Play@YSDC

It is getting into the evening by the time Pierre and Laurent have helped Etienne carry Lindo's body to Dr Clermont's surgery. His receptionist Simone has long gone but Dr Clermont was still working in his office. They lay him out in the back room on a table that the doctor has to clear of odds and ends.

Looking carefully over the body, Dr Clermont has a frown on his face. The bloated and grey corpse is starting to give off quite an unpleasant odour and flies are beginning to buzz around it. The doctor prods at the ragged wrist where a hand is missing and widens a large gash across his abdomen to peer at the exposed viscera inside. Finally he stops avoiding it and looks directly into the empty black-hole gaze of the swollen white death mask that is all that remains of Lawton Lindo's face. 'Ah, this is very sad. How long was he in the water? It looks like des poissons have had a nibble.'

"It can't have been too long," says Laurent. "I saw him alive on the beach the other night. His name's Lawton Lindo."

'An American?' asks Clermont. 'Another alcoholic from the Azagon?'

"Oui, that's right," says Laurent.

Clermont looks troubled. 'There is something...strange going on in Dame Marie, and I think it has something to do with the Azagon Hotel. I was called there a few times when it was still a hotel, but not since it has become, what, un hôpital for rich Americans. I thought the hotel was a waste of money, in the back end of nowhere, off the paved road, and named after the loa of death.'

His brow furrows, 'The hospital interested me more. I've got plenty of my own patients who drink too much, you know Dame Marie as well as me. But I've kept my distance, the staff don't seem that interested in what I've got to say. I suppose they think I'm some country bumpkin, can't understand that a man educated in Paris, as well qualified as any of their American doctors, that someone like that could be content to work in a town without even a paved street.'

When he's finished digressing about his own brilliance he seems to notice that he's losing his audience and adds, 'And that old Doctor Driscoll seemed positively afraid of me when I met him.'

'Anyway, I don't see the patients from the Azagon but I do see the staff. And things are far from perfect up there. That Belgian manager, nightmares and wandering in his sleep, and our Mr Benson, he's not from the Azagon, but he's another American, and he's biting his tongue and suffering from nerves, losing his boat won't help, what with that and his wife and...' He realises he's said too much and clams up.

"And?" asks Laurent.

'And nothing' he says, defensively. 'It's not my place to be spreading rumours.'

"We were just up at the Azagon earlier," says Laurent, letting the subject drop. "I sometimes go there to fix their vehicles. I spoke to Dr. Mendoza. Lawton Lindo was a patient there, a lawyer from Baltimore. I remember when I met him at the Sharktooth, he said he had been sleepwalking lately. He was up near Anse Douce and had an urge to go swimming. Maybe this time he couldn't resist."

Clermont frowns deeply, the wrinkles across his brow suddenly age him and Laurent realises just how old he must be, in his sixties at least, a good age for St Joe.

'I do not know this Monsieur Lindo, but it is quite the coincidence that both he and Monsieur Henninger have been out by the water at night. And the headaches and the bad dreams, Paul Henninger complains about his dreams, dreams of the sea. And Mr Benson too, bad dreams, dreams of a different kind...' He trails off.

'These troubled men down at Anse Douce, and little Marise Lavigne with her headaches and blackouts...' He lapses into silence.

"What could be causing it, Doctor?" asks Laurent. "Is it some kind of disease?"

'DIsease...? Hmm. No, I don't think so, at least, nothing I know of.' He furrows his brow in thought then shakes his head. 'No, not a disease. But a sickness...'

"What kind of sickness?" asks Laurent.

"Or a houngan," says Laurent. "I just happen to know of one."

'A houngan? Maybe.' He pauses for an uncomfortable minute, seemingly thinking. 'The houngans and mambos know a lot of good old-fashioned herbal medicine. And the rituals and discipline of Vodou, the promise of an afterlife, something better than the miserable poverty so many peasants have to endure in this one.' He pauses again. 'But I've also seen them do things I can't do. Cure people who seem hopelessly ill...' He grimaces. 'Or the reverse, I've seen bocors make people so sick I couldn't cure them.'

"Do you know which sort Auxian Ramses is?" asks Laurent.

'Ramses, the coffin-maker?' asks Clermont in surprise. 'I don't think I even knew he was a houngan, let alone a bocor, but then I suppose I wouldn't. They don't exactly advertise the fact.'

"I think we ought to pay him a visit," says Laurent. "I don't have any better ideas."

'Well, if you want to talk to him I won't stop you. But I'm not sure what you expect to find out, if he's a bocor do you think he will tell you?' says Clermont.

OOC:   So an evening trip to the Hounfor district?