"No, I didn't," Ruth said, taking the paper but keeping her eyes on her husband. "What does that have to do with you?"
"This is an invitation to bid on a construction project in the Crossing. On Jonas's construction project."
***
– Carrie's Crossing –
Jonas
When the telephone jangled at seven minutes before eight o'clock, Audrey didn't even look up from the Saturday Evening Post she was reading. Nobody would call her that early in the morning; the phone would be for Jonas. Still holding the piece of bacon he'd just bitten, he got up and went to the phone in the hallway and swallowed before he answered. Good thing he had because he almost choked when he heard Beau Thatcher's voice.
"How are you, Jonas?"
"I'm real fine, Beau, yourself?"
"I'm good, and everybody over here is good so I don't want you worryin' 'bout why I'm ringing your telephone so early in the morning."
Jonas laughed softly. "I guess you know me pretty well."
"I guess I ought to," Beau replied, the tiniest hint of times past in his voice. "I'm sorry to call so early, 'specially since what I want to say might rub you the wrong way and I truly don't mean to do that, to say something you might take offense to."
Jonas, taken completely and totally off guard, didn't, for a long moment, know how to respond, and he knew that Beau would know that, allowing time for Jonas to recover.
Then Beau said, "I know you got that bid opening at eight o'clock. Mack is probably parked outside your office right now, waiting for the clock to tell him it's all right to go inside..."
"It is all right, Beau. I wouldn't have sent him the invitation to bid if it wasn't."
"That's not what I mean." Beau inhaled so deeply that Jonas heard it down the telephone line. "And Mack's got nothin' to do with my thinkin' so if it makes you mad, don't take it out on him."
"What in the world?" Jonas let his exasperation fully express itself. "What are you going on about? What could you say that would make me that mad?"
"I keep thinkin' and rememberin' how we lost our house. How the tax office closed up that day and we didn't know 'bout it."
It took a full five seconds for Jonas to understand what Beau was talking about and one second for him to respond. "Why you saying something like that to me, Beau?"
"'Cause I know Horace Edwards, know the kinda man he is."
Jonas did too, and the sudden memory of his partner's insistence that Jonas didn't need to arrive early for the bid opening caused his stomach to jump. "I'm going to the office right now, Beau, and I promise you if Mack's there, his bid will get the exact same attention as anybody else's."
"Can't ask for any more'n that. Thank you, Jonas."
He pressed the bar to disconnect Beau's call and quickly dialed the office, fully expecting Horace to answer. Instead, the line rang and rang. Horace should be there. He slammed down the receiver and ran up the stairs. Good thing he'd already bathed and shaved and that Audrey had laid out his clothes. He stripped off his pajamas and threw on his pants, shirt and shoes and, carrying his suit jacket and tie, rushed back down the stairs and into the kitchen, startling his wife. His kiss landed somewhere to the left of her mouth. "I gotta go. I'll call you later."
"Jonas!" she cried out, but he didn't hear her. He was out the door, down the steps and halfway to the car.
Taking the back way to the office naturally would have been quicker, but that road—the old Colored Town Road—was being paved and, despite his protestations, was being re-named Thatcher Road. It was a few minutes after eight when he pulled up in front the Edwards/Thatcher Real Estate Development office and saw Mack McGinnis getting into a pickup truck that had McGINNIS CONSTRUCTION painted on the side. He tapped his horn as he slowed to a stop. He leaned over and rolled down the passenger side window. "Mack," he said, and he could tell by the look the other man gave him that Beau's suspicions were correct.
"You left your bid, didn't you?"
"No, Jonas, I didn't because nobody was there to leave it with." Mack gave him a long look. "But somebody's inside your office. I saw a white fella go in as I was parking. I know him. Jasper and Sons Construction. I was on here on time, Jonas."
"Your bid will get the same consideration as the others, Mack."
The other man's response was overridden by a blaring horn. They were blocking several parked cars, and somebody wanted to move one of them. Jonas signaled that he'd move his car. They didn't speak as Jonas waited for the other car to leave and took its parking space. They didn't speak as they walked back to the Jonas's office. At the front door, they met Grady Allen who, because he was driven by his chauffeur that morning, hadn't had the problem of looking for a parking space.
"'Morning, Jonas," he said extending his hand, and, turning to Mack, "Do I know you, young man?"
"This is Mack McGinnis, Grady. Beau Thatcher's brother-in-law," Jonas said.
"Of course. I've heard all about you," the banker said, extending his hand. "I understand you're quite a fine builder of homes, Mr. McGinnis."
Mack, taken aback, didn't know what to say and was saved from having to figure something out by the opening of the office door. Horace Edwards's grin froze in its place when he saw who was with his son-in-law partner and his banker. Jonas pushed him back out of the way, gestured for the older man to enter, then Mack. He closed the door behind him and swung around to face Horace so fast that the man, backing up out of the way, stumbled and only kept himself from falling by grabbing the edge of a desk.
"Dammit, Jonas. What's wrong with you?"
"Who are these people?" Jonas said, pointing to three men standing at the rear of the office. Then, addressing them directly, "Who are you?"
"I'm Alvin Jasper, this is my brother—"
Horace asserted himself and stepped between Jonas and the other men. "These are the fellas who got their bids in on time."
Jonas walked over to them. "What time did you get here?" He turned quickly to Horace and raised a hand to stop him from speaking and turned back to the men. "Well?"
"We all were here at seven-thirty, just like Mr. Edwards told us to be," Jasper said and looked to Horace for confirmation.
"The letter we sent—the invitation to bid—that letter said eight o'clock."
"Yeah," Jasper said, "but then Horace—Mr. Edwards—he called and said to be here at seven-thirty."
"I see. Well, thank you. We'll consider all the proposals and notify you by mail of our decision." Jonas walked to front door and opened it.
"What about him?" Jasper said, pointing at Mack.
"What about him?" Jonas said, the challenge in his voice cold and cutting.
"His bid is late."
"His bid is none of your business."
Jasper and the other men looked to Horace for help. Horace was looking to Grady Allen for help. Grady Allen was looking at his watch as if it could explain the reason for the time discrepancies. The men finally left with a last questioning look at Horace. Jonas closed and locked the door then looked from Horace to Mack to Grady as if deciding whom to address first. The banker relieved him of the decision. "If you didn't have Jonas for a partner, I'd never do a dollar's worth of business with you again," he said. "I don't believe I've ever heard of anything so underhanded. I don't do business that way, Horace, and I don't do business with people who do."
"And I don't do business with niggers," Horace said. "I told you that, Jonas."
Ignoring Horace, he walked back to the desk and picked up the two bids. He read through them quickly, each three pages, then turned to Mack. "Can I see your bid?"
Mack handed over a thick envelope which Jonas opened. He spread out a sheaf of papers, read intently for several seconds, then whistled. "Will you look at this."
They did. "Where did you get this, boy?" Horace snarled. He whirled around to face Mack when there was no response. "I asked you a question."
"What do you mean, where did I get it? It's my proposal. I wrote it out and my
wife typed it up for me."
"What about the blueprints?" Horace snarled.
"I'm a draughtsman," Mack replied.
"Let me see the others," Grady Allen said, then, "You only sent out three?"
"We sent out five," Jonas said. "What happened to the other two, Horace?"
"I know these boys, the Jaspers and Billy Mike O'Connor. I've worked with them before. They're good—"
"What happened to the other two, Horace?"
"I told 'em I didn't need 'em this time, that I'd have work for 'em later on. This time around, I'm gonna let Billy Mike build the housing for the road crews and Jasper and his sons can build the bank, Grady."
"The McGinnis proposal is far superior to the others—"
"I told you I ain't havin' no nigger building nothin' for me."
"You don't tell me who will build my bank."
"Your bank is on my land."
Grady Allen looked at Mack. Then he gathered up the pages of Mack's proposal, returned them to the envelope and returned the envelope to Mack. "You put a lot of work into this, but it wasn't a total waste, Mr. McGinnis. I'd like you to build my bank." Then he looked at Jonas. "I believe you own some land in that area? Is it enough for the bank?"
"No, Grady," Horace exploded. "You can't do that!"
"With my money, Horace, I can do anything I want. What do you say, Mack? Want to build a bank? The First National Bank of Carrie's Crossing?"
Mack's heart was beating so hard and fast he thought it would explode through his chest. "I'd be pleased to build your bank, Mr. Allen."
"Then what say we go look at the site right now? I can tell you what I'm thinking and seeing and you come up with some sketches and plans—"
"Grady. Please don't do this."
Allen gave him a long look, the kind that sought to see beneath whatever was on the surface, right into the core. "Why not, Horace?"
"Because it's not right."
"What's not right," said Jonas, his voice sounding rusty, scratchy, as if he'd been silent for much longer than the last few minutes, "is what you did here this morning. You seem not to understand the nature of a partnership. You are not in business by yourself, Horace. I am your partner and Grady Allen is our banker. You don't make decisions alone—especially ones that involve my money and Grady's money. And you don't do dishonest business in my name. And if you ever do again, I will take every one of my dollars out of this company."
"You can't. Audrey won't stand for it."
Jonas gave him another hard look, then everything about him changed and he laughed out loud. "Mack," he said, "when you've finished looking at Grady's bank site, would you come by my house? My wife and I've been talking about putting on an addition or doing a renovation—I don't know what she wants to do—but whatever it is, I think you're just the man to do it."
Mack looked at Jonas and realized what he'd been asked, and remembered: Ruthie's house, Ruthie's home! Jonas and his wife wanted him to remodel Ruth's house. "I'd be honored to do work on your home, Mr. Thatcher," he said, and with those few words, all the years of distrust and dislike they harbored for each other dissipated. He looked from one man to the other. "Bank first? Then the house?" Both men nodded. "You'll have to direct me," Mack said, with a pointed look at Jonas, who got the message: Mack would be, as far as anybody was concerned, a stranger in Carrie's Crossing. He didn't think there was anybody still around who'd recognize him. He hadn't grown up here and none of the white residents would have known or cared who Ruth Thatcher married, wouldn't have known him to be in-laws to the Colored Thatchers.
"You can ride with me, Mack," Grady Allen said, and then he added, as if he'd been privy to Mack's thoughts, "You might know my driver. He used to live here. Or he had people who lived here—I'm not sure which. Fella by the name of Tom Jenks?"
Mack's head swam for a second before he got control of himself. "I'm not from these parts, Mr. Allen—Belle City is my home—though I do know quite a few people who are from around here, my wife included. I don't remember any Jenks family, though."
"If y'all don't mind," Horace said nastily, "can we get back to the business at hand, namely building the housing for the road construction crew? We're supposed to decide on a contractor today so we can get started."
"You already decided, Horace. Hire whoever you want. Just make sure I see the contract and that we both sign it. Otherwise it won't be worth a Confederate dollar."
Horace shot Jonas such a look of pure hatred that Mack wondered if it didn't hurt him somehow, didn't bruise or burn his skin. He held the door open for Allen and Jonas and followed them out, closing the door behind him. A Colored man in a black suit and cap jumped out of a shiny black Cadillac sedan and stood waiting. Tom Jenks, Mack thought. He'd never met the man. The only two of their family who had, Nellie Thatcher and First Freeman, were dead, but they all knew who he was: The man who let Nellie be murdered. Mack was moving like a man in a dream. All the joy and excitement he'd felt about telling Ruthie their Great Depression was over faded in the face of having to tell her, all of them, that their search for Tom Jenks was over. Then, he thought, he could not possibly ride in the same vehicle with the man. He'd strangle him!
Mack felt a hand on his arm: Jonas, one hand on him and the other reaching out for Grady Allen, already halfway to the door the chauffeur was holding open for him. "I've got an idea, Grady. If it's not too cold for Mack, I'm thinking we could walk to the bank site so I can show him a bit of the town, some of the development we've got planned, and he can see what's near where the bank will be, get a feel for things."
"Too cold for me, Jonas, but if you young men don't mind, I think that's a right good idea."
"Then we'll see you in a little while, Grady," Jonas said and waited for the older man to get into his car. Then he turned to Mack. "I'm sorry about this morning, Mack. Truly I am," and he was startled when Mack threw back his head and laughed.
"I'm not sorry. I'm gonna build a bank and work on a house that means as much to me as my own." He suddenly grew serious. "I am surprised, though, that a man like that is your partner. You don't seem to have much in common with him."
Jonas didn't know how to reply, so he didn't. He started walking, and Mack fell in beside him, looking all around as if he really were a stranger in town. He had given no thought to Carrie's Crossing since the night thirteen years before when they made their middle-of-the-night escape from the KKK, led by Jonas's father. Big Si, Ruthie, Beau, Tobias, Little Si, none of them ever spoke of Carrie's Crossing, and, like First Freeman, didn't call it or consider it home. Belle City was home for them. When they spoke of Nellie and Uncle Will, it was with love, not longing for a past time or place. So, Mack could look at the city of Carrie's Crossing with new eyes and if a memory of a person or a place surfaced, he'd file it away to tell Ruthie about...unless he felt he could ask Jonas about it. But nothing like that would happen in this part of town. When he searched his memory, he thought he'd been in the white section of Carrie's Crossing only once, and that was in a blizzard at the back door of Jonas's food market.
Jonas didn't talk much as they walked, except to speak to people who spoke to him and that was almost everyone they encountered. If any one of them wondered or took offense at the richest man in town walking about with a Colored man, Mack never heard, felt or saw evidence of it, which made Horace Edwards's behavior all the more odd. Why had Jonas ever partnered with such a man? He couldn't wait to talk to Ruthie about it. Also to tell her how good the town looked, almost "big city."
"The Depression doesn't seem to be hurting you all too bad over here. You opened up a new real estate business—congratulations, by the way—and Mr. Allen's building himself a new bank." Mack gave a wry chuckle. "Maybe Hoover was talkin' about you all over here in Carrie's Crossing when he kept claiming prosperity was just around the corner."
Jonas gave him a wry, crooked grin. "Oh, we're hurting plenty bad, Mack, it's just that most folks try to keep the evidence behind closed doors. Or rather
in the backyard. Everybody—and I do mean everybody— is growing greens and cabbage and peas and corn out behind their houses, and half of 'em got chicken coops." Then he pointed to the stores they walked past, the OPEN signs prominent in the windows. "Most of these people come to work every day to have something to do, not because they're doing any real business. I do the same thing: I go to the grocery store every day, put my apron on and get behind the counter, whether anybody comes to buy or not."
"You don't go to the real estate office?" Mack asked, giving a hard look to Jonas in his suit, causing him to explain in the driest terms how he stumbled into the real estate business, how relieved he was to have his warehouse building being used despite his misgivings about the business itself, and how he still thought of himself as a grocer. Though, he added, he didn't mind if Roosevelt's New Deal was going to spell prosperity for Carrie's Crossing.
"Ah," Mack said, "the New Deal."
"You don't think Mr. Roosevelt is going to bring an end to this Depression?"
"I think some people will get a new deal and some people won't."
They walked in silence for a few steps, Mack trying to decide whether to tell Jonas about Sadie Hill, Jonas trying to think of something to say that wouldn't sound too stupid; of course people with little money to start with—white and Colored both—would be feeling the pain of the Depression like a Max Baer punch to the gut. Mack spoke first and when he finished telling Sadie Hill's story, he told Jonas about Silas's plan to move to Chicago and the reason for it. Jonas was speechless for a long moment. Then his face lit up in wide, happy grin. "Ruthie's a school principal! And when I see Si I'm gonna have to call him Doctor! I'm real proud of the both of them, Mack. Will you tell 'em that for me, please? Will you tell 'em both that I'm real proud?" He said nothing about Sadie Hill, most probably, Mack thought, either because there was nothing to be said or he was thinking about people he knew, people like Horace Edwards, who'd treat the Sadie Hills of the world the same way without a single moment's hesitation. But he did speak to the issue of the poor treatment of Colored schools by the board of education…in a way: He told Mack that he knew of four school buildings scheduled for complete renovations, courtesy of the WPA, three of them in Belle City and the one in Carrie's Crossing. None of the contractors would be Colored. Neither would the renovated schools. "You're right. Same old deal." But Mack couldn't tell whether Jonas thought there was anything wrong with that; his tone of voice gave no indication.
Belle City Page 32
