Echoes of a Distant Summer (62 page)

“I ain’t doin’ this for money and I ain’t doin’ it for you!” Sister Bornais declared haughtily. “I’m doin’ this for King’s seed. If you can straighten things out, it’ll be better for all y’all.”

“But-but, you said there was nothing I could do to change things. How can I straighten things out?”

“There’s always a way out!” Sister Bornais snapped. “The problem is, it’s a hard and windin’ road. It’s a path that goes through courage, generosity, and compassion. Travelin’ that road ain’t only about bein’ strong and stubborn. You got to be pure in yo’ intention, like the Bible say, with generosity and compassion. Can’t be no pretendin’! It got to be real!”

“Tell me what to do and I’ll do it!”

“That’s the problem! Ain’t nothin’ as unpredictable as the human spirit when it comes to learnin’ and doin’ right. I can always see the bad ’round the corner befo’ it comes. I can sometimes see good too, but the path of true generosity and compassion is always cloudy. I can’t tell you what to do. You got to find it for yo’self! Only you know what’s real in yo’ heart. That’s what makes it so hard a road to travel. Ain’t no signposts. Ain’t no maps. Only yo’ heart can find the way and yo’ heart got to be pure.”

“How do I show my heart is pure?”

“Can’t tell you that neither. You just got to be ready when the times comes. If’en you’s up to it, you’ll make it; if not, yo’ life gon’ be a livin’ hell!” Sister Bornais rang a little bell on the arm of her wheelchair and the young woman who had served the tea came into the room and waited for direction. Sister Bornais gestured that she should be wheeled out and the woman moved to do her bidding. Before she was wheeled away, Sister Bornais said to Serena, “There ain’t no charge for my services. I’m repayin’ my debt to King Tremain. You wait downstairs and Junior will give you a ride back to yo’ hotel.” The woman pushed the wheelchair out the door without waiting for a response from Serena.

Serena stood up slowly. She was exhausted. She didn’t know what she was going to do. She was alone in Bedlam and only ghosts walked the floor of her cell. There was no thought of going home. She was afraid to return to California in her delicate mental state. She didn’t want anyone, particularly people she knew, to see her in her present
condition. She had resolved that she would remain in New Orleans until she had matters under control. As she walked down the stairs, she realized that she might even die without ever returning to the Bay Area. She sat down on a small bench by the door and saw the woman with the braids come down the stairs and go into a room where a television was blaring some sports event. There was a muffled conversation, then she heard the man with the gold teeth exclaim angrily, “Why I got to take her? It’s in the middle of the damn game!” More muffled conversation ensued. Then another explosion from the man: “She gon’ have to wait. I ain’t leavin’ to carry nobody nowhere right now! Shoot! This the playoffs and they be bowlin’ for thirty thousand dollars! It’s the ninth frame! This here high yella’ gal done got the chance to win it all! Shoot!”

The woman came out of the room shaking her head. She walked over to Serena and said, “Junior is going to give you a ride back to the hotel. You may have to wait a bit. If my great-grandmother wasn’t resting right now, she’d make him take you this instant. Can you wait until Junior comes to his senses? I don’t dare disturb her unless it’s an emergency.”

Serena had no energy to move at all, much less stand. She nodded, indicating that she could wait. The woman turned around and went back up the stairs and disappeared. There wasn’t a moment of silence before she heard King’s voice.

“Guess you found out there ain’t no easy way out, huh?” His words were said right into her left ear, as if he were standing directly behind her. She would have turned around if she had not been sitting with her back to the wall. He spoke into her ear again. This time she could smell his cologne and his cigars. She could even feel the breath of his words on her skin as he said, “You havin’ it easy. It ain’t got rough yet. Wait till all them folks you robbed of life find a way into yo’ wakin’ moments. They lookin’ for a way in right now. They’s rippin’ and runnin’, lookin’ hither and yon. They gon’ find the way too. When they get here, you won’t be able to tell day from night. They gon’ put you in a loony bin.”

Serena reacted without thinking. She replied out loud, “There’s a way out of this! Sister Bornais said so.”

She could feel him leaning over her shoulder as he spoke into her ear again. “Don’t waste time tryin’ to escape, there ain’t no way out for you! You too small to find the way! I’m gon’ walk with you until you’s as
crazy as a road lizard in the desert sun. I’m gon’ escort you all the way into hell and we takin’ the slow, scenic route.” She felt the heat of his breath on her neck as he laughed. Involuntarily she turned to make sure that he hadn’t somehow materialized behind her, but all she saw was a wall covered with red-striped wallpaper.

Serena attempted to collect her thoughts. She swallowed. Her throat was dry. She took a deep breath. She had to concentrate on what she could see. She had to ignore sounds which didn’t originate from a visible source. She focused on breathing deeply and regularly. King’s laughter interrupted her thoughts. He was right in her ear again. If her eyes had been closed, she would have sworn that he was standing right next to her. “You think you got the key to sanity?” He chuckled. “Look up at the top of the stairs. I brought somebody with me.” Serena didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t help herself. Slowly, her eyes climbed the stairs until they came to rest upon a little girl. She was six or seven years old and dressed in a white gingham dress with red bows. She was light-skinned and had chestnut-colored hair, which was braided with ribbons. It was a scene that would have made Serena smile, if she had not seen the look of pure hatred on the girl’s face.

The girl started speaking as she slowly descended the stairs step by step: “I would have been eight years old in May, if I had been born. But I wasn’t born because my mother wasn’t born. And she wasn’t born because of you. You made sure we wouldn’t ever live!” The girl hopped down two of the steps then raised up a crudely made doll in her right hand. “I hated you so much, I made a doll of you out of your own hair. And when I get so angry I could just pop, I stick the doll with this pin, like this!” The girl pulled a long hairpin from her braids and pushed the pin deep into the doll. Pain lanced through Serena’s chest and abdomen. The little girl stopped and smiled evilly. “Did that hurt? What about this?” She pulled the pin out then thrust it through the doll’s head.

Serena stumbled to her feet. The pain in her forehead was blinding. She had to get out of the house. She had to escape the demon child. She pulled open the door and staggered out into the darkness of the alley. The door slammed behind her and she was in complete darkness. Initially, there was silence and Serena welcomed it, but then as her eyes began to adjust to the darkness, she heard the rats again. They were rummaging in the garbage. She turned back to the door, but decided
that she didn’t want to go back inside. Once again, there was silence. Serena turned and saw the large rats sitting and staring at her. One of them took a few steps into the alley and tested the air for scent. Serena waited no longer; she stumbled out into the alley and made her way toward the streetlight.

“A
re our lives still in danger?” Sandra Shue asked Jackson. She pushed her long black hair back from her face and stared at him; the slant in her dark brown eyes gave her a penetrating look. She was sitting on an ottoman in front of her husband Lincoln’s overstuffed chair. “Should we expect more attacks?”

Jackson was standing, resting an arm on the mantel, pausing a moment to seek the best manner in which to answer her question. Although he had requested this meeting of his friends at Dan’s house, he had not looked forward to it. He began carefully. “At this point, I’d have to say yes. Although I confronted the guy who sent out the Lenzinis, I can’t guarantee they’ll stop their depredations.” He looked around the room at his friends. “I’m sorry about this.”

“You’re sorry?” Sandra shook her head. “Think about Wesley!”

“Hey,” Dan boomed. “We started this meeting off on the basis that it wasn’t about blame. We’ve got to keep it on that note.”

Sandra explained. “I’m having a hard time with this. I’ve been pretty upset since we heard about it. How did we get involved in all this?”

Jackson shrugged his shoulders. “The only reasonable explanation is that they’re seeking hostages.”

“Why?” Dan’s wife, Anu, shook her head. “Why do they want hostages? And why us?”

“I guess they think if they have one of you, they can force me to sign over my grandfather’s estate.”

“Why don’t you just give it to them?” Sandra blurted out, her voice beginning to rise. “Give it to them and get them out of our lives! We have children and they are more important than any amount of money.”

Jackson exhaled. “I wish it were that simple. It appears that there are a couple of different groups operating here and they want different things. I don’t know that even if I were to turn over everything, that would stop them from attacking you. I know—”

“Why not?” Sandra interrupted impatiently. “You said that they wanted you to sign over the estate. Just sign it over!”

“Whoa!” Dan stood up and made a placating gesture with his hands. “We’re jumping all over the place here. Jax is not the enemy. Let’s give him a chance to explain. Why don’t you take it from the top, Jax? Why are they coming after you?”

“According to the papers I’ve been reading, my grandfather wanted to make sure that I wasn’t killed immediately after his death.…” Jackson went on to explain the origin of the lost certificates and how his grandfather had leaked their existence to his enemies.

After he finished, Anu declared, “You can’t say that the old bastard wasn’t smart.”

“How much money are we talking about?” Dan asked.

“I really don’t know yet, but it may be somewhere between seventy and a hundred million dollars.”

Dan exclaimed, “Holy shit!”

Lincoln asked, “Exactly where are these certificates?”

“They were left in the basement of one of my grandfather’s Western Addition apartment buildings.”

Pres said, “I thought those had all been torn down years ago.”

Jackson nodded. “There’s a plaza over where the buildings once stood.”

Sandra was confused. “How do you retrieve the documents then?”

“You have to go through the sewers,” Jackson replied. “I guess you find the point closest to where the building stood, then drill through the sewer walls and hope that you can strike the subterranean vault of the old building.”

“The atmosphere in a sewer is a mixture of carbon monoxide and methane,” Lincoln concluded thoughtfully. He looked at Jackson. “How do you propose to get the certificates?”

“I don’t. I’d rather let my grandfather’s enemies fight for possession of them.”

Lincoln said dryly, “If they were only fighting for possession of the documents, we’d have nothing to worry about.”

“Let’s not fool ourselves,” Dan said from his easy chair. “We know
what they want! They want those certificates and they want to kill Jax.” There was a long silence after Dan finished speaking.

“I think Dan hit the nail on the head,” Jackson conceded. “Unfortunately, it seems they don’t care how many other people they kill in the process. That’s why I’d like you folks to take my offer of one hundred thousand dollars and take a month-long vacation. I think things should be resolved by then.”

“That sounds good to me,” Dan exclaimed. “We sure could use the money.”

“Just a minute,” Anu said as she gave her husband a long steady look. She was a tall, solidly built Samoan woman who, despite giving birth to four children, was still shapely. She turned to Jackson. “What do you expect for this money?”

“Nothing,” Jackson replied. “I’m giving you the money to go away, to get out of danger.”

“Not all of us are interested in taking a vacation,” Pres stated. “I’m interested in who these people are and what you plan to do to deal with them.”

“Pres is right,” Lincoln agreed. “I think we all could benefit from having the full picture and then we can make an informed decision. Who are we dealing with?”

Jackson took a deep breath. “There are three independent groups. The first are the DuMonts and they want to kill me because the Tremains and the DuMonts have been killing one another for over a hundred years. And then there is Paul DiMarco, the guy I confronted yesterday who threatened to kill me in his restaurant.”

There were exclamations around the room.

Lincoln asked, “Is this DiMarco related to the attorney, Michael DiMarco, the mayoral candidate in San Francisco?”

“One of his nephews,” Jackson answered.

Pres declared, “They’re involved in organized crime. According to the
Bay Guardian
, the DiMarcos are connected to crime families in Las Vegas. The guys who attempted to kidnap me and the ones who attacked Rhasan are all working for the Mob!”

“Why can’t you go to the newspapers or the police with this information?” Sandra asked. “Wouldn’t that get these people off our backs?”

Jackson shrugged his shoulders. “I have no proof of their wrongdoing. I can’t even link DiMarco to what happened to Pres or Rhasan.”

“Who is the third group involved in this?” Dan asked.

“It’s John Tree, the drug dealer.”

Lincoln was incredulous. “You mean the guy who ran Tree’s pool hall where we used play pool when we were in high school?”

“Goddamn!” Dan exclaimed. “These are some tough customers. Just how are you going to deal with them?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m still collecting information. None of these people have made an effort to speak with me or express their desires, so I can’t truly say that I know what will appease them.”

Pres stated, “The last time we spoke, you were ready to walk away from it all.” He paused for a moment then said slyly, “Do you want to hold on to your grandfather’s estate now?”

Jackson reacted testily. “Nothing’s changed! I’d walk away from it, if I could be sure that the hostilities would be over.”