Black Water Rising

by Attica Locke

  with you. You could go to prison. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “Oh, that’s not going to happen,” she says, rather confidently.

  “I told you, it was going good in there for me today.”

  She has no idea what she’s up against, he thinks. “What if you get subpoenaed by the federal government? Huh? What then?”

  She shakes her head at the notion. “That investigation is taken care of.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Elise picks up her empty glass and motions for the bartender to refill it. “And anyway, Thomas and I have come to an under­

  standing. He knows I won’t say anything about his business deal­

  ings,” she says, taking a long drag on her cigarette. “And I know the line he won’t cross . . . not ever again.”

  On the bar in front of her, the bartender pours another shot of tequila. Jay watches Elise throw back the shot, swallowing the heat and the sting of it, a look of bitter resignation in the dim light that’s left in her eyes.

  “You knew,” he says, turning the words over and over, as if he were trying to get a better look at them, to get a better under­

  standing. The one piece in this he had never really considered.

  “You knew it was him this whole time.”

  Elise does not deny or confirm this.

  She downs her beer without looking at him.

  “Why are you protecting him?” he asks softly, as if he were afraid the strength of this sort of basic logic might break her in two.

  “Thomas has done a lot for me,” she says unapologetically.

  “He paid for my real estate license, you know that? I wouldn’t even have a job if it weren’t for him, be back in a shit-hole club somewhere. And I am not going back there.”

  “Elise, the man tried to have you killed.”

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  “And look how that turned out,” she says with a sharp, caustic smile. “I got a forty-five and a twelve gauge that says he won’t try that shit again.”

  Here she is. The girl from Galena Park.

  The tough little pistol who’s not taking shit from nobody.

  “You’re a fool,” he says.

  “I told you, he and I have come to an understanding.”

  “You really think Cole is going to protect you over his money? If you’re the only thing that stands between him and a federal indictment, you really think you’re the one who’s gon’ come out all right in the end?”

  “Mr. Porter, I’m not the one who ought to be scared of Thomas Cole.”

  If the scene were playing in a movie, in one of Jay’s boyhood westerns, the timing wouldn’t have been better. Out of the cor­

  ner of his eye, Jay sees the door to the saloon open. Elise slides off her stool, leaving a few dollars on the bar. “I’m sorry,” she says, the very moment Jay makes out the face at the door: A white male in his forties, with close-cropped hair. One side of his body looks completely deflated, making his walk an exaggerated swagger. He wears a black glove over what’s left of his right hand.

  Jay feels his stomach drop, like a stone down a well.

  “If you had asked for more money, I had it all here to give you.” She pats her oversize purse. “I told Thomas I didn’t know a red-blooded American who couldn’t be bought. I begged him not to hurt you,” she says, shaking her head at Jay, the look on her face one of disappointment. “But you seem bent on doing this the hard way.” She turns and looks at the man from the black Ford, who is by now walking directly toward Jay, at the bar. “I’m sorry, Jay,” she whispers.

  The man from the black Ford never says a word, but the look 396 Attic a L o c ke

  in his eyes terrifies. He raises his one good hand, and Jay sees the tiniest flash of light.

  The glint off the barrel of a .45.

  Jay turns and runs.

  Behind the Blue Bayou, he covers the length of an alley, heading in a southerly direction. The gravel beneath his feet cuts through the soles of his cheap dress shoes. He feels every stone, every sharp edge. He never looks back.

  The alley spills out on Providence, maybe twenty yards from his car. He’s behind the wheel in a matter of seconds. He starts the engine, peeling the car away from the curb. At the intersec­

  tion of Providence and McKee, he slows, looking to his right. The only two people standing in front of the Blue Bayou are a man and a woman he does not recognize at this distance. They appear to be arguing.

  Jay turns left, heading for the bright lights of downtown. He peers into his rearview mirror, taking in the empty street behind him. He feels a sudden stab of relief, hitting him in the chest, thinking, for one grateful moment, that he’s lost the man in the black Ford. But as he crosses a narrow bridge over Buffalo Bayou, heading to the south, a pair of headlights suddenly appears across his windshield, momentarily blinding him. Jay slams on his brakes, shielding his eyes. The driver never stops. The car is coming straight at him.

  Caught in the angry blast of white light, Jay thinks of death, the certainty of it, waiting for him on the pavement ahead, a few precious heartbeats away if he doesn’t act fast. He slams on his brakes, churning up smoke. There’s little room to maneuver on the bridge, so Jay throws his car into reverse. At nearly fifty miles an hour, he drives the Buick backward, weaving all over the Bla c k Wat er R isi n g 397

  street. He drives some two or three hundred yards, forcing other cars to the side of the road, the same bright headlights pursuing him from the front, burning straight through his car. At Provi­

  dence, Jay swings in a wide arc, switching the car into drive. He heads to the west, thinking he can meet up with Main Street. In his rearview mirror, he sees a black Ford LTD make the same turn onto Providence, picking up speed on his heels. Jay takes it up to sixty, then nearly seventy miles an hour. He almost clips the bumper of a station wagon as he tries to pass it, pulling onto the wrong side of the road and dodging a city cab. The Ford inches up on the Buick’s tail, tapping Jay’s bumper. Jay gets turned around in a tangle of streets by the railroad tracks and somehow ends up on San Jacinto instead of Main. Driving south, cutting across on Allen Street, he’s fairly certain he hears police sirens in the distance. As he makes a left onto Main, the sirens sound so close they could be coming from his own car radio. He looks in the rearview mirror and sees not the white headlights of the Ford LTD, but the swirling blue and red of a squad car, fifty or sixty yards back. Jay slows to a decent, law-abiding speed, pulling off to the right, hoping that the squad car will pass, on its way to some other emergency. He wonders to himself where and when the Ford fell off.

  He slows the car on the bayou overpass, waiting for the cop car to pass, pulling the Buick all the way to the right, under a streetlamp. It’s only then that he sees his gun. It’s been sitting on his front seat this whole time. A nickel-plated .22.

  His missing gun. His illegal, unregistered, missing gun. It must have been placed in his car sometime while he was in the bar with Elise, laid across the passenger seat as gently as a sleeping baby.

  The blue and red police lights fill his rearview mirror. 398 Attic a L o c ke

  The squad car pulls in right behind Jay.

  So this is the plan, he thinks, the way they intend to shut him up.

  He wonders which one made the call to police.

  Elise or the man in the Ford.

  Behind him, he hears the doors of the squad car open. He quickly pushes the .22 onto the floor, reaching his right foot across the floorboard and kicking the gun under the passenger seat. It disappears into the shadows on the floor. In his side-view mirror, he sees one of the officers coming up on the driver’s side. The other cop, a flashlight in his hand, is walking on the raised curb to the right, which stretches from the street to the edge of the bridge. Jay can hear the water down below, lapping against the bridge posts beneath them. When the first cop arrives at his door, Jay sees the gun at his waist, the metal cuffs. He wonders wha
t would happen if he laid his foot on the gas, if he just drove away, how long before another squad car picked up his license plate on the radio, how far would he get and what would he have to leave behind.

  “Can I see your license and registration, sir?” the cop says. Jay obediently produces a wallet from his back pocket. Through the open driver-side window, he hands his license to the cop. The cop shines his flashlight in Jay’s face. Jay is careful not to make any sudden moves. He steals a glance in the right side-view mirror. The second cop, white like his partner, but younger and thinner, is hanging in position at the right rear of the vehicle, one hand on his flashlight, the other at his holster. He’s watching Jay closely, as one might eye a cornered animal, a thing whose behavior is dangerous and unpredictable. The cop seems edgy, his hand inching toward his gun. Jay lets his eyes drop, scanning the ripped carpet along the floorboard. He thinks he sees the nose of the .22 peeking out.

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  My God, he thinks, they cannot search this car. The first cop, tall, with reddish blond hair and thick jowls, shines the flashlight into the whites of Jay’s eyes. “Where you headed to tonight, sir?”

  “Home,” Jay says, squinting against the light.

  “Where you coming from?”

  “A restaurant.” He tries to remember how many beers he had. The cop waves over the roof of the car to his partner, signal­

  ing him to move in closer to the vehicle. The second cop raises his flashlight. He shines the beam through the back window first, taking even-paced steps along the right side of the Buick, moving closer and closer to the .22 under the front seat. Jay feels a burn in his stomach.

  They cannot search this car.

  “ You had anything to drink tonight, sir?” the first cop asks Jay. His partner shines his light through the rear window, skim­

  ming along the backseat, the trash and empty soda cans piled up on the floor. The beam of light climbs over the front seat, land­

  ing in a pale pool in the empty seat next to Jay.

  “I asked you a question, sir,” the cop at Jay’s window says, tapping Jay on the shoulder with the butt of his flashlight. His partner is inches from discovering the illegal weapon. Trapped, Jay makes a sudden, brash decision to go for broke. He opens the driver-side door, forcing the cop on the other side to stumble back a few paces. “What the hell do you think you’re doing!” the cop yells. Jay swings his feet onto the pave­

  ment beside the car, puts his head down between his legs. “I feel sick,” he says, hanging halfway out of the Buick.

  “Get back in the car, sir.”

  Behind him, Jay hears footsteps along the right side of the car, the cop’s partner moving into a new position, as they are sud­

  denly in a situation here.

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  Jay starts to stand.

  “I said get back in the car, sir.”

  “Please, I feel like I’m going to be sick,” he says, wobbling on his feet.

  The first cop has his hand firmly on his weapon. The second cop has already dislodged his from his holster. “Sir,” the younger cop says. “You need to get to the side of your vehicle and put your hands on the back of your head.”

  Jay clutches at his stomach, staggering in the street. He looks up at both officers with a pitiful, hangdog expression on his face.

  “Jesus,” the first cop says, somewhat irritated. “How much have you had to drink anyway?”

  “Get your hands on your head, sir,” his partner yells. There’s a pickup truck coming down Main from the north. Jay takes a chance, stumbling out in front of the truck, the cops yelling behind him. The young cop raises his weapon, leveling it at Jay. Behind him, Jay hears his partner say, “Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.”

  The truck slams on its brakes, coming within inches of Jay’s legs. The driver, a woman, leans out of the cab, screaming. Jay runs to the other side of the bridge.

  He throws himself against the concrete railing, the line of it jabbing against his ribs. What comes out is real. Dark and bitter, flecked with blood, his insides pouring into the bayou below.

  Within seconds, he feels his arms yanked behind him, the bones in his shoulders turned at an unnatural angle. He feels the pinch of metal cuffs on his skin. He knows what comes next.

  “You’re under arrest,” the first cop states.

  Jay lowers his head to show that he means to cooperate. Bla c k Wat er R isi n g 401

  They walk him to the squad car, shoving him into the cage in back.

  As the squad car pulls away from the curb, going north on Main, Jay turns around in the locked backseat and steals a last look at his car, still parked on the side of the road, the nickelplated .22 resting peacefully beneath the front seat.

  C h a p t e r 2 9 He said he would never be back here.

  Behind bars an inch thick.

  His feet aching on a filthy linoleum floor. A pool of urine in one corner, dried vomit in another. Men sleeping on the floor like dogs. No place to relieve himself with dignity. No place even to set himself down so he can think straight.

  Ten paces by fifteen.

  He’s lived his whole life in this tiny cell, it seems. Lived in fear of it, at least. Which, it turns out, is exactly the same thing.

  As being in the sweat and shit of it, the I-can-hardly-breathe of it.

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  The stench in this place, the way the walls start to pinch at his insides.

  It’s never left him. He’s spent the last ten years right here, on lockdown.

  Keep your fucking mouth shut.

  Isn’t that the law he’s lived by?

  Keep your mouth shut, speak only when spoken to. And what good did it do him? The silence?

  The freedom he marched for, a lifetime ago.

  The speeches he made. The dreams he had.

  What good was any of it, really? If he can’t get free in his own mind?

  So he can eat at a lunch counter.

  Drink warm water from a fountain.

  And he can vote.

  So what now?

  Jay is not a praying man, not really. But some moments in a man’s life beg for a little magic, a faith beyond what the eyes can see. The morning his verdict came down, he prayed, alone, in a cell smaller than this one. They kept the lights on twenty-four hours a day. The cell was drenched in white light and hot, not a comforting shadow in sight. He got on his knees next to the bed, elbows on a mattress so thin it looked like somebody had laid a cracker across the springs. He closed his eyes and he tried to picture God the way other people did:

  As a father.

  One who might watch out for him, lay a comforting hand. He carried that picture in his head and into the courtroom that day. And he made a bargain with God. You cut me loose, set me free out of this mess I’m in, and I’ll lay it down, he said. It was a promise to walk away from the armed rhetoric, from the politi­

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  cal shit storm he was forever stirring, from a way of life that had consumed him. It was a promise to lay his voice down, to silence himself, which turned out to not be freedom at all, not even nowhere close.

  And standing now in a urine-stained corner of this jail cell, where he paid a toll of six cigarettes to be left in peace, he strikes a new bargain with himself. There is a way out of here, he knows, out of this prison in his mind. It requires only the courage to speak.

  It’s nearly two hours before he’s allowed to make a phone call. To Bernie, of course. She’s still out to her parents’ place in Fifth Ward, waiting on word from him, still up at nearly one o’clock in the morning. She answers the phone in a low whisper, then, hear­

  ing his voice, curses him repeatedly, softly, so her daddy won’t hear. When he tells her where he is, the gist of what has hap­

  pened, his wife lets out a jagged little gasp that breaks his heart. The pay phone to his ear, Jay can hear Bernie shuffling around her parents’ house in the dark, loo
king for her purse and shoes. He tells her to stay put. He passed a sobriety test at the station, and there are, as of yet, no charges being filed against him. He’s remained remarkably calm, considering.

  He’s kept to himself, tried to keep his mind clear. There have been four fights, two of which drew the attention of the guards, but not to the degree that they were willing to open the cage and break up the commotion themselves. Instead, they yelled threats from the safe side of the bars, tapping their clubs against the hard metal and chipping black paint onto the dirty floor. Two of the fights were territorial. Somebody sat in somebody’s spot, or maybe it was somebody looked at somebody Bla c k Wat er R isi n g 405

  wrong. The other two fights were about some girl named Thelma who stays over on the north side. Of the nine men locked in the small cell, two of them apparently knew each other on the out­

  side, and both laid a strong claim to this little gal who, it sounded like, is still in high school. Jay has stayed out of all of it. Except for the two minutes the guards let him out to make his phone call, he’s done his time in one solitary corner, in a tiny sliver of space down in front, by the bars.

  At two thirty, they start calling the first of the men out of the cell. One by one, the news comes down the hallway. Some­

  body’s mama or sister or girlfriend managed to pull together bail money, dipping into next month’s rent. Each time the guards call an inmate’s name, the man in question stands righteously and gives the rest of them the finger, a final salute before the cage opens, just for him.

  By a quarter after three, there are only three men left in the cell: one of Thelma’s beaus, Jay, and an older black man, in his late sixties, wearing a soiled undershirt and high-water black pants with white socks. He’s having a one-sided argument with himself about how he knows his gal ain’t gon’ leave him in here, that she’ll bail him out, if only so she can get a ride to work the next morning. He goes on and on, complaining about the fact that she don’t cook him baked chicken no more, always sending him for McDonald’s . . . until finally, Thelma’s boyfriend asks the old man, rather politely, to please shut the fuck up. It’s a little after four o’clock when the guards call for Jay. He hasn’t seen the two cops who arrested him. He’s had almost no communication with anyone, in fact. When Jay asks the guard what, if anything, he’s been charged with, he gets a grunt for a reply and is marched to another room down the hall. Processing, it turns out.