Gris-Gris*

Walter LoPresti backed the throttle of the Cessna 185 and reduced the propeller by a couple hundred turns. The cabin noise grew noticeably quieter as the airplane settled into a long glide. As he broke through the gray mist several hundred feet above the earth, a little more throttle brought the nose up to skim scant feet under the cloud bottoms above.

The dark green of the Cypress and Black Gum, and the lack of ripples on the long, spokes of cleared swamp became his landing instructions. The late Louisiana afternoon calmed in anticipation of the evening’s repertory of heat-driven thunderstorms. White, towering, cumulonimbus clouds stayed hidden at this altitude but threatened in the west. 

This was good, he decided, and reminded himself to make the airplane especially secure in its hiding spot. Storms were coming, deafening assaults of nature’s most powerful evil. Excitement tightened his muscle-hardened stomach.

Twenty minutes of low-level cruising, and a familiar island of russet-gold Sawgrass and overhanging trees broke the monotony of the swamp lowlands. He banked the airplane, lining up on the lengthening shadows. Wispy Water Ash lined the canals cut decades before by petrochemical companies. He left power to the engine and touched the dark water, the caress of twin pontoons as gentle as a lover’s. No prehistoric swamp creature dared to spoiled his near-perfect approach and silky splashdown.   

As the Cessna slowed to a taxi speed, a twenty-three foot, open fisherman with a 200 horsepower Johnson roared from reeds. Its bow jumped high and menacing, like a snapping guard dog roused from sleep.  Three men stood in the boat, two with rifles giving chase to the slowing airplane.

LoPresti laughed as he swung the airplane into cut and taxied under a cypress stand. A second path, narrower that the oil canal, lead deeper into the American jungle. The airplane turned, its wingtip brushing the overhanging vines. The rudder and engine worked expertly and after ten minutes bumped against an outcropping of moist soil. Near the spit, a dark man stood upright in a small pirogue waiting in the shade, a long pole in his hands. 

The pilot pulled the mixture knob to kill the power. The drift took him to the black man who deftly tied a line at the forward cleat. Neither guard in the speed boat relaxed their vigilance. In this part of the Zydeco south swamps, few people were paid cash-money for anything. 

“What’s your business, you?” one questioned in the inflection of the two hundred-year-old Acadian dialect. They bumped hard against the pontoon.  

“Johns Marque,” the pilot answered, opening the small window. His soft-pitched voice like a Southern breeze. “Just like the letter in your pocket.”  The boat driver glanced down as if he’d forgotten the blue envelope. “M-a-r-q-u-e,” LoPresti spelled out the name, enjoying the French. He liked the touch of local color.  

The boatman looked down at the script he’d received a week before. “Mr. John,” he repeated. “That you?”

“Johns,” corrected LoPresti. He laughed and pushed open the door. He was perched well above the three men in the cockpit. “But that’s close enough. Yes.” Just like the false, little goatee on his chin, he used an indifferent Southern accent that was as foreign to these men as if the man was from Boston. “Y’all tie up. Get one of your boys to get the cargo door.”  

One of the rifle bearers smirked. LoPresti saw the gesture and was pleased. If these people were ever asked about Johns Marque, they would describe him far differently from his everyday persona. Of course, LoPresti would murder them long before that ever happened.

The more stout of the two placed his weapon on the boat deck, leaning the barrel skyward. The pilot called out as he placed a foot on high step. “Ya’ll be careful. There’s stuff back there that can’t be jostled. If you bang it again, we’ll all be chunks of gator bait. Know what I mean?”

The big man’s face drained of color. A glance inside the airplane’s hold told them everything they needed to know. LoPresti laughed to himself. So macho and so frightened, as if their pathetic lives meant anything.

When neither of the two powerboat men moved, the older mulatto climbed on the pontoon without comment. His sweat-slick skin was coffee colored and his head, bald. He wore no hat and didn’t bother slapping at the biting mosquitoes and flies. Without a word, he opened the cargo bay and quietly went about unloading. No one else rushed to help him as he stacked each parcel in the bow and returned for another. The boxes were marked in Russian Cyrillic, Vietnamese chu nom characters, and the English letters PETN and RDX.  LoPresti brought with him nearly two hundred and sixty kilos of the compound. Seven hundred pounds of a high-explosive purchased from a Southeast Asian arms dealer. Very effective stuff.  He liked the Asian explosive better than the European. A bit more bang and a bit less stable.  He thought it ironic that the two, largest importers of the explosive were the newly capitalistic Czech Republic and America’s old foe − Vietnam. Capitalist and Communistic. How ironic. And of course, the US was one of their biggest customers right alongside of Afghanistan.

“What is your name?” LoPresti called to the Black man.

“Rudy, Mr. Johns,” he answered and did not looked up. Probably in his sixties, though he seemed ageless. His strong back and cabled muscles made quick work of the cargo.

 If Rudy worked out, the man might be useful. “Rudy,” LoPresti repeated. “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance. 

“Yes, sir, Mr. Johns.” 

When the load was transferred, LoPresti flipped a toggle in the engine compartment that killed his emergency locator beacon. He didn’t want to chance malfunctions during the night that might inadvertently alert authorities. The sulfurous and humid canal lay squarely in the protected wildlife sanctuary around Marsh Island. Pilots were restricted from flights any closer than 2,000 feet above the deserted swamp of herons, egrets, Sand Cranes and alligators. Stupid, wonderful law, he thought to himself. Except for poachers, he would not be bothered by gawkers or low-flyers.

The boat rocked against the pontoon’s side as the men tossed and secured a tarp over the last of the boxes. Each carefully avoided touching the boxes. Evening mosquitoes buzzed everywhere, thick and demanding. The occasional vampire landed on LoPresti’s skin but quickly lost interest, as if the man had no vitality worth stealing. He popped the top of a Diet Coke and relaxed in a padded seat. The electric blasting caps were secured in a cut wood box beside him.

“Let’s be quick, ya’ll,” he called with a sharp clap of his hands. The boat driver jumped at the unexpected noise and glanced around in irritation. LoPresti’s clear, blue eyes were truly frightening, like a cottonmouth leisurely selecting a spot to sink his fangs. “Time’s a-wasting,” he said with a paced menace to the boat driver. “The sooner you can get me there and back, the sooner you’ll have your money.” He loved playing the role.

“Yes, sir,” answered the man, frightened to his most secret inner being. 

LoPresti wore a shoulder holster with a snub nose .38 pistol, but didn’t need the gun to be scary. When necessary in his career, he’d been a face-to-face killer with self-injecting hypodermics or .44 magnum gut gun. He’d practiced many weeks with Saudi and Yemen masters, using a twenty thousand-dollar, long-range sniper rifle. With maturity, however, came understanding of his true place in the world. Nothing replaced rending flesh, fiery stone, and violent wind ripping apart brick and steel. LoPresti loved to watch and imagine those caught inside. He loved to slip from dark shadows to invisible sunlight with befuddled authorities never close to catching him. He loved hearing newspapers calling him more gris gris and ghost than human. Walter LoPresti wanted a reputation and to have others to fear him. It was good for business. This job involved a Louisiana city attorney and a couple of his cronies. The men would be shredded in pieces too small to bother with caskets. That they were crooked and general blights on the face of humanity meant nothing to him. They could be fathers of the year for all he cared. LoPresti only wanted the money that was his. All his stars were in the right place.

When the explosives were finally transferred and the last man took up his position, the driver cranked the engine and spun the wheel. Rudy stood in his pirogue and silently watched. A single-lens, electric lantern perched in the bow, waiting the noisy boat to be gone. Rudy was the exception and didn’t seem impressed by the closeness of death. LoPresti decided he had plans for Rudy.

Walter LoPresti, aka Johns Marque, fluffed a pad on his back and relaxed. His high-pitched, falsetto laugh sent chills crawling the backs of the guards. From his position near the console, he enjoyed the damp breeze, liking very much the isolation of this swamp. 

Pronounced without the ‘s’ , Gris Gris refers to an African or Caribbean amulet. Spanning the charms of Louisiana swamps and folktales, this voodoo foretells only horror, bloody death, and chaos. Welcome to my world.