Black Water Rising (2010) by Locke Attica

Author:Locke, Attica [Attica, Locke,]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2011-01-14T19:12:04.562000+00:00

Chapter 17 On the first full day of the longshoremen's strike, Jay wakes up to the smell of rain. The ashy black clouds outside his bedroom window threaten to split wide open, to bury the city beneath an angry deluge. He manages to get into the office before the first drops fall. But by midmorning it's coming down so hard that he and Eddie Mae leave their desks and go into the waiting area to watch the summer storm through the front windows. The lights in the office flicker a couple of times, and Eddie Mae goes to look for some batteries for a flashlight. Jay keeps his post by the windows, watching the rain dancing in the wind, like sheets blowing on a line. He used to love storms like this as a kid. He and his sister would make jelly sandwiches and lie on the floor in the den to watch Howdy Doody all day or catch a couple of Roy Rogers westerns back-to-back. Sometimes on stormy days, their mother would make them tomato soup or grits with but ter and sugar. She would teach them to play hearts or bid whist. She could be like that some days, sweet and attentive, when their stepfather wasn't around. She could make you feel like you were really something.

Jay pulls himself away from the windows long enough to take a call from Dana Moreland, the hooker. "You're a hard man to get a hold of," she says right away. "What's the deal on this thing anyway? I gotta know, ASAP. I got some personal things going on, and I need to know how much I can expect out of this."

Jay doesn't mention the $7,500. "Let's just be patient for now," he says. "And see how this thing plays out in the next week or so."

Dana makes a hmph sound under her breath.

"Remember, if you get nothing, I get nothing," he says.

"I'm not taking nothing. That's not even in the cards, baby."

Eddie Mae pokes her head into the office. Jay sits up in his chair, thinking it's Rolly Snow on the other line. He told Eddie Mae first thing this morning to put Rolly through immediately, the moment he calls. Jay is still waiting on some word about Elise Linsey. But Eddie Mae is in the doorway to tell him that his father is in the waiting room. Jay leans back in his chair and looks into the other room where Reverend Boykins is standing by the door, shaking rain off his coat.

His father. Right.

The hooker is going on and on about money she owes to some dude who stays down in Corpus, something about him fixing the carburetor on her truck and paying her rent last month, plus she wants to buy shares of a little oil-and-gas outfit down south or maybe get into the real estate game. This is, after all, her big break. "Dana, let's just get through this next week, okay?" He hangs up the phone.

To Jay's surprise, his father-in-law is not alone.

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