cab ride continued

         "Damn! You look like a Hollywood voodoo villain!"
        A staccato laugh erupted from the chest of Henri Bertrand. "Quite right. I'm a promoter. I represent several reggae bands in the UK and the States."
        Pirate Jenny laughed too, with relief.
       "Are you French?"
       "Oui. Actually I'm from Haiti. And I was having an intriguing conversation with our driver."
       "I don't believe it."
       "C'est vrais."
       "Daddy Doc doesn't chit-chat."
       "Well, we share a few interests."
       She felt her guts squirm, and shrank from him as far as she could in the roomy sedan.
       He chuckled with dark rapture.
       At length he added, "It seems that our driver and I have both visited a very famous boneyard in Paris. He reveres Symbolist poets. I revere Jim Morrison."
      

                                                                                     *


      The blue Chrysler jounced down the cobblestone cart-path laid in the 1790s by the British. Humingbird Lane. Tropical vines bloomed in the hot season and oozed a nectar these miniscule birds craved. The island bred a viciously competitive fighting hummingbird who would battle to the death for just one delicious flower. Daddy Doc drove with his window down, breathing in the sweet scent of night jasmine. He remembered meeting Henri Bertrand in Paris many years ago. How many encounters? He was not certain. The man possessed powers of the mind that enabled him to deceive the senses of people. On sidewalks, in cafes. In the cemetery Pere La Chaise


       A winter drizzle turned into sleet as he stood among the graves and he yearned for the warmth of Saint James. A damp icy chill invaded his bloodstream, turning, it felt, his plasma into gelatin. Johnny Luck had given him a guidebook to the grave sites. Yes, young Johnny Luck was in Paris too, attending the Sorbonne. Many South American and Caribbean people flocked here for a European education. Daddy Doc delighted in seeing so many non-white faces in Paris. Sophisticates all, to a respectable degree. Like the chic ones with fedoras and scarves sitting in the Deaux Maggots and discussing the Bal Negre. He hoped the majority of them would glean valuable knowledge here and perhaps return to their jungles, pampas and islands and teach their impoverished bretheren all the marvelous ideas. It hurt him, nevertheless, to hear dogshit Frenchmen refer to black people as eggplants.
       This bleak day as he stood in Pere La Chaise, Daddy Doc noticed a remarkable-looking man in a black wool topcoat standing bareheaded at a distant site. Curly hair, wet from rain and sleet, summoned to mind an image of a dead drowned poodle. The stranger's face was luminous and his chocolate eyes were magnetic. Daddy Doc recognized a kindred adept in the occult arts.
       He averted his eyes from the stranger, and, looking down, he saw a dead drowned poodle at his feet in the frozen grass. Immediately he looked for the stranger and saw, to no surprise, that the man was gone. Disappeared. Had he merely walked to another grave site? Then, without warning, the man appeared beside him, brushing his shoulder in passing by.
       "Pardon, monsieur. I did not mean to bump you."
       "Bien," Daddy Doc replied, watching the man go. The sequence of events had included a slot of missing time. A parlor trick. Showing off.
       Thus he followed the shadowy figure and rambled the streets of Paris.


       Now, many years later, Henri Bertrand was his passenger.
       This added zing to his driving.