Echoes of a Distant Summer (18 page)

Jackson answered, “I have no reason to apologize and since you’re defending Howie and his intern’s actions, let me make it clear: I am prepared to take this to the mat and get legal representation. You don’t intimidate me.”

Bedrosian sat down and swallowed his anger. He had to remain focused. He couldn’t afford to have a problem arise that had any hint of racism. It could jeopardize his career advancement. He coughed into his hand. “Let’s get on with the meeting.”

Jackson sat down as well, but the smile he gave Howard had no warmth in it.

The meeting proceeded as if there had been no confrontation, except no one was fooled. Subsequent topic discussions were brief and inconclusive. Before adjourning the meeting Bedrosian recapped the budget committee decisions and stated emphatically that a rotation of assignments would be coming in the next month. From his tone it was clear that the conflict with Jackson was not over.

Jackson asked, “Does that mean all assignments, or just departmental assignments?”

“I will assign or reassign projects and departments as I see fit,” Bedrosian answered brusquely.

Jackson stared at Bedrosian and said, “I would not be happy to receive the municipal classification study as a transferred assignment after Howie here has messed it up.”

“This is really absurd!” Howard said. “You don’t supervise me! You have no right to malign my work!”

“Aren’t you lucky that I don’t supervise you?” Jackson retorted.

“Are you saying that you would refuse an assignment that I have every right to assign to you on a rotational basis?” Now there was an edge in Bedrosian’s voice.

“No, I wouldn’t refuse it, but I would document in writing all the major errors that have been made, errors that I have consistently argued against in staff meetings. And I’m sure that my report would find its way into the correct hands.”

“What do you mean?” Bedrosian growled. His patience was vanishing rapidly. Was Jackson threatening him with the mayor?

“Hell, there’s so much wrong with this classification study, it would take a week to bring it all to light.”

“And you are planning to, as you say, bring this to light?” Bedrosian’s voice was even, but he was nearly choking with anger.

“Only if you try to set me up with this assignment. It’s about to explode and I won’t be your fall guy. Let Howie go down with his own stupid decisions.”

Bedrosian realized that the ramifications were too serious to allow himself to give voice to his anger, so he stood up with an air of dismissal. “Is there anything for the good of the order?”

“Yes,” Jackson responded.

Bedrosian waited silently for him to continue.

“I would like to request time off. A member of my immediate family is seriously ill.”

“We’ll discuss it later,” Bedrosian answered as he gathered his papers. “After we’ve had a chance to seriously evaluate the status of your work.”

“Oh,” Jackson began casually. “So you plan to treat me differently than Howie here? Who you let take off, I might point out, in the middle of putting together last year’s budget narrative. And that was for Howie’s stepfather’s third cousin, I believe. Or was it his dog?”

“Now, listen here, goddamn it!” Bedrosian was beside himself. He walked over to Jackson and pointed his finger in his face. “Don’t you ever fucking talk to me—”

Jackson grabbed his finger and bent it sharply backward before releasing it. Bedrosian gave a little yelp and held his injured appendage. Jackson stood up, towering over Bedrosian. “If you have anything to say to me, it can be accomplished without vulgarity and putting your finger in my face, can’t it?” Jackson awaited an answer but there was only silence. Both Howard and Bedrosian were in shock. Jackson was displaying a side of himself that no one had seen before. Indeed, if Jackson had thought about it, he himself would have been confounded to explain his actions. But he was not thinking, he was reacting. “Now, let me make it clear: I am requesting family death leave. If I am to be denied, I want to know on what basis, so that I may take the necessary legal actions.”

Bedrosian left the room without speaking. Howard gave Jackson a panicky look and followed Bedrosian. Jackson caught Howard’s eye as he was leaving the room. “I’ll be seeing you, Howie,” he said to Howard’s retreating back.

Jackson gathered his papers and returned them to their respective folders. He suppressed a sardonic chuckle. He had been right about a rip in the social fabric. What he didn’t know was that he was going to tear the hole himself. Fourteen years thrown away for twenty seconds of righteous indignation. Could he truthfully say that it was worth it? He knew as soon as he started in on Howard that he was committing professional suicide.

By the time he returned to his office, Jackson’s thoughts were filled with his grandfather. He recalled his grandfather saying that the only things a man truly possessed were his courage and the spirit with which he employed it. The old man contended that without courage, none of the other virtues could be accessed consistently. A man was supposed to stand up to fear. He didn’t have to like it, but fear should not deter him from practicing the virtues that were in his heart.

Jackson looked out his second-story window at Fifteenth Street and all the little shops which operated across the street from city hall. The sunlight was pale through a screen of clouds, and a brisk breeze swirled debris at intervals. At the moment the street was deserted except for a shabbily dressed black man, who was probably a homeless person. The man had a ragged blanket wrapped around his shoulders and was making his way slowly into the intersection. A lone car pulled up and stopped for the light. When the man in the blanket saw that the car was an expensive foreign model, driven by a young white man, he changed his walk to an arrogant swagger. The light changed as the man was mid-street; the driver, impatient to be on his way, honked. The man exaggerated his swagger and took his time getting to the curb. The car zoomed past; the man watched it and then turned to continue on his way. Jackson watched the manner in which the man’s shoulders slowly drooped and his swagger disappeared, and Jackson understood the change in the man’s demeanor. The man had attitude and perhaps it was the only thing separating him from the depths, but it wasn’t the same as courage and spirit. Attitude was a temporary thing: donned or doffed like a piece of clothing depending upon the weather. But as his grandfather had told him so many times, courage and spirit were what made a man continue to get off the floor with the same vinegar he had when he hit it, regardless of climate or circumstance.

D
iMarco’s Seafood Restaurant was located at the end of Hyde Street in San Francisco, right on the edge of the marina. The restaurant was built on a pier which jutted out over the bay. In its grander days, in the early fifties, the restaurant was crammed with diners from opening to closing. The menu had consisted of a variety of fish, shrimp, and crab drawn that same day from the seemingly endless wealth of the sea. DiMarco’s was known for its tangy red sauces, pesto, and food served in man-sized portions. Unfortunately, for Paul DiMarco, by the 1980s the restaurant no longer enjoyed its earlier popularity. In fact, it just barely survived on the tourists who frequented the waterfront and
who generally did not know the difference between an alfredo and a marinara sauce, or polenta and pesto. The restaurant, had it been run with a loving hand, could have been a success, for it was in a good site and possessed a panoramic view of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. But Paul was not disposed to invest his heart and soul in the clank of pans and the clatter of dishes. He was intimately familiar with the complexities of running a food service operation, yet he did not care for it. It was just a means of survival until something better came along.

The restaurant was about half full, which was not particularly good for a sunny-day, summertime lunch crowd. Paul stood with his maître d’, Dominique Asti, and watched the waiters and waitresses scurry back and forth from the kitchen to their assigned tables.

“We should have more people in here,” Dominique said, giving Paul a steady look. She was a lean, athletic woman with dark brown hair. “We need a strong promotional campaign. I think you need to have some posters made like I suggested, and get them passed around to local businesses and perhaps hire an advertising agency to develop some local radio and television spots.”

There was something about her tone that Paul didn’t like, a borderline haughtiness, as if she were directing him. It irked Paul that someone would have the audacity to speak to him like that in his own restaurant. Nonetheless, he kept his own counsel. She had been referred to him by one of the Chicago families, after he fired his last maître d’. Even then, he would not have hired her had not Joe Bones asked him to do so as a personal favor.

“Why don’t you go ahead with that idea, if you think it will bring in business,” Paul said evenly, showing no evidence of his displeasure. Dominique gave him a quick nod of her head and walked off toward the entrance, where there was a couple waiting to be seated.

Paul watched her walk away with a sour taste in his mouth. She was an enigma to him. It had seemed strange that Bones would take such a strong interest in the placement of a restaurant employee, so he had put out a few feelers. The rumor on the circuit was that she was a high-paid assassin who needed a place to cool out until things calmed down. He knew better than to inquire too deeply about such things, so he gave her wide berth. The amazing thing was that she was a damn good maître d’. Both the food and the service had improved since she started.

The thought had occurred to him on more than one occasion that
she had been sent to keep an eye on him. In that regard, he had been careful to keep all his nonrestaurant-related business on the sly, which was why he was standing near the kitchen door, next to a large window: He was expecting visitors. From his vantage point, he could see the crowds of people walking along the pier. He saw a heavyset man and a tall, thin man standing near the edge of the pavement leading up to Ghirardelli Square. It was the Lenzini brothers. DiMarco gave them an acknowledging wave. He retrieved his briefcase from his office, then went over and told Dominique that he was going out for a short while. She nodded and gave both him and the briefcase a look, but said nothing.

The air was brisk as the wind blew off the bay. DiMarco walked across the cable car turnaround at Hyde Street and went into O’Hare’s Irish Pub, which was crowded. This irked DiMarco, since he knew their food wasn’t as good as his. He made his way slowly through the crowd. He saw the Lenzinis sitting in a booth by the window.

Victor, the taller of the two brothers, stood respectfully as DiMarco approached and stuck out his hand. DiMarco shook his hand and sat down opposite the two men. Victor’s tone was solicitous as he said, “Me and Tony came as soon as we got your call, Mr. DiMarco. You got something for us?”

A waitress appeared and slid a plate with a double-decker sandwich in front of Tony and then set down two drinks. She turned to DiMarco. “Would you like something, sir?”

“Give me a latte,” DiMarco replied. After the waitress had departed, he turned his attention to the two men across the table. Tony, who was pudgy and balding, had already wolfed down half his sandwich and had an obnoxious habit of chewing his food with his mouth open. DiMarco hid his distaste and directed his attention to Tony’s gray-haired older brother. Paul leaned across the table and said in a low voice, “I want you to pick up somebody. I need to question him. He can’t be hurt too bad. You get me?”

Victor Lenzini was the oldest of his four brothers and served as their unofficial leader. He was a saturnine man who rarely laughed. He was the only one of all his siblings who still remembered when the Lenzini family had shared control with the DiMarcos of all the seafood sales made on the San Francisco docks. Victor nodded. “Is this one of the guys we been followin’? One of the friends of that eggplant?”

“Yeah, I want that you should pick up that little gook that works at
the radio station in Berkeley. He shouldn’t be no trouble. Maybe he don’t know nothing, but he’ll serve as a hostage. I got to move fast on this. I don’t want nobody beatin’ me to the punch on this. And no gunplay! The whole West Coast’ll come down on us if any of this gets into the papers. There’s an election comin’ up.” A rumpled black man in a plastic, opaque raincoat brushed past Paul. Paul swiveled and watched him find a seat farther down at the bar before turning back to the Lenzinis. He tapped the table with his index finger. “My uncle’s running for mayor. This has got to be done cool-like. Get me?
Real
cool.”

“You want us to take him down to the old warehouse south of Market?” Victor asked before he downed his drink in one gulp.

“That’s good. Yeah. Pick him up as soon as you can. The sooner the better.”

Victor fixed his cold eyes on DiMarco and asked, “We get wartime pay? Everything got to be done hush-hush. We can’t use no guns. Gets more dangerous that way. Takes more plannin’.”

DiMarco paused before he answered. He reminded himself that he needed the Lenzinis’ loyalty and it was easier to pay for it upfront than after the fact. “Sure! I’ll pay double. Expenses too.” He opened his briefcase and took out a slim file. He pushed it across the table to Victor. “Everything you need is in there, includin’ picture, home and work addresses, and ten thousand dollars. You’ll get ten thousand more when I see him at the warehouse.” DiMarco grabbed his briefcase and slid out of the booth as the waitress brought his coffee latte. He threw a ten-dollar bill on the table and walked out of O’Hare’s.

A cool, refreshing breeze swept across the marina and DiMarco took a deep, invigorating breath of it as he walked back down Hyde Street.

He smiled as he entered his restaurant. He was on a path to outmaneuver Braxton and the rest of his niggers. Once he was in possession of King’s empire, his whole image would change. People would have to pay him the respect that he deserved. He would be recognized as a separate entity from the rest of the DiMarcos. He would be special. As he walked into his office whistling, he saw Dominique Asti staring at him.