Echoes of a Distant Summer (37 page)

The old man wanted the bottle. Jackson held it for him while he took two long gulps. His grandfather burped loudly then had another long drink of beer. He raised a trembling hand, indicating that he had had enough. They sat in silence for several minutes before his grandfather spoke. “Wanna hear how your daddy died?”

“Are you up to telling another story, Gramps?”

“If’en I wasn’t, I wouldn’t ask,” the old man snapped impatiently. “ ’Fore I get started, I want me some more beer tonight with the rest of my dinner.”

“I have two more bottles in the fridge.”

“No, I’ll give those to my men who keep watch. I want a couple of six-packs.”

“Sure enough. I’ll either bring them back myself or I’ll send the driver,” Jackson said as he rose to clear away the food from the table.

“Leave it be, boy, and sit down there,” his grandfather said. “ ’Cause this here is the reason you got to pay the blood debt.”

W
hen DiMarco walked into the bar, he could tell by the looks on the Lenzini brothers’ faces that something was amiss. As a matter of fact, Tony, the fat one, looked like he had been dropped in a meat grinder. His face was black and blue with bruises and his nose was covered with bandages. DiMarco slid into the seat across from them, placing his briefcase on the seat beside him, and asked, “What’s the news?”

Victor, the older brother, spoke: “Last night Tony and Mickey Vazzi went to pick up that little gook you wanted and all hell broke loose. It seemed like everybody and his mother climbed out of the sewer to save him.”

“To save him?” DiMarco questioned sharply, his impatience just beneath the surface. “I don’t understand. Do you have the guy or not?”

A tall, thin waitress came over and asked for their order. The Lenzinis asked for scotches. Paul ordered a caffe latte and waited for her to leave. As a second thought, Tony ordered a sandwich. The waitress took the order and quickly disappeared among the milling crowd.

“That’s what I’m trying to explain,” Victor continued earnestly. “It was a simple pickup, but all these people came out of a nearby restaurant and jumped Mickey and Tony. Hell, look at Tony’s face. He was mobbed. Even though he got arrested, he’s lucky the police showed up, otherwise the crowd would have torn him apart.”

DiMarco exploded, but he kept his voice down. “Got arrested?
Damn it! Is everybody an imbecile? I can’t get nobody to do things right!”

“You told us not to use no guns,” Tony protested, his voice filled with tones of injured dignity, and then he lied adroitly, “If I could have used my gun, we’d have that little slant under lock and key right now. How were we supposed to know that everyone on that block was willing to fight for him? I was lucky the police came!” Tony nervously took out a comb and combed his hair across his bald spot.

“I told you I wanted this handled low-key! Goddamn it!” DiMarco tapped the table for emphasis. “You guys owe me. I’ve turned a lot of business your way in the past and I’ve lent you money when you needed it. I thought I’d give you a chance to get even board, but maybe I chose the wrong men for the job. Maybe you guys just don’t have it anymore.”

Victor argued, “Tony was arrested in the East Bay, not in San Francisco! It won’t even make the papers here. We just had a small problem. We’ll take care of it this evening. You don’t have to worry.”

“No, I can’t afford to waste time with small fry any longer. I need to go after the main guy. I want Jackson Tremain.” DiMarco looked from one to the other of the Lenzinis. “Can you handle it?”

Both Tony and Victor nodded. “No problem,” Tony said. “I got me a score to settle with this crowd anyway!”

“Don’t let your temper make you foolish,” DiMarco warned. “I’ve got a line on him in Mexico, but if he gets away from my men down there I want you to pick him up when he returns here.”

“You got men in Mexico?” Tony asked in a tone of surprise and respect.

“Yeah, I got people wherever I need ’em,” DiMarco replied nonchalantly. “Now, the problem is that I need him alive and he can’t be too roughed up.”

“Suppose we have to beat him up a little to make him cooperative?” Victor asked, nudging his brother conspiratorially.

“Yeah, suppose we have to smack him around?” Tony challenged angrily, agreeing with his brother’s implication.

DiMarco smiled. “He can be smacked, but nothing serious. I need information from him and I may need to take him to a public place, so no marks on his face. After I get what I want, you can have him.”

“Okay, you got a file on him?” Victor inquired.

“It’s all here,” DiMarco said, sliding the briefcase off the seat and onto the floor. He pushed the case across to Victor with his foot.

“When do you want him?” Tony asked eagerly.

“If he gets away from my men in Mexico, as soon as he returns,” DiMarco replied. “If he don’t get caught down there, I’m sure he’ll be back in a couple of days. I’ve given you his home address. If you have to tail him, use a minimum of two cars. He’s crafty. I heard he was pretty slick in giving some other guys the slip when he was heading south of the border. I’m telling you, I want this guy bad! You get him and the money will be good. Real good, get me? You fuck this up and the big boys will be on your ass! You get me? The eggplant’s got to go to ground sooner or later. I figure two, three days, maybe a week at the outside, we’ll have ’em! Do this right and I’ll call us even.”

“That’s very generous,” Victor said, nodding his head. “Ain’t it generous, Tony?”

“It’s real generous,” Tony concurred.

DiMarco nodded and decided that he had spent sufficient time with the Lenzini brothers. He said his good-byes and made his way to the door and out onto the street. As he walked back to his restaurant, he hoped that the Lenzinis would be more successful than they had been in their most recent job.

When DiMarco entered the restaurant, Dominique was at the door thanking some customers who were leaving. As he passed her she asked, “Leave your briefcase somewhere?”

“It’s in my car,” he said lamely, furious that she had the audacity to be watching and questioning him. She raised an eyebrow and walked into the kitchen without another word. The thought that she had been placed to keep an eye on his activities reoccurred to him. There was even a possibility that she might have been planted to take him out, if he became a liability to the election campaign. DiMarco promised himself that if his plans went awry, he would make sure to kill her first; that way he wouldn’t waste time looking over his shoulder and wondering. Until such time, he would maintain his professional relationship with her and suppress his anger. Her time was coming. He forced himself to smile.

O
n Sunday night, a few days before Jack was killed, the Tremain family sat down to dinner. King, as usual, was at the head of the table and Serena sat at the other end. Jackson and his father sat on one side of the table. On the other sat LaValle, his wife, Lisette, and their two children, Franklin and Samantha. There was no conversation at the table other than what was necessary to pass the food or correct the children’s table manners. The atmosphere was dense with resentment and unresolved anger.

Jack helped his son cut his thick slice of ham and then watched him stuff a forkful into his mouth. Every once in a while Jack would see Eartha in the boy’s face, in a fleeting expression or a turn of the head. Jack heard his mother sharply chastise his son for placing his elbows on the table. Jack turned and looked at her and there was no warmth in his look. It had finally dawned on him that she was unable to contain her dislike for Jackson. His mother saw his look, then concentrated on her food.

Jack had made a mistake moving back to his parents’ house and had begun to look for a home of his own. After a thorough search and through lucky accident, he had finally discovered a house that was suitable for both him and his son. He had decided to move in the coming month. His mother had not received the news well, but Jack did not care how she received the news. After the death of his wife, Jack had changed. There was a hardness about him, except where his son was concerned. He no longer desired to quit his father’s business, and where he had been merciful before, he had become merciless. If anything, he confirmed the family’s reputation and its legend, a legend which continued to grow when both of the elder Tree brothers were found hanging in their own garages.

Jack had also become estranged from his brother, LaValle, blaming him for Eartha’s death. In fact, he could not bear to be in LaValle’s presence. He only tolerated it at the weekly Sunday dinners, which were made more unpleasant by the cowed and fearful reactions of LaValle’s wife and children. Jack looked across the table and noticed that Lisette had another bruise on her cheek. He shook his head. Sometimes even the children had bruises.

LaValle ate his food in silence. He hated coming to dinner at his parents’ house. He had become bitter since receiving the disfiguring scar;
he was no longer the handsome, carefree man about town. He also no longer enjoyed the status that a son of King Tremain warranted. He had been disowned by his family. Only his mother remembered her responsibility to him. LaValle put down his fork and looked around. The tension in the room made the food tasteless. LaValle only came to these dinners to hit his mother up for money. He resented the fact that his brother and his father had cut him out of the family business, and since the death of Eartha, he had even been banned from going into any of his father’s establishments. He had no job skills and as a result, he was forced to live off handouts from his mother. Lisette had been forced to get a job waitressing in one of his father’s restaurants. It was not the way a man of his station should live. LaValle knew he deserved better and blamed his father for playing favorites and loving his younger brother more. He put his hand up to his face. He had developed a nervous reflex of running his index finger along the line of the scar that ran from his jawbone across the bridge of his nose. Dr. Wilburn had done pretty well, given that LaValle didn’t get to him until midafternoon the following day. He said that if LaValle had arrived the night of the injury, it would have healed invisibly. LaValle didn’t believe him. LaValle knew that life was just tougher for him than it was for most people.

After dinner King, Jack, and Jackson excused themselves and went downstairs into King’s office and closed the door. The men drank scotches neat, smoked cigars, and chalked their cues to play nine-ball while Jackson drank a Coke and played on the floor with his Erector set. The office was a large carpeted room that had a full-size bar and pool table at one end, a big rolltop desk in an alcove, and a green felt card table surrounded by chairs at the other end.

“Did you see that bruise on her face?” Jack asked his father as he racked the balls. King nodded but said nothing. Jack continued, “He’s beating that woman like she’s a slave and then coming up here all bold, not caring whether we see the evidence of his weakness! It’s sickening. Your break, Dad.”

King gave his cue an extra bit of chalk and broke the rack. The four-ball fell. He missed the next shot because he was snookered behind the seven. King got himself another drink. He offered one to Jack, but he declined. Jack proceeded to run the table. King’s thoughts turned to LaValle. It was a terrible thing to watch someone with the Tremain name compromise his manhood with cowardice and stupidity, to see him go off the path with no way to retrieve him. King understood not
only that LaValle was weak and easy prey to temptation, but further, that he had no internal compass, and therefore could not control his direction. King’s understanding did not make him sympathetic. He expected adults to carry their own weight. All adults. He knew about giving an occasional helping hand. He knew nothing about the long-term bolstering and nurturing of fallen campaigners, even if they were his children.

There was a knock on the door at the top of the stairs. King looked at Jack and shook his head with displeasure. They both knew who desired to enter. Only one person would ignore the implied statement of the closed door. King said, “Come in.”

The door opened and LaValle walked down the stairs with a big smile. “Can I join you for a game of pool?”

“What do you want?” King asked bluntly.

“I, er … I … I wanted to talk with you and I kinda thought …,” LaValle paused, uncertain of his father’s reaction. He gathered his wits and continued. “… maybe it would be good to do it while we played a game of pool.”

“What do you want?” King demanded. “I’m not going to ask you again.” King turned and walked over to the rolltop desk, where he kept his cigars and guns.

LaValle saw his direction and shuddered. “Please, I came to ask a favor.”

There was silence in the room as King relit his cigar then pulled a revolver from the drawer and laid it on the desk. “Ask,” he said simply.

“I want to work for the family.” LaValle spoke as if he had memorized his words. “I’m ready to handle my share of the responsibility. I’m read—”

“How can you say that bullshit?” Jack interrupted. He was standing across the pool table from LaValle.

“Don’t get jealous, little brother. You ain’t the only son.”

“You give men responsibilities,” Jack retorted. “You’re not a man. You don’t care about your family. You bring your wife to dinner with bruises on her face!”

“At least my wife’s alive,” LaValle countered.

Jack would have attacked his brother had not his father stepped between them. Jack looked his father in the eye and said, “You’re right, Dad. I shouldn’t let myself get provoked.” Jack started to turn away, but the anger returned. He pivoted and faced his brother again. “You’re the
reason my wife is dead! I can’t stand you! I used to love you, but now I can’t stand you! You have no pride! You brutalize your wife like she was an animal! Where’s your manhood? Don’t you have any self-respect left?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” LaValle retorted haughtily.

“That’s the real problem. You have no standards, so you can’t understand what I’m talking about.”