Standing at the Scratch Line (43 page)

“Now, Phillip, you write this up and anyone who wants to bring money can bring it to the church tonight!” King said. “ ’Cause we payin’ cash on the barrelhead, ain’t that right, Mr. Rambo?”

“Yes, yes, we must move fast. This process takes time to set up!”

“We’re talking about bringing the money to the Mount Zion Hill Church and letting the church keep the money,” Phillip announced. “We’ll have a rider go out and alert all the colored folks in Possum Hollow that there’s a buyer who will pay fair price!”

Phillip’s father, Claude, stood. “The folks that want to sell will come to the church and sign over their deeds. That way all business is conducted under the eyes of Reverend Pendergast.”

“If we gon’ buy the property before the Klan runs people off, we needs to move quickly,” Rambo urged. “We got to get deeds transferred and documents approved with the official parish seal. If the church gets the money tonight, we can start paying out the money tomorrow.”

“Why don’t we deposit the money in a bank?” someone called out.

Rambo answered. “The Klan would trace the money within a week, if we tried to buy the property using a local bank.” There were many heads shaking in agreement with his words.

“Now, everyone knows that Reverend Pendergast has already been out organizing, trying to get support for our brothers and sisters in Possum Downs over this issue,” Philip stated. “He has already collected some money, but not nearly enough to buy one parcel, so we’re just going to add our contribution to the pot.”

“Where’s Reverend Pendergast tonight? Why ain’t he here? I want to hear what he has to say about this!” Rambo demanded.

Claude Duryea answered from a second-row pew. “The Reverend Pendergast is over in Possum Hollow as we speak. He’s getting prices and written agreements from the colored folk who are still on their land. He realizes that we need to make sure that we can buy the land. So he is getting bills of sale signed by those that want to sell.”

“So, our first job is to get all the money together,” King urged. “Once we see the money free and clear, it gets used to buy property. That way nobody has doubts that all the money was spent right.”

Later, after it had been decided how the money was to be delivered, King and Sampson were sitting in a local hooch house drinking cheap Mexican whiskey with Phillip and his father. The older Duryea was a heavyset man who, despite his sixty years, still looked strong. Arthritis combined with injuries from his youth caused him to walk with a limp, but his spirit was undaunted. After taking a long sip of whiskey, the old man looked at Sampson. “He doesn’t speak a word?”

Sampson looked at Claude Duryea and gave no clue that he understood what was said. Although his eyes were staring directly at the old man, he seemed focused on a space several feet behind Claude.

“He don’t talk but he speaks,” King answered. “He also understands what is bein’ said. He just seems to think that most conversation ain’t worth much.”

“What do you mean, he speaks?” the old man asked.

“There’s a deaf woman workin’ in the kitchen of the Toussant. I’ve been payin’ her to teach us both sign language.”

“You’re learning too, eh? So, you’re making plans to be together for a while?”

“I don’t see why not,” King replied. “I need someone I can trust to watch my back.”

“He was a DuMont man,” Claude observed. “How do you know that you can trust him?”

“I don’t know, but I feel it. He know he don’t have to stay with me, but I’m treatin’ him straight from the shoulder. I don’t think anybody ever done right by him before.”

“Well, you’re going to need him and all your other friends now that we’ve started on this path. The whites will not take this lying down.” Claude Duryea drained the remains of his liquor with a frown. “This whiskey is absolute bilge! Phillip, ask Joe for some of that Kentucky bourbon he keeps behind the counter.” Phillip nodded and rose to comply with his father’s request. Claude watched his son walk over to the bar. He turned and looked at King for a long moment. “God blessed me with three strong sons. The oldest is dead, killed in the fighting to set up our hauling business. My second son was crippled in that fighting and he’s turned so bitter that he might as well have been killed when he was injured. Phillip is the only one left. I want to thank you for saving my son’s life during the attack on the DuMonts’ house.”

King stared at him with surprise. “How you know I was there?”

The old man leaned forward and grabbed King’s arm in a tight grip. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Phillip told me about the shot through the window. And then later, I heard about all of Lester’s dead riflemen. One was even found in the spire of the church down the street. Phillip doesn’t know anyone who could have done that but you. I know you saved his life and Phillip knows it. I just want you to know that you have a friend in me and if you’re ever in need, don’t hesitate to come to me for help or shelter.”

Phillip returned with a bottle and sat down at the table. “Joe raised his prices again. He wanted ten dollars for this bottle. He said he was getting low on his stock of good stuff.”

Claude Duryea ran his hand through his kinky, salt-and-pepper hair. “This Prohibition nonsense is just damn foolishness! People aren’t going to stop drinking! Someone is going to make a lot of money running real liquor in from passing ships!”

“Or we’ll be drinking a lot more moonshine!” Phillip added as he refilled all their glasses, except for Sampson’s, because he declined.

“He knows when to quit, I see,” Claude commented with approval.

“Ain’t nothin’ slow about him, except his talkin’,” King answered.

Claude took a slow, savoring taste of the new whiskey and smiled. “That’s doing better!”

“This plan we got takes time,” King observed. “We may have to kill some Klan people if we gon’ stop them from runnin’ peoples off they land befo’ we’s ready to buy.”

“You best be careful if you do something, because if they can trace the action to you, your whole family’s going to have to leave the state,” Claude advised.

“My family can take care of itself,” King answered in a matter-of-fact tone. “We was raised with guns in our hands.”

T
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 E P T E M B E R   2 3,   1 9 2 0
   

The manager of the Toussant Hotel polished the surface of the registration desk with a damp rag soaked with an oil and lemon juice mixture. He stopped to admire his work, then continued on industriously. The wood was shining almost as brightly as the brown pate of his bald head when he finished. As the manager of the Toussant, which was one of the three principal quality residential establishments for colored people in the parish of New Orleans, he was responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the hotel and he took his job seriously. At eleven o’clock in the morning he had the bell staff and waiters standing in a row while he marched up and down to check their uniforms and their hands for cleanliness. Most of them were young men; however, he had a few who had been with him for more than fifteen years.

The bell captain, who was one of his long-term employees, coughed politely and nodded his head toward something that was taking place across the room. The manager swiveled and was horrified to see a heavyset man walking through the main lobby with the butchered carcass of a pig on his shoulders. “You there,” he shouted. “You can’t bring that through here! Deliveries are made at the service entrance!” The man turned and the manager saw that it was Sampson Davis, the man King Tremain had brought to the hotel. The manager said nothing more as the man continued on into the kitchen. One did not interfere in King Tremain’s business casually.

Later, at the registration desk, the bell captain sidled up to the manager and said out of the side of his mouth, “What you think is behind that man changing sides?”

“What man?”

“The man who brung in the pig through the main lobby! You know he used to work for them DuMonts.”

“Oh, really,” the manager responded. He was not particularly interested. He had to finish checking the receipts for the daily deliveries, but the bell captain was one of his principal informers on other hotel employees. He had to feign attention or jeopardize a valuable information source.

“Yeah, he worked for them until Tremain clunked him on his head. Knocked the daylights out of ’em, I hear tell. He can’t remember his own name and don’t speak to this day!”

“You look like you been clunked pretty well yourself,” the manager gestured with a nod to the numerous contusions on Bradley’s face and head, and the splint on his arm.

“I told you all ’bout that. It was that Lieutenant Kaiser. He done this to me because I wouldn’t tell him nothin’! He pushed me out’n a movin’ car!”

“You don’t say,” answered the manager. He was a little annoyed with the continued discussion, but he suppressed it.

“What makes it so dad-blamed crazy is that after clunkin’ him, that Tremain saved his life; stopped some street hawkers from beatin’ him to death! Then if that ain’t strange enough, this fool take to following Tremain around like a puppy. Like he done completely forgot who clunked him in the first place. I know people who say there be some big voodoo doin’s in all that!”

“Don’t mention that word!” the manager hissed. “In the last black magic scare we had in this hotel, I couldn’t get the maids or porters to go near room thirteen for weeks! I had to get a priest in to exorcise that room!”

“Shouldn’t have no room with that number no way!” the bell captain asserted with a fearful shake of his head while sticking his hand under his shirt for the reassuring feel of the bag of gris-gris that hung on a thong around his throat. It was his principal protection against the whims of the saints and the curses of his enemies. The bell captain also muttered a few Hail Marys to cover all his bases. “I say there’s somethin’ crazy goin’ on,” confided the bell captain. “They was enemies, now all of a sudden, they’s as thick as thieves and closer than two weevils out of the same sack. It ain’t right, if you ask me.”

“I don’t think anybody’s asking you,” the manager answered, starting to enter amounts in his expense ledger. “And I can’t say that I care long as they pay their bills promptly,” he answered as he finished totaling the figures on the receipts.

The bell captain sneered. “Personally, I’ll be happy when somebody runs him out of town. He actin’ all uppity when he ain’t nothin’ but buck-nigger trash from the swamp outside of Algiers. He shouldn’t be stayin’ in no downtown, high-class hotel like this! He is bringin’ down the reputation of the Toussant.”

“Watch your mouth. Here’s Mr. Tremain now,” he advised.

King walked up to the desk with a smile. “Good afternoon, gents. I asked the cook to prepare a pig and some chickens for a big card game I’s havin’ this evenin’. We expects to play all night. ’Course, I’ll pay for the extra service. I had Sampson bring in the pig already and I got some chickens in the car outside. If you can send one of yo’ men to bring ’em back to the kitchen, I sho’ would appreciate it.”

The bell captain may have been feeling especially brave, or perhaps he thought his gris-gris would protect him, for he spit into a spittoon and walked off casually as if he hadn’t heard King. It was an act of no consequence but its timing and the manner in which the bell captain performed it made it a borderline insult. The manager shook his head in pained resignation.

King’s voice, which caused everyone in the lobby to look, stopped the bell captain in his tracks. “Turn around!” commanded King. “You tryin’ to disrespect me?” He walked up to the man and stood face-to-face with him.

The bell captain had a sneer on his face, but he was trembling. “I got mo’ important business,” the man stuttered.

King poked the man in the chest with his index finger. “You all the time frownin’ when you look at me. I’m noticin’ you got an attitude! You got a problem?”

“No suh, I’s just feelin’ poorly,” the man explained, shaking noticeably.

“You get yo’ ass out there and unload that car!”

“I’ll have a couple of my boys do it right now!”

King leaned forward and said, “No, I want you to do it and if you drop any of my packages, I’ll see you when you get off work. And if I get anymore attitude from you, you in for some shit!”