Echoes of a Distant Summer (84 page)

“According to the papers, your grandmother has already taken care of that. She has assembled the best team of doctors she could find in the area. She’s even sent for some doctors from Johns Hopkins.”

“My grandmother? That doesn’t even sound like the old bitch!”

Pres offered, “People change, sometimes for the better. Maybe that’s true for your grandmother too.”

Jackson scoffed, “Unlikely! This is the same woman who sold me and my grandfather out less than three weeks ago. I don’t see her changing, ever.”

Pres persisted, “Why not? You are.”

Jackson gave Pres a look that conveyed his incredulity and stood up. “I’ll make those phone calls now.”

Later that afternoon, around four o’clock, Jackson and Pres took a drive up to Twin Peaks. They parked and got out of the car. There were a number of other cars and a tour bus. Pres and Jackson started walking slowly through the tourists toward an unpaved area away from the crowds. The city of San Francisco was spread out below them, discolored and blurred by a low-lying haze. The bay beyond the city was a brownish gray and was dotted by sailboats laboring with weak and inconsistent winds.

Jackson asked, “Remember when we used to come up here when we were kids?”

“Yep. To drink Spañada, Red Mountain, and Mad Dog 20-20 and make out with our high school honeys.”

“The world was simpler then. Lancers and Blue Nun were high-class wines and there was a clear demarcation between right and wrong.”

“There still is, if you want to see it.”

Jackson turned to his friend with a frown on his face. “What’s right, Pres? Do you think that if I went to the police I’d ever see Elizabeth again? What is right in this situation?”

“You’ll find the right answer eventually. You always have, after some brief detours.”

“Man, you don’t know about detours. I’ve been places lately that were way off the road! Not even on the map of the civilized world!”

Pres confirmed with a trace of sarcasm, “You’ve been very busy.”

Jackson retorted angrily, “I had to take some kind of action. I couldn’t let these people run roughshod over my friends and family!”

“Face it, Jax, you’re doing exactly as your grandfather wants you to do and trained you to do.”

Jackson smiled sadly and shrugged. “You’re probably right. He knew I wouldn’t run, that I’d stay and fight.”

“Stop using past tense. Use present tense. Your grandfather’s alive in you! You’ll follow his code. You’ll attack like him. You’ll kill like him. You’ll be as cold-blooded as he was.”

“If I’m acting like my grandfather, why are you joining me?”

“You’re my brother and you’re in trouble. They’ve kidnapped your woman. You’re being drawn deeper into the shit.” Pres chuckled then said, “I’m going to go along with you to fight for your soul.”

“If you’re going with me, get ready to fight for your ass as well as my soul!”

Pres shook his head then asked, “You don’t sense that there have been some drastic changes in your character? You’ve got to admit you’ve changed.”

Jackson, tiring of this line of questioning, responded angrily, “All I know is that I will be happy when all this is over and I have Elizabeth back.”

Pres shook his head. “It’ll never be over. Even when you get Elizabeth back, it won’t be over. The cycle of violence gains momentum with time. You can’t kill everybody. Even your grandfather couldn’t kill everybody and he tried. Anyway, every time you kill somebody, you make a new enemy. They have a brother, wife, son, cousin, nephew, lover; somebody! I bet there are people still being killed in Vietnam for things done during the war.”

“Oh, there’s a way out of this!” Jackson declared. “And I intend to find it, but my first priority is finding Elizabeth. While I’m waiting for information to come in about her, I’m going to cause as much havoc for Braxton and DiMarco as I can.”

“Your actions haven’t stopped them from continuing to try to get a hostage. Your house in Oakland was burnt to the ground. Lincoln’s was broken into and ransacked. Yesterday Anu’s brothers chased some white guy out of their backyard until he turned around and starting shooting at them!”

“All I can do is continue to apply the pressure and I think tonight’s meeting will be very fruitful in that regard.”

“You’re going to meet with Dominique this evening?”

“Yes, she says she’s got some information that will please me.”

“I told you I want to come along. Did you tell her about me?”

There was an eagerness in Pres’s tone that made Jackson smile. He knew that Pres had really cared for Dominique when they had first met in Spain, but the war had made him too crazy to deal with any commitments. It was obvious that he was over any such reluctance now. Jackson answered casually, “Yeah, I told her about you.”

“What did she say?”

“She asked if you were the same and I said worse, so she said bring you along.”

“You know this woman is important to me. There’s been no one since I was with her.”

“What if Carlos is right and she’s an assassin?”

“I’ll adjust to it. Look, I’ve adjusted to your new incarnation.”

On the ride back to Noe Valley, Pres discussed how he had successfully placed his training program at a local junior college. But his problems had arisen when Atlantis Broadcasting sought a legal injunction to prevent him from moving the training program, over which they claimed they had proprietary rights. Pres didn’t have the money for a protracted legal battle, so he had been trying to get support from a number of elected leaders with varying degrees of success.

Jackson patted him on the shoulder and asked, “How much do you need?”

“I’m guessing but the legal fees could run as high as fifty thousand.”

“You got it. Do you want cash or check?”

“You’re serious? You really have that kind of money?”

Jackson nodded. “Took ten times that out of Tree’s safe. Since you’re in the mix, you might as well take the money.”

“You’d give me Tree’s money? Let me ask you, how does it make you feel to have taken his life?”

Jackson gave Pres a hard look then said firmly, “I don’t feel anything. It was Old Testament justice. I don’t think twice about it.”

“That’s harsh, isn’t it? To take a life and feel no remorse.”

“Yes, I took his life and I watched him die! You may not understand this because he wasn’t responsible for the death of both of your parents! I’m not sorry! He deserved it and I’d do it again! Does that surprise you?”

Pres shook his head as he watched the passing traffic. Faces behind the transparent shields of glass, physically so near but in reality a million miles away.

Jackson turned the car down upper Market then pressed his question. “Are you surprised?”

Pres watched more faces in cars zipping past then answered softly, “It’s a different Jax speaking than the one I used to know, or thought I knew!”

T
here comes a time when presumptions, intentions, and dreams must be put to the test, when opportunities must be seized or cast aside. At such times even men like Deleon DuMont must confront the inner reality, must discover whether there is sufficient substance to their hopes and desires to withstand the tide of fate’s design. For years Deleon had dreamed of a future in which he spent every day, for as long as there was natural light, trying to find his own path across canvas after canvas after canvas. This was his one dream that rose above his origins; the oasis where his thirst for color and composition was quenched; where his whimsy was allowed to flower. Thus, when he received the news that both his father and his grandfather had been killed, he was faced with choices.

Deleon sat in his hotel suite after returning the telephone receiver to its cradle. He was stunned by the information he had received from his family’s office in New Orleans. The news explained why there had been no answer at his grandfather’s house. Deleon sat still trying to decipher his feelings. He could not say that he loved any of the people who had been killed, but he did feel a sense of loss. It was the only family he knew. His mother’s upper-middle-class family had disowned her when she married Xavier and they weren’t the least bit interested in any offspring that resulted from the match. Pure and simple, when it came down to it: He was a DuMont. It was the only name he could claim.

There was a moan from the second bedroom in the suite. Deleon pushed himself to his feet and walked past the couch into the room. Elizabeth was lying on the bed. Her hands and legs were taped together and her mouth was gagged. She was just awakening from the drugs that had been used to quiet her during the most recent move. Her
eyes opened hazily then focused on him. He saw a look of pure hatred as she stared at him. He smiled. He respected a fighting spirit. Deleon said, “We’ll only be here a short while. If you need to use the toilet, grunt now. The same rules apply. If you make noise or try to escape, you’ll get the taser again. Do you want to use the toilet?”

Elizabeth shook her head. She tried to contain her metabolic urges until she could resist no longer. She hated having to relieve herself before the watchful eyes of her captors. If there was any way she could reduce the number of times she was abased, she was going to try it. And as always, whenever she was not drugged, she was going to stay alert. She had reason to hope. She knew Jackson was searching for her, that he had nearly saved her, but her captors had taken her and escaped out the back door. She had struggled despite her bonds to be a difficult burden, but at the top of the back stairs she had been injected with some drug and she remembered nothing further. Now, whenever they moved her they drugged her first, and when she awakened she checked herself for soreness to determine whether she had been violated again. The first time after her capture that she had awakened, she knew immediately that she had been both raped and sodomized. And Deleon DuMont had admitted to being the culprit. She studied the lines and surfaces of the man’s brown face, committing every detail to memory.

Deleon moved around the bed checking to make sure that none of Elizabeth’s bonds was too tight. He examined both her legs and her arms for sores. Her wrists and ankles were chafed, but her soft, black skin was intact. Deleon allowed his eyes to travel over her body. She was a long-legged woman with a nice figure, but he was not attracted to her. The only reason he had raped her was to make a statement to both her and Jackson, should she live long enough to tell him. Sex with men was actually more exciting for him, but she was the first woman he’d had in a long time and in that regard it was all right. It hadn’t bothered him that she was unconscious when he had entered her. Half the men he had sex with in prison had been unconscious at the time. Sometimes it was the easiest way. It was not an act of intimacy for him, it was an animal function. When he had finished his business he got up, leaving his victim often still lying unconscious on the ground. However, more and more lately, he found after he was spent, he nonetheless remained unfulfilled. Something was missing from the act. Something he could not identify. And its absence was preventing him from truly enjoying sex.

He noticed her hateful glare studying him. He stopped his ruminations and realized that he no longer had to concern himself with her. He could walk away and never see her again. There was nothing to hold him to past obligations. Deleon returned Elizabeth’s stare, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He was the last male with the DuMont name. He knew that was significant, but he didn’t know really what it meant.

Deleon turned away from Elizabeth and walked back into the sitting room. He was feeling a strange giddiness. With the death of his father and grandfather, he was suddenly freed from further tasks. All past obligations were no longer relevant. He could walk away and go straight to the Caribbean and paint. He could drop the whole escapade with Jackson Tremain and retreat to some hilltop villa where he would serve his only true master: the blank canvas.

The nearness of realizing his creative desires filled him with a lightness until he began to consider the pitfalls of such a decision. The truth was that he didn’t know whether it was safe to walk away without finishing the job. San Vicente had not forgotten his two Cubans. Then there was Jackson, who had already shown that he was not an easy mark. The hit on Deleon’s father and grandfather was the move of an implacable enemy, an enemy that was willing to risk the death of the hostage to send a message. Tremain was saying he had only two choices: a quick death or a slow death. Deleon’s gang in prison had sent many such messages. It was the language of professionals; no hostage was prized too greatly.

Deleon sat down at the desk and began to doodle on some hotel letterhead. The woman still had some value. As long as Jackson thought she was alive he would be moving as fast as possible, so fast that he might make a mistake. Her presence could force him to be intemperate. What was the best way to lure Jackson in? The Bay Area would have to be vacated. It was Jackson’s stronghold. He had access to more services than Deleon. Deleon had to find a safe, secure place from which to operate. He knew too many people in New Orleans to stay out of sight for long. That was not an option. He knew San Vicente was heading back to Mexico to his fortified mansion. That would be the ideal place, if it were not for the enmity that existed between him and San Vicente. Deleon had caused him to lose face with his Cuban connection and it was an act that a drug dealer could not ignore. San Vicente was duty-bound to try to kill him. Even if Jackson was to accept a truce, which he
wouldn’t, San Vicente would continue to search for him until he could collect his pound of flesh. The more Deleon thought about it, the more certain he became that Mexico was the best place to resolve with both his enemies. He would take up residence in the eye of the storm.