Echoes of a Distant Summer (45 page)

Serena was momentarily taken aback upon hearing the long-forgotten inflections of her place of birth. She cleared her throat and replied, “This is Serena Tremain. I’m calling in regards to a funeral announcement that I received. The funeral is for my brother, Amos Baddeaux.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, then the woman’s excited voice: “Aunt Serena, is that you? Is it really you? My sister and I didn’t know if you would respond to our letter. What a blessing!”

“Are we related?” Serena asked with an imperious tone.

“Yes! Yes, Aunt Serena! We’ve never met, but I’m Della Baddeaux Thompson’s daughter. My sister and I thought that Uncle Amos’s funeral was the perfect event to bring all the family together, to put aside old arguments and celebrate Uncle Amos’s life. We want us to be one family again.”

The woman’s words shocked Serena. “You’re Della’s daughter?” she questioned with disbelief.

“Yes, ma’am. My sister, Tini, and I want to bring the family back together.”

Serena was speechless. After all these years, was it possible? Could Sister Bornais have been wrong? Could she have made a mistake? Obviously, she had. The proof was on the other end of the line. Della had daughters, one of whom was named after Serena’s other long-dead sister.

“Aunt Serena, are you still there?”

“Yes, child,” Serena replied in a gentler tone. She was still mulling over the news. If Sister Bornais had been wrong about this, she could be wrong about other things. Perhaps her supernatural vision wasn’t twenty-twenty and there was a limit to her power. Serena was beginning to smile. She felt as if a dark, dense cloud was being lifted from her heart and it was being replaced by fresh breezes.

“Do you think you’ll be able to come for the service, Aunt Serena? We realize it’s short notice, but we had no choice. Uncle Amos wanted Chester Broadfoot’s Ragtime Band to lead his casket through Storyville with second liners and all. It was the only day we could get him.”

“I’ll be there, honey. Tell your mother I’m coming. I’ll make my arrangements today.”

“Auntie, let’s let it be a surprise.”

“Whatever you think, honey,” Serena agreed. “By the way, what is your name? The announcement says Mr. and Mrs. Chauncey Ford.”

“I’m Rebecca. I’m named after my maternal grandmother.”

“It’s a beautiful name, a name with biblical history behind it. I look forward to seeing you in person, my dear.” After the phone was returned to its cradle, Serena sat pondering the call. There was, after all, a light at the end of the tunnel. The clouds did indeed have a silver lining. The rainbow was real. Her family had not been destroyed because of her decisions. Children had been born to one of her siblings. The curse was not all-encompassing. It was finite. Sister Bornais had proved to be mortal, and as a mortal had make a mistake.

This was just the kind of news that would put a limit on the number and regularity of King’s nighttime visits. There would be less power in his presence. Yes, she might even be free of him. Serena sipped her tea and actually laughed out loud.

T
here was no wind. The sun was clear and bright overhead, but a haze had settled over downtown San Francisco and the bay. From Potrero Heights the Oakland hills looked fuzzy and indistinct in the distance. Deleon sat at his bedroom window and stared out as the lateness of the sun’s red advance brought out the pinks and lavenders in the polluting haze. The dark green hills across the bay took on a purple tinge while the bay itself became mauve. It looked like a scene out of one of Monet’s paintings. Deleon took a deep breath and listened to the muffled sound of angry exchanges in Spanish coming from downstairs in the living room.

San Vicente’s men were obviously upset because Martinez and Diaz had not returned. It sounded like they wanted to take matters into their own hands and interrogate Deleon. Deleon smiled. That was one of the problems with hiring mercenaries: They had a greater loyalty to one another than they had to their employer. Unless you paid for the very best, they always had second thoughts about their assignment when they sustained losses in personnel. The argument below had actually begun last night, when it was obvious that the two men were not returning. Deleon wasn’t worried; he had made preparations. He had informed both Hardigrew and Brown of the situation and told them to sleep with their guns at the ready. For his own safety he had set up a shotgun at his bedroom door, so that if it was opened unexpectedly, the gun would discharge into whoever was unfortunate enough to be standing there.

Deleon heard his name shouted in the rooms below and smiled again. He had hoped to cause some disruption to the well-oiled precision of San Vicente’s team, but the result was better than his expectation. Despite their regimen, their unity was in disarray. They had
realized that Martinez and Diaz were in the hands of an adversary or were dead, which were essentially the same in end result. Deleon guessed the Cubans were now worrying about their individual welfare. Martinez had been the leader of the other three men. They functioned as a four-man team; they took their direction from him, not San Vicente. Thus, Deleon had cut the team’s spinal cord when he killed Martinez. To San Vicente, the remaining two Cubans were like legs he couldn’t control.

Deleon didn’t have to speak their language to know exactly what was going through their minds. Now they would be worrying over the prospect of whether or not he had an unknown number of additional soldiers in the surrounding community. Escape routes would soon be a topic of conversation. San Vicente, if he was truly gifted, might be able to rally the remaining two. Adolfo Arce, the dog handler, was a Colombian and he had been with San Vicente for fifteen years; his first loyalty was to San Vicente.

Twenty minutes passed. The angry voices died down. Then Deleon heard footsteps on the stairs leading up to his bedroom. He moved to the side of the door and waited. The shotgun was rigged to fire when the door was opened. The steps halted outside. There was a moment of silence then San Vicente’s muffled voice issued through the closed door.

“Deleon, this is Francisco. May I have a moment of your time?”

Deleon made no effort to move or open the door. He merely inquired, “What’s up, Frank?”

“Oh, just a few questions. A couple of my men think that you may have had something to do with the disappearance of Martinez and Diaz. I told them that was silly, that we were allies, but they need to hear it from you.”

“Your men will believe me?” Deleon almost laughed, it was so absurd. “If they don’t believe you, why should they believe me?”

“Who can explain human suspicion? There is no logic to feelings. Will you not come down so that we may talk this out? After all, there is still Tremain to think about.”

“My door’s always open to talk,” Deleon said as he checked his pistol’s magazine. He pushed the magazine home and continued. “But I’m thinking, if you don’t have control over your men, a discussion could get messy and distracting.”

“May I come in so that we may both lay our cards on the table?”

“Sure, just let me finish dressing.” Deleon slipped the trigger string off the door handle and picked up the shotgun, then he moved the chair against which the shotgun had been propped so that there was no sign of his hastily rigged booby trap. He picked up a cloth and sat down with the shotgun. “Come in,” he said as he pretended to be cleaning the shotgun with the cloth.

San Vicente pushed open the door and stepped into the room. He smiled when he saw Deleon’s shotgun pointing in his general direction. “It’s good to see someone taking care of his weapons.”

“Yeah,” Deleon replied dryly. “Firearm maintenance is very important. What do you want to talk about?”

“We have a problem.”

“We?”

San Vicente nodded his head. “Yes, my friend, we have a problem. It appears that two of my men don’t think that you have their best interests at heart.”

“Why?”

San Vicente gave Deleon a long look then asked, “Did you not see Martinez and Diaz yesterday on the streetcar?” Deleon shrugged as if to indicate that if he’d seen the two men, it hadn’t stood out in his mind.

San Vicente shook his head with disappointment. “Why must we play games with each other? I know you either have these men or you killed them. If you didn’t do it yourself, you had someone else do it. Can we not put aside our feelings of distrust so that we can fully participate in this venture as allies?”

“How can I trust men who hate me because of the color of my skin?”

“Is there nothing we can do to repair the damage? We have a greater chance of success against Tremain’s organization if we combine our efforts.”

“There is one thing that may help,” Deleon ventured quietly. Although he evinced an outward calm, San Vicente’s words had him in turmoil. Tremain had an organization? An organization that one of the grandsons could potentially head? If indeed there was such an organization, Deleon would have to contact his grandfather and discuss a change in strategy.

San Vicente prodded. “There is one thing that can help? What is it?”

“Send your Cubans back to Miami.”

“Ohh, I’m sorry, my friend, but I cannot do that. I cannot send them home without some sacrifice on your part. I’d never be able to hire again from their network if I don’t give them a chance to avenge their loss. Give me one of your men to assuage their anger. You have killed two of mine. One for two. After that they will go home. It is not a bad deal, then we’ll both have one, eh? What do you say?”

Deleon thought for a minute. He realized that San Vicente’s back was up against a wall because he had to show loyalty to his hired men. Deleon deduced that if he didn’t take his offer, a pitched battle would be fought in the house. Under those circumstances, the casualties would not be limited. It was cleaner just to give up a man. Deleon nodded and then, despite knowing the answer, he asked, “Which one do you want?”

San Vicente smiled. “You are a wise man. Give us Hardigrew.”

“Okay, but he can’t be killed here. It has to be out somewhere.”

“No problem. Once he is dead, the two men will catch the next flight back to Florida. Then we can get back to the real work.”

“Before you go, I’d like to know how much you know about Tremain’s organization. Do you think it will survive the old man’s death and can either of his grandsons lead it?”

“El Negro’s organization is well known in Mexico. He has many men and for some years he made a living stealing from drug dealers, but that time has passed. His organization can no longer compete. He cannot afford to pay the bribes that a drug lord can pay. He cannot pay the big money to his soldiers. He worked by the old system of loyalty. It is much harder to establish than greed. Almost all of his soldiers are old men. It is the end of an era. When he dies, his organization will die with him.”

“Then you are not worried about either of the grandsons mounting a resistance?”

San Vicente scoffed, “They are both soft American boys! They have not been battle tested! What do they know about pain? About sacrifice? About leading men in dangerous situations? What they know about bloodshed, they learned from the movies. Believe me, their hearts will come easily out of their chests. It will not even be a challenge. We only wait for the old man to die, then we will collect his grandsons like sheep in a corral.”

After San Vicente had returned downstairs, Deleon sat by the window,
musing over their conversation. Giving up Hardigrew had been the easiest part. Deleon had decided to send him out to steal cars in the Westlake District later that evening. That would give the Cubans plenty of opportunity to take him down. The issue which kept troubling Deleon was not losing a man, but whether San Vicente was underestimating the grandsons. There was a good chance of it; after all he had underestimated Deleon. Deleon shook his head in tired resignation. As far as he was concerned, the whole situation was becoming too complicated. He had begun to feel a growing sense of uneasiness about the way things were proceeding beginning with the arrival of San Vicente. This feeling was heightened when Jesse and Fletcher unnecessarily assaulted the man in the parking lot. Their stupidity was bound to be the source of trouble.

He reasoned it would be easier to kill both grandsons now and forestall any possibility that one would assume leadership of the organization. Let others hunt down the certificates later. The longer he thought about it, the more certain he became that his earlier decision to kill the grandsons was the best course of action.

He looked out the window toward the bay and saw that the colors had deepened. The bay was now a bluish fuchsia before the dark, burgundy-green horizon of Oakland’s undulating hills. The pink triangular sails of small boats reflecting the last light of western skies drifted on the windless bay. Monet could only have dreamed of painting something so beautiful.

As the view faded into differing shades of navy blue, Deleon turned his thoughts back to his problem. Even if San Vicente was right and the grandsons really were soft, things were not over. There was still San Vicente to consider. He did not doubt that he and Francisco were headed toward a final conflict and he intended to show Francisco that the underestimation of one’s rivals had mortal consequences.

Deleon pulled the curtains over the window and permitted himself to hope. Just a few more tasks and he might be sketching and painting in the Caribbean long before he planned.

T
welve-year-old Jackson moved through the mesquite and manzanita, attempting to avoid the prickly branches which snagged his clothing or caught on his backpack. The morning sun was already hot. He could feel its intensity on his skin and it had not yet reached its zenith. He was beginning to perspire. He pulled a well-used handkerchief from his pocket, lifted his sombrero, and wiped his face. Jackson stepped around one of the many barrel cacti which dotted the landscape and looked up at the red sandstone cliffs in front of him, their serrated peaks jutting into the eggshell-blue sky. Behind the peaks in the distance towered the green and rust colors of the San Pedro Martir Mountains.