He thought he heard someone snicker, but when he looked up, none of his colleagues seemed to be paying any attention to him. Of course not. He would bet his paycheck, though, that most of them knew about Friday's trouble at the humfo. The story had made the papers, plus most editions of the local television news.

      Never mind. They weren't responsible. Baribeau had a pretty good idea who had made this "voodoo doll."

      "Whatcha got there, Claude? A Cactus Patch Kid? Heh, heh, heh!" Baribeau's supervisor, Larry Arbus, approached, clipboard in hand, fatuous smile plastered across his face.

      Baribeau picked up the doll and dumped it in the trash. "Somebody's idea of a joke."

      Arbus stopped smiling. "You're four minutes late."

      "I'm sorry." Baribeau slipped the satchel he had been carrying underneath his desk.

      Arbus consulted his clipboard, one of his dearest possessions. "That's the third time this month."

      "I was visiting a sick friend."

      "You've always got some excuse. We offer a choice of shifts, Claude, but that doesn't mean you can stroll in any damn time you please."

      After all that had happened over the weekend, Baribeau did not need the aggravation of dealing with Arbus. Five of his parishioners had spent time in jail, two were seriously injured, and Baribeau himself had paid heavily in both money and sleep. He was not in the mood to hear about Arbus's problems.

      He did need this job, so he merely said, "It won't happen again, Larry."

      "It had better not." Arbus suddenly froze, contorting his features into a theatrical expression of terror. "Oh, my God," he said loudly, "I forgot! You might cast a voodoo hex on me if I get you mad! Don't do it, Claude. Don't turn me into a zombie! Please!"

      Arbus let out with a high-pitched cackle. Some of the other employees joined in. Baribeau felt hot blood flush his neck and cheeks.

      Arbus stopped laughing. "Get here on time, Baribeau. It's a habit we expect our employees to learn. Especially if they want to keep their jobs." He walked away.

      Fuming, Baribeau donned his telephone headset. How dare he! How dare Arbus mock his beliefs! Would Arbus like it if he started telling dirty jokes about the Pope?

      God, he hated this job! More than anything else, he wished he could just chuck it and devote himself full-time to the mysteries of vodoun. After all, you didn't see many rabbis or Episcopal ministers moonlighting by pumping gas or delivering newspapers. Their congregrations supported them.

      But Baribeau's humfo was small and its worshippers, in general, short of cash. Many of them paid for his spiritual services in groceries. If Baribeau didn't want to fall behind on his rent and car payments, he had to take a day-job.

      It was time to knuckle down and get on with being a responsible Customer Service representative. Baribeau steeled himself for nearly seven and a half hours of listening to subscribers whine about missing papers, shoddy service and ink on their fingers.

      "Customer Service. How may I help you?"

      Because he had arrived late, Baribeau worked four straight hours without a coffee break. Just when he thought he could stand the endless complaints no more, he received a call from Claire D'Amboise.

      "I'm sorry to bother you at work," his acolyte said in her customary half-whisper. "But I thought you'd want to know that the only day the repairmen can come is Friday."

      "When neither you nor Maurice can be at the humfo."

      "That's right. What do you want to do?"

      Baribeau sighed. "Tell them I'll be there."

      "Can you get off?"

      "I'll work something out."

      "OK. How'd things go at the hospital?"

      He had spent the morning visiting poor Florence Whittaker. Florence, who had danced so energetically while possessed by Ezili, fell and broke her hip after the Gue'de' spirits disrupted the sacrifice. Now she lay in traction at the Kaiser Medical Center, a frightened old woman who remembered nothing of the accident that nearly crippled her.

      "The nurses were skeptical," Baribeau said, "but they let me cast a spell to hasten Florence's recovery. I can't guarantee that the loas will cooperate, but when I left, she seemed much more comfortable."

      "That's good news, Claude. Look, I'd better let you go. Talk to you later."

      "Bye."

      Baribeau removed his headset, stood, stretched and contemplated going to speak with Larry Arbus. Today probably wasn't the best day to ask for leave, but he had to make definite plans. The humfo had to be fixed. He took a deep breath and knocked on Arbus's office door.

      Arbus was busy clipping his fingernails. Looking up, he said, "What is it, Claude?"

      "I need to take Friday off, Larry."

      "Sure. Go right ahead."

      Larry brushed the nail parings from his desktop into his palm, then tossed them in the wastebasket. He put the clippers away in the top drawer. "In fact, feel free to take the rest of your life off."

      Baribeau suddenly felt sick to his stomach. "What are you talking about? You can't just fire me, Larry."

      "No, I can't," Arbus agreed. "But see this?" He held up a sheet of paper with the Personnel Department's letterhead. "This is a notice for reduction of work force. The company's losing money, and it's time to cut the payroll. I've got to lay off three people, those with the lowest seniority. You're one of them, Claude."

      "Let me see that."

      Arbus handed him the sheet and smirked. "It's all there, nice and legal. Grieve it if you want, but I don't think it'll do much good. They're giving you two weeks' notice."

      Arbus's secretary popped her head in. "Mr. Delaney wants to see you in his office, Larry."

      "Be right there." The secretary disappeared. Arbus gathered up some papers, came around the desk and brushed past Baribeau. In the doorway, he said, "Call in sick on Friday. I won't make a fuss. It's the least I can do. Right?" Arbus went to his meeting.

      Baribeau stood there for a moment, not moving, keeping his anger in check lest it spill over and cause him to make a scene he would later regret. Finally, he took a look through the office's glass walls. No one was paying him any attention. He walked to the wastebasket and fished out three of Arbus's fingernail clippings. These he tucked in his shirt pocket.

      Back at his desk, Baribeau regarded his co-workers. In general, he was a man who thought the best of other people. But there were days when his colleagues disturbed and even frightened him. This was one of those days.

      Most of the Customer Service reps moved liked automatons, flat-eyed dead things that still knew how to answer a phone, scribble on a note pad or operate a video display terminal. Like him, they were all here because they needed the money. But a lot of them would still be here in ten or fifteen years, wage slaves supplying stock answers to petty complaints, lulled into complacency by a decent benefits package and the illusion of job security.

      During a vodoun ceremony, Baribeau willingly surrendered himself to forces more powerful than he. But that was a whole world away from surrendering yourself to mindless, deadening drudgery of the sort inflicted on this office's employees.

      At four-thirty, Baribeau took his dinner break. Instead of heading to Wendy's or Carl's Jr. for a burger and fries, he carried his black leather satchel down to a bathroom on the building's second floor. This area was being renovated, and the construction workers had called it quits for the day. No one was likely to barge in on him. Nevertheless, he thumbed the push-button lock on the bathroom door.

      Baribeau set his satchel on the sink counter. He removed from it three small candles, a disposable lighter, a bowl made from half a coconut shell, his ceremonial rattle, a green bottle filled with herbal powder and a carefully wrapped lump of graveyard dirt.

      He lit the candles and let their wax drip onto the countertop. He anchored the tapers in the hardening red liquid. Baribeau mixed the dirt and herb powder together in the bowl, then reached over and shut off the electric lights.

      The hungan faced the makeshift altar and began to chant softly in Creole. He used the noise of the rattle as counterpoint to his song. He dropped Larry Arbus's fingernail parings into the coconut shell.

      He spoke an incantation to summon the darker gods of the vodoun pantheon. The candle flames guttered, stirred by a sudden draught. The brown mixture in the shell spontaneously ignited, burning brightly for a few seconds before extinguishing itself without a trace of smoke.

      A face appeared in the darkened mirror, its every feature exaggerated and grotesque. Ears like palm fronds jutted from its pointed head. An enormous hooked nose perched above red, rubbery lips. Its bulbous orange eyes never stopped moving, tick-tocking back and forth like a clockwork pendulum.

      Baribeau told it what he wanted. The face grinned, nodded and chuckled. As it dissolved back into the mirror, the imp mischievously turned on the sink faucets full-blast. Splashing water soaked the crotch of the hungan's pants.

      It was done. Baribeau turned on the lights, mopped up, put away his tools and left the bathroom.

      He looked at his watch. Twenty minutes left in his break. He caught the elevator to the lunchroom on the fourth floor, where he fortified himself with a stale bologna and cheese sandwich from the vending machine.

      When Baribeau returned to his desk, he saw Larry Arbus back in his office, talking to Victor Delaney, the vice president of circulation.

      Baribeau's phone rang. He picked up the receiver and said, "Customer Service. How may I help you?" His eyes were still on Arbus's glass-walled office.

      Delaney was holding forth on some subject. Arbus regarded him attentively, pen poised over clipboard to transcribe his words of wisdom.

      Arbus suddenly frowned and scratched the side of his beefy neck.

      Baribeau said, "We'll send another copy out to you right away." He smiled.

      Arbus stopped scratching his neck. He folded his hands over his ample belly. He said something to Delaney, then rubbed his shirt front vigorously. Finished, he began fiddling with the pens and pencils on his desk. He looked decidedly uncomfortable.

      Ten seconds hadn't passed before Arbus reached up and began scratching his baldspot. He attacked it as if it were infested with lice. Delaney looked startled and slightly revulsed.

      "May I put you on hold a moment, ma'am?" Baribeau said to his client.

      Trying to maintain his composure, Arbus locked his fingers together and set them forcefully in his lap. His face had turned a hypertensive red, and pink welts ran across his scalp. Delaney, perhaps sensing it might be best to end the meeting, stood.

      Arbus rose, rubbing the tip of his nose against the back of his left hand. The other hand dipped toward his crotch. Before embarassing himself further, Arbus yanked back the wayward arm and smiled sickly.

      Delaney said something. Arbus squirmed for a few seconds before completely losing control. While his colleagues looked on, Arbus began to thrash around as if under attack from a horde of bloodthirsty mosquitoes. He danced a demonic jig, hopping from foot to foot while scratching at his stomach and rubbing his butt against the edge of his desk.

      The whole room heard Arbus shout, "Jesus! It itches! It itches! Christ!"

      Delaney stood with mouth open as Arbus slapped and scratched at himself. "Are you OK?" Delaney demanded, grabbing Arbus by the shoulders. "Should we get a doctor?"

      Bellowing like a bull pursued by hornets, Arbus bolted out of his boss's grasp and ran the length of the Customer Service Center, headed for the restroom at the rear. Along the way, he ripped off his shirt and raked at his hairy, flabby belly with his freshly-clipped fingernails. He banged into the closed door at full throttle, groped for the handle and finally barged his way into the men's room. The door snicked shut behind him, slightly muffling his moans of discomfort.

      Most of the workers abandoned their phones and crowded around outside the men's room, waiting for something more to happen. Delaney pushed his way through the mob, instructing the Customer Service reps to get back to their desks. They ignored him. Delaney tried to enter the men's room, but Arbus had locked himself in.

      At his desk, Claude Baribeau said into the phone, "Thank you for waiting. How may I help you?"

      Before he even reached home that evening, Baribeau regretted having put that spell on Arbus.

      By now, his boss was no doubt slathered in cortisone cream in some emergency room and feeling much better. In the morning, his symptoms would disappear completely and the medics could chalk it up to "ideopathic pruritis" or some such. As vodoun hexes went, Arbus had received a light dose.

      Still, Baribeau berated himself for giving in to his childish desire for revenge. The magic of vodoun was not meant to be squandered on personal grudges. It should be reserved for only the highest purposes.

      Letting himself into his small, cluttered apartment, Baribeau heard the insistent chirp of his answering machine. He turned on the living room lights, rewound the tape and listened to the message.

      "Uh, hi, Claude. This is Maurice Tolliver. I'm calling at about seven o'clock. Uh, I'm sorry, but this isn't good news. Florence died late this afternoon. Blood clot or something. Thought you'd want to know. Call me if there's anything I should do. Sorry. Bye."

      Baribeau slumped down into a chair, feeling the full weight of three day's worth of aggravation, anger and sadness. As the unused portion of the tape hissed through the answering machine, he wiped at his eyes and wondered why this was happening. What had he and the members of his humfo done to anger the loas and bring these misfortunes upon themselves?

      Baribeau eventually stood and switched off the answering machine. He walked to the elaborate altar he had built in the hall closet and surveyed the tools of his religion.

      The most expedient way to learn why the Gue'de' spirits had interrupted Friday night's sacrifice would be to call them down and interrogate them directly. That approach, however, was dangerous. Physically exhausted and his mystical powers at an ebb, Baribeau decided not to risk it.

      Yawning so wide that his jaw cracked, the hungan decided the best thing to do was just go to bed. Sometimes the loas preferred to appear to their supplicants in dreams. From the altar, Baribeau selected a potion to heighten his sensitivity to the loas' messages. He sipped twice from the tiny bottle, grimaced at the bitter taste, then headed for his bedroom.

      After a quick shower, Baribeau set his alarm clock and turned down the covers of his bed. Weariness and the effects of the dream-potion made him clumsy, and he banged his hip against the nightstand. The framed photograph he kept there toppled over. Hoping the glass had not shattered, Baribeau gingerly picked up the photo. No, it was fine.

      In bed, he wondered why he kept Serena's picture on display after more than a year. She was in another city now, probably in another man's bed. Pictures of ex-wives should be hidden away in bottom drawers. But he had never got around to it. Someday.

      Sleep took him.

      After a time, his father appeared at his bedside. "Get up, Claude," Jean-Paul Baribeau said.

      Baribeau knew this was a dream. And he knew that the man next to him was not his father, who had died in Port-au-Prince thirty years ago. Jean-Paul Baribeau had never been in the army, but this figure wore a soldier's uniform.

      This was Ogu, the warrior god, come in the guise of Claude's father.

      Obediently, Baribeau rose and followed the loa out of the apartment.

      They walked along streets bordered by jungle. Baribeau said, "Why did the Gue'de' spirits come to my humfo? We had not called them."

      Ogu shrugged. "The Gue'de's have grown powerful of late. Their many worshippers make them strong and high-spirited."

      They came to a crossroads and stopped in the middle of it. Baribeau looked for road signs and found none.

      "Who worships the Gue'de's?"

      Ogu pointed ahead. Baribeau saw the gleam of approaching headlights, heard the roar of a racing engine.

      "And who are they?"

      "One of them you know," the loa replied.

      Drums began to play. From Baribeau's right came the sound of a second car, a vehicle less powerful and slower than the first.

      Ogu said, "They are almost upon you. Prepare yourself."

      The loa disappeared, leaving Baribeau alone in the middle of the road.

      The first car came at a good clip. In real life, the glare of the headlights would have blinded him, but in this dream, Baribeau could see clearly into the automobile's front seat.

      Four figures sat in a line in the impossibly wide car. A dark-haired woman in a tight black dress leaned against the passenger door. Beside her sat a muscular, tanned giant wearing sunglasses and stereo headphones. Top-hatted Baron Samedi came next, a fearsome grin on his midnight face. Behind the wheel sat a man Baribeau had long hoped was dead.

      He said the name aloud. "Concasseur!"

      A blaring horn made him turn toward the other car. Only two occupants rode in that vehicle. A fair-haired woman, one who looked oddly familiar, stared in horror as a skinny kid grappled with the wheel, his face white and his black eyes bright with terror.

      Baribeau read the kid's lips as he silently shouted to his companion. "No brakes!"

      Baribeau realized that the two cars would reach the crossroads at exactly the same instant.

      Then he realized that he stood at their point of intersection.

      He screamed and tried to run. His feet refused to budge. Somehow, he had sunk down into the soft asphalt until it covered his ankles. The sticky tar held him fast in the center of the crossroads.

      The cars bore down on him from perpendicular trajectories. Horns honked. Tires squealed. Voices shrieked in the night.

      Claude Baribeau came awake, heart pumping like it wanted to leap out of his chest.

      He did not go back to sleep until well after dawn.