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tears. And then he’ll start on you. You’ll be portrayed as the
vindictive, heartless bastard who insisted on a murder charge being brought in
retaliation for the girl’s assault on you.”
    “Couldn’t whacking your mother with an axe be
considered just a little bit vindictive as well?” Val said, standing up.
    “Where are you going? I haven’t finished with you.”
    “We’ve only the girl’s testimony on this initiation
story. I want to check it out.”
    Larson relaxed. “How do you plan to do that?”
    “Professor Richard Bickford is chair of anthropology
at my brother’s university. I once read a book of his on voodoo ritual. He
could substantiate or discredit Duval’s story.”
    Larson thought about it, before saying, “Go to it.”
      Val phoned the
university’s administration department and asked to speak with Bickford. The
woman he was transferred to told him that the professor wasn’t expected on
campus that day and she refused to pass on his private number. Val gave her his
number and asked her to have Bickford ring him.
    He rang Val back less than five minutes later and
listened without interruption as Val explained at some length what he needed
from him. Bickford seemed reluctant at first, then, as though a switch had been
thrown he was full of enthusiasm and said that he would pick Val up at
headquarters and they could drive to the Irish Channel in his car. He promised
to be outside the building in twenty minutes and rang off.
    Bickford’s car turned out to be a battered and
mud-splashed British Land Rover with a canvas canopy and three rows of seats
screwed to the flatbed. The university’s crest was painted on the sides. They
traded names and shook hands.
    The professor's appearance hadn’t changed a lot, Val
noticed, from the picture on the jacket of his book. His face, brown as a nut,
was a little more lined than it had been then. His hairline had receded
slightly, but he still had thick eyebrows and shoulder-length hair that he wore
swept back in a neat ponytail. His arms were corded with sinew and muscle. He
had on a T-shirt and shorts and his left leg was encased in a rigid leg brace.
A set of elbow crutches was propped against the center seat.
    “What happened?” Val asked, forced to raise his voice
above the music blaring from the Land Rover’s cd player.
    “Fell off an overhang in Utah. I’m a rock-jock. Only
this time I came down the easy way. At my age bones take longer to heal. My leg
is the reason I might have sounded less than willing when you rang. I can slide
in and out of this baby, but saloon cars are out of the question. He nodded to
Val’s hand. “You’ve been in the wars yourself.”
    Val gave him a brief account of his climbing accident.
Bickford found it hilarious and his laughter was infectious. For the first time
since it had happened, Val found himself able to smile about it.
    “This book of mine you’ve read,” he asked. “Where did
you get your hands on a copy? It didn’t exactly make the best seller list.”
    “City library.”
    “Cheapskate. What do you make of the cd?”
    “Loud. What is it?”
    “Arabian Fantasy, an album recorded by David Fanshawe,
an English ethnomusicologist. He had ships passing through the Suez Canal blow
their foghorns, which he taped, then he wrote and arranged accompanying music.
Must have scared the crap out of every camel for fifty miles.”
    “I don’t know about that. They can make some pretty
scary noises themselves.”
    Bickford laughed again, and then abruptly changed the
subject. “Did this manbo of yours have a set of drums?”
    “Yes, to induce the
danse-lwa?”
    He nodded and drifted off into the music. Val said
nothing more, other than to give directions.
    Daylight didn’t improve the appearance of Duval’s
building. The stucco was cracked, the paint faded. They pulled up outside and
Val waited on the sidewalk as Bickford eased himself out and slipped his arms
into the crutches.
    The room was sealed