dis
one chair.”
The dust on the floor was thick enough to show footprints, but the lime green
dress the old woman wore was bright and spotless.

“You’re not really what I expected,” Ron said, trying to
think of something to do with his hands. He stuck them in his pockets.

“You dunna know what you ‘spected, Boy, other un money.” The
old woman tilted her ear up to the air. “You hear dat, White Boy?
You
daddy try to listen through.” Her voice strained as she bent
to pick a short candle from the floor. “Go away nigger, dis thing ain’t for you
ear.” She spun the wheel on a worn Zippo and lit the candle. “Pardon, I get my
jimmy goin’, den I show you dis thing.”

Reaching into the pocket on the front of her dress, she
produced a toothpick and a small black ball of opium. She rolled the ball
carefully between her finger and thumb, before sticking it on the end of the
toothpick. A smell of cheap perfume filled her corner of the room, as she
passed the candle back and forth under the small black wad. When it began to
trail smoke, she sucked it from the air noisily. She looked at Ron from the
corner of her eye as she sucked at another tendril of smoke. Blowing out the
candle with a thin blue stream of smoke, her full attention finally rested on
Ron. “Dis opium be bunk, da chikenshit dat sell me dis, gonna lose his dick. It
gonna fall off.” The look on her face told Ron that she meant every word. “Hear
dis thing, White Boy, I say dis thing one time. Twenny year ago,
you
daddy put it to a girl in ‘Nawlins and she tell him a
secret thing, she tell him how I roll da Voodoo an make wimmens to mens. She
tell
him I make mens inna chillren. She
tell
him I make mens live forever.” The witch relit the candle with her lighter and
put the flame back under her opium. After sucking at another thin stream of
blue smoke she lowered her voice and continued. “
You
daddy ask me if I do a thing. He
say
he skert ta die.
Done bad shit he cain’t claim before da Lord. He
ask
me can I do dis thing, ta to.” She peered up into Ron’s eyes. “You know da
story of da Lord, Boy? He got fucked over wit thirty pieces a silver money”

“Yeah, I’ve seen the movie.”

“I find you daddy a silver money from da devil’s deal. Da
money dat betray da Lord and pay for da potter’s land.”

“The fucking coin Nolte has, is one of the thirty pieces of
silver? Judas’ money?” Ron asked, once again getting feeling that his ass was
being played for a mark.

“Don’t you doubt me, White Boy, I make you dick fall off in
you hand! You shut
you
fuckin’ mouth and listen to dis
thing. Dat silver money got de soul a Judas innit. Scratch hisself put it
there.” The woman turned and yelled to the back of the house. “Go away nigger,
dis ain’t for you ear!” She turned back to smile at Ron.

He was at this point; pretty sure, even if she was a hand to
god witch, she was a crazy as fuck, hand to god witch.

“
You
daddy buy dis thing. He cut a
deal wit da Trumpet Fixer and put his soul on da books.” She stopped talking a
moment to examine the end of her toothpick. “Da white boy
bring
me da thing an I cut a piece outta his soul. I take a tiny slice of his ass
an
put it in da Judas money.” The old woman chuckled. “I bet
Judas be pissed off as fo’ muffuckers, when I do dat.”

“Da money be tied to dis world, White Boy, by da thing da
Lord died for, but it be open by da soul of Judas, for da shit he done. Dat’s
how I catch the white boy’s soul. I put it in da hole inna money. When he cross
over his soul catch da dark light,
an
snap back here.
Da white boy git spit da fuck out, ‘cuz a Judas, ta to? Judas have no place of
rest.
You
daddy, now have da form a da next world in
this world.” The woman blew out the candle and tossed it on the floor at her
feet; hot wax splattered and rolled in the dust. “You got less than three days
ta get me dat silver money, Boy, or you never be rid of him. He gonna live
forever.” She stared at Ron unblinking.

“How does the coin pull him back, because of Judas?”

“I jes told you, Judas is da missin’ soul, Boy. All da souls
be counted fo’ ‘cept Judas’. The Heaven don’t want it cuz he
fuck
over da Lord an Scratch cain’t have it cuz Judas kill his own ass, before Jesus
come on back an have a chance ta save it.” The old woman pointed a crooked
finger toward the door. “You got two and one half days, White Boy. On da third
day
you
daddy be able to pick it up, da silver money.
Right now, it be fuckin’ wit him, he cain’t touch it. On the third day he
become good ta go. You git my silver money,
an
you git
da big money.”

“Can I ask you, why you are willing to pay so much for this
coin,” Ron asked, trying to figure out why this frail old woman scared him so
much?