Echoes of a Distant Summer (56 page)

Wayman exclaimed, “Damn, Fox! Rhasan asked if you were carrying before we got in the car and you said no!”

“Rhasan was asking if I had any kind of dope in the car. He wasn’t talking about guns. He knows I don’t go nowhere without a nine or a Mag.”

Wayman was aghast. “You’re still carrying weapons in this car even after your last arrest?”

“Wouldn’t leave home without it. This is my Oakland express card.”

Deshawn hissed, “There’s another white guy coming toward the car!”

“Fox, don’t do anything crazy!” Wayman whispered warningly.

“It’s all good,” Fox replied with a smile. “I’ll be cool.” He put the gun down in his lap and watched the man come up to the driver’s-side window.

“How we doin’, boys?” the man said as he reached the car. He stooped down to see who was in the car. “It’s dark in there! Why don’t you boys smile so I can see how many of you there are.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Fox demanded.

The man gave Fox a hard look then snarled, “It ain’t for you to ask questions, nigger! You answer! Now, how many spear catchers you got in there?”

Fox’s voice dropped as his smile froze on his face. “If you’re a cop, show your badge, otherwise get the fuck out of my face!”

The man opened his jacket and revealed a holstered gun. “That’s all the badge I need. You understand me now, nigger?”

Fox raised his revolver and pointed it directly in the man’s face. “Let me show you my badge, motherfucker!” Fox cocked the hammer with his thumb. “Why don’t you go for your goddamned badge!” he goaded the man. “Go ahead and I’ll blow a hole in you that your fat-ass mother could walk through!”

The man dropped back a pace and held his hands up. “Wait a minute! Wait a minute! We don’t want to get jumpy here! We’re not here about you boys. We’re just after the fellow who owns this house.”

Fox growled, “Ain’t no boys in this car, motherfucker! Deshawn, get my shotgun out of the trunk!”

“What’s your buddy doing to Rhasan?” Wayman demanded.

The man waved his hands placatingly. “He’s just asking him a few questions.”

“A few questions?” Fox challenged. “It looks like we got some ass-kicking to do! Look under your seat, Wayman, there’s a pistol wrapped in a towel.”

The man sputtered, “Listen, we don’t want any trouble with you! Why don’t we all step back and call it a truce?”

Fox and Deshawn got out of the car. “Ain’t no truce, motherfucker! You in for a penny, you in for the goddamn pound! Get his gun, Deshawn!”

“Hold on! You don’t want to take my gun!”

“Oh, no? Stop us from taking it!” Fox prodded and leveled his gun at the man.

Deshawn approached the man from the side and lifted the man’s gun out of its holster. He tossed the gun to Wayman, then without warning he hit the man on the side of the head. Deshawn put his whole powerfully built body into the punch and the man dropped to the ground dazed, as if he had been poleaxed. Deshawn looked down at the man’s body and snarled angrily, “Call me a nigger, huh? Nigger this!” He kicked the man in the kidneys several times.

“Hey, what’s going on up there?” Tony called from the top of the stairs as he pushed a bloody-faced Rhasan ahead of him. “Victor, are you all right?”

Fox replied, “No, Victor ain’t all right! He done fucked with the wrong people!”

Wayman moved toward Rhasan. “Rhasan? Rhasan, are you all right?”

Tony warned Wayman, “Keep back, you black bastard! Keep back or I’ll blow his brains all over this pavement! Where’s my brother? Stand him up!”

“He ain’t getting up, motherfucker!” Fox retorted. “ ’Cause I got my foot on his head!”

Tony pressed the barrel of his pistol into the nape of Rhasan’s neck. He ordered, “Do as I say, goddamn it, or I’ll kill your friend. Believe me, I’ll kill him!”

Fox raised his revolver and pointed it at Tony. He warned, “Soon as you pull that trigger, you’re a dead man and so’s your brother! Deshawn, move around to the other side of the car so you can blast away with both barrels as soon as he pulls the trigger!” Deshawn moved to take up the position as directed.

“Hold on, Fox!” Wayman pleaded. “He’s got Rhasan, man! Both their lives aren’t worth his!”

“Listen to your buddy, punks! Listen to your buddy!” Tony advised, still pushing Rhasan forward. “I’ll trade your pal for my brother!”

Fox nodded. “We’ll trade, but you stand where you are and send Rhasan forward. We’ll send you your brother!”

“You don’t fool me! I’m not giving up my cover! I’ll send him forward if you put down your guns.”

Fox retorted, “You’ll be a dead motherfucker before we put our fucking guns down!”

Tony was beginning to sweat. This was another job gone bad. How did it happen? He went after the one little nigger that was trying to enter the house and when he returned, there were niggers everywhere with guns and Victor was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t good. If any shooting got started, it would be the end of the Lenzini family. Tony grabbed Rhasan by the collar and jerked him backward toward the darkness and the safety of the stairs.

“Don’t take another step!” Fox warned.

Tony stopped momentarily. “We got us a Mexican standoff here! It’s a no-win situation for everybody. Let me get back to the cover of the house and then we’ll trade.” Tony jerked Rhasan backward again. “Come on, boy. I don’t have time for lazy nigger shit!”

Rhasan, who had initially resisted Tony’s efforts, suddenly threw his body backward, causing Tony to also stumble backward, and even with Tony’s grip on his collar, Rhasan fell hard on his behind. Tony again tried to drag him by his collar to the safety of the stairs, but Rhasan’s shirt separated in his hands.

Tony ordered, “Get up or I’ll kill you where you lay!”

“I’m not going anywhere with you!” Rhasan shouted. “I’m not going to let you pistol-whip me again! Kill me!”

Tony cocked the hammer of his pistol and pointed it at Rhasan’s head. His face was contorted. “I’m going to count to three. If you don’t get up …” The threat had been made. Maybe he could scare them. He couldn’t afford to lose his hostage, not while they still had Victor. He started to count, hoping against hope that the boy would get up. “One!”

Fox called to Wayman, “Bring me that nine you got. I think I can hit that fat bastard from here!”

Tony jerked on the back of Rhasan’s shirt, but he still wouldn’t get up. Tony pressed the barrel of his pistol against Rhasan’s head and growled, “Two …” He didn’t want to start shooting, but he wasn’t just going to let some niggers kill him either. He had to show them he meant business. After waiting a moment for a response, Tony reluctantly said, “Three!” and pulled the trigger.

T
he day had not started well for Pres Cordero. He had spent his third straight night sleeping in his car and he had awakened at 5
A.M.
stiff and aching from the experience. Since he still had the keys to KFRE, he drove over to the station and took a shower in the director’s newly refurbished office suite. He put on a suit and tie that he had hastily thrown into his garment bag before he left his apartment and finished his morning ablutions. He had scheduled another morning of interviews at various radio stations, still seeking a site for his trainee program. It was hard sledding, but he felt triumphant when he completed his last presentation at a PBS station and the director offered him a deal that he couldn’t refuse. Pres accepted the offer contingent upon final contract language and left with his spirits high. Now that he had a prospective home for his program, he could turn his thoughts to his own housing situation.

He had been sleeping in his car because two days after the incident outside KFRE the police had called to inform him that the two men who had attempted to kidnap him were small-time hoods who worked for various figures involved in organized crime. Both men had extensive rap sheets for violent felonies. It had taken very little for Pres to realize that these men were in fact King Tremain’s enemies and that they wanted him because he was a friend of Jackson’s. And it wasn’t too much of a leap to connect Wesley’s death, which had been headlined in the East Bay papers earlier in the week, to the same cause. Pres had gotten on the phone immediately and called Dan and Lincoln so that they could safeguard their families. At first they both had reacted with skepticism, but by force of argument Pres got them to take heed. No one could get ahold of Jackson; as far as his job was concerned, he was still in Mexico and they could not provide a date for his return.

As soon as he had finished calling his friends, Pres had gotten out his military-issue M16 rifle and his forty-five pistol and cleaned both of them. It was the first time since he was discharged from the army that he had picked up either gun. When he felt their weight in his hands, unpleasant memories wavered in front of his eyes, distorted images created by heat and distance. He began to think unsettling thoughts. What if he had to kill someone? Even if it was to protect himself, how would that make him feel? If the war had taught him anything, it was
that there was no pleasure in killing. By the end of his tour he had seen all the dead and dismembered bodies that he wanted. There was no honor in war. It was merely a question of surviving the tour of duty. If you were lucky, you killed from a distance; when things got funky, you fought hand-to-hand. There was no philosophical connection between killing North Vietnamese and fighting for the “Free World.” War was only about death. Nothing else.

Pres decided that he didn’t want to stay at his apartment in case some other goons wanted to try to nab him. Yet he couldn’t go to the house of anyone he knew for fear of endangering their lives. His modest income didn’t allow him to stay in even a cheap motel for more than a few days, thus his car had become his dwelling. In pondering his problem, there appeared to be only one viable solution: Contact Jackson and have him get the dogs called off. He wondered whether Jackson even knew that his grandfather’s enemies were on the move. He hadn’t called or made contact with anyone since he had left for Mexico. The grim possibility that he might already be dead passed through Pres’s mind several times, but each time he suppressed it. All he could really do was hope for the best and await Jackson’s call.

After his last presentation was completed, Pres decided that he would drive over to Jackson’s house and leave him a note; that would ensure that Jackson would contact him as soon as he returned. The sun, unfettered by clouds, was streaming brightly over the bay, raising the temperature to shirtsleeve weather. During his trip back across the bridge to the East Bay, Pres found the sun’s brightness in sharp contrast to the shadow that had fallen across the community of his friends.

He arrived at Jackson’s house around two in the afternoon after stopping at a local deli for a take-out lunch. He quickly left a note, but when he returned to his car the view and the isolation were so nice that he pulled his car a little way up the hill and sat looking out at the south bay while he ate his lunch. The air had been swept clean by evening breezes. Across the bay the San Francisco peninsula could be seen in sparkling clarity. It was a truly beautiful day. Pres had a few documents from the PBS station that he had to review, so he took them out of his briefcase and began to read. Perhaps it was the warmth of the sun, perhaps it was the boring manner in which the documents were written, or more likely it was the fatigue that had dogged his steps since he had begun sleeping in his car that caused him to fall into a deep, sound sleep.
When he awoke it was dark. He looked at his watch; it was nearly seven o’clock. He looked out his car window and saw someone who looked like Jackson’s nephew Rhasan walking down the driveway to the stairs on the side of the house. Pres was about to roll down his window and call him when he saw a heavyset white man get out of a car across the street from Jackson’s house and follow Rhasan down the driveway. The fat man looked familiar. Pres suddenly recognized him as one of the men who had jumped him outside KFRE. As Pres watched, another white man got out of the same car and walked across the street to the car from which Rhasan must have exited.

Pres flicked a switch to prevent the interior light from coming on when he opened his door and quietly got out of his car. He crouched down and scuttled down the hill out of view of the street and made his way laterally across the steep incline to Jackson’s house. He had to pay attention to his footing, not only because of the slope, but he was also moving through some tall, dry grass that was quite slippery. He made it safely to the shadows of the house and stood a moment under the overhang of the deck. He heard the timbers over his head creak suddenly as a body fell heavily to the deck. He heard Rhasan groan in pain then heard the fat man growl, “Goddamn it, nigger! You answer me! Where is he? Answer me or you’ll feel the butt of this pistol again!”

Rhasan hissed, “I’ve told you already! I don’t know, you fat bastard! I don’t know where he is!”

As Pres sought to move around the house’s supporting pillars to the deck’s stairs he heard some soft thuds and then more groans from Rhasan.

The fat man threatened, “Don’t get smart with me, punk! I’ll kick in your goddamn chest! Now get up, or I’ll give you some more of the same!”

“I’m getting up! I’m getting up!”

Pres heard footsteps moving across the deck. They moved down the deck’s wooden steps and started up the cement walkway along the side of the house. By the time Pres made it around to the deck’s steps, he could just see the dim shapes of the fat man and Rhasan climbing the cement steps to the driveway. Moving as silently as possible, Pres followed them. When he got to the top of the steps, he stood hidden behind the corner of the house and watched. He saw Rhasan’s friends push the crumpled body of the fat man’s colleague behind their car. One of Rhasan’s friends was armed with a shotgun while another had a
snub-nosed revolver. Pres listened while the fat man exchanged threats with them.

The fat man tried to drag Rhasan backward, but Rhasan fell in the driveway and refused to get up. Pres slipped from his hiding place and began to steal forward, hoping to catch the fat man unawares. One of Rhasan’s friends called to another, “Bring me that nine you got. I think I can hit that fat bastard from here!”