Black Water Rising

But, of course, this does nothing to put Jay at ease.

The facts of this story, the last twenty-four hours of his life, are laid out before him like the disparate pieces of his bro­ ken phone, pieces that don’t line up neatly or make any sense together: a man hands him a stash of cash to keep his mouth shut about a murder he didn’t actually witness. This is dirty, any way you look at it. The strike made the front page, headline news.

Above the fold is a report on the vote last night and spec­ ulation about the outcome. An inside spread in the Post has a collection of quotes from local business leaders and oil company honchos, all espousing various doomsday scenarios, describing what a devastating blow a strike would be to the local and national economies. AM talk radio is hot on the news too, people calling in panicked. Things have been so good in Houston for so long—oil companies getting rich, setting the tone and pace for the rest of the economy; people coming from all over the country to get in on the action; hell, New York magazine did a piece in ’80 calling Houston the city to beat—that a lot of people in the city can’t remember when things were any different. On 740, there’s a woman caller who works in human resources at C & C Petrochemicals, a Cole Oil Industries subsidiary that makes plastics and other synthetic goods from oil waste. She was still in high school during the crisis in ’73, she says, but the other girls in her office remember they laid off several hundred people back then.

Jay snaps off the radio when Bernie pads out of the bath­ room. She’s moving more and more slowly these days. He can’t tell if it’s the pregnancy or the heat, or both. He tells her not to fool with his breakfast this morning. He wants to get into the office early. The idea is to get there well ahead of Eddie Mae, but he does not tell his wife that. Instead, he offers to fix her something quick on his way out, scrambled eggs or toast. But she’s already in bed, halfway back to sleep by the time he gets his shoes on.

Outside, he checks the trunk of his car, checks to make sure the money is still there. Satisfied, he slams the trunk closed, looking both ways up and down the alley behind his building, checking over his shoulder for nosy neighbors. He doesn’t want a soul to know what he has in his possession. Finally, he slides into his car and heads for work, watching for a black Ford in his rear window.

Traffic is heavier than normal at this hour. Every gas station he passes has at least three cars waiting at each pump, some lines spilling into the street. One man at a Gulf station on Almeda is filling up gas cans, loading them into the back of his truck. It’s a sight Jay hasn’t seen in years, people hoarding oil, scared there won’t be enough. He cannot believe all the hubbub over a small number of men asking for a better wage, the way this thing is reverberating across the city, like an echo across a valley, where a small whistle can make a very big noise.

Jay keeps a lockbox for petty cash underneath his desk. Only $23,400 fits inside. Until he can think of something better, he pockets the rest of it. Eight hundred rolled up in each of his pants pockets, held tight by two rubber bands from his desk drawer. He secures the lockbox with a key, then hides the money in the bottom of a filing cabinet. Then he picks up the telephone on his desk, purposely not thinking this through, not even completely sure he can go through with it. He cradles the receiver against his shoulder and dials the mayor’s office. And just as calm as if he does it every day, he asks to speak to Cindy.

Chapter 14

The name gets him past the mayor’s secretary. She puts him on hold for what seems like an hour but by his desk clock is really only four and a half minutes. When the mayor comes on the line, her voice is so abrupt, so coarse and loud, that it actually startles him. “I can’t do this right now, Jay. I have a meeting at eight o’clock. The port commissioners, Pat Bodine from the ILA, some of the OCAW boys, the stevedores . . . they’re all coming here,” she says, sounding very much like a harried housewife who’s still got curlers in her hair and dirty dishes in the sink less than an hour before her guests are set to arrive.

“Thomas and Patrick Cole just walked over here from across the street,” she says. “They’ve been waiting outside my door for the last twenty minutes. And now OPA’s saying they want in on this meeting.” The Oil Producers Alliance, a group of local refin­ ery owners, is one more lobbying group pulling at the mayor’s attention. “They sent the Cole brothers as their representation. The Cole brothers, Jay,” she says, drawing out what is universally considered the most powerful name in the city of Houston. The Cole brothers— Patrick, John, and Thomas—run the largest industrial complex in the city and one of the largest corpora­ tions in the entire country. “This whole thing has blown way out of control,” Cynthia says. “This is between the stevedores and dockworkers, nobody else. I don’t know what the hell everybody expects me to do about it.”

All of this is beside the point. Jay doesn’t give a shit about the strike.

“Cynthia,” he breaks in.

“Look,” she says quickly. “I know I said I’d help you with this thing, that boy getting beat up and all, but this just isn’t the time to be pointing fingers. Let’s stop this walkout before it starts, and then we’ll get on the other matter.”

“I need a favor,” he says, stopping her. “No questions asked.”

There is a long, flat silence on the other end.

“I’m cashing in my chip,” Jay says. “After this, we’re even.”

Cynthia is silent, her breath completely still. She’s bracing herself, it seems, as if she’s been expecting this moment for a long, long time. Finally, she speaks, softly, almost timidly. “Jay,” she says. “There’s something I need to say to you.”

“Not now.” He’s not prepared to hear a confession now. “Just do this for me,” he says.

“What is it?”

“On the right-hand corner of your desk, there’s a stack of papers.” He waits for her to find it. On the other end of the line, he hears a rustling of papers, then stillness. He imagines her with the pages in her hand, trying to follow him, to guess what this is all about. “Okay,” she says. “I think I’ve got it.”

“The police briefings. Yes?”

“Jay, what is this about?”

“August third,” he says. “It was a Monday. Whatever you got from the chief’s office that morning would have made mention of activity over the weekend. I’m looking for a homicide. White male, gunshots. They found a body in an open field by the bayou, on the south edge of Fifth Ward.”

“I remember that one.”

“Okay, then,” Jay says. “I want you to tell me everything they told you.”

There is no reply, no shuffling of papers, no searching for the right page, nothing to suggest an easy and immediate granting of his request.

“Cynthia?” he says.

“Kip, could you step out for just a second?” Her voice is muted, as if she’s got her hand over the receiver. Jay had no idea she wasn’t alone. “Tell them we’ll get started in a minute,” she says to her assistant. Then, waiting until Kip is well out of earshot, she says to Jay, “What the hell is going on?”