by Guy Johnson
Jackson looked at the men and felt no remorse. “Who are they?” he asked Julio, who was standing next to him.
“They work for the same organization that killed my father!” Julio said as he delivered a powerful kick to the abdomen of the man kneeling closest to him. The victim gasped and fell over on his side, moaning.
Reuben stepped forward and said, “We do not have much time. Their superiors know about this house.”
“How did they find out? How did they find where my grandfather was?”
“They got a tip that you would be faxing and receiving information at the Data-Max Corporation and they saw you get out of the limousine yesterday. From that time on, you were followed. By tomorrow morning, you must be out of here or you will be in grave danger.”
“I don’t know if I can leave that soon,” Jackson said absentmindedly. He was preoccupied with the knowledge that his grandmother was assisting the enemy. “I want to bury my grandfather first.”
“El Negro did not want to be buried,” Julio advised. “He wanted to be cremated and have half his ashes spread on the Sea of Cortez and the other half in San Francisco Bay.”
“Well, I want to do both,” Jackson stated simply.
“We’ll send the urn to you,” Reuben suggested. “If you stay here, you’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”
Julio said, “They’ll try to kidnap you or kill you.” He gestured to one of the kneeling prisoners. “At least, that’s what we learned from our friends here.”
“What purpose would be served by kidnapping me?” Jackson asked with surprise.
“They didn’t know that,” Reuben answered. “All they knew was, it was better to capture you alive than kill you and it was better to kill you than let you escape.”
“What purpose could I serve as their prisoner? Why is it valuable to have me dead?” Jackson shook his head with concern. “There’s some factors missing out of this equation.”
“It might have something to do with the bonds or possession of the corporate certificates in the Swiss Algiers Company,” Reuben offered.
From the kitchen, there was the sound of a scream. Jackson started toward the house, but Carlos came to the door and explained that Theresa’s brother had been the man assigned to guard Jackson’s grandfather on the graveyard shift. It was his body that Jackson had stumbled over in the hospital room.
Jackson turned to face the Ramirez brothers. “I could leave tomorrow, but I want to take many things from this house with me, including the dog.”
Reuben said, “Label them, we’ll ship them to you. You’ll have them next week, including the dog.”
“Next week?” Jackson questioned. “That soon?”
“Did you forget that we’re in the import-export business?” Julio asked with a sad smile.
Carlos, Mario, and Theresa came out of the house. Theresa walked over and stared angrily at the two prisoners, her face still shiny from the tears she had shed. One man still lay on his side while the other remained on his knees.
Reuben said to Jackson, “We thought it might be a good idea if you had someone watching your back for a while. Carlos has offered to return with you and perhaps stay with you for about six months. There is much he can teach you about living in danger.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Jackson agreed. He looked at Carlos. “Can you leave your business for that long?”
“That’s no problem,” Carlos responded. “But before I can do that, I need to resolve another problem.” Carlos gestured to Theresa. “Theresa’s brother was killed tonight. She’s got no other family and with El Negro’s death, she’s got no job.” Carlos turned to Jackson. “Your grandfather made me promise that I would look after her when he passed on and he didn’t mean give her money.”
Reuben affirmed, “You’re right, Carlos. El Negro would want some provision to be made for her if she wants to stay with the family. It isn’t a question of money.”
Julio asked Jackson, “Do you need a cook or a maid?”
“This is kind of sudden.” Jackson scratched his head. “I don’t think I need a live-in cook or a maid.”
“If you move back in the old Fulton Street house you’ll need one,” Carlos suggested.
Jackson looked at Carlos questioningly and then asked Reuben, “Why isn’t it a question of money?”
“Your grandfather left her sufficient funds to live comfortably, but she has no family now that her brother was killed,” Reuben answered. “El Negro always took care of the loyal people who worked for him.”
“What does that mean?” Jackson asked.
“Give her a job,” Julio suggested. “She wants to work for you. And you’ve got the money to employ her.”
To Jackson it seemed as if a decision was being pushed down his throat, that he was required to do something that would have never occurred to him to do. He looked around at the expectant faces and suddenly realized that this was his first test. He would be judged on the basis of this decision. Jackson looked at Theresa. Carlos had been translating the conversation for her. Jackson saw her mouth the words Estados Unidos and saw the worry in her eyes and thought, What the hell! “Okay. Sure, she’s got a job with me.” As soon as he said the words, there was a sudden release in tension. Theresa caught Jackson’s eye and nodded her head several times in gratitude, as tears ran down her cheeks.
Jackson looked at his watch. It was nearly two-thirty in the morning. “What are we going to do about these two?” He gestured in the direction of the prisoners.
Reuben came forward and handed Jackson a pistol with a silencer. He said simply, “These are the men who helped kill your grandfather.”
Jackson took the gun and once again he looked at the faces around him. They were expectant, a mosaic of glinting eyes and taut lips. They waited for him, the one linked by blood, to take final action. It was part of the ritual of revenge and it could not be resolved without the death of these two men. Jackson examined the gun Reuben had given him. It was a Browning nine-millimeter automatic. A good weapon, but it did not feel comfortable in his hand. Jackson handed the gun back to Reuben.
Somewhere deep inside, Jackson heard a voice screaming. The voice was muffled as if it originated from behind a closed door and yet, it had the quality of an echo. It was not until he pulled an ivory-handled pistol from its holster and pointed it at the head of one of the prisoners that he heard the words clearly. It was his own voice yelling over and over again, I won’t ever kill for you again, Grandfather! I won’t ever kill for you again!
Sunday, June 27, 1982
First, there were waves on a darkened shore. Serena was standing up to her waist in the warm surf. Water washed up around her body, only to run back into the changing shadows of the breakers. The sky was black. There was neither moon nor stars. The beach faded into darkness on either side of her. Beyond the beach behind her there was the dark line of a dense tropical forest. Only the white foam on the surging black swells of water had visible movement. There was a regular, hypnotic quality about them, a lulling, comfortable pattern of sound and image. She was not frightened. There was no undertow as the water caressed her.
She could not tell when the footsteps began because they were obscured by the sounds of the surf, but she knew she heard them somewhere near the bottom of the stairs of her old Fulton Street house. She saw herself sleeping upstairs in her old bedroom. The actual footfalls themselves could not be heard because of the carpet runner that extended all the way up to the second floor, but each step on the old staircase had its own creaking sound, a changing melody depending upon ascent or descent. From the sequence of the sounds pressed from the tired wood, there was no doubt someone was coming up the stairs, someone large.
An immediate, ominous undercurrent of something dark and drear flooded her senses, sucking at her legs, pulling her off balance deeper into the heavy, pounding surf. The water suddenly turned cold and gripped her. She tried to wade to shore, but the force of the riptide was powerful and relentless. Her st
ruggles to gain the shore were weak in comparison. Serena knew she should wake up, but she was several levels down in her mind, asleep in her old Fulton Street house. Either the waves or being asleep in her old house was a dream, but she couldn’t tell which. The steps were coming closer, reaching the top of the stairs. She did not question how she could be caught in a dangerous surf while at the same time asleep in her bed. She was too busy trying to survive. Her fear became acute as she felt the force of the breakers pulling her deeper, below the roaring darkness of the waves, to a place where there was only the sound of the approaching footsteps. Despite the fear, she could not bring herself to wakefulness. She felt an invisible film of warmth begin to creep up her leg, numbing her body with its passage. Strangers, people whose faces were not visible to her, were trying to lift the bed upon which she was sleeping, so that she could be tipped into the gaping darkness of a large trapdoor in the floor. Serena became truly afraid because she recognized that the trapdoor led to a cellar deep in the labyrinth of her sleeping mind, and there was no escaping from that labyrinth. The faceless people had lifted the bed and were starting to tip it. She scrambled to shift her weight and get ahold of the side of the bed, but she was only able to move slowly; her body was not fully under her control.
All the while the footsteps were drawing closer. Even as she struggled to stay on the bed she could hear them. Each footfall was now separate and identifiable. She knew that she did not want to be asleep whenever those footsteps entered her room. She had to wake up, but suddenly she could not move. Her body wouldn’t respond or open its eyes. She tried to scream but couldn’t open her mouth. She was a prisoner in her own body, at the mercy of whoever came upon her. The footsteps entered her bedroom. The faceless ones who had been trying to dump her through the trapdoor dropped the bed and scurried into the shadows. The trapdoor slammed shut and disappeared. She was now alone as the footsteps drew near the bed. She heard his breathing as he stood and watched her sleeping body. She felt his hand upon her shoulder.
Serena Baddeaux Tremain sat bolt upright in her bed and stared into the piercing eyes of King Tremain. There was a cold and evil smile upon his face. He glowered at her. “Ain’t you gon’ get up and greet me, Serena? How can you sleep so sound after all you done?”
“What do you mean, coming into my bedroom like this?” she demanded indignantly. Other people may have feared King Tremain, but she did not. “We aren’t husband and wife! We aren’t partners and we aren’t friends!”
“Tain’t friendship what brung me,” King answered with a smile. He produced a folded piece of paper from an inner coat pocket and unfolded it with care and deliberation. “I come because of this here oath you done signed many a long year ago. You swore to do right by my grandson and you done signed this here paper in yo’ blood to seal yo’ vow.”
“What has this got to do with storming into my room in the middle of the night and awakening me? You have no rights here! If you want to talk about this, come back during the day and please make an appointment first! Have some decency!”
King smiled more broadly, but there was no humor in his face when he said, “This can’t wait. Don’t have to wait. You see, you done broke that vow and now there’s hell to pay. I’m here to see you pay it.”
“What do you mean? I’ve taken care of him. I fed him and I clothed him. I gave him a roof over his head. What more do you want?”
“At his christenin’ you signed this here piece a paper and it don’t have no date when the vow is up. It’s for life! Personally, I’s happy you gave Braxton the number in Mexico. Matter of fact, I came to thank you for sending them killers, but you broke the vow to the boy. It’s yo’ butt now, woman. You gon’ pay in blood.”
Serena gave King a long, slow look. “You think I’m afraid of death? Kill me! I have been ready to meet my Maker for decades. The weight I’ve carried these last few years has tired me out. I’m ready to die!”
“That’s just it, you ain’t gon’ die. You just gon’ live a long, lonely life. With yo’ action you done ensured that Franklin and his kids gon’ die within the next few years. You might’ve done Samantha and her chile too. Can’t tell that yet. Yesiree, you got a long, lonely life filled with aches and pains to look forward to. And the prize is, I get to come and go as I like. So, I’ll be back every now and again to see how you likin’ things.”
“You won’t be back, you’ll die first.”
“Who’s sayin’ I ain’t already dead?” King stared at her in silence for a moment. It was only then she saw the fleshless skull behind his eyes. “I’ll be back regular and often.” He turned and walked out of the room. The sound of his steps echoed in the hall and ebbed as he reached the bottom of the stairs.
When Serena awakened the next morning she had a throbbing headache. It seemed to peak with each beat of her pulse. Flashes of pain washed across her forehead. She was exhausted. Her seventy-nine-year-old body was stiff and sore. She felt as if she hadn’t slept at all. Her night had been filled with fear and restlessness due to the dream, and it was still very much with her. When she sat up, her body was still numb and it seemed to weigh much more than it had the night before. She had to concentrate just to get to her feet. She made her way into the bathroom and took a couple of pills for the headache. She was unsteady. She stumbled as she left the bathroom and fell against a highboy filled with knickknacks. A hand-painted clay ashtray toppled off the shelf by her shoulder. Serena turned to catch it but lost her balance again. She had to grab on to the dresser to keep from falling. The ashtray hit the floor and shattered. Serena surveyed the damage and recognized that the ashtray had been made by Franklin when he was in elementary school. Is that a sign? she wondered as she stepped over the pieces and returned to her bed.
The day passed slowly for Serena. She took her afternoon tea in the front sitting room and opened Saturday’s mail. Most of the envelopes were bills, but there was one letter from New Orleans and it was lightly scented with lavender. She hadn’t received a letter from Louisiana for many years. She pushed all the business correspondence off to the side and placed the letter directly in front of her. She rang for more tea. She studied the letter’s envelope. She did not recognize the name, Mr. and Mrs. Chauncey Ford. Nor did their address bring anything to mind. The envelope was gray and embossed with a faint silver weave design. It was personalized stationery. The faint scent of lavender spoke of breeding and class. Serena waited until Mrs. Marquez brought in a new urn filled with hot tea. Serena poured her tea first then proceeded to open the letter. Inside was a funeral announcement for her younger brother, Amos Baddeaux. The announcement indicated that he had died after a long, painful illness. The service was scheduled for Wednesday, June 30, at Pine Knoll Baptist Church.
Serena put down the announcement and put her head in her hands. Her head was throbbing again. The angst and turmoil of the dream returned to the forefront of her consciousness. There was much pain where Amos and Della were concerned. She and her brother and sister had been estranged after he had been paralyzed. They had blamed her for his paralysis. They had blamed her for their youngest sister’s, Tini’s, death. They blamed her for all of Della’s miscarriages. All because Serena had not heeded Sister Bornais’s warnings. Bornais’s image haunted her, like a will-o’-the-wisp, moving just on the edge of her vision, and the words she had uttered in 1927 in the room at the Hotel Toussant echoed in Serena’s ears.
It seemed to Serena that her life was like a spiderweb: Every major spoke of her existence ran through a core dominated by her one meeting with Sister Bornais. All the rest of her important moments revolved like strands around that one event, an ever-growing spiral outward, entwining and ensnaring everything she touched, including her family. A glistening trap of her own making. Now that she was near the end of her life she had no fear of death; in fact she yearned for it. She often wished that King had killed her when he had found out about his son. Death would have alleviated the pain of living for her and left King with regret lying hea
vy on his soul. She wanted him to share some of her unhappiness. It was never to be. Death had given him release from the significance and the insignificance of life. She now knew that the entity waiting on the edge of the web was not death, but fate. Its venom was far more painful and its appetite was much more rapacious. It would not let her rest until all her vital juices had been sucked dry.
In truth, Serena’s problems had not begun with Sister Bornais, but six years earlier, in 1921, in a black township called Bodie Wells in southeastern Oklahoma. She and King had left Louisiana to escape the relentless sheriff of New Orleans, and they bought a general store in a black-run township at the feet of the Ouachita Mountains. It was one of the few black towns that King could find in the nearby states that had electricity. He did not want to give up the comforts that came with electricity.
In 1921 Bodie Wells was a town of six hundred souls, not even a postage stamp on the vast, flat envelope of Oklahoma. It was a town in which the citizens daily girded themselves for battles against forces over which they had no control, yet its people felt a certain pride. Although many worked in the city of Clairborne, where they were brought face-to-face with their second-class citizenship, each day they returned home, they returned like victors, for they lived in a town where their voice and their vote mattered. The town’s existence itself was a victory. In those days victories were judged against the worst that could happen rather than the best. There was no pretense in 1921 that the “Land of the Free” was meant to include black people. Racism and gravity were two certainties. The people of Bodie Wells were tough and hard. They struggled through twelve-hour days to wrest a crop from the temperamental earth and then went home to drink or gamble until they passed out. If they were temperance people, after they worked their twelve hours they went to one of the churches and spent hours on their knees praying. Subtlety and moderation had as little to do with their lives as justice and fairness. It was a town struggling to hold on to land that had been hard won with sweat and tears. At night shotguns were loaded and leaned against front doors, in case the Klan should come calling. The people had dug in to fight. There was no place to run; the windswept plains lay to the west, and to the east lay the cold, inhospitable ridges and crests of the Ouachitas.
