Black Water Rising (30 page)

One of the white longshoremen down front climbs onto the stage without invitation, startling Bodine, who immediately looks into the audience for somebody to come physically remove the guy. “We got to go back to work, y'all,” the man onstage yells. “For all of us, the whole union. If we hold out for too long, they gon' have them machines down there running everything. And then ain't nobody gon' have a job. They saying they gon' judge us by what we got inside,” he says, speaking directly to the black men now. “If y'all can't live with that, I mean, if you don't think you got what it takes to be management, then, hell, don't apply. But don't keep the rest of us from going back to work.”

The black men wave him off the stage, booing loudly.

The whites clap and laud the man's plainspoken sense.

At the back of the room, there's an ILA officer dressed in
slacks and a button-down. He motions to Bodine, then points to a wall clock overhead.

The Rev nudges Jay. “It's time,” he says.

Onstage, Pat Bodine tells the men they'll have to put this proposal to a vote before the whole union no matter what, something the officers will organize in short order. In the meantime, they'll need to hear more from the Maritime Association on what the stevedores are willing to put in writing. He reminds the men about the port commission meeting at five o'clock. “Those that want to join us might want to think about heading that way in the next few minutes or so. Get y'all selves something to eat, as the thing is likely to run long. Public officials do love to talk,” he says, which elicits universal soft chuckles throughout both sides of the room. “Also, you boys remember now…they gon' have cameras at this thing. They're talking about getting press from up north. You boys make sure and represent this union well.”

As the dockworkers make for the double doors, Bodine walks across the room to where the ILA officer has been waiting for him, next to a door marked
PRIVATE
. Both men look up as Reverend Boykins, Darren, and Jay approach. Pat Bodine takes one look at Jay and asks, “Who the hell is he?”

“I'm the boy's lawyer,” Jay offers, which in this instance means nothing more than the fact that he's not going to let the kid walk into this situation unprotected. Bodine, upon hearing the news of an attorney in their midst, sighs and shakes his head. They follow him down a long and dimly lit hallway.

This part of the building smells like stale coffee, tinged with the metallic edge of cigarette smoke so thick that it's gotten into the curtains and the carpet on the floor. The union officers' private offices are at the end of the long hallway, the vice president, secretary, and treasurer all sharing one large room to the right, and the president housed in a dim, windowless room to the left.
Two men are already waiting inside: Wayne Kaylin, president of OCAW, and Carlisle Minty, vice president of the same union. Jay remembers Minty's picture from the paper. He is thinner in person. He's wearing glasses, and behind them, his eyes are like two white clouds, pale and shape shifting. At first sight, Jay doesn't like the man. The way he's got himself leaned against Bodine's desk, the way he doesn't even bother to stand up straight and off the man's property when Bodine walks into the room. He acts as if this whole meeting is beneath him. Jay immediately looks at Darren to see if there's some recognition there, now that the two men are face-to-face again, to be sure once and for all if this is the same man who orchestrated the attack on Darren from the cab of his pickup truck. Minty isn't wearing a baseball cap today, and he hardly looks twice in Darren's direction, as if the boy were a stranger. Still, Jay can see the kid's back stiffen in Minty's presence. Darren turns and looks at Jay and the Rev.

He nods.
It's him.

“You're sure?” Jay asks.

The kid nods again. “I'm sure.”

Minty is staring long and hard at Jay. The enmity, it appears, is mutual.

There's not room enough in this tiny office for the men to sit down. The only available chair is buried beneath cardboard boxes, phone books, and two poster boards:
UNION STANDS FOR BROTHERHOOD
and
JUSTICE FOR ONE
IS
JUSTICE FOR ALL
. The quarters are so close Jay can smell Kaylin's aftershave and from here could probably make an educated guess about what kind of beer Carlisle Minty had with lunch. It's hardly the most decorous place to hold a sit-down of this sort, but maybe, Jay thinks, it's fitting for the sometimes down-and-dirty nature of union politics. Maybe Minty deserves no better courtroom than this.

“Let me just say off the top,” Bodine starts. “I don't stand for labor violence. That's not my way of doing things.”

He looks at each and every one of them, making sure they get that point clear and out of the way. Then he adds, “But this little incident is causing us a lot of fucking problems. We're on the verge of making some real headway on this equal pay issue, and this shit ain't helping at all. It's goddamned unprofessional, for one. And I can tell you what, this strike wouldn't be worth shit without OCAW's participation,” he says, to which Wayne nods assent. “It's the oil that's got people scared shitless. It's the shutdown at the refineries that's got the fucking
Washington Post
coming around. The
New York Times,
reporters from out East. This is all about the oil.” He sighs, maybe sensing his own reduced position in this labor fight. The dockworkers might have started the strike, but like almost every other thing in America, it's being fueled by petrol. “The alliance between the two unions is too important to piss it away on some bullshit like this. And I, for one, don't want to see this drag on much further.”

“Me neither,” Minty says.

“And let me say this to you, Carlisle,” Bodine adds, poking a hairy finger in the air. “I've known you a long time, and if you did this, you ought to be goddamned ashamed of yourself.”

“Hold on, Pat,” Wayne says. “Let's not jump to any conclusions here.”

“I never touched that kid,” Minty says.

“My understanding,” Jay says, not letting him get away on a technicality, “is that the beating took place on your instruction.”

“I never seen this kid, okay?” Minty turns and looks Darren in the eye. “You got that?” He takes a step in the kid's direction. “You got it all wrong.”

Wayne grabs Minty by the arm, pulling him back. “Why don't you tell us what it is you want here?” he asks the men. “What makes this go away?”

“If Mr. Minty apologized,” Bodine starts.

“I'm not apologizing for a goddamned thing.”

Wayne tightens his grip on Minty's arm.

Reverend Boykins clears his throat. “An apology is one thing, yes. The other is that we want to make sure our men aren't putting their lives in danger just for standing up for themselves, you understand? And as this thing goes forward, I, for one, need to know that these men are going to be protected.”

“It's my understanding that the strike ain't going forward,” Wayne says. “My men are ready to go back to work. Let's make that clear right now.” He looks at Bodine. “You said we were close, Pat.”

Bodine sighs and says to Reverend Boykins and Darren, “If I'm being real with you, there is no way for us to not take seriously the mayor's proposal. If the stevedores adopt a viable program for race-blind hiring, I think there's a very real possibility that the strike will reach a resolution shortly.”

“And I'm telling you-all,” the Rev says, “pretending people aren't black is not the way to equality. It's not even possible, first of all. Any more than I can pretend you aren't who you are.”

“I thought this is what you all wanted,” Bodine says sincerely.

“I think the hope has always been that you see what you see, and you take us anyway, for who we are,” the Rev says. “Not that we all go around pretending we're the same. I don't see how that helps anybody.”

Carlisle Minty lets out an exasperated sigh.

“And let me tell you what else,” the Rev adds. “You will never let those men out there know you're serious about setting things
right if you let this man get away with what he did. It will hang over this union for a long, long time.”

“Why'd you do it?” Darren asks, looking squarely at Carlisle Minty. “Why'd you do this to me? I don't even know you, man.”

“Goddamnit, Pat, are you gonna listen to this bullshit?” Minty asks.

“It ain't a bad question, C.”

“Aw, hell.” Minty waves his hand in the air like he's waving away the smell of horseshit.

“You're the vice president of the damn union,” Bodine says. “If you didn't want a walkout, you shoulda talked to Wayne, or me, for that matter. It wasn't necessary to pull a kid into it. He is one of mine, after all.”

“I never touched that fucking kid,” Minty yells, his face growing red at the jawline. “Jesus, Wayne, you want to jump in here?” he says to his union brother. “I mean, for one,” he says, speaking to Bodine again, “we're talking about ten o'clock at night. How in the hell you gon' tell me this kid saw me on a dark street, in a truck somewhere? That don't make a lick of sense.”

“How did you know it was ten o'clock at night?” Jay asks. “I mean, if you supposedly don't know anything about it.”

“Well, Mr. Smart Fucking Lawyer,” Minty says, ignoring a taming hand on his shoulder from Wayne Kaylin. “I got cops coming to my house, to my fucking job. They were real clear on what this kid
thinks
he saw me do. And I'm gon' tell you what I told them, and then I ain't gon' say nothing more about it. It
couldn't
have been me, okay?” he says, looking Darren in the eye. “I was at work. It's on the fucking books. You can check it just like the cops did.”

Jay looks to the Rev, who shakes his head. This is news to him too.

“And I can do you one better,” Minty says, cooling his tone now that the facts seem to be turning in his favor. “Thomas Cole and a couple of suits from downtown were doing a site visit at the refinery that night. I had a cup of coffee with the man myself. He told the police as much already. Unless he's lying too.”

“You were working at Cole Oil when this happened?” Jay asks skeptically. “Ten o'clock at night?”

“I was working the late shift as a matter of fact.”

“The story checks out,” Wayne says to Bodine. “I mean, legally, the cops don't know what to do with it. They got the kid's statement. But Minty was at work, Pat. It's on the books. He clocked in for the night shift at seven fifty-five
PM
and didn't clock out 'til morning. And as far as the police are concerned, if a man like Thomas Cole says he saw Minty at work, then it's enough for them.”

“Look, kid, I'm sorry about what all happened to you, I am,” Minty says, not sounding sorry in the least. “But it wasn't me, okay?” He looks around the room at the others. “And even if it was,” he says, suddenly smug, as if he's just dying to admit that it
was
him, as if he's daring them to do anything about it, what with the law and Thomas Cole on his side. “Don't matter much anymore. You got your strike in the end, and now it's done. We can all get back to work.”

“Let me get this straight,” Jay says, still stuck on one thing in particular, one thing that seems mildly incredible to him, or just plain odd. “You're telling me that Thomas Cole, the CEO of Cole Oil Industries—”

“CFO,” Minty corrects him, bragging, kind of, as if it were
his
job.

“You're telling me the
CFO
of Cole Oil…is your alibi?”

Minty eyes Jay coldly. He seems to take the question as a personal attack. “I'm not just some peon down there. I put in nearly
thirty years at that refinery. I've earned the respect of a lot of people. And yes, Thomas Cole is one of them. I do an important job for him, not that you would know about it.”

“He's a production coordinator for Cole,” Wayne says, backing him up.

“Senior supervisor,” Minty corrects him. “I keep track of the crude.”

“Is that right?” Jay asks.

“Yes, that's right. I'm the one seeing to the tankers out there,” Minty says, still bragging. “I mark the levels down in the books when the oil comes in off the ships and the tanker trucks. I keep track of how much or how little we got on hand, what sets the prices, you know. So I'd say I'm pretty important down there, somebody Mr. Cole might want to say hello to once in a while.”

Jay, all of sudden, feels something hot behind his ears.

He's had this sensation before, like two live wires touching, something in his mind getting ready to ignite. It's something about the mention of Thomas Cole that doesn't sit right. Minty just happened to be working the late shift that night, and Thomas Cole just happened to be by the refinery at the exact time Minty needed corroboration for his whereabouts? There's no doubt that Minty is lying. The real question is, why would Thomas Cole play along? Why would the CFO of Cole Oil lie for a man like Carlisle Minty? Why help him get away with a crime? Unless, of course, Jay is reading it all wrong…backward, in fact.

He stares at Carlisle Minty, the callous look in his eyes.

“Who keeps track of the crude during the walkout?” he asks.

“Nobody,” Minty says. “The plant's dark.”

He says it like he thinks Jay's an idiot.

The strike, of course, has shut down everything.

“Nothing going out,” Jay says out loud, rolling the words
around in his mind, then finishing the thought, “and no workers to bring any oil in.”

“That's right,” Minty says.

Jay gets a sudden image of oil tanker trucks in High Point, the old man's description of them secreting away oil in the middle of the night. The cleanup, he called it, and said it stopped short just about a week ago…right about the time the strike got started, when the Cole refinery in Houston went dark.