Black Water Rising: A Novel
By Attica Locke
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
Attica Locke—a writer and producer of FOX’s Empire—delivers an engrossing, complex, and cinematic thriller about crime and racial justice
Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist (Mystery/Thriller)
Edgar Award Nominee (Best First Novel)
The Orange Prize for Fiction (Shortlist)
“A near-perfect balance of trenchant social commentary, rich characterizations, and action-oriented plot.... Attica Locke [is] a writer wise beyond her years.” — Los Angeles Times
“Atmospheric… deeply nuanced... akin to George Pelecanos or Dennis Lehane.... Subtle and compelling.” — New York Times
Attica Locke
Attica Locke is the author of Black Water Rising, which was nominated for an Edgar Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was short-listed for the UK’s Orange Prize, and also the national bestseller The Cutting Season, which won an Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. She is a producer and writer on the Fox drama Empire. She is on the board of directors for the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, where she lives.
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Reviews for Black Water Rising
286 ratings42 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Terrific first novel. Set in Houston in the 80s Locke is razor sharp on racial politics and fear that comes from the gut. There's also some nifty actual politics which hold the story up long enough to delve into some classic noir tropes. I really enjoyed this.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is one of the best mystery/ thrillers I have read in some time. I liked everything about te book- story plot, characters, writing style, even the ending. My hope is to see more written by this author.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Can not put this down!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When the book was done, I really liked it. Took a while to get the ball rolling and maybe the book could have used an edit or two. A young black man growing in TX with more than his share of prejudice. He becomes a lawyer despite an serious arrest in his younger days. Danger falls into his lap when he rescues a woman from the bayou and then the trouble begins. He tries to stay out of it -- but becomes engrossed in what really happened.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A decent legal thriller with a heavy dose of political corruption and civil rights. It’s set in 1980-81 and struggling lawyer Jay and his wife Bernadine are in the wrong place at the wrong time and witness a crime. On the surface it appears the woman Elise has been attacked and they drive her to the police station. He combs the newspapers for more information, but no story appears on the police blotter about a soaking wet woman being nearly killed. Instead he finds an item about a white man being shot on the same night as the rescue and the fingerprints of a woman being found at the scene. From this tiny tidbit, Jay puts himself into the thick of a corruption scandal involving a large oil company, unions, political big-shots and an old friend. A lot of it goes where you’d expect; Jay is bribed, warned and then his pregnant wife is used as leverage when neither of the first tactics work. A couple of bodies turn up and they’re just the ones you’d expect. The wife is a ninny about guns until a certain scene. At first, I wondered if Jay would remain friendless for the whole book, then an ally turns up and of course he’s not covered in moral rectitude. I just wish he had done the action hero bit instead of Jay constantly trying to be physical; it was just ludicrous and he never learned no matter how many times he banged the hell out of himself and ruined another suit. It kind of got to be funny.Jay’s past is interspersed with the present storyline; how he went from civil rights activist to nearly criminal to lawyer. It’s a fascinating story that is entirely plausible. Real people are inserted into the narrative to boost the verisimilitude. Leaders fighting against racial prejudice and the new Jim Crow laws were often removed and railroaded with illegal tactics by the US government. It’s shameful and disheartening and this part of the story makes it apparent we haven’t come that far. In terms of the corruption angle; I could buy it. I was a little older than the author was at the time the novel is set and I remember (vaguely) the oil crisis of the 1970s and what the government tried to do to thwart it should it happen again. The stockpiling and the oil reserve program. It was a system crying out to be gamed.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I thought this was a very good book. Jay Porter, a struggling lawyer, takes his wife on a poor man’s version of a boat cruise along the Houston canal one night. They hear a shot, then a body falling into the water. He jumps in and rescues a woman. He assumes she is a victim and drops her outside a police station, considering his job done. But, of course, it all turns out to be much more complicated, and the plot twists and turns. He has other cases, too, and it was fun trying to figure out if, when and how they might tie together.The story is good, the descriptions are good, and there are quite a few interesting and sympathetic secondary characters. What makes this book more than usually interesting, though, is the character of Jay himself. In his student days in the ‘60’s (the story is set in the ‘80’s), he was a radical Black Power activist, fighting for civil rights and eventually getting involved with national figures such as Stokely Carmichael. He was arrested on a charge of conspiracy to insight violence, but one juror refused to convict him and he was set free, after which he decided to become a lawyer and continue the struggle by other means. Although he has meanwhile settled for less ambitious goals, this background has made him suspicious of the police and of powerful institutions in general, which has a strong bearing on some of his decisions as he tries to understand what is going on and decide what he should do. He’s not perfect, and I sometimes wanted to shake him, but mostly I wanted him to succeed, and to make a difference for people.I had a look at other reviews on LT, and they are very mixed. Some found their lack of sympathy with Jay and/or his politics ruined the book for them, some disliked various of the other characters, some found the story too disjointed, but the general consensus was that Attica Locke is a good writer, and if you don’t find this story to your taste, it is probably worth waiting to see what she writes next.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Similar to the works of Dennis Lehane, Black Water Rising is about a man's struggle with his past and the future he's trying to create. Jay's legal practice is struggling, the bills are piling up and he has a baby on the way. When he gets involved in a murder that's none of his business, he gets in way over his head, but his past prevents him from doing the obvious - going to the police - until it's too late and he has to find his own way out of a very dangerous situation. A crafty plot with an interesting, well-rounded main character set in a serious, despairing atmosphere.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I guess Harper Lee has made it hard for me to appreciate debut novelists who don't emerge perfectly formed. Attica Locke's first effort offers an intriguing premise and competent writing, but fails to deliver as a thriller. I found the subplot about union infighting on the Houston docks really tedious - it slowed the pace down and detracted from the more interesting chapters about Jay's past entanglements with the civil rights movement and with the city's ruthlessly ambitious mayor. I didn't love this, but I think Attica Locke will write better books in the future.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The first word that came to mind when I finished the last line of Black Water Rising was WOW! This book, which takes place in the 1980's, gave me an education on union politics, race relations, and the more militant civil rights movement of the late 1960's and 1970's. Attica Locke, not nearly old enough to have experienced these events first hand, nevertheless presented what felt like an insiders view into a dark and complicated world where oil was king in Texas. Even more amazing was that she did so through the eyes of a black MAN as her main character. Jay Porter is a new lawyer working out of strip mall making very little profit and representing the desperate. He is an angry, bitter man who knows he should have more and be more. His background, his race, and his anger hold him back. I lived out his experiences via Attica Locke and walked in another man's shoes. This is why I read. To experience life through the eyes and heart of another person. Only a strong writer like Locke could help a white woman who was a teenager in the 1980's understand and empathize with the life of a strong-minded black lawyer in the Texas of that same decade. The book grabbed me from the start with a murder in the middle of the night, dragged a bit in the politics here and there, but captured me in full at the climax, holding my undivided attention all the way to its beautiful conclusion. A conclusion that actually made me pause and reflect with the word "wow" the only thought I could conjure in that moment.
My favorite words:
Dashiki-a loose, often colorfully patterned, pullover garment originating in Africa and worn chiefly by men.
Pecuniary-consisting of or given or exacted in money or monetary payments.
Dulcet-pleasant to the ear; melodious.
Dais-a raised platform, as at the front of a room, for a lectern, throne, seats of honor, etc.
Stevedore-a firm or individual engaged in the loading or unloading of a vessel.
Quote from which comes the title (p.367): "The strike, therefore, made it impossible for the company to hide its crime, which was, by then, starting to come up in plain sight, like black water rising in the streets."
Favorite quote (p.404): "And standing now in a urine-stained corner of this jail cell, where he paid a toll of six cigarettes to be left in peace, he strikes a new bargain with himself. There is a way out of here, he knows, out of this prison in his mind. It requires only the courage to speak."
Before I was even finished with Black Water Rising, I was online ordering Locke's second and highly acclaimed book, The Cutting Season. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is a Dennis Lehane, James Ellroy, or Greg Iles fan. I was also reminded of John Grisham at times. Just note that many of the characters use salty language, and the plot contains some violence and sexual situations. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Jay Porter is struggling. He lives in a cramped little apartment with his pregnant wife, a woman he has known since she was thirteen years old, and he wonders if they can ever afford a better home. Porter, a player during the Black Power movement of the 1960s, is now a lawyer with a cheap, strip mall office and an incompetent secretary he can just afford. His clients are walk-ins and referrals who can barely afford to pay him at all, much less an amount that would offer Porter a decent profit for his work. So, when one of those clients arranges a free boat ride down Houston’s Buffalo Bayou in lieu of a cash payment, Porter accepts the deal and decides to celebrate his wife’s birthday on the little boat.As the boat makes its way through the heart of downtown Houston in near total darkness, the Porters and the boat’s captain are startled by a woman’s desperate screams for help. It is impossible to see the woman or her attacker from the boat but, as they are paused to listen, the three soon hear the sounds of someone rolling down the bayou’s steep bank and splashing into the water. Porter manages to get the barely breathing woman into the boat but, because he fears getting involved in the problems of this white woman, he brings her to the police station’s front door and slips away before anyone can see him or get his name.It is only when he sees the story in the newspaper that Porter learns that the woman he rescued may not have been a victim at all - she might, instead, be a murderer. Still reluctant to get involved, Porter only learns how much trouble he is in when a stranger offers to pay him for his silence about what he saw and heard the night of the murder. The man leaves Porter with two choices: take the money and remain silent or be shut up for good.Attica Locke has here the makings of an intriguing story about a former Black Power radical trying to make his way through the still tense racial attitudes of 1981 Houston, Texas. She does, in fact, do a remarkable job of capturing the mood and atmosphere of 1980s Houston, a period during which the city was facing almost uncontrollable growth in both population and serious crime. It was a time when whole neighborhoods were off limits after dark to whites and blacks alike, high crime black neighborhoods whites did not dare enter and high income white neighborhoods where blacks drew the immediate attention of Houston cops.Locke, though, makes the mistake of creating two additional subplots that do little more than complicate her story. First, she gets Jay Porter involved with a young man who has been beaten by union thugs who want to head off an economically crippling strike by dockworkers at the Houston port facilities. Next, she exposes Porter to a plot by Big Oil to manipulate the price of gasoline at the pump, a plan about which only one old white man and Porter seem to care. These subplots overwhelm the more interesting, and plausible, mystery of the woman in the bayou and eventually begin to seem almost cartoonish - especially in the way that Big Oil is represented in the most stereotypical way possible. Few of the associated characters seem real and, as a result, even Porter and his wife become less sympathetic characters.And that is a shame because the first chapter of "Black Water Rising" is one of the best lead chapters I have read in a while. This could, and should, have been a very different book.Rated at: 2.5
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I couldn't finish this. For some reason, it just would not hold my attention.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Y'all, this is a delicious book! If you like mystery/suspense/crimefiction, this is a novel for you. I am listening to Black Water Rising, by Attica Locke on audiobook and it is interrupting my sleep. Last night, I was lying in bed thinking, maybe I could get up and listen for one more hour. Granted, it is pretty risky, me endorsing a book a I haven't even finished yet, but it's so engaging, that for now, it is all I can think about. And I will confess, that the narrator of the audio book, Dion Graham, has a lovely voice. (And you know with that name- Dion - he is a true son of the south.) It feels like a southern gentleman is hiding in my iPod telling me a bedtime story. I should bake him a red velvet cake.(Voice off screen interrupts: Don't nobody care about the silky-smooth chocolate-dipped narrator, Tayari. Can you at least tell us what the doggone book is about?)Sorry.It's set in Houston. (Did y'all know I used to live there?) It's the story of Jay, a lawyer whose practice has devolved into ambulance chasing. He used to do loftier things, like represent people whose civil rights had been violated, but doing the right thing don't pay the bills. Also, his wife is pregnant. Well, they sorta semi-witness a crime. The black union workers are going on strike-- could shut the whole city down! Somebody is following him and he don't know why. And what about the white lady that fished out the bayou, more dead than alive? And don't forget Jay's activist past, and the fact that when she was in college, the mayor was a radical.. shhh.. And her and Jay used have a little somethin going on!I can't tell you any more, because this is as far as I have gotten. But oooh, it's good! And go read this dynamite essay where the Attica Locke tells you where she got the idea for this novel. P.S. I get my audio books from audible.com. (I have a basic membership) But I believe this title is widely available at public libraries
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A mystery involving race, power, politics, oil, money and death in early 1980s Houston that grabbed me on several different levels. I picked up this book to meet challenge 21 in Book Riot's 2018 Read Harder Challenge: a mystery by a person of color or LGBTQ+ author.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Jay Porter takes his wife on a cruise down the Buffalo Bayou, and en route they hear a woman screaming, and gunshots. His decision to stop the boat and help sends him on a path that threatens both their lives, reveals the truth about the American oil industry, and calls back to the civil rights movement and Jay's involvement in University. Many, many threads are woven through this book and they aren't all fixed up by the end. The writing is clear and enjoyable but now and then staggers under the weight of the politics and history. Flashbacks slow things down even further. This is a great book but not an easy one. It's fascinating to me that it was inspired by the author's own life, except in her case they didn't stop the boat.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Black Water Rising, nominated for an Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author, is well-written, more assured than most first novels. The prose is smooth and the dialogue solid, perhaps an indication of Attica Locke’s experience as a screenwriter. But this experience did not save Locke from a somewhat surprising problem: Black Water Rising has pacing problems that make it drag badly. Locke seems to have been so interested in telling a story about the civil rights movement in Houston in the early 1980s – one to which her family apparently has connections – that she overplotted the book, trying to fit in too many details, too many subplots, too many digressions. The subject matter is inherently interesting, especially in the hands of a black woman writing a generation later; each subplot is unusual and interesting in and of itself. But the tangle created by all these threads is not sufficiently untangled by the end of the book, and worse, the reader doesn’t much care by that point because character has been is sacrificed to elucidation. We’re supposed to root for the protagonist, Jay Porter, to come out on top, but he’s a hard fellow to give a damn about. Thus, while the novel starts out promisingly, the novel as a whole is seriously flawed.Jay Porter is an African-American in Houston in 1981. He practices law without a great deal of success, representing plaintiffs in personal injury cases that have little value. Jay lives with his wife, Bernie, who is heavily pregnant with their first child. On a hot, humid night, Jay takes Bernie out for her birthday, though the celebration is far from lavish; a client has offered his decrepit barge for a cruise on the bayou. Bernie’s sister has helped prepare the barge, decorating and providing within Jay’s means: “Inside the cabin there are balloons instead of flowers, hot links and brisket instead of filet, and a cooler of beer and grape Shasta instead of wine.” But Bernie is happy, because this represents quite a bit of fuss, and that’s what she really wants. So the couple is headed for a decent night out.But events conspire against them. As they’re floating along, they hear a woman call out for help, followed by gunshots and a splash. Jay, reluctant to get involved, is persuaded by Bernie – shamed might be a better word – to jump to the rescue. He fishes a woman out of the water, but she refuses to tell them anything about what happened, insisting instead that they simply drop her at the police station.Although Jay hopes that he has seen the end of it with this tidy rescue, it quickly becomes apparent that things will not resolve themselves this easily. Jay learns that a man’s body has been discovered in a car very close to the spot where Jay rescued the woman from the water. And before too long, Jay is pressured to keep his mouth shut about what he knows. He’d have been content to do that in the first place, but once the threats and the bribes start, he no longer feels safe in ignoring the situation. As time goes on, the rescue starts to have all sorts of consequences for a dockworkers’ strike, an oil company’s future, Houston’s economy and the political viability of Houston’s mayor, who just happens to be an old – and white – girlfriend of Jay’s, who may or may not have ratted him out to federal agents in his not-nearly-distant-enough past.So much gets piled on this single event that the plots and subplots start to teeter. At the same time, we’re dealing with Bernie’s pregnancy, Jay’s lost gun, a personal injury case involving a lawyer who might be crooked, Houston politics, civil rights, racial violence, union politics, oil stored in old salt mines, high gas prices – it’s just too much to keep track of, or for Locke to ultimately resolve well. Some subplots peter out to almost nothing, others are never satisfactorily played out, and it becomes impossible to tie everything together into one lovely knot.Locke has enough plot in this one novel to fuel at least two others as well. It is not exactly unknown for a first time novelist to be a bit too ambitious, but it’s rather a shame that an editor didn’t point out to this writer that the novel becomes too knotted, or that none of her characters is particularly likable or even fully fleshed out. I won’t say that the nomination of this novel as one of the best first novels of the year is a mystery; it is too competent in its use of language to be undeserving, and the subject matter is too historically important to be ignored. Still, I hope Locke puts her obvious writing skills to the service of a tighter plot next time around.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I picked up this book after seeing its Orange Prize nomination. I love mysteries, so was excited and ready. However, it's proving to be a very slow read. Central figure is elusive, and only moderately engaging.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nice crime fiction mystery story that includes narratives about the African-American experience vis-a-sis the criminal justice system in the USA. I enjoyed the story line and learned about the perspective of victims and lawyers. I'd recommend this book; and I'll try an locate other books by this author.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The book reminded me of A Time to Kill by John Grisham. I could visually see Denzel Washington as Jay Porter. The story followed the same pattern as all the rest of the lawyer mysteries, with the family of the lawyer threatened by the "bad" man. The language and setting flowed as well as the muddy river waters. So many points or stories were left unresolved. I actually finished the book as the momentum picked up speed as the book progressed.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The character of Jay Porter is fully realized and deeply felt. The setting, Houston 1981, is so clear that it seems Locke must have been there, but she was only 7 years old and couldn't have known the story her book tells of the Civil Rights Movement in Houston at that time. Carefully researched and extremely well told.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I was initially drawn to this novel as a debut suspense novel, yet it truly is so much more than that. Set in the Texas bayou outside Houston, a fluke of circumstance leads to a tale of corruption, murder, attempted murder and all of the machinations one would expect. However, this is also a well told story of a man on the verge of fatherhood who must find a way to resolve the crime, his past, and his future. it is a tale of integrity...doing the right thing when no one is looking. Well done!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Interesting and relaxing read without the intensity of my other Orange reads. I liked it.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A good thriller mystery --- edgy and suspenseful. Set in Houston in 1981 with flashbacks to the early 70s, it' has a Social Justice theme, appealing characters, and a complicated-enough plot. Recommended for followers of Dennis Lehane, etc.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A somewhat straightforward mystery novel with a keen slant on being black in America during the 80's
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From my blog...In her thrilling debut novel Black Water Rising author Attica Locke takes the reader on a fast paced literary thrill-ride deep in Houston. Jay Porter is down, but not out, when he opens up a law practice in Houston, Texas and with few clinetns. He is working a case with a prostitute who claims she was injured in a car accident as well as promising his father-in-law Reverend Boykins that he would help the longshoremen working in the Ship Channel by speaking with the mayor about fair wages and safety if they strike. Uncertain how to achieve these two goals is difficult enough and then Jay reads the paper about a shooting and the events of the night of a fateful boat ride catch up with him. Locke delivers an exceptional suspense thriller novel that will keep the reader engaged and guessing until the very end. Locke's detailed and at times twisty plot, dedication to capturing the essence of the decades, Jay's past and the present, along with the sentiments regarding race, oil, and government prove to play out exceedingly well in Locke's debut novel Black Water Rising. Rich in tone, voice, and excellent character development Locke expertly weaves all the parts together to create a suspense filled novel that will keep the reader engaged and turning pages long into the night. I highly recommend Black Water Rising to anyone who enjoys a good mystery/ suspense novel.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ms. Locke has created a masterpiece, merging a mystery/crime novel with an era of social history at a level rarely obtained. Neither aspect comes across as subservient to the other. Highly recommended. I was so impressed that I have already begun Attica Locke's second novel, "The Cutting Season"
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This novel, set in 1981, introduces Jay Porter, an African-American defence attorney based in Houston, who will reappear in as protagonist of Pleasantville, set some quarter of a century later in Dallas. As the book opens, Porter and his heavily pregnant wife Bernie are about to board a rather dilapidated boat to sail down the bayou while having a romantic dinner to celebrate her birthday. Money is tight, and Porter has arranged the trip on the cheap through a recent client, although he hadn’t been prepared for the boat to be quite so run down.Still, the trip goes well and Bernie seems to be enjoying herself until, as they are nearly back at the dock, they hear a woman scream, and then two shots ring out in the night, followed by the sound of running and then someone plunging into the water. Jay and the boat owner are reluctant to become involved, but Bernie persuades them to turn around to investigate. Having done so they find a white woman in an elaborate ball gown swimming in the bayou. They pick her up, and, after they have disembarked, jay drives her to the nearest police station where he lets her out, but does not offer to accompany her inside. Indeed, he drives away before even checking that she has gone in herself.We learn that Jay is nervous of any contact with the police because he had previously been a prominent figure, at least locally, in the Civil Rights movement, during the 1960s, and had encountered the rougher side of law enforcement all too closely. Through some extended flashbacks we learn that he had faced trial The novel is set in 1981, although it offers frequent flashbacks to periods in Porter’s past during which he had been on the periphery of the Black panthers, and had arranged for Stokely Carmichael to speak to groups at his university. During that time, he had become friendly with a white woman who was herself prominent in several politically active groups. She is now the Democrat mayor of Houston, now a thriving city riding high on oil wealth, and is struggling to maintain peace and order as the city’s docks are faced with the threat of concerted trade union agitation, although there is fierce rivalry and bitterness between the separate unions representing low paid (and predominantly black) longshoremen and the mainly white stevedores and middle management. Against this backdrop, Porter finds himself representing an African-American woman ‘with a looser understanding of social responsibilities’ (a rather gentle euphemism for prostitute) who is seeking damages from a leading white businessman. As that case proceeds by fits and starts, Jay finds himself being followed by a threatening-looking man perpetually wearing dark glasses.Like Pleasantville, this book is a fascinating blend of political intrigue, courtroom confrontation and whodunit, with a fair sprinkling of the history of the civil rights movement thrown in. Locke crosses genres with ease, and manages the story with great dexterity. Jay Porter is a good man, and an empathetic character, grappling with self-doubt, money worries and the pressures of supporting his family.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Attica Locke succeeds in creating a noirish atmosphere in Black Water Rising. The book is highly readable and her plot is no more over the top than most thrillers. I did find that the lawyer protagonist was difficult to care much about. We know that he is not going to be a fumbling milquetoast forever and that at some point he will be galvanized, "man up", and make some good decisions, but it takes almost unbearably long for this to happen. Next time Ms. Locke should give her readers a protagonist that they can hold on to, believing in Jay Porter was just a hard way to go (apologies to John P).
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This wasn't a perfect thriller, but it was a really good one. Set in Houston, TX in the '80's, Locke tells the story of Jay Porter, a lawyer who witnesses something bad out on the bayou, but is disinclined to trust the cops.Jay Porter is a wonderful character - a former civil rights activist, burned by a snitch in his group and put on trial, but acquitted. He has come through this experience with a law degree, a wife, a baby on the way, and a not-so-thriving law practice in a strip mall. His life hasn't exactly turned out the way he planned. Riding along with Jay as he sorts through the events he is tangled up in accidentally you can't help but root for him, despite all his damage, despite all his paranoia, despite his imperfections.Locke does a great job of bringing the reader into the Houston of the '80's where it's all about oil, corruption, and growth - growth so fast that the city can't keep up with basic services and toney gated communities must hire their own garbagemen to avoid drowning in their refuse. Locke grew up in Houston and obviously knows the city well. I loved her ability to move through all the various niches - from ghetto to honky tonk to City Hall.Locke is a screenwriter and it shows. The pacing in the book is very cinematic and she really knows how to grab you and keep you reading. Another reviewer compared her to Dennis Lehane and I guess she's working in similar territory if Dennis Lehane was African American and from Houston. The final third of the book gets a little clunky and a little too convoluted as if she threw too many balls in the air at once and doesn't quite know how to make it all work, but this was fresh and entertaining and I hope she writes another one.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Endearing underdog Jay Porter always endeavors to do what's right, but he makes some gargantuan detours on the way. Readers learn tantalizing bits and pieces of information, just as he does, and must tolerate unanswered questions along with him. Locke structures the tale as a mixture of present-day and past anecdotes, and gradually ties events and people together. The book was very hard to put down, and I was sorry to see it end. It left me with a few unanswered questions, and thus the haunting uncertainties of Porter's life and future will stick with me.My only complaint is that this author's work deserves better editing. One particularly perplexing sentence, for example, says "Jay grabs the shotgun from his wife, slides a bullet into the chamber, and points the barrel of the rifle at the intruder."
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good plot but ended with no conclusion
Book preview
Black Water Rising - Attica Locke
Part I
Chapter 1
TEXAS, 1981
The boat is smaller than he imagined. And dingier.
Even at night Jay can tell it needs a paint job.
This is not at all what they discussed. The guy on the phone said moonlight cruise.
City lights and all that. Jay had pictured something quaint, something with a little romance, like the riverboats on the Pontchartrain in New Orleans, only smaller. But this thing looks like a doctored-up fishing boat, at best. It is flat and wide and ugly—a barge, badly overdressed, like a big girl invited to her first and probably last school dance. There are Christmas lights draped over every corner of the thing and strung in a line framing the cabin door. They’re blinking erratically, somewhat desperately, winking at Jay, promising a good time, wanting him to come on in. Jay stays right where he is, staring at the boat’s cabin: four leaning walls covered with a cheap carport material. The whole thing looks like it was slapped together as an afterthought, a sloppy attempt at decorum, like a hat resting precariously on a drunk’s head.
Jay turns and looks at his wife, who hasn’t exactly gotten out of the car yet. The door is open and her feet are on the ground, but Bernie is still sitting in the passenger seat, peeking at her husband through the crack between the door and the Skylark’s rusting frame. She peers at her shoes, a pair of navy blue Dr. Scholl’s, a small luxury she allowed herself somewhere near the end of her sixth month. She looks up from her sandals to the boat teeter-tottering on the water. She is making quick assessments, he knows, weighing her physical condition against the boat’s. She glances at her husband again, waiting for an explanation.
Jay looks out across the bayou before him. It is little more than a narrow, muddy strip of water flowing some thirty feet below street level; it snakes through the underbelly of the city, starting to the west and going through downtown, all the way out to the Ship Channel and the Port of Houston, where it eventually spills out into the Gulf of Mexico. There’s been talk for years about the Bayou City
needing a river walk of its own, like the one in San Antonio, but bigger, of course, and therefore better. Countless developers have pitched all kinds of plans for restaurants and shops to line Buffalo Bayou. The city’s planning and development department even went so far as to pave a walkway along the part of the bayou that runs through Memorial Park. The paved walkway is as far as the river-walk plan ever went, and the walkway ends abruptly here at Allen’s Landing, at the northwest corner of downtown, where Jay is standing now. At night, the area is nearly deserted. There’s civilization to the south. Concerts at the Johnson and Lindy Cole Arts Center, restaurants and bars open near Jones Hall and the Alley Theatre. But the view from Allen’s Landing is grim. There are thick, unkempt weeds choked up on the banks of the water, crawling up the cement pilings that hold Main Street overhead, and save for a dim yellow bulb at the foot of a small wooden pier, Allen’s Landing is complete blackness.
Jay stands beneath his city, staring at the raggedy boat, feeling a knot tighten in his throat, a familiar cinch at the neck, a feeling of always coming up short where his wife is concerned. He feels a sharp stab of anger. The guy on the phone lied to him. The guy on the phone is a liar. It feels good to outsource it, to put it on somebody else. When the truth is, there are thirty-five open case files on his desk, at least ten or twelve with court time pending; there wasn’t time to plan anything else for Bernie’s birthday, and more important, there hasn’t been any money, not for months. He’s waiting on a couple of slip-and-falls to pay big, but until then there’s nothing coming in. When one of his clients, a guy who owes him money for some small-time probate work, said he had a brother or an uncle or somebody who runs boat tours up and down the bayou, Jay jumped at the chance. He got the whole thing comped. Just like the dinette set he and Bernie eat off of every night. Just like his wife’s car, which has been on cement blocks in Petey’s Garage since April. Jay shakes his head in disgust. Here he is, a workingman with a degree, two, in fact, and, still he’s taking handouts, living secondhand. He feels the anger again, and beneath it, its ugly cousin, shame.
He tucks the feelings away.
Anger, he knows, is a young man’s game, something he long ago outgrew.
There’s a man standing on the boat, near the head. He’s thin and nearing seventy and wearing an ill-fitting pair of Wranglers. There are tight gray curls poking out of his nylon baseball cap, the words BROTHERHOOD OF LONGSHOREMEN, LOCAL 116, smudged with dirt and grease. He’s sucking on the end of a brown cigarette. The old man nods in Jay’s direction, tipping the bill of his cap.
Jay reaches for his wife’s hand.
I am not getting on that thing.
She tries to fold her arms across her chest to make the point, but her growing belly is not where it used to be or even where it was last week. Her arms barely reach across the front of her body.
Come on,
he says. You got the man waiting now.
I ain’t thinking about that man.
Jay tugs on her hand, feels her give just the tiniest bit. Come on.
Bernie makes a whistling sound through her teeth, barely audible, which Jay hears and recognizes at once. It’s meant to signal her thinning patience. Still, she takes his hand, scooting to the edge of her seat, letting Jay help her out of the car. Once she’s up and on her feet, he reaches into the backseat, pulling out a shoe box full of cassette tapes and eight tracks and tucking it under his arm. Bernie is watching everything, studying his every move. Jay takes her arm, leading her to the edge of the small pier. It sags and creaks beneath their weight, Bernie carrying an extra thirty pounds on her tiny frame these days. The old man in the baseball cap puts one cowboy boot on a rotted plank of wood that bridges the barge to the pier and flicks his cigarette over the side of the boat. Jay watches it fall into the water, which is black, like oil. It’s impossible to tell how deep the bayou is, how far to the bottom. Jay squeezes his wife’s hand, reluctant to turn her over to the old man, who is reaching a hand over the side of the boat, waiting for Bernie to take her first step. You Jimmy?
Jay asks him.
Naw, Jimmy ain’t coming.
Who are you?
Jimmy’s cousin.
Jay nods, as if he were expecting this all along, as if being Jimmy’s cousin is an acceptable credential for a boat’s captain, all the identification a person would ever need. He doesn’t want Bernie to see his concern. He doesn’t want her to march back to the car. The old man takes Bernie’s hand and gently guides her onto the boat’s deck, leading her and Jay to the cabin door. He keeps close by Bernie’s side, making sure she doesn’t trip or miss a step, and Jay feels a sudden, unexpected softness for Jimmy’s cousin. He nods at the old man’s cap, making small talk. You union?
he asks. The old man shoots a quick glance in Jay’s direction, taking in his clean shave, the pressed clothes and dress shoes, and the smooth hands, nary a scratch on them. What you know about it?
There’s a lot Jay knows, more than his clothes explain. But the question, here and now, is not worth his time. He concentrates on the floor in front of him, sidestepping a dirty puddle of water pooling under an AC unit stuck in the cabin’s window, thinking how easy it would be for someone to slip and fall. He follows a step or two behind his wife, watching as she pauses at the entrance to the cabin. It’s black on the other side, and she waits for Jay to go in first.
He takes the lead, stepping over the threshold.
He can smell Evelyn’s perfume, still lingering in the room—a smoky, woodsy scent, like sandalwood, like the soap Bernie used to bathe with before she got pregnant and grew intolerant of it and a host of other smells, like gasoline and scrambled eggs. The scent lets him know that Evelyn was here, that she followed his careful instructions. He feels a warm rush of relief and reaches for his wife’s hand, pulling Bernie along. She doesn’t like the dark, he knows; she doesn’t like not being in on something. What is this?
she whispers.
Jay takes another step, feeling along the wall for the switch.
When the light finally comes, Bernie lets out a gasp, clutching her chest.
Inside the cabin there are balloons instead of flowers, hot links and brisket instead of filet, and a cooler of beer and grape Shasta instead of wine. It’s not much, Jay knows, nothing fancy, but, still, it has a certain charm. He feels a wave of gratitude—for his wife, for this night out, even for his sister-in-law. He had been loath to ask for Evelyn’s help. Other than his wife, no one seems more acutely aware of Jay’s limits than Evelyn Annemarie Boykins. She’s been on him for two weeks now, wanting to know was Jay gon’ get her baby sister something better for her birthday than the robe he bought Bernie last year, what cost him almost $30 at Foley’s Department Store. He couldn’t have done tonight on his own, not without his wife suspecting something. So he was more than grateful when Evelyn offered to pick up some barbecue on Scott Street and blow up a few balloons. Everything will be ready, she said. In the center of the room is a table set for two, a chocolate cake on top, with white and yellow roses, just like Evelyn promised. Bernie stares at the cake, the balloons, all of it, a slow smile spreading across her face. She turns to her husband, reaching on her tiptoes for Jay’s neck, pressing her cheek to his. She bites his ear, a small, sweet reprimand, a reminder that she doesn’t like secrets. Still, she whispers her approval. It’s nice, Jay.
The boat’s engine starts up. Jay feels the pull of it in his knees.
They start a slow coast to the east and out of downtown, beads of water rocking and rolling across the top of the air-conditioning unit. The moist, weak stream of air it offers isn’t enough to cool an outhouse. The room is only a few degrees below miserably hot. Jay is already sweating through his dress shirt. Bernie leans against the table, fanning herself, asking for a pop from the cooler.
There’s a Styrofoam ice chest resting in one corner. Jay bends over and pulls out a soda can for his wife and a cold beer for himself. He flicks ice chips off the aluminum lids and wipes at them with the corner of his suit jacket, which he then peels off and drapes on the back of his chair. Next to the cooler is a stereo set up on a card table, black wires and extension cords dripping down the back and onto the floor. Jay kicks the wires out of view, thinking of someone tripping, a slip or a fall. Bernie soon takes charge of the music, fishing through Jay’s shoe box, passing over her husband’s music—Sam Cooke and Otis, Wilson Pickett and Bobby Womack—looking for some of her own. She’s into Kool & the Gang these days. Cameo and the Gap Band. Rick James and Teena Marie. She slides in a tape by the Commodores, which at least Jay can stand. Just to be close to you…the words float across the room. Jay watches his wife, swaying to the music, dancing, big as she is, the tails of her two French braids swinging in time. He smiles to himself, thinking he’s got everything he needs right here. His family. Bernie and the baby. All he has.
There’s a sister somewhere.
A mother he isn’t talking to.
Old friends he’s been avoiding for more than ten years. He hasn’t spoken to his buddies—his comrades, cats from way, way back—since his trial. The one that nearly killed him. The one that drove him to law school in the first place. He started missing meetings after that, skipping funerals, ignoring phone calls, until, eventually, his friends just stopped calling. Until they got the hint.
He counts himself lucky, really.
A lot of his old friends are dead or locked up or in hiding, out of the country somewhere; they are men who cannot come home. But Jay’s life was spared. By an inch, a single juror: a woman and the only black on the panel. He remembers how she smiled his way every morning of the trial, always with a small nod. It’s okay, the smile said. I got you, son. I’m not gon’ let you fall.
After the trial, after he’d checked himself in and out of St. Joseph’s Hospital, he learned the juror, his angel, was a widow who stayed out on Noble Street, down from Bernie’s church, the same church where her father, Reverend Boykins, had loaded a bus with half his congregation every morning of Jay’s trial. They were women mostly, dressed in their best stockings and felt hats and cat eye glasses with white rhinestones. They rode to the courthouse every day for two weeks simply because they’d heard a young man was in trouble. No questions asked, they’d claimed him as one of their own. They sat through days of FBI testimony, including a secret government tape that was played in the hushed courtroom—a tape of a hasty phone call Jay had made in the spring of 1970.
The prosecutors had him on a charge of inciting a riot and conspiracy to commit murder of an agent of the federal government—a kid like him and a paid informant. They had Jay on tape talking to Stokely, a phone call that ran less than three and a half minutes and sealed his fate. Jay, nineteen at the time, sat at the defense table in a borrowed suit, scared out of his mind. His lawyer, appointed by the judge, was a white kid not that much older than Jay. He wouldn’t listen and rarely looked at Jay. Instead, he slid a yellow legal pad and a number 2 pencil across the table. Anything Jay had to say, he should write it down.
He remembers staring at the pencil, thinking of his exams, of all things.
He was a senior in college then and failing Spanish. He sat at the defense table and wondered how old he would be when he got out, if they gave him two years or twenty. He tried to imagine the whole of his life—every Christmas, every kiss, every breath—spent in prison. He tried to do the math, dividing his life in half, then fourths, then split again, over and over until it was something small enough to fit inside a six-by-eight cell at the Walls in Huntsville. Any way he looked at it, a conviction was a death sentence.
He remembers looking around the courtroom every morning and not recognizing a soul. His friends all stayed away, treating his arrest and pending incarceration as something contagious. He was humbled, almost sickened with shame to see the women from the church, women he did not even know, show up every day, taking up the first two and three rows in the gallery. Never speaking, or making a scene. Just there, every time he turned around.
We got you, son. We’re not gon’ let you fall.
His own mother hadn’t come to the courthouse once, hadn’t even come to see him in lockup.
He didn’t know Bernie then or her father, didn’t know the church or God. He was a young man full of ideas that were simple, black and white. He liked to talk big about the coming revolution, about the church negro who was all show and no action, who was doing nothing for the cause…a word spoken one too many times, worked into one too many speeches, until it had lost all meaning for Jay, until it was just a word, a shortcut, a litmus test for picking sides.
Well, he’s not on anyone’s side anymore. Except his own.
There are other American dreams, he reasons.
One is money, of course. A different kind of freedom and seemingly within his reach. If he works hard, wears a suit, plays by the new rules.
His dreams are simple now. Home, his wife, his baby.
He watches Bernadine, moving to the music, wiping sweat from her brow, pasting stray black hairs against her bronze skin. Jay stands perfectly still, lost in the sway of his wife’s hips. Right, then left, then right again. He smiles and leans over the cooler for a second beer, feeling the boat moving beneath his feet.
An hour or so later, the cake cut and the food nearly gone, Jay and Bernie are alone on the deck, trading the hot, humid air inside the cabin for the hot, humid air outside. At least on the deck, there’s the hope of a breeze as the boat travels west on the water. Bernie leans her forearms against the hand railing, sticking her face into the moist night air. Jay pops the top of his Coors. His fourth, or maybe his fifth. He lost count somewhere near Turning Basin, the only spot between downtown and the Port of Houston where a boat can turn around on the narrow bayou. They are heading back to Allen’s Landing now, but are still a few miles from downtown. From the rear of the boat, Jay can see the lights of the high-rise buildings up ahead, the headquarters of Cole Oil Industries standing tall above the rest. To the rear of the boat is a view of the port and the Ship Channel, lined with oil refineries on either side. From here, the refineries are mere clusters of blinking lights and puffs of smoke, white against the swollen charcoal sky, rising on the dewy horizon like cities on a distant planet.
Between the refineries and downtown Houston, there’s not much to look at but water and trees as the boat floats through a stretch of nearly pitch-black darkness. Jay stands next to his wife on the deck, following shadows with his eyes, tracing the silhouette of moss hanging from the aged water oaks that line the banks of the water. He finishes his beer, dropping the can onto the deck.
They are about to head back inside when they hear the first scream, what sounds at first like a cat’s cry, shrill and desperate. It’s coming from the north side of the bayou, high above them, from somewhere in the thick of trees and weeds lining the bank. At first Jay thinks of an animal caught in the brush. But then…he hears it again. He looks at his wife. She too is staring through the trees. The old man in the baseball cap suddenly emerges from the captain’s cabin, a narrow slip of a room at the head of the boat, housing the gears and controls. What the hell was that?
he asks, looking at Jay and Bernie.
Jay shakes his head even though he already knows. Somewhere deep down, he knows. It wasn’t an animal he heard. It was a woman.
The old man ducks into the main cabin. A few seconds later, Jay hears the music stop…then silence, nothing except the soft whisper of water lapping against the sides of the boat as they creep slowly along the surface of the bayou.
The old man emerges from the main cabin. Y’all heard something?
Over there,
Bernie says, pointing to the brush along the embankment.
Jay strains to make out any buildings behind the trees, trying to place where they are. He makes quick calculations, judging their distance from downtown with his eyes, trying to gauge how long they’ve been drifting westward. But in the darkness and with his drunken sense of time, he can only guess. They are somewhere near Lockwood Drive, near Fifth Ward, that much he can tell. He can see part of the Freedman’s National Bank clock from here, rising high behind the trees. It’s late, he realizes, just shy of midnight.
He’s had a couple of cases come out of Fifth Ward. Property disputes and petty theft. But also fistfights and holdups and one kid who knifed another one just for playing his music too loud. Jay knows they are floating through the back side of the one of the roughest neighborhoods in the city.
Bernie turns to her husband. Something’s wrong out there, Jay.
Behind them, there’s another scream, a howl really, a plea.
A woman’s voice, shaped into two very distinct words: Help me.
Jay feels a slight flutter across his chest, a tiny hiccup of dread.
Bernie’s voice drops to a whisper. What in the devil is going on out there?
The old man disappears into the captain’s cabin.
A few seconds later, he emerges carrying a flashlight. Bernie and Jay clear the narrow deck, giving him room to pass as he starts for the rear of the boat. He shines the weak light into the brush on the north side of the bayou, calling out into the darkness, to a face none of them can see. You okay out there?
There’s no response. The old man waves his light through the trees. They’re traveling at an even clip, creeping slowly, but surely, farther away from her. The old man calls out again. Hey…you okay out there?
A gunshot cracks through the air.
Jay’s heart stops, everything going still. He has a fleeting, panicked thought that…this is it. He actually looks down to see if he’s been hit, an old habit set off by firecrackers and bad mufflers, a holdover from his other life.
There’s a second shot then. It echoes and rolls across the air like thunder.
The old man lets out a low, raspy moan. God in heaven.
Bernie mutters a prayer under her breath.
Jay grabs for his wife’s hand, pulling her toward the door to the main cabin, away from the open deck. Bernie yanks her hand free of his, the movement strong and decisive, the force of it causing her feet to slide a little on the slick surface of the deck. She steadies herself on the railing, turning to face the old man in the baseball cap. Sir, I think you’d better turn this thing around.
The old man in the baseball cap stares at Bernie, sure she’s not serious. I can’t,
he says to her and Jay. The bayou’s too narrow. ’Sides the basin, ain’t no place to turn her around ’til we get back to Allen’s Landing.
Then stop the boat,
Bernie says.
The old man shoots a quick glance in Jay’s direction, making it clear that he intends to take no instruction from the pregnant woman, not without her husband’s say-so, which only infuriates Bernie. Stop this boat,
she says again.
In the end, the old man relents, starting on his own for the captain’s cabin.
Jay grabs his arm. Don’t.
Somebody’s in trouble out there, Jay!
"There are two people out there, B, he says.
The girl and who or whatever it is she’s running from." He’s picturing a street fight or a knock-down, drag-out between lovers or something worse…much, much worse.
Leave it alone,
he hears himself say.
Bernie stares at Jay, her voice hushed. What is the matter with you?
Her disappointment in him, no matter how it cuts, is not the point.
Somebody’s shooting out there, B,
he says. You got me and him on this boat…
he says, pointing to the only other able body on board, a man almost seventy. And my wife,
Jay adds, lowering his voice to match hers, trying to get her to see it his way. I, for one, am not willing to put you or myself at risk to step into some trouble we don’t know the first thing about. We don’t know that girl, don’t know what kind of trouble she brings,
he says, hearing the cynicism in his voice, hating it, but feeling pressed to speak it anyway. The oldest con in the book, he thinks to himself, is the damsel in distress, the girl with the flat tire by the side of the road, the one with a boyfriend waiting in the weeds to jump you as soon as you stop to help. Just leave it alone,
he says.
Bernie stares at him for a long, painful moment, squinting around the edges of her eyes, as if she’s trying to place him, someone she used to know. Oh, Jay,
she say with a sigh.
We’ll call the police,
he says, deciding it just then.
It’s a good plan: clean, simple, logical.
The old man is sheepish, slow to move, shuffling the ball of his right foot on the deck’s floor. We ain’t got a city license to run this thing after hours.
What?
Jay says.
Oh, God,
Bernie mumbles.
Call the police, man,
Jay says firmly.
The old man sighs and walks to a dirty white phone that’s smudged with oil and grime and resting outside the door to the captain’s cabin. He lifts the phone, what looks more like a walkie-talkie or a CB receiver. He dials, then pauses, listening, straining, it seems. Jay and Bernie wait, watching as the old man punches the buttons on the phone a few times. Hearing nothing, he finally slams the receiver in its cradle. The phone, apparently, is not working.
Fucking Jimmy,
the old man says.
There’s another scream, closer this time.
Bernie grabs the flashlight from the old man’s hand, swinging the cloudy white light toward the embankment in time to see a flash of motion in the trees, a rustling in the brush. They watch as a body drops, rolling zigzag down the steep bank, bumping up against weeds and uneven soil. It rolls all the way down the embankment, then…it disappears. Jay hears a quiet splash, a sucking sound, the bayou swallowing something whole.
Then…nothing. For what seems like an eternity.
Bernie looks at Jay. He can hear his own heartbeat, low in his throat.
A moment later, a ripple breaks the still water, its waves spread like arms offering an embrace. Somebody’s moving out there,
the captain mumbles.
There’s a burp and gurgle of air. Something surfaces on the water.
Jay hears splashing, then a cry, hoarse and starved for air.
Bernie waits for no one’s permission. She marches into the captain’s cabin. The old man makes a move to stop her, then thinks better of it. Bernie can barely fit her body inside the small captain’s cabin. She has to reach past her belly to touch the key sticking out of the control board, turning it to the left.
The engine sputters, then falls quiet.
No one on the deck moves, no one says a word.
Bernie and the old man are both looking at Jay.
He moves quickly, without a word being said, removing his watch, but not his wedding band, thinking to himself that this is one of those times when being a man, or rather trying to play the part to any convincing degree, trumps his better judgment. He’s not exactly a big guy to begin with, and the years have softened his once wiry frame. He kicks off his shoes, then lifts his shirt from his pants, past the slight paunch around his middle. He starts to take it off, but changes his mind. He makes an awkward climb onto the deck’s railing, takes a deep breath, holding it tight and precious in his chest, and jumps.
The water is warm and bitter. It comes in everywhere, in his mouth and throat, through his clothes. Beneath the black surface, the bayou is alive, pulling at him, tugging at his arms and legs. He feels twigs and leaves and what he hopes are only fish brushing against his arms and legs. He has some vague sense of the light from the boat, but his eyes are burning. It’s impossible to see clearly. He moves blindly through the darkness, reeled in by the sound of her voice.
When he feels something stringy in his hands, tangling around his fingers, he knows he’s found her; her hair is in his hands. She’s gurgling, spitting and coughing. He wraps an arm around her sternum and pulls. He turns toward the boat, momentarily disoriented by the white light shining in his eyes. He pulls and swims, swims and pulls, until his legs burn, until his arms ache, until he is sure they will both drown. Within a few feet of the boat, he pushes harder, past what he thinks is his limit. When he reaches a thin ladder at the back of the vessel, he strains to lift her body overhead. The captain reaches over the side of the railing to help lift the woman, weak and limp, onto the boat’s deck.
Jay is bent over, his hands on his knees, trying to line up one breath after another, trying not to pass out. Out of the corner of his eye, he gets the first good look at the woman he carried across the bayou, the life he’s just saved.
She’s white and filthy.
There’s black dirt coating her skin, dead leaves clinging to her arms. She’s terrified, shaking, staring at a room full of black faces, each of whom is staring back at her. The boat’s cabin is still and quiet except for the AC unit buzzing in the window and the drops of water raining off their bodies, hers and Jay’s.
He follow you?
It’s his first question, before her name, before he asks if she’s okay.
She can’t, or won’t, speak. She sits on the edge of one of the folding chairs at the table, her teeth chattering, blue and yellow balloons swaying incongruously over her head. Bernie, in the other seat, reaches across the table for a stack of wrinkled paper napkins. She offers them to the stranger, who is soaking wet. But the woman won’t let go of her purse long enough to take one.
Are you okay?
Bernie asks gently.
Jay’s eyes skim the woman’s body, her arms, her legs, her face.
She has not been shot, he sees right away. The skin beneath her neck is red and swollen, but Jay can’t be sure if that was his doing—when he grabbed her in the water—or someone else’s. Other than that, there isn’t a scratch on her. She looks up, aware that Jay is watching her, and tightens the grip on her purse, as if she half-expects him to make a clean snatch and run away with it. He senses this white woman is afraid of him. He ignores the insult, stuffing his rising anger, an emotion that will in no way serve him.
Where is he?
he asks.
Still she doesn’t speak.
"Where is he?" Jay asks again, harder this time.
I don’t know,
she says, opening her mouth for the first time, her voice sweet but raw, like a rusty church bell swinging on its hinge. I ran, I just ran.
Jay, still thinking there’s a gun somewhere close by, turns to the old man in the baseball cap. Start the boat,
he orders the captain. Now.
The old man slips through the cabin door, and a few moments later, Jay hears the engine start. He turns back to the woman. What happened to you?
She lowers her eyes, her face taking on a hot, crimson color.
She is too shamed, it seems, to look him in the eye.
He attack you?
Jay,
Bernie says softly. She shakes her head at her husband, a silent suggestion that whatever went on behind those trees, maybe this woman, terrified and shaking, is not ready to say it out loud, in mixed company no less. Jay nods, backing off, but he doesn’t take his eyes off the stranger. She lost her shoes somewhere in the water, but Jay can tell by the cut and fabric of her dress that it isn’t cheap. She’s also missing an earring. Its twin is round and gold with a diamond in the center. There’s a diamond on her ring finger too—right hand, not left—a rock three times bigger than the one Bernie is wearing. Her purse, the one she won’t let go of, has little G’s printed all over it. It’s Italian, Jay knows, like the ones those rich insurance company lawyers carry into the courtroom.
Eyeing the clothes and the rock, Jay asks, Where were you?
Excuse me?
the woman says, a surprising edge in her voice.
Where were you coming from?
She stares at him blankly, as if she doesn’t understand the question, but Jay catches an unmistakable flash of recognition in her copper-colored eyes. He thinks she knows exactly what he’s asking: what was a woman like you doing in a neighborhood like this, ’round about midnight, alone?
She cuts her eyes away from Jay, turning to Bernie instead. Is there a washroom I can use?
Bernie points to a swinging door across the room. It stops short of the floor, offering little privacy except for a small painted sign that says OCCUPIED, a smiley face drawn inside the O. Bernie offers the paper napkins again. The woman is slow to move, her body stiff, like a broken doll, held together at this late hour by sheer will, as if she’s afraid that any tiny motion might break her in two. And she won’t let go of her purse. Bernie reaches for the handbag, as if to set it on the table for the woman. But the move startles her. She lets out a small cry in protest, her eyes alight with a kind of panic. Bernie lets go of the purse instantly, and the bag tumbles from both their hands. They all watch as it falls onto the floor, landing with surprising softness. Its mouth open to the room, the purse, Jay sees, is empty. It contains nothing, not a lipstick case or a book of matches, not even house keys or a few coins. Like her missing shoes and earring, it seems the contents of the woman’s purse were lost somewhere in the bayou. Lost, or dumped, he thinks, the word occurring to him unexpectedly, lodging itself stubbornly in the back of his mind, like a sharp pebble in his shoe.
Bernie and the woman reach for the purse at the same time.
Don’t touch it,
Jay blurts. Don’t touch a thing.
Just leave it alone, he thinks.
The woman picks up her bag. She stands, turning her back to them, and slips behind the bathroom door. Jay can hear the metal latch catch on the other side. The old man is now leaning against the cabin door, smoking another cigarette, pinched between his thumb and forefinger. He nods toward the white woman, her legs showing beneath the bathroom door, then looks at Jay and shrugs. Ain’t nothing to do now,
he says. Just ride her on in, I guess.
Jay watches her in the rearview mirror.
She’s in the backseat, eyes closed, turning her diamond ring over and over, fingering the icy stone as if it were a talisman or a rosary, something to bring luck or a promise of redemption. They’re only a few blocks from the central station. They ride in silence, the stranger in the back and Bernie in the front passenger seat. Jay keeps the Buick Skylark at an even thirty-five miles an hour, careful not to draw any undue attention. He’s keenly aware of the irony, his fear of being stopped by cops on his way to a police station. But driving a strange white woman, whose name he never got, at this time of night, in this city, makes him edgy, cautious. He wouldn’t have offered to drive her at all if Bernie hadn’t insisted. His clothes are still wet with the stink of the bayou.
There’s no one in front of the police station when he pulls up to the curb.
Jay parks the car, but leaves the engine running.
Downtown’s central police station is an older building, a rarity in a city that has a curious habit of razing its own history. The station was built in early midcentury, before the city was a boomtown, before the postwar explosion of American highways made gas the most coveted commodity in the country, before 1973 and the embargo, before the crisis, before oil made Houston.
Should we go in?
Bernie asks, her face turned to her husband.
The woman in the backseat opens her eyes. They meet Jay’s in the rearview mirror. I’m fine from here.
Her voice is mannered, calm. Thank you.
She steps out of the car and walks up the first steps to the police station, then stops. She’s gathering her strength maybe, or, Jay thinks, she’s stalling.
You think she’s okay?
Bernie asks.
Jay puts the car in drive, fresh sweat breaking across his brow.
Just the idea of being anywhere near a police station at this time of night, looking like a ragged dog, tangled up in some white woman’s mess makes him more than a little dizzy. He knows firsthand the long, creative arm of Southern law enforcement, knows when he ought to keep his mouth shut.
He locks the doors and pulls away from the curb, stealing a final glance in his rearview mirror. He watches the woman standing alone in front of the police station and wonders if she’s going inside.
Chapter 2
Monday morning, the hooker shows up wearing a neck brace. Jay takes one look at it and tells her to get rid of it. She starts to take it off right there in the hallway. Not here,
he says, surprised, again, by how much instruction she needs. He looks up and down the hallway, making sure opposing counsel hasn’t witnessed this whole routine, his client’s backstage preparations. He nods toward the ladies’ washroom across the way. And don’t let anybody see you.
The hearing is due to start in three minutes, and it won’t look good for them to be late before this judge. Jay is going to need as much goodwill and mercy as the court will see fit to offer. His case is as thin as ice milk, and they all know