By E.R.York
Chapter One
“It would be best if you put that back where you found it, sir.”
The cop was tall. So tall as to be disproportionately gangly. He had to bend down uncomfortably to whisper in Isaiah’s ear. Isaiah Molse (everyone called him Ice) nodded in compliance as he did as the cop suggested and placed the tiny brass monkey back where he found it. But not before noticing that it bore an icon of sorts stamped into its bottom.
Ice always had a way of noticing those details that seemed out of place in a crime scene. Today he had spotted the little monkey lying almost languidly near the man’s head. Ice had rescued it from the halo of blood that was spreading slowly around it. He had had to wipe the blood away, and when he did, there was the icon, tiny, almost indiscernible. Ice figured the man wouldn’t mind if he took it, wouldn’t even miss it. The man was most assuredly dead. Witnesses said he had surprised them from somewhere above, probably from one of the many windows that sparkled in the late afternoon sun. No one seemed to know which one had been the instrument of his death, there were hundreds in the 70-story building towering toward the sky. He might even have dived from the roof. No one knew for sure. No one had noticed him till he whizzed by and hit the sidewalk with a most undignified whump.
Ice had been a vice cop in his former life. But now he was just an aging alcoholic who occasionally pondered how he had come to this point in his life. He didn’t bother pondering where he would was going from here. Once upon a time he had had a wife, a couple of cute kids, even a pretty great job that he liked. Back in the days when he used to enjoy puzzling out a mystery and bringing in the bad guys. But somewhere along the way the job got hard, people got cold and he got old. Somewhere along the line, the occasional beer after work with the guys turned into boiler makers every day, then finally just the hard stuff and lots of it. Pretty soon the booze was his only companion. One day he woke up from a binge to find himself alone. Marla had disappeared with the kids, his buddies had all wandered away and he just couldn’t do the job anymore. “What the hell”, he figured. “Why bother?”
But standing there on the sidewalk that hot, sticky afternoon, there was that old tingle again. It glinted in the sunlight as he turned the tiny brass monkey over and around in his hand. Ice waited till the cop was occupied with controlling the crowd that was gathering on the sidewalk beside the man’s body. Then, fairly certain the cop wouldn’t notice, he picked up the little brass monkey again and slid casually back among the onlookers. He felt a tinge of recognition when he saw that familiar icon. Somewhere out of his boozy past, hazy memories snuck forward--a tiny novelty shop, musty and dank and located way out of the way on the south side of town where no one of any consequence ever goes. There, hidden away among the bars and the crack halls and the cheap rooms-for-rent-by-the-hour was a most unusual little shop. Looking for magic tricks? Want your palm read? Tarot cards? Need to pick up some supplies for your next spell? Their logo was the all-seeing eye of Ra. Ironically, the strange little shopkeeper did seem to “know” everything.
But today, having stumbled onto this messy suicide, Ice knew it was time to pay the little shop a visit. He remembered the little monkey in the shop window. Sitting there so sublime, next to its little brass siblings. One with its paws over its eyes, the other with its paws over its ears. This one had its paws over its mouth. Squatting monkeys tell no lies.
“So…What’s become of your brothers, little guy?” Ice asked the little monkey aloud as slipped it into his jacket pocket. His shoes knocked loudly against the concrete as he hurried down the sidewalk, away from the dead man’s body.
Chapter Two
The tinkling bell announced his arrival as Ice opened the door and stepped inside. Instantly he was met with the pungent aroma of incense and who knows what else. That smell, a powerful trigger, and instantly, Ice was thrown back to the last time he stepped into this shop. The murder of a hooker had brought him here. The poor girl had been nearly completely decapitated. She had no ID on her but they did find a worn business card in her tattered pocket. Ra’s Treasure, it had read, just above an obscure Delta Street address. New Orleans had a number of such shops, being a haven as it were for the unusual. Voodoo practitioners were commonplace. Mediums could be found around every corner. But this shop was exceptional even for New Orleans. It had a way of reaching out and grabbing you by the neck when you tried to pass. It drew you in and held you captive. Once it had you, you were never free of it. It owned you.
address. New Orleans had a number of such shops, being a haven as it were for the unusual. Voodoo practitioners were commonplace. Mediums could be found around every corner. But this shop was exceptional even for New Orleans. It had a way of reaching out and grabbing you by the neck when you tried to pass. It drew you in and held you captive. Once it had you, you were never free of it. It owned you.
“Cross me palm wit’ coin and ye may find the answers that ye seek”. The voice was soft black velvet, husky. It slipped out of the darkness and wrapped itself around Ice like a snake. He shivered almost imperceptibly as he remembered the source of the voice. Two black diamonds sparkled in the dark. Ice could just make them out, those eyes. She was ancient and timeless; one of those rare women that seemed as young as a child yet as old as time itself. Those eyes had a way of drawing him in. And her touch – cold, inhuman. Pray you never had the misfortune to feel her hand on your skin.
“Madame Zolda…” The whisper escaped his lips before he could get a hold of it. He was sure she could hear his heart pounding in his chest, his blood thundering through his temples.
“Ah, Meesta Ice. Again ye return. But our business be unfinished. Still ye bring me not the man who took me seesta’s life. Speak why ye come to me dees day. What brings ye across me door?”
Ice pulleded the tiny monkey from his jacket pocket and placed it in the middle of an ancient table placed dead center in the dark room. “Look familiar?”
“I tell you not’ing, ‘cept the little creature be cursed. Ye already be knowin’ he be three.”
“yeah, I know. There’s three of these little guys. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil or some such. What can you tell me about this particular monkey?” Ice was growing impatient. “Where’s the other two?” Ice struggled hard to keep his voice from betraying his annoyance. Getting info out of Madame Zolda was still as infuriating as he remembered. Like pulling teeth.
“What can you tell me about the curse?”
“Curse be protection, curse be revenge. Monkey only wishes to give the holder his heart’s desire.”
Summary of the rest of the story…
As the story unfolds, Ice’s investigation of the “suicide” uncovers two more similar “suicides”, men who held important positions in the community, such as the first “suicide” and who were each found to have among their personal affects a tiny brass monkey. But what is their connection? Coincidence?
20 years earlier, when Ice was a young cop, he investigated the brutal murder of a young hooker. A murder so vicious that she was almost unrecognizable, and nearly decapitated. His investigation brought him to Madame Zolda who he later found was the young hooker’s sister. The young hooker had inadvertently stumbled onto a brutal scene of another young hooker as she was drugged and kidnapped. Madame Zolda ’s sister subsequently investigated to discover that a rash of disappearances of similar young girls was due to a ring of men who were taking them and selling them to Asian business men as sex slaves. Not much investigation was happening in the disappearances, they were just nameless, faceless young hookers. But Madame Zolda ’s sister tried to stop the men, tried to help one young girl, who she had learned was a 15 yr old run-away. Her action got her killed.
The police investigation lead nowhere. When Ice did find evidence, it was quietly “lost” and his investigation was shut down. Later he learned that several of the cops were in on the sex ring.
Madame Zolda , however was not to be deterred from avenging her sister’s death. She cursed three small brass monkeys and made sure they made their way into the hands of the three top men responsible for her sister’s death. Each monkey carried a different curse. Each holder was to die according to the intent of his particular monkey.
One monkey spoke no evil. As long as the holder did not utter a lie, he was protected. As soon as he lied, however, he suffered an untimely brutal death, one assumed by the cops to be a suicide. Each of the other two men suffered a similar fate.
Ice is condemned to relive his past investigation. It was the death of the young hooker that drove him over the edge. After months of ferreting out evidence, he only discovered that his own people were destroying the lives of young girls. Now, 20 years later, the death of the young hooker returns to haunt him yet again.
This time he vows to bring the ring down, make public the men’s acts. This time he doesn’t give up. Justice is finally served and Madame Zolda ’s sister is avenged. Ice’s life is redeemed in the process. As he puts things to right one by one, his sorrows are relieved and he is resurrected as a human being once again.
