Glitsky 01 - Certain Justice, A (2 page)

Neil Young's 'War of Man' was playing on the juke box, loud, throbbing and insistent. Somebody kept playing it over and over, and Jamie O'Toole kept the volume up. Guys were starting to sway, shoulder to shoulder, packed in, sweating, spilling their beers.

Kevin Shea, a twenty-eight-year-old graduate student in history at San Francisco State University, was clean-cut and red-cheeked and he was lucky if he looked twenty. He had thick, nearly black hair, a sardonic grin he liked to trot out from time to time, and a recently acquired predilection to drink that he thought he was shepherding along nicely.

He leaned into the wall by the juke box, on his third free pint of Harps. He hadn't known Mike Mullen, hadn't come down here specifically for the send-off, although he guessed that subliminally he must have heard about it – he was at the Cavern most every day anyway.

Neil Young was getting on his nerves. When the opening riff for 'War of Man' started up for the fifteenth straight time, he jammed his hip into the side of the box, sending a jarring screech through the room.

'Watch your arse!'

The place was quiet. The Irish call such a moment 'angel's passing,' but if that was it, no angels stayed around long. At the bar, in the hole of silence, Peter McKay happened to glance at the television, which suddenly seemed to be blaring. He grabbed heavily at Brandon Mullen's shoulder, spilling more beer over his glass, down the sides, over his hand.

'Hey, look at that!' he yelled. 'Up there. That's the nigger that killed Mikey, isn't it?'

All eyes were glued on the newscaster, who stood holding her microphone on the steps of San Francisco's Hall of Justice, empty food wrappers and other debris swirling around her in the late afternoon wind.

'In local news,' she was saying (Jamie O'Toole had turned the sound up as loud as Neil Young had been), 'Jerohm Reese, who last week was arrested in connection with the daylight carjacking of a man in the Mission District, was ordered released today with no charges being brought against him. According to the district attorney's office, there wasn't enough evidence—'

Brandon Mullen, the victim's brother, slammed his beer glass on the bar and screamed at the newscaster at the top of his lungs, as though she were standing there with him. 'What are you talking about? There were four eyewitnesses!'

Somebody back by Kevin Shea took it up. 'He had Mikey's credit card, didn't he? He had the damn gun!'

'What do they need anymore to put somebody away?'

'Damn niggers gettin' away with murder ...!'

'More than that, with anything ...!'

Peter McKay had finished his beer. He backed it up by throwing down another shot of Bushmills, his fourth. Standing on the rungs of his barstool, he rapped his empty jigger at the top of the pitted bar four or five times –
crack, crack, crack, crack –
'I'll tell you what they need. I'll tell you what
we
need. We need some justice!'

McKay had a grand speaking voice, deep and resonant, and now it had the added authority of an impassioned hoarseness. But he had no need to argue. Everybody was already with him. He was their voice. He was standing on the bar. 'They need a message. We got to give 'em a message.'

Fuckin'A!'

'Right on!'

Over and over now, guys poking each other in the shoulders, in the guts, pumping up.

Just at that moment, Arthur Wade could not believe his good luck. Here, on Geary Street, he had found a parking place directly in front of the Cavern, not two doors down from the French laundry where he was supposed to pick up the cleaning. The door in between was a hardware store that had locked up for the night. You just didn't find good parking places in San Francisco, not when you wanted them. And he only had ten minutes before the laundry closed at nine. He was going to make it. It was a good omen.

Karin just hadn't had the time to get his shirts. Both of the twins were down with one of what seemed like the never-ending cycle of children's ailments and his wife hadn't been able to get out all day. She was cooped up, going crazy. So he'd told her, no sweat, on the way home he'd pick up the cleaning.

He really did try to do his share with the household stuff, but when you're a black man in a professional job your first priority had better be to give your bosses no reason on the planet to think you weren't giving a hundred and fifty percent at all times. Which was what Arthur Wade, a four-year associate attorney at Rand & Jackman, did. It didn't matter that Jess Rand and Clarence Jackman were both African-Americans themselves. They had set themselves up to compete with the best of the all-white firms, pulling in major corporate accounts from all over the country, and their associates could get to partner if they gave every minute of their time for eight years and were also brilliant, tireless and blessed with an entrepreneurial spirit.

Which, fortunately, most agreed, Arthur Wade was.

He got out of his BMW and slammed the door, in a hurry, his mind still on his work. Shivering at the sudden blast of heat, he realized he'd been isolated from the weather all day – ten hours of grueling depositions. Luckily the depos had finally burned everyone out, which was why he had time to help Karin. Getting off work any time before eight was more or less a holiday.

He had closed the car door, but he wasn't even walking fifty feet in this heat with his coat on. He took it off, and holding it, reached inside his pants pockets to take his keys out and put his coat back over the seat. The keys weren't there. They were still in the ignition.

Locked out.

He slammed his hand in frustration on the roof of the car, which set off his two-toned, shrieking, ear-piercing alarm. EEEEeeee! EEEEeeee! EEEEeeee!

Peter McKay was still standing on the bar, in the middle of his rave against the release of Jerohm Reese, the rotten unfairness of the way black people could get away with absolute murder, all of that, when he heard the racket of the car alarm and could see Arthur Wade outside the Cavern's front window, doing something around a nice new-looking BMW. Stealing it, he thought, the black bastard.

'Hey, look a-here!' he called out. 'I don't
believe
this ...'

Kevin Shea liked to tell himself that pretty soon he was going to get his act together and even finish his damn thesis and get his Ph.D. and maybe after that get a job teaching, or something else, just as long as it included time for drinking and didn't want too much of his soul. He wasn't giving up any more of his soul. That was settled.

But for the moment it was all just too much to sort out. Changes. The relationship thing. Where he was going, what he was doing. All the hassles. Forget it. It was easier to drink. Not take anything too seriously.

But he didn't like this.

Okay, he'd gotten rid of Neil Young, but these guys were really getting obnoxious now. Nigger this and nigger that. He hated the word – God knew he'd heard it often enough growing up. But it was frightening here. Guys yelling stuff he couldn't believe in modern-day San Francisco. And some jerk standing on the bar going nuts.

He'd had enough of this. Kevin Shea was leaving, out of here.

EEEEeeee! EEEEeeee! EEEEeeee!

The car alarm was blaring.

McKay jumped down off the bar and was through the crowd, men – his cousin, Mullen, all the others – falling in behind him. Even the bartender Jamie O'Toole coming over the bar, into it.

Then McKay was at the front door, yanking it open, out into the twilit street.

Arthur Wade, embarrassed, turned, his hands spread in a what-can-you-do gesture, trying to be heard above the sound of the screeching alarm.

McKay was at him before he could be heard, shoving at him, pushing him away from the car. 'What the hell you think you're doing?'

'Hey!' Wade didn't push back. He didn't like getting pushed but this obviously was just a misunderstanding. He'd explain to this hothead, get it cleared up. 'This is my car. I got locked out—'

McKay pushed him again, up against the truck parked next to him, both hands in the chest. 'Your car, my
ass
.' Then, turning – screaming over the noise – 'Nigger says he owns a BMW! I say my
ass
.'

The alarm continued to shriek.

'I say he's
stealing
the car!'

Wade straightened up, set himself. A dozen men had come out of the bar, and more kept coming. So did this drunken guy, right at him. These were bad odds. Arthur Wade didn't like it but the better part of valor was to walk away and come back when things cooled here.

'Hey! Where are you going? Where do you think you're going?'

One step backward. Two. Hands up, moving away. 'Look, I'm just walking away, I don't want any trouble—'

The drunk kept at him. 'Hey, you don't want any trouble, you don't try to steal cars.' A rush at him, then another push. And then somebody behind him, blocking him.

'Hey now, look guys—'

EEEEeeee!

A shove from behind now, from the other direction. The drunk guy in his face, screaming. 'You guys get away with murder. Anything you fucking want to do—'

And then another sound — even over the screech of the alarm – the picture window of the hardware store exploding in a shower of glass. Jamie O'Toole had thrown one of the Cavern's heavy beer mugs into the window of the hardware store. Now he was in the front display area, amid the lawnmowers and power tools, the coiled clotheslines and the sledgehammers, yelling something.

The violence of the noise, the shrill cacophony, the huge display window smashed, alcohol and testosterone, ratcheting it all up notch by notch.

EEEEeeee! EEEEeeee! EEEEeeee!

O'Toole was in the hardware-store window, grabbing something from where it hung on the wall. What the hell was that, a rope?

A rope. A heavy, yellow nylon rope.

Kevin Shea heard the yelling, the screech of the alarm outside. What was happening out there? Whatever it was, the mass of men from the bar continued to stream outside, as though a plug had been pulled.

Shea, moving toward the door to leave, got caught in it. Men behind him pushing to be part of it, forcing him along, screaming. 'Keep moving, move it along, everybody, now,
move it
.'

Then, from the street, out of Shea's vision, chilling him. 'Hold him down! Don't let him go!'

Arthur Wade was strong and agile. He worked out whenever he could, at least three times a week, at the Nautilus place they had installed upstairs at Rand & Jackman. His percentage of body fat was a lean fourteen, and he still weighed the same one-ninety-one he had maintained at Northwestern, where he had played varsity third base his last two years.

But this thing had developed too quickly, taking him completely by surprise. Something hit him – hard – in the head behind his ear, knocking him sideways, against the pickup he'd parked next to, slamming the other side of his head.

'Hey... !'

A body slammed into him. Another. Fists into his sides.

What was going on? But there wasn't any time for figuring. He elbowed one man, then another, with his arms free swung at a third.

But they just kept coming, ten of them, twenty. More.

One of the men he'd elbowed came back, hitting low, jamming his genitals and he half-crumbled. There was no winning this one. He turned, kneeing up, connecting with a jaw. He kicked at the man, broke for the street.

But they'd come around parking spaces, spilling over from the sidewalk. Cars honking now in the street but pulling around the crowd, no one stopping. He straight-armed the first guy he ran into, but the guy was big and didn't go down. Somebody caught the back of his collar and pulled back at him, choking him.

'Get him! Hold him.'

His legs got hit. They had him from both sides now, between his car and the truck. He turned back, chopped at the arm that held his neck and heard a crack. The surge abated for an instant. He raised a leg onto the truck's running board and hurled himself over the roof of his car, rolling and coming down kicking by the street, twisting his ankle.

But there was a hole. He could get through. He punched another man, straight-armed again and had a clear break. A couple of steps, the ankle giving under him, but he could force it. He had to.

But then a car, turning onto 2nd Avenue, out of nowhere, was blocking his way.

He slammed up against it – more honks now, and the squealing of brakes – was somebody finally going to help him? Panting, he broke left, up 2nd, but the crowd had overflowed onto the street, screaming 'Get him, get him!'

There was a crushing hit from the side of his knees – somebody who had been trained to tackle – and he went down, skidding five feet on the pavement, ripping the leg of his suit and the skin off his leg. A bunch of the beer-smelling men were pinning his hands and feet. He couldn't get any movement.

With disbelieving horror, he realized that somebody was forcing a rope over his head.

At the periphery of the mob, Kevin Shea decided he couldn't let this happen.