Standing at the Scratch Line (72 page)

An evil smile spread across Corlis’s face as he exhaled a thick cloud of smoke. “I am very happy to see you, nigger!” he said to King Tremain, who returned his look without expression. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time! You failed in your attempt to kill me and only shattered my leg. I have spent nights thinking of the things I’m going to do to you. The main problem is how to condense the misery I’ve been living in over the last few months to two weeks. I’ve got some ideas. I think I’ll start on your friend first and let you watch as he comes apart piece by piece. You’re a first for me, Tremain. I never killed three generations from the same family before. I killed your grandfather. I gave the DuMonts guns that killed your father. Now I’m going to kill you. What do you think of that, nigger?”

A deputy standing behind King slapped the back of his head. “The sheriff wants an answer, boy!”

King looked Corlis in the eye. “I’s sorry I missed yo’ fat ass!” A clubbing blow with a baton knocked him to his knees. The deputy raised the baton to hit him again but was stopped by Corlis.

“That’s enough!” Corlis warned. “No reason to break his spirit before I get to him. I want to cause all his pain. Hit that other one for me!” Phillip was pummeled to the ground by hard blows of the baton. “Don’t kill him! We must remember, I want this to last at least two weeks!” Corlis stared at King, who slowly got to his feet. “What do you think now, nigger?”

King turned and looked at the deputy behind him then he turned and faced Corlis. “That leg done already killed you, you just don’t know it! You already dead!” King spit in Corlis’s face.

“Don’t touch him!” Corlis shouted at the deputy who stepped forward to hit King. He wiped his face with a handkerchief. “I told you that I’m the one who’s going to hurt this nigger!” Corlis pulled himself up to a seated position with an effort. His face was blotched red and apoplectic as the blood coursed through the capillaries under his skin. “Bring that nigger here,” he growled. With deputies on either side of him, holding his arms, King was brought in front of Corlis.

“You think you’re pretty tough, huh, nigger?” Corlis said as he puffed his cigar to a bright red ember. Without warning he pressed the glowing end into King’s chest and the skin underneath it sizzled. Corlis laughed as he held the lit cigar against his victim. King writhed in the deputies’ arms, but they were strong men and they held his arms fast. However, they did not reckon on his legs. King lifted both feet off the ground and kicked at Corlis. His missed his intended target but he did knock one end of the stretcher off the table and Corlis tumbled to the floor with a scream.

LeGrande leaped into action and knocked the struggling King unconscious with the butt of his service revolver. He then bent to minister to Corlis, who was barely alert. The blood was pulsing out of the bandage. LeGrande sent for the doctor and ordered the prisoners to be returned to the basement. As he looked down into Corlis’s pale, sweating face, he saw evidence that King’s words may have had some truth. Corlis was murmuring something barely audible. LeGrande leaned down and placed his ear next to Corlis’s lips.

“I want him!” Corlis whispered. “I don’t want to see another mark on him! I want you to keep him alive and uninjured until I am ready to begin! I want to scar his face! I want to cut off his cock piece by piece!” The pain caused Corlis to gasp, but he fought for control. “You hear me, LeGrande? I will break all of his bones myself!”

“What if you’re laid up for a couple of months, eh? I am very accomplished at causing pain and I can make him pay.”

“No! No! I want to do it! Save him for me! I want to be an artist. I want to start with a clean canvas!”

The doctor entered the room and exclaimed “Oh my God!” when he saw the extent of the damage done to the stump of Corlis’s leg.

As the doctor injected an anesthetic into Corlis’s arm, Corlis grabbed a hold on LeGrande with the other hand and uttered in a husky voice, “Save him for me!”

W
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The riverboat’s steam whistle announced its arrival at the port of Algiers. Bells along the passenger corridor were clanged by colored boat hands to alert any who had missed the bellowing sound of the boat’s low-pitched whistle. People hurriedly began to gather their belongings and baggage in preparation of disembarkation. In the steerage section, where the colored passengers were allowed to ride, Serena watched the dock for signs of Journer or Sampson. The commotion on the docks equaled that aboard the
Mississippi Prince
as scores of colored stevedores lined up to unload the heavy bags of grain and dry goods that had been shipped from America’s heartland to the gateway of New Orleans.

Serena saw no one that she recognized as she prepared to follow the other colored passengers to their rear exit ramp. She was dressed in an old cotton shirt, heavy denim overalls, and a weather-beaten straw hat. She looked like one of the many rural farm women who had come to town to sell their wares. She had purchased homemade blankets and woven shawls as well as woven straw hats to serve as her goods so that her disguise was complete.

After the cold of Bodie Wells, the damp, humid warmth found at the mouth of the Mississippi gripped her like a hot, wet glove. Even though there was no sun in the gray, overcast sky when she looked across the river at New Orleans, the ripple of heat waves distorted the view. Perspiration dripped down her face as she swung the heavy packs onto her back and followed the trail of black and brown humanity down the ramp. At the base of the ramp, a burly, red-faced white man barked out orders to the disembarking colored passengers. Serena was forced to stand in line on the edge of the pier while she watched white passengers disembark with carefree laughter and go on their way. The white man was a port official who took his time inspecting and checking the wares that the colored passengers were bringing into town. When he found something he particularly liked, he took it without explanation. When he got to Serena, he used his foot to nudge through the open packs of her goods. He saw a straw hat that he liked and took it, then he moved on to the next passenger. One of the colored porters who was assisting him marked her packs with a red crayon and gestured with a nod of his head to the exit, indicating that she could leave.

Serena packed her possessions and walked through the gate after showing the crayon marks to the colored man charged with guarding the exit. She joined a stream of people who were leaving the docks. Her heart was beating as she released her grip on the small revolver that was in her pocket. She was not sure that she would have fired it if she had been prevented from leaving, but she had kept it near to hand just in case. The roadway narrowed as the path funneled between the bright-colored canvas stalls of vendors and hawkers. A man in a broad straw hat that covered his face sidled up against her and lifted one of the packs from her shoulders. Serena was about to turn on him with invective, but she recognized that it was Sampson.

Sampson led her through several narrow alleys and finally out into a broad street where a covered truck was waiting. They piled into the darkness of the back and the driver took off slowly, then gained speed as they left the merchant area around the Algiers waterfront. Serena did not say anything until they reached their destination. The truck pulled to a stop in front of an old, run-down, two-story house with boarded-up windows that was half-hidden by foliage. Bright pink and white oleander blossoms festooned the large bushes growing right next to the structure. No other buildings were in sight because the house was standing in a dense grove of magnolias.

Journer Braithwaite was waiting on the steps when Serena got off the back of the truck. Journer rushed forward and held her a few minutes without speaking. Claude Duryea, his right arm in a sling, limped out and stood on the porch.

“You got here in good time,” Claude said as he gave her a hug at the top of the stairs.

“I left as soon as I could,” Serena explained. “I had to get somebody to supervise the store first and then I had to hire extra help. Is there any news about King?”

Claude shook his head sadly. “Not a peep! Wherever they have him and Phillip, it’s under wraps. Nobody seems to know anything. Come on in and get the travel dust out of your throat.”

Serena turned to the truck. “What about my packs?”

A red-haired colored man with freckles across the bridge of his nose walked around the front of the truck and answered her. “I got ’em. I’ll bring ’em for you. We ain’t met. I’m Dirty Red, one of King’s friends.” He set down one of her packs to shake her hand, then continued on inside the house.

Serena walked into the house and it was surprisingly bright. She discovered that, unlike the outside, the interior had been freshly whitewashed and the hardwood floors had a shiny gloss. The windows were all covered by thick sheets of metal and the brightness of the interior was created by several large oil lamps situated on the walls around the room “Whose place is this?” she asked.

“Yours,” Claude answered. “Once King was captured, we could not be sure if any of his old places were secure. So, Sampson found this and has had the house refitted for our needs.”

“What do you mean, secure?”

Claude sighed and said in a cracking voice, “We don’t know whether they are torturing them. We really don’t know if they are even alive. We don’t know anything!” Claude’s voice trailed off.

Dirty Red continued for him. “We figures that if they tortured them, they talked!”

“King would never talk!” Serena countered indignantly. “He would never tell them a thing!”

“I appreciates all what you is sayin’,” Dirty Red said with a humorless chuckle, “but King was the first to say, ‘Anybody can be made to talk!’ So he said, ‘Always plan like the enemy knows everythin’ the captured man knows.’ That’s what we doin’!”

Serena gave Dirty Red a cold look. “You’ve made plans, have you? What plans have you made for helping him escape?”

Dirty Red shook his head and said, “I’s just here to help. I understands you bein’ angry and all, but it shouldn’t be comin’ to me. I’s waitin’ to help carry out whatever plan you say!”

“I’m sorry. I was wrong,” Serena said, dropping her shoulders. “I’m so nervous. Forgive me please.”

“Would you like to lie down and rest?” Journer offered.

“No, I want to get right into this. The longer they have them imprisoned, the more time to cause pain. Can someone tell me what’s been done so far?”

“Let’s go sit down at the table in the kitchen,” Claude suggested.

Over the next hour and a half, Claude and Dirty Red explained the actions that had been taken. Serena listened, asking questions intermittently. No charges had been filed, nor was there a record of King and Phillip’s capture and incarceration. It had also been ascertained that neither of the men was being held in the city jail or any of the substation holding cells around the city. It was clear that Corlis had secreted them in some private location and that his actions were not in compliance with normal arrest procedures.

After listening for quite a while, Serena asked, “Has anybody been following the sheriff? If they’re important enough to hide away like this, I’m sure he’s made a trip out to see his prisoners.”

Dirty Red answered. “We been watchin’ him. He’s up at Presbyterian Hospital gettin’ another surgery on the leg that King shot off. The only other place he’s been is the Lafayette Social Club and he had some kind of fall while he was there, so he’s back at the hospital again.”

“Yeah, he’s been out of commission off and on since King shot him,” Claude affirmed. “We’ve been trying to keep a tail on the man he appointed to act in his stead, Captain LeGrande, but he hasn’t been leading us anywhere but the Lafayette. He’s using that as his headquarters.”

Dirty Red sucked his teeth. “That LeGrande is a mean piece of work for sho’!”

“He’s got to be the key if Mack is laid up,” Serena mused. “The sheriff wouldn’t let some underling take charge of such important prisoners!”

“That’s the second time you said that,” Journer observed. “How do you know the sheriff thinks they are important prisoners?”