House of the Rising Sun: A Novel (44 page)

You could have come back.

I tried. I wrote and telegrammed your mother. I never got a reply, no matter where I sent my messages.

We were poor and needed your help. Why wouldn’t she answer?

It was obvious. She wanted shut of me.

Help me, Big Bud.

He’p you how? What’s wrong?

It’s dark here. It smells like leaves and wet stone. The voices around me belong to bad men.

Son, this is driving me crazy. Tell me where you are.

Hackberry reached out to touch him, but Ishmael’s image withered away like a sand effigy caught inside a windstorm.

T
HE MAN ASSIGNED
to watch and take care of him was named Jessie. That much Ishmael knew. The rest was a puzzle, other than the fact that Jessie didn’t like his assignment. Ishmael’s eyes were sealed with cotton pads and adhesive tape, shutting out any glimmer of light from the match he heard Jessie strike on a stone surface to light his cigarette. He could hear water ticking from a pump into a bucket, and he could smell the coldness in the stone or bricks or concrete that surrounded him, and he could smell an odor like wet leaves in winter, but he guessed the bucket was made of wood, perhaps oak, and the odor of a cold woods on a January day was a self-manufactured deception because he did not know what his four captors, all of whom seemed to have names that began with the letter “J,” were about to do to him.

“You really a war hero?” Jessie said.

“No,” Ishmael said, turning his padded eyes in the direction of Jessie’s voice. He could hear Jessie draw in on his cigarette, the paper crisping.

“My friends say you’re a war hero. You calling them liars?”

“Most of the heroes I knew are still on the Marne.”

“They say you commanded nigra infantry.”

“That’s correct.”

“Teddy Roosevelt said he had to force them up San Juan Hill at gunpoint.”

“Double-check your information. Colored troops saved the Rough Riders’ bacon.”

Ishmael heard the cigarette paper crisp again, then felt Jessie blow the smoke across his face.

“Not a good time to be a smart aleck,” Jessie said.

“What do you get out of this?”

“How much do I get paid?”

“Yes.”

“My reg’lar pay for doing my job. It’s called company security. Not that much different from being a watchdog for Uncle Sam.”

“You work for Arnold Beckman, don’t you?”

“Me? I wish. We call ourselves private contractors.”

“What is it that Beckman wants so bad?”

“You don’t listen, do you, boy?”

Ishmael felt the heat from the cigarette close to his cheek. Then the heat went away. He heard Jessie sucking his teeth.

“My father will catch up with you,” Ishmael said. “He has a way of leaving his mark.”

Jessie was sitting close to him now, breathing through his nose, his breath crawling across Ishmael’s face. “From what I hear, he’s not the fathering kind. You’re lucky he didn’t strangle you with the umbilical cord.”

Ishmael felt encased in a sarcophagus. He was strapped to a bunk bed, his ankles bound with rope, his wrists cuffed to a wide leather belt buckled around his waist. He kept his head still, his eyes pointed at the ceiling, as though he could see through the cotton pads. He said nothing.

“Did I call it right?” Jessie asked.

“How do you know anything about my father?”

“My uncle by marriage was Harvey Logan. In case you don’t know who that is, he rode with the Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy. He said your father was a derelict he gave a dollar to so he could go to the bathhouse.”

“I know who Harvey Logan was.”

“He was a card. He had your father’s number, all right. I remember him drinking a mug of beer on the porch with his feet on the railing, laughing about it.”

“I need to use the bathroom.”

“Did you hear what I said? My uncle was a member of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang.”

“I need to use the bathroom pretty bad.”

“Then you’re shit out of luck.”

“You taped my eyes. That means I might have another reason to run. If that happens, where does that leave you?”

“I don’t think you got that picture right. You got needle scabs on your arms for all the world to see. If you get turned loose, your brains will be mush. Nobody is going to care what you say. You’ll be on a street corner, drooling in your lap.”

“Walk me into the bathroom. I can’t see. I can’t go anywhere. My hands are manacled.”

“That’s right, they are. So I’m supposed to unbutton your britches?”

Ishmael squeezed his eyes shut behind the pads, his bladder about to burst. “If I develop uremic poisoning, I may die. How will you explain that to Beckman?”

“I didn’t tell you I worked for Mr. Beckman. You got that? You’re starting to piss me off, boy. I’m not somebody you want to piss off.”

“Let me explain something to you, Jessie.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Your friends used it in front of me. My father is coming. After you chloroformed me, I saw him in a dream. He’s going to do something terrible to you and your friends. I don’t want that to happen, mostly for his sake. Maybe you didn’t choose the life you lead. Maybe there’s a better way of life waiting for you.”

“Shut your mouth.”

“I need to use the bathroom.”

“How about this instead?”

Jessie wrapped Ishmael’s head as tightly as a mummy’s with a towel, then slowly funneled a full bucket of water in his mouth and nostrils, pausing only to ensure that none of it was wasted.

H
ACKBERRY LIFTED HIS
watch from his vest pocket and clicked open the case and looked at it. It was gold and as big as a biscuit. Where was Andre? The moon was higher, bluer, the clouds drifting across its broken edges. In the west, the sky was flickering with electricity, the hills green and undulating and as smooth as velvet, like topography beneath a darkening sea. He thought he could smell rain. He put on his slicker and slung his saddlebags over his shoulder and began walking back toward the city. He glanced once at the windows of Arnold Beckman’s apartment, but all of them were dark, and he could see no signs of movement.

What had happened to Andre? Where was Beckman? No car had left the building. Did he go to bed this early? Hackberry walked the four miles to town and used a pay phone to call Beatrice DeMolay.

A
NDRE WAS PUTTING
his bag of groceries on the passenger seat of the REO when the police pulled in behind him on the side street and cut its lights. A bell was attached to the outside of the driver’s door. The two policemen who got out wore dark blue uniforms with high collars and brass buttons. They both had mustaches, and each carried a revolver in a holster and a short, thick wooden club hung on his belt from a rubber ring. One officer looked at the broken headlight on the driver’s side, and at the cornstalks matted in the bumper and the grille, and ran his hand along the scratches and dents on the finish. “Who’s the owner?” he asked.

“Miss Beatrice DeMolay,” Andre said.

“You work for her?”

“I’m her driver.”

“Where’d you get the accent?”

“I’m originally from Haiti.”

The officer stuck his head inside the driver’s window, then withdrew it. “What were you doing inside that old mission?”

“I drove someone there for Miss DeMolay.”

“And vandalized the car while you were at it?”

“The car was in a mishap. A friend of Miss DeMolay was learning how to drive.”

“We got a complaint about a darky looking in people’s windows. One driving an expensive car that might be stolen. Did you take a peek through somebody’s window tonight?”

“I will not speak on this level with you. I am also requesting that your friend take his hand off my arm.”

“What did you say?”

“Do not place your hand on my person. I will do whatever you ask. But you will not treat me as you normally treat people of color.”

“Maybe you should rethink that statement.”

“The issue is not me. Nor is it you. There is a struggle going on around us you do not understand. Your lack of education prevents you from seeing these things. If you are in the service of Arnold Beckman, he will take you to hell with him. Mr. Beckman may be in league with the Evil One.”

“That about rips it for me,” the officer said. He pulled his club from its rubber ring and pushed it into Andre’s breastbone. “Get into the backseat of our car.”

“You mustn’t do this.”

“I know the reputation of the DeMolay woman. She was a white slaver. I don’t know what that makes you. But we’re going to find out. Now you get your black ass in the car.”

“I have groceries to deliver to Mr. Holland. I cannot go with you. Miss DeMolay has given me orders to stay with Mr. Holland and to do what he says and make sure he remains safe. I do not have a choice. He has sent me for food, and that is what I have done. Maybe you can follow me to the ruins of the mission. He will tell you these things are true.”

“I think you’d make a great contribution to the workforce at Huntsville Pen,” the officer said. He began jabbing the club into Andre’s sternum.

Andre fitted his hand on the officer’s throat and lifted him into the air as he would a piñata. The officer’s eyes bulged, his mouth gurgled, his face turned from pink to purple while his feet churned in the air and his hands tore at Andre’s wrist.

“I will release you now,” Andre said. “I hope you will not bear me ill will.”

Then a flash and a sound like a firecracker exploded inside his head, and the sidewalk slammed against his face as though he had fallen from a ten-story building.

H
ACKBERRY HAD USED
a pay phone in a drugstore on a corner where the streetcar stopped to load and discharge passengers, the connector rod sparking on the cables overhead. The car was open on the sides, and he could see women and men in formal dress stepping off the car and walking toward a lighted café. He had forgotten it was Sunday, a day for families and people in love and those on meager budgets who went from their church meeting to a warm café that was considered a treat. How long had it been since he had done these simple things?

Beatrice DeMolay picked up the phone on the second ring.

“Has Andre contacted you?” he asked.

“He’s not with you?” she said.

Hackberry closed the door to the phone booth. “We were watching Beckman’s building from the Spanish ruins. I asked Andre to take your motorcar and find us some food. He didn’t come back. I walked to town.”

“Did you have mechanical trouble?”

“Not exactly. The car is going to need a little external repair. The fenders and grille and bumpers and such. Maybe some touching up inside.”

“What happened?”

“I took over the wheel for a little while. The pedal got stuck. The one that controls the gas.”

“You wrecked my car?”

“We ran through some wash lines and a cornfield and maybe a fence and bumped into a haystack. I cain’t quite remember the sequence.”

“I don’t believe I’m hearing this. You let Andre drive off by himself with the car in that condition?”

“It probably sounds worse than it is.”

There was a long silence on the line. “I’ll call the police department. In the meantime, I want you to come to my apartment. You and I need to have a serious talk.”

“I want to confront Beckman.”

“All you think about is confronting people, Mr. Holland. What has it gotten you?”

“Ma’am?”

“Look at your situation. Why don’t you try thinking about something before you do it?”

He felt a catch in his throat. “I’ll try to find him, Miss Beatrice.”

“No, you won’t. I’ll handle it. Do you have any idea how the San Antonio police will treat Andre?”

“I have no doubt at all,” he said. “I’m sorry I tore up your car. I’ll have it fixed.”

She was talking when he replaced the receiver on the hook. He stared at the phone, his ears ringing, his brow cold, his hands stiff when he tried to close them. He wondered if he was coming down with influenza. He went to the soda counter and asked the clerk for five dollars in change.

Outside, fog was rolling in from the river, clean and white and damp-looking, gathering as thick as cotton in the streets. The sky was sprinkled with stars and streaked by meteorites that turned into flecks of ice, the thunderheads in the west pulsing with tiny forks of electricity. Why didn’t witnessing the antithetical nature of creation and the radiance of the universe bring him peace? Why couldn’t he be in alignment with himself the way the planets and stars were, all of them hung like snowy ornaments on a tree by Druid priests? He sat back down in the phone booth and called the sheriff in Kerr County at his home. “Is that you, Willard?” he said.

“Who’d you think it was?”

“I need your assistance.”

“What did you get yourself into now?”

“You name it.”

“Where are you?”

“San Antonio. In a drugstore downtown.”

“I don’t hold any sway there.”

“That’s not what I’m asking for.”

“You’re asking me to give your badge back. The answer is no.”

“I need somebody to cover my back. I cain’t go up against all these sons of bitches by myself.”

“You want me to call the sheriff or the chief of police?”

“These are the ones I’m having trouble with. My son is kidnapped. I may never see him again. I need your damn he’p, Willard.”

“No, what you want is the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday to walk down to the O.K. Corral with you. The old days are gone, Hack.”

“Not for me.”

“Your old friends work in sideshows. Frank James sold shoes in Fort Worth. What does that tell you?”

“It tells me you cut bait on a friend. Give me your deputy’s phone number. That young fellow, Darl Pickins.”

“What for?”

“The boy has sand, unlike some others I know.”

“Come around him and I’ll lock you up,” Willard said, and hung up.

Hackberry watched the streetcar going through the intersection, the cables dripping sparks overhead, the passengers sitting on the open benches in muffs and scarfs and fur-trimmed coats, snug among one another, the fog puffing around them as if they were travelers on an ancient ship.