Standing at the Scratch Line (75 page)

She pressed against the table and stood up with an effort. She pulled her pants up slowly. She didn’t want them to touch her. Everything she wore felt dirty and slimy. She wanted to rip off all of her clothes and burn them. She pulled her dress down and felt as if her nakedness was still visible. She felt very close to tears. She had to blink them back out of her eyes. She willed herself to think only of her objective. She thought of killing LeGrande and discovered that she could smile. She turned to face him. “Can I see you tomorrow night, Captain?” she asked in a soft voice.

“Evenings are hard, eh?” LeGrande answered while tucking in his shirt. “I am a family man, you know? I must spend some time with my wife, eh? I’ve got responsibilities and two little ones to look after. Evenings are hard, but we can have plenty of afternoons like this, eh?”

“If we keep doing it here, soon everyone will know, all the staff! I want to have some type of reputation. I’m from a good family. I don’t do things like this. With you, it was different, but I don’t want to be the butt of jokes like Dietra is.”

“Of course, of course,” LeGrande said with a nod of his head. “Discretion is always good. You are right! As a matter of fact, we are having a police association meeting here tomorrow evening. That would be ideal! You come here tomorrow night.” LeGrande patted her butt and said, “And I will not have to rush like I did this afternoon.”

Serena moved away from him. She did not want to feel his hand upon her skin. “I’ve got to get back to my station, Captain. I’ll see you tomorrow night.” She gave him a brief smile and headed for the door.

“Come at eight o’clock,” LeGrande called after her. “Find the waiter named Willis Markham. He’ll let you in here to wait for me.”

Serena nodded and opened the door. She saw the title of the red book as she stepped out into the corridor:
Paradise Lost.

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Willis Markham sighed loudly and looked at the big pendulum clock that stood in the hall. It was nearly seven o’clock in the evening. It was going to be another long day and he was hungry. He wouldn’t be allowed to eat until the end of his shift. All he had eaten was a bowl of cornmeal mush and a couple of biscuits since starting work. He had arrived at the Lafayette Social Club at six-thirty in the morning and was scheduled to work until at least midnight. He walked down to the kitchen and Minnie and the new girl that Dietra had tangled with were spooning out big ladles of gumbo into tureens. It made his mouth water.

“I needs two dinners for the change of shift,” he announced to Minnie. Within three minutes the new girl had prepared two plates of corn pone, rice, and broiled catfish. Willis had to shake his head. The word among the colored staff seem to be on target, the new girl knew her stuff. Willis put covers over the dishes and put them on his tray. This was the assignment he liked least. He opened the basement door and then descended the flights of stairs to a long, dark hallway that turned and abruptly ended at a large metal door. The smell of the food was driving him crazy, but he knew better than to pick at it before he delivered it. As usual, there were two parish police sitting at the end of the hallway guarding the door. Willis called out before he arrived because he noticed the guards were nervous men. He did not want to get shot serving their dinner.

He didn’t know what the police were doing guarding a metal door in the subbasement of the Lafayette and he didn’t want to know. One time he had come down unannounced to bring coffee and he had seen two naked colored men in shackles being hosed off with water. One had been beaten severely, his face a swollen mess of scabs and bruises. The other was fairly unmarked, but he had intense red eyes that Willis sometimes saw late at night in his dreams. Willis placed the dishes on a small table. He did not look into the white men’s faces, but kept his eyes down. They said nothing to him. Willis picked up the plates from the previous shift and returned to the kitchen.

Willis looked at the clock that hung over the service stairwell and saw that it was nearly eight o’clock. Captain LeGrande had told him to bring the new girl up to the conference room and let her in to wait for him. Willis went over to the counter and caught Serena’s attention with a gesture. She had a large mixing bowl of cabbage in her arms when she came over to the counter.

“You Rena Love?” Willis asked.

Serena nodded, “You Willis?”

“Yes’m, I gon’ let you in the conference room for Cap’n LeGrande. You ready to come?”

“No, I have some pies coming out of the oven in a few minutes. Why don’t you open the room for me and I’ll be along?”

“I can’t do that. That conference room s’posed be locked all the time. The cap’n keep serious papers in there.”

“Well, I can’t come now,” Serena said as she turned and went back into the kitchen. Willis looked at the clock and wondered if he would get in trouble if the girl was late. He glanced back into the kitchen and saw Minnie whispering in Serena’s ear as they watched him. He knew Minnie didn’t like him. She was probably slandering him again. He turned away and went back upstairs.

Willis went to the door of the main dining room and looked into the brightness of the room. It was a feature of the room along with its high ceilings that always created awe in him. The main chandelier had over one hundred bulbs and the four smaller ones each had fifty. The best silver and crystal was laid out on damask table linens. Each colored waiter had on a black jacket and a white shirt. Nearly one hundred of the most powerful people in the parish were sitting down to another fabulous dinner at the Lafayette Social Club. Willis straightened his jacket. It made him feel proud to work for the establishment. He would be able to tell his children about class and classiness. He pivoted and headed back toward the kitchen.

Willis met Serena on the stairs and escorted her to the conference room. He pulled out a ring of keys with a flourish and opened the door. Serena stepped inside, but before he could close the door behind her she said, “I forgot, my brother was going to pick me up tonight. He’s probably out there now, waiting for me. Would you tell him he doesn’t have to wait, I’ll be home later?”

“Sho’! What he look like?” Willis wasn’t really happy to run an errand for her, but he wouldn’t reveal that to her. If she was giving it up to Captain LeGrande and she was anything like Dietra, he didn’t want to be her enemy. She described Sampson to him and he nodded, affirming that he understood. After she closed the conference-room door, he went down to the servant’s entrance to fulfill her request. He walked outside and saw an old truck sitting under a weeping willow. He called out as he walked toward the vehicle, “You Rena’s brother? Hey, you Rena’s brother?” Willis walked up to the door.

A squat, powerfully built man leapt out of the vehicle and stuck a knife against Willis’s throat. The blade was pressing sharply into his neck. Willis stammered, “Uh, uh, I was just lookin’ for Rena’s brother! I ain’t lookin’ for no trouble!”

Another man got out of the truck. “You got trouble if you keep talkin’! You gon’ lead us up to the room where you took Rena. If you balks or does anythin’ out’n the ordinary, yo’ blood gon’ be stainin’ the carpets.” The man grabbed a hold of Willis’s collar and shook him. “You with me?” the man demanded.

Willis gave the man a wide-eyed nod of understanding and was released. The two men donned black jackets over their white shirts and then took some long-barreled pistols from a bag and hid them under white towels. “Let’s go,” the taller man urged and pushed Willis toward the colored entrance.

The three men passed through the kitchen barely raising an eye. The evening’s event required the hiring of extra serving staff so there were many colored men that the regulars did not know. At the top of the service stairs, Willis urged them to seek refuge in a linen storage alcove to let the head porter pass. They skirted behind the maître d’s station and made it to the conference room without being seen. Willis pulled out his keys and unlocked the door. Once inside the room, the squat, silent man took the key ring from him.

“We done the first part. Now all we got to do is sit and wait,” announced the taller man.

“What you want with me?” Willis whined. “I ain’t done nothin’ to y’all!”

The new girl walked over to him. “You’re the sheriff’s boy! You do all his errands. You may have information that we want!”

“You folks is crazy! I don’t know nothin’ ’bout the sheriff’s doin’s!” Willis exclaimed. “I just waits on him here at the Lafayette! You better get out of here befo’ Captain LeGrande finds you!”

The taller man with red hair and freckles came over and knocked Willis to the ground with a blow to the side of the head. “We ain’t got time to play with you!” the man snarled. “We’s waitin’ for LeGrande!”

A red fear flashed through Willis’s mind, offsetting the dull ache throbbing above his temple. These Negroes were waiting for the captain and they were ready for violence. “What you want with me then? I tell you I don’t know nothin’!”

There was a knock at the door and everyone in the room stopped still. The door handle was turned but did not open for it was still locked. The knocking resumed, louder than before. The new girl straightened her clothes and went to the door. The man who had hit Willis exposed his pistol and pointed it at Willis’s head. The squat, powerfully built man went and stood behind the door. The new girl opened the door.

Willis couldn’t see, but he heard LeGrande’s voice. “How’s my little octoroon?” There was the sound of a struggle, which ended suddenly. Willis saw LeGrande’s unconscious body being dragged into the middle of the room. He was propped up in a chair, his hands were tied to the arms of the chair, and a glass of water was thrown in his face. The squat man looped a cord around LeGrande’s neck and stood behind the chair.

Willis was now truly frightened. They were going to kill LeGrande in front of him and he was going to be involved. No one would believe he wasn’t in on it from the beginning. He saw that LeGrande was groggily coming to his senses. The new girl was standing in front of him.

“Where’s King Tremain?” she demanded, and then she slapped LeGrande across the face.

LeGrande started to shout. “You bi—” But the man behind him tightened the cord around his neck and his voice dropped to a hissing gurgle. The cord was kept tight until she commanded that it be loosened.

There was a hard edge to her voice as she spoke. “Let me ask you again before we take you and your flunky out for more questioning. Where are King Tremain and Phillip Duryea?”

“You’ll never get away with this!” LeGrande growled, his voice husky from the pressure of the cord.

There was another knock at the door, softer but nonetheless insistent. LeGrande snarled, “You see? You niggers are finished! My men—” The man behind LeGrande tightened the cord again and he gurgled into silence.

Willis watched as the woman went over to the door while the freckled man positioned himself behind it.

Sergeant Beaumont pushed open the door and slurred drunkenly, “She ready for me yet, ’cause if she’s as good as you say, I’m ready for her!” The man behind the door knocked Beaumont to the ground with the butt of his pistol. “What the hell?” Beaumont exclaimed as he was dragged to his feet. “You niggers in some deep shit now! You must not know who I—” Beaumont’s words were cut short as he was knocked to the floor again.

“Say another word and you’s a dead man!” the man with the freckles threatened, waving the pistol at Beaumont.

Beaumont growled. “You ain’t gon’ shoot me, nigger. The whole place gon’ come runnin’ soon’s they hear yo’ gun! But I can shoot you!” He fumbled for his revolver and the freckled man shot him several times in the chest. Willis would not have known that Beaumont had been shot except that he heard the soft cough of the gun and saw Beaumont’s body shake with the impact of the bullets.

“Roll him up in one of those small carpets before he bleeds all over the place,” the woman ordered. “We’ve got to get LeGrande and Willis ready to go!”

Willis was trembling. He knew he was going to die. “I knows where they is! I think they’s the men down in the basement!”