The Devil's Due

Maria Sozzo paid five hundred dollars for the head of the man who had killed her son.

Hector was nineteen when he was shot in the back of the head with a large caliber pistol during a drug deal gone bad.

In the cold, dehumanizing florescence of the coroner’s morgue, Maria identified her son’s body by the birthmark on his right shoulder and the puckered white-pink scar that ran halfway down his left side. He had burned himself playing with fireworks when he was eleven. 

‘He always was a careless boy,’ she said to no one in particular, staring down at the lifeless form on the metal slab, another ubiquitous late-teen Latino male with gang tats on both arms and no face to speak of.

Maria paid for Hector’s funeral from the money he had been saving to buy a Mac-10. He said a thousand rounds a minute would give him street cred. Maria had pointed at his crotch and said, ‘Cojones; that’s where you get your cred.’ 

She had seen him hiding cash, from time to time, beneath his bed in the room he shared with his girlfriend, Tillia. Mother and son had been close until Tillia moved in and things began to change. Maria threw the little puta out the afternoon of the funeral. Tillia took a Greyhound to live with her sister Lupi in Miami. 

The shoebox arrived not long afterwards. When she saw the postmark on the brown paper wrapping, Maria knew what to expect. She looked at the crude stick doll with the pin in its face then put it back in the box, went down to the alley and burnt it all in an empty garbage can. Tillia’s stick doll meant nothing to her but the fire made her shiver.

Not long after, the assassin delivered the head in a shopping bag, its bloody content wrapped in newspapers sealed with duct tape. At first glance it looked like a crude paper mâché model of a head except for the blood stains on the bottom. 

Initially Maria had wanted it soley as proof of the job done. But from the moment she laid eyes on it, she became obsessed with an idea.

She had known the man from the neighbourhood and thought him a pig. His frequent advances made her feel vulnerable and dirty. He needed to be punished. Not just with death.

So she put the bag in a plastic bucket, and from time to time, would pour bleach on the head to keep the smell down which was not much worse than the constant stink in the back hallway downstairs that bums used as a toilet.

Two weeks after Hector’s funeral, Maria carefully transferred the head to another shopping bag then rode the subway up to the Bronx. Fellow passengers glanced sideways at the woman with the fierce expression on her face and the foul-smelling shopping bag at her feet that seemed to be stained wet with blood. But this was New York so everyone looked away and minded their own business.   

That afternoon, sitting across the kitchen table from Mamma Rua, Maria handed her the shopping bag. Mamma spread it open, reached inside and shut her eyes. Her lips move slightly and a soft murmur followed. Then . . . ‘Oooooh! ’ Mamma suddenly pulled her hand out. 

‘Bad man; evil man.’

‘He killed my son,’ Maria said coldly.

‘Dis is evil man. You don’t want dis,’ Mamma Rua shook her head vehemently. 

‘He killed my son, Mamma. Do this.’ 

Mamma Rua shut her brown rheumy eyes. After a long moment, opened them and nodded. ‘Okay. But da price is doubled.’

Maria took out a roll of bills and paid.

‘Come back next week; Friday.’

Maria nodded.

‘You go now.’

The following Friday Maria picked up the shopping bag which Mamma Rua had wrapped tightly sealed in heavy tape.

‘Listen, girl, when you open dat bag, be very careful. Here take dis.’ She reached into her bathrobe pocket and handed Maria a small jar. 

‘Dis is ash from special wood. Spread it over der head after you open bag. Don’t wait. It will keep Muisak inside. I dun some; you do more.’ She squeezed Maria’s hand holding the jar. Mamma Rua’s were ice-cold. ’Keep the evil spirit inside. You understand? He can’t hurt you den.’

Maria knew of the devil spirit Muisak but gave it as much concern as the stick doll Tillia had sent.

That night she sat in her kitchen lit only by the flickering light of four candles. A half-empty bottle of St. James rum sat on the table next to an ashtray filled with the remains of a joint. 

She lifted the shopping bag onto the table. With fingers trembling, part with

anticipation, part with a vague primal dread, she unwound the

tape binding the shopping bag then placed the cloth-covered head on the table in front of her. It had been reduced to the size of a large coconut. 

Slowly she lifted the cloth, unveiling the head of her son’s killer. 

The brown skin was stretched taut around the round stone that had replaced the skull. It had turned yellow at the edges where it had been stitched together at the back. The lips had been sewn shut then stuck top through bottom with a series of sharp, tooth-pick-like stakes. The eye lids were sealed shut. The image, grotesque and mal-formed, emanated an energy that made Maria shiver.

 She stood up, rum bottle in hand, and walked slowly about the room, always with an eye on the head as she took hit after hit from the bottle. 

When the rum was finished along with another joint, Maria flopped down in her chair and grinned at the head, her face close to it.  

‘Carajo,’ she yelled. ‘Grande carajo. Where is your big dick now, Chico? Where is your gun?’ She spat and her saliva hung over one eyelid then slowly slid down the face. She threw her head back, laughing hysterically, rocking in her chair until she fell backwards hitting her head.

It was after midnight when she became conscious. The candles had burned down and the room was dark. Groggy, she braced her arms on the fallen chair and pushed herself up. Through half-closed eyes she looked at the head and thought it was smiling, its eyes staring back at her. Startled, she staggered back and wiped her face with the sleeve of her dress. When she looked again, it was as she had remembered earlier; the eyes were shut. 

She felt dizzy and sick. Her head ached. She stumbled into her bedroom and fell face-down, the metal bedframe and springs screeching as she landed. The glass jar of powdered ash slipped from her housedress pocket and rolled under the bed spilling its contents on the floor.

Barney O’Brien puffed his way slowly up to the fourth floor. Jeez; always the top floor. What’s with these people anyhow? He stopped outside the flat and leaned against the wall. Goddamn job! Three weeks left, thank Jesus, he wheezed, his asthma acting up with the climb.

The door was still on its hinges but shattered along the opposite edge. It swung open easily to his touch. He ducked under the police tape and went in. The acrid smell of smoke still hung in the air. He moved to the room on the right where the smell was heaviest. He had investigated roasts before, but this was a strange one according to the report.

The room was sparse – dresser against one wall, wooden chair in the corner with clothes draped over it, crucifix on the wall behind the bed, a window with its paper shade torn and dangling to one side. 

The boys had been gentle, Barney smiled to himself, noting the window had been opened rather than smashed and the rest of the place was in pretty good shape except for the front door which the firemen would have had to axe it open.

What was left of the bed had been pulled away from the wall. The report stated the mattress had burned down to the springs and the flames had fused the deceased body to the metal. Barney stared at the rectangular hole in the springs that had been cut away by the coroner’s team to facilitate removal of the remains,. He could visualize the small body-shaped lump of charcoal curled in the foetal position as if longing the safety of the womb. 

The fire had confined itself to the bed, burning itself out after finding nothing else to consume. Barney opened the folder and scanned the report: possible faulty wiring.

He knelt down with a grunt and examined the blackened plastic covering surrounding the outlet behind the bed. It was cool to the touch and the black coating easily brushed off revealing the plastic intact. With a small, multi-tool he undid the two screws and examined the wiring. They showed no sign of heat exposure. 

‘What the hell!,’ his voice sounding hollow in the near-empty room. Suddenly he felt someone looking over his shoulder. Embarrassed, he pivoted on his knees and stared at no one. Then he caught sight of what looked like a coconut shell sitting on the dresser behind him. But it had eyes, eyes staring at him and a mouth with sticks twisted into a smile. 

Barney struggled awkwardly to his feet, edged around the dresser with the eyes following him, he would later swear, and left. 

Moving down the stairs he thought to himself, it was probably the faulty outlet; what else? 

He shrugged. Jesus, these people. Go figure.