Standing at the Scratch Line (100 page)

King stepped out into the square and addressed the onlookers. “My name is King Tremain and I want to make sure you all understand exactly what we sayin’! If you got a problem with a Tremain, come to me! Don’t take no physical action against one that bears the name Tremain! We’s fair people. We pays our debts and we take care of our own problems!”

King walked over to LaValle and took him by the arm and turned once again to the crowd. “Now, LaValle here done somethin’ wrong. He gambled money he didn’t have! He run up a big debt and caused quite a few folk to get their jaws tight! It be understandable that someone should want to hurt him bad! It ain’t good business to let a gamblin’ debt go outstandin’. We understand that, so the family gon’ pay this time! But hear me well, this here be the last time! And to show we don’t take this kind of behavior light—” King swiveled on LaValle and hit him hard on the side of the jaw. LaValle was knocked off his feet and stumbled to the floor. “We don’t encourage no stupid plays in this family!” King announced as he waited for LaValle to stagger to his feet. He waited until LaValle was all the way erect and knocked him down again. King watched as LaValle rolled to his knees and continued addressing the surrounding throng. “Some people got so much rope they couldn’t even hang themselves! So what happens when you done used up everybody’s patience? At some point you got to pay! Get up, LaValle!”

LaValle refused to get up off his knees. He begged, “Please, Papa, don’t hit me no more! I’ll pay the money back! Just don’t hit me again!”

King was outraged that LaValle had so little personal dignity that he dared to beg for mercy in front of everyone. He was ashamed to be associated with LaValle. “Ain’t nobody tryin’ to kill you! Get to your feet and take yo’ punishment like a man!”

LaValle still refused to get to his feet. He felt safer pleading on his knees. “Please, Papa! It won’t ever happen again! I swear! Please, Papa!”

King was livid. “Someone get this slime off the floor!” People stepped out of the crowd and pulled LaValle to his feet. As King walked up to LaValle, the people who had helped him to his feet melted back into the surrounding background of faces. There was panic on LaValle’s face as he watched his father move nearer. He recoiled and held a hand fearfully in front of his face as a protection from more blows. King was absolutely disgusted. For the first time in many years, King thought seriously of killing LaValle. He drew back to hit him again but Jack stepped in between them.

“The lesson ain’t over,” King advised his son.

“Maybe not, Papa, but you got all there is to get out of this student! If you press on, you’ll just expose him to further ridicule! I don’t see that as helpful to anyone!”

King stared at Jack’s face and saw quiet determination in it. He saw no reason to drive a wedge between himself and Jack, so he turned away from LaValle. King addressed the crowd. “From this moment on, know that LaValle’s future gambling debts will not be honored by this family! You should only take bets from him when he has the cash on hand! If you play cards with him, check his money first! If you take his marker, you’re a fool! He has no way to pay back his debts! Don’t let him run up a big bill, ’cause if you hurt him we’ll have to come after you!”

“And we will come after you!” Jack stated loudly.

From a stool on the edge of the square, Rocky bellowed, “You’re a dirty fighter, Tremain, and I’ll kill you for this! I swear I’m gon’ kill you for this!” He pulled out of Billy Childs’s grip, who was trying to hold an ice pack to the back of his head. “You better keep a sharp lookout, ’cause I’m gon’ be comin’!”

Jack put his shoulder under his brother’s arm and assisted him to the exit. As they neared the door, Rocky shouted, “You’re a dead man, Jack Tremain! You’re a dead man!”

Jack called over his shoulder, “Maybe I’ll see you sometime!”

King walked over to Rocky Tisdale’s stool and slammed the butt of his shotgun hard into the side of Rocky’s head. As the man’s body slumped to the floor, King said, “And maybe you won’t!” One of King’s men walked over and crouched beside Rocky’s body to check vital signs. When he shook his head, indicating there was no evidence of life, King nodded grimly and said, “We’ll take him with us! Get Rico to take Molinari and his people out to the van.”

In the car on the way home, Jack drove while LaValle sat quietly beside him. King sat in the backseat and smoked a cheroot. As they passed out of Golden Gate Park, Jack asked, “How do you plan for us to get rid of Tisdale’s body?”

“We got to take him out the Gate tonight and let the ocean have him!”

“If we’re going to have to take the cutter out tonight, I need to go home and change.”

“Ain’t no need. This is almost the day of yo’ son’s christenin’. Me and the boys’ll take care of it. Why don’t you go on home?”

“In for a penny, in for a pound, Papa, and you don’t have anyone who can pilot the boat as well as me. It’ll just take a few minutes to change.”

“You ain’t got to do this! I got me plenty old friends in town for this here christenin’, and they more’n happy to help.”

“In for a penny, in for a pound, Papa.”

“Whatever you want to do, son,” King conceded. He leaned forward and asked, “But tell me this. Why didn’t you just go ahead and kill that Tisdale when you first had the chance? He was frontin’ for Nino Molinari! After you beat him, he got to kill you or lose face with Molinari! It ain’t a good idea to walk away from an unfinished fight!”

“I was hoping it wouldn’t have to go that far. I saw enough death for a lifetime while I was with the Seven hundred Sixty-first in Europe! Our tank battalion spearheaded a number of the attacks for Patton’s Third Army. If I can avoid killing, I’d like to do so. Anyway, if what you say is true, why did you let Mateo Molinari go? They certainly won’t sit quietly for long. You could have killed him, but you didn’t!”

“I was lettin’ him live for a purpose. If you walk away from an unfinished fight, there got to be a purpose behind it that benefits you more’n yo’ enemy! I didn’t want to worry about no fightin’ tomorrow durin’ the christenin’ and celebration! Plus, I sent him home with a message that the next time they try to move in on me, it’s war!”

“How do you know they won’t just send out a hit man for you tonight?”

“Because now they know they got you to worry about too! They’ll chew on things for a few days before they do anythin’! By then, we’ll know everythin’ Mateo’s men know. My friend El Indio is very good at finding out what people know!”

“How does one get so good at torture?” Jack asked.

“The Mexican police and the federales taught him. Them Indians from Chiapas been fightin’ the Mexican government for years and the police types down there don’t play! Nino’s boys are pretty good at it too!”

“I guess this was the best move,” Jack mused, “attacking Tisdale before he began to consolidate his strength.”

“Don’t get yo’ hopes up! We didn’t get nothin’ major accomplished tonight. All we did tonight is remove the first colored puppet they picked. If we wait a little while they’ll choose another one! We didn’t get nothin’ major accomplished tonight. This fight is a long way from bein’ over!”

“You saved me, Papa. Isn’t that a major accomplishment?” LaValle asked as he turned to face King. His face was swollen and discolored from the trauma it had suffered. “Isn’t that why you came, to save me because I’m your son too?” The anxiety and the desire for acceptance was too apparent in his voice. LaValle’s fears and concerns were so obvious that he seemed stripped naked and vulnerable before his brother and father. “I’m your son too, aren’t I, Papa?”

Jack stared at his father’s face in the rearview mirror, an unspoken request in his pained expression. He didn’t want his brother hurt anymore. The glint of his father’s eyes were intermittently reflected in the glow of passing streetlights and they gave no evidence of the thoughts behind them. Jack tightened his grip on the steering wheel and drove on into the night.

There was a long silence before King spoke. “Hear me,” he declared. His voice seemed to be coming out of the depths of his soul. “Everything that’s worth a damn got to be earned! Ain’t nothin’ free! The stuff you think is free, you just payin’ for it somewhere else! Everythin’ valuable takes work and sacrifice! I want you to understand that! You see, family’s real important to me, but I’d disown any son who brought shame on the family’s name! No son that I recognize begs for mercy! Or shows cowardice! Or gambles with money he ain’t got! Anyone that I call a son got to be a man and I don’t mean an adult male! I mean a man! If you want me to call you my son, you got to earn it! And you got to earn it by bein’ strong! The respect that the name Tremain commands was earned with blood and hard work! And we’ve kept that respect with determination, courage, and grit! So, if you want me to call you my son, you know the path to travel!”

Jack exhaled slowly and steered the car through the obscuring fog. There was little traffic as they passed the private college of USF and headed down Fulton Street toward the Fillmore District. It was nearly midnight, but the neon lights of the city glowed in a luminous aura above the skyline due to the refraction and reflection of light by the moisture in the fog. It was like a multicolored halo that, due to the hills, sat upon the city at a jaunty angle, the conferred divinity of the salt sea and warm inland air. The vapor outside the car appeared to wrap each of the three men in the car in their own world of low visibility and darkness. No further words were spoken and no one sought to break the stifling silence.

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It was two-thirty in the afternoon and the main ballroom of the Benjamin Bannaker Hotel was filled with guests celebrating the christening of Jackson St. Clare Tremain. The ballroom sat two hundred people around a moderately sized parquet dance floor and was elegantly lit with three large forty-bulb chandeliers and numerous wall sconces around the room. There were four lavishly set buffet tables, each staffed with willing servers, placed equidistant around the room, that offered endless portions of steamed clams, shrimp, and Dungeness crab, along with barbecued oysters and assorted fried fish. For those seeking meat, there were barons of beef and smoked turkeys. For second dishes, there were trays of scalloped potatoes and pans of seasonal sautéed vegetables. From the bar flowed champagne, beer, and hard liquor. It was obvious to everyone that money had not been spared in the provision of food and drink.

The party also had a certain elegance because all the invited guests and immediate family had been requested to wear off-white or ivory-colored clothes. The invitation had clearly stated that entrance would only be permitted with appropriate dress. It was King’s idea to require the dress code. It was the product of a childhood memory, a boat trip into New Orleans with his Uncle Jake when he was eleven. As they were leaving a tree-shaded bayou and turning into a commercial canal they passed a large stone dock beyond which lay a long sward of green grass. And frolicking on this field of green behind a large mansion were white people all dressed in cream-colored clothes surrounded by tables piled high with food. That image was etched into his mind, for it seemed to the eleven-year-old King to be the picture of the carefree life that white people could purchase with wealth. In all of his years, King had never yielded to the force of that image, but when he thought of making his grandson’s christening special, he thought of dressing in shades of white. From then on it was a done deal.

Serena straightened her cream-colored silk skirt, adjusted her blouse, and checked her makeup in the bathroom mirror. After she made sure that all was in order, she prepared herself to return downstairs to the party. She shook her head. Party didn’t do it justice; it was a gala affair. King had really surprised her. If she had not come herself, she would not have believed who was in attendance. Just before coming up to King’s suite, she had been introduced to Captain Seamus Garrity and his wife. Garrity was in charge of all police operations for the Western Addition, an area that included the Fillmore and Divisadero business corridors. Before that she met Reverend Darcy Goodlett and his wife. Goodlett’s church, Westlake Baptist, had one of the largest, most influential congregations in the city. Someone told her that Superior Court Judge Brendan Sullivan and Josh Gibson, the baseball player, were sitting over by the steamed shrimp at a buffet table telling each other stories. She smiled into the mirror. She was a hostess at an event that would be talked about for some time in the highest of colored social circles.