Cape Fear Rising

by Philip Gerard

  Calabash nodded toward him. “Alex Manly,” he said.

  “No,” Sam said. “You’re mistaken.”

  “Oh, I’m hardly ever that.”

  “Fellow’s a preacher man. I met him on the train.”

  Calabash squinted toward the man as he crossed the street toward them. “You sure?”

  The preacher walked briskly past them, so close that he brushed Sam’s arm, though he did not acknowledge him.

  After he had passed, Calabash said, “Thought you said you knew him.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Well, by the living Jesus, he’s the spitting image of Manly, right down to the fancy moustache.”

  “The fellow you were all talking about upstairs?”

  Calabash nodded. “Let us retire to the waterfront.”

  Three blocks down the hill, they sat over a bare board table. Calabash sipped cold beer from a schooner. Sam drank iced tea. The far side of the Cape Fear was crowded with moored vessels—schooners, steam packets, several full-rigged ships. Tugboats worked up and down the river, hauling barges. The ferry plowed methodically back and forth across the river, hauling workers to the turpentine stills and shipyards on the far shore. Even indoors, he could whiff the bitter ammoniac odor of the Navasso Guano factory at the north end of the wharf. Big mule-drawn freight wagons rumbled over the cobblestones.

  On the near wharf, an oceangoing steamship was taking on provisions from B. F. Keith’s Warehouse & Dockage. Farther along, other vessels were being loaded with rice, timber, cotton, peanuts, tobacco, barrels of resin and case oil, naval stores. Gangs of black stevedores worked steam cranes and manhandled cargo nets. Not like the landing at Daiquiri in Cuba, Sam thought—soldiers falling out of boats, horses prodded over the side to drown.

  He was impressed with all the activity—here was industry in high gear. Maybe Cousin Hugh was right, this was the future—how many tons of commodities were being transshipped before his very eyes while he sat idling?

  Sam listened to hear the stevedores sing as they worked, but they only grunted, cursed, and joshed each other. “Quite a racket down here.”

  “Yes, but I like it—reminds me where I am.” Calabash passed Sam his carbons. “Local politics. We have an election coming up in November.”

  Sam had covered the ward bosses in Chicago. He had hoped to get a more challenging beat than small-town party electioneering, and his disappointment was plain.

  “Son, down here life is politics. And politics is life, period. The sooner you figure that out, the better off you’re going to be. You ain’t in Chicago now.”

  “Quite a list.” Sam counted at least two dozen names. “Who’s going to get elected?”

  Calabash laughed dryly and shook his head. “It’s a little more complex than that. Those are the rascals already in office.” He savored his drink. “Won’t be voting for a new mayor and aldermen for two more years yet.”

  “So, what? State and county offices?”

  “Right. And Congress.” Calabash leaned over the table close enough for Sam to get a blast of his breath. “Now, realize, son, that down here the state legislature controls the city charter.”

  Light was beginning to dawn. “So whoever goes to Raleigh has their hands on the local throttle.”

  “You’re awfully bright for a Yankee.”

  Sam read the first page again. “Maybe I’m dense, but I don’t get it—there are four slates of aldermen here. Which are the ones in office right now?”

  Calabash drained his beer and waved for another. “Well, now, that depends on which of the five mayors you consider the legal man—Fishblate, Harriss, McLGreen, Silas Wright, or Colonel Walker Taylor.”

  “Another colonel? Is there anybody in town who isn’t a colonel?”

  Harry Calabash sighed like a nanny with a troublesome child.

  “Well, there’s Silas Wright—he’s only a doctor.”

  “Preacher kind?”

  “Croaker kind.”

  “Why all the fuss about who runs city hall?”

  “Come now—don’t be so naive. Money. There’s more money flowing into this town than any other place between Baltimore and Savannah.”

  “And it flows right through city hall.” Just like Chicago.

  Harry nodded. “Now, as I was saying. We have a Democrat judge who says Mr. Harriss is mayor, since Solly Fishblate was the last legal mayor and Fishblate handed the job over to Harriss.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  Calabash rubbed his first two fingers against his thumb. “Lucre, son. Lucre. But somebody got crossed, and old Solly—who’s now a Redeemer, which is nothing but a low subspecies of Democrat—wants his job back. Then we have a Republican judge—or maybe he’s a Fusionist, I can’t keep them straight—who’s slapped an injunction on the Harriss crowd. McLGreen, he was a Reform Democrat last week. This week, he may be a Populist, which is really just a recycled Jeffersonian Democrat who hates the way the railroads have leveraged their capital with rate-fixing and bonds paid for by taxpayers. Then again, he may be a Free Silverite by now—like Mr. Keith down the wharf.” He drained his schooner. “Got all that?”

  Sam shook his head. So that’s the way it was: worse than Chicago. “Not even a little bit.”

  “Good,” Calabash said. “Now, forget everything I just said.”

  Sam just stared, not sure if he should laugh.

  “You ever find yourself actually understanding all the political shenanigans in this town, you get back on that train before they lock you up with the imbecile children at City-County.” He called for the waiter. “Can we get some whiskey here, please? It’s almost ten o’clock in the morning—a man could die of dehydration around here.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Calabash,” the Negro waiter said, and delivered two whiskeys in short order.

  “There’s lots of busy people running around getting into mischief,” Harry said. “Mostly, their names don’t matter.”

  “Mostly?”

  “There’s a few names that do. Trick is knowing which ones are which.”

  “How about a starting nine?” Sam said.

  “Colonel Walker Taylor, George Rountree,” Harry said. “Start with those names. Remember them. Watch out for them. When you meet them, pay attention to what they say.”

  “Right.”

  “And then there’s John Allan Taylor—Colonel Walker Taylor’s brother. They don’t see eye to eye, those two. John Allan, he’s pure business. Walk, he goes his own way. Military man, the strenuous life, Teddy Roosevelt. Thick with Buck Kenan. What he believes in ain’t very complicated, and he believes in it all the way.”

  “And what does John Allan believe in?”

  “You saw him in the office—cold fish. Knows red ink from black, the bottom line. Believes in the monthly balance sheet and the sanctity of railroad bonds.”

  Sam smiled—he had pegged him right. “Whatever you say. That the whole roster?”

  “Not by a long shot. But I’ve told you too much in one lump already. You’ll get all the pieces by and by—when you need them.”

  “Promise?”

  “I don’t make promises. Man who makes promises, he’s already got his hand in your back pocket. But I do tend to repeat my wisdom from time to time—just in case you ain’t listening the first time.”

  “I tend to listen good.”

  “Fine, fine. But everybody gets distracted.”

  Not if I can stay clear of the who-hit-john, I won’t, Sam thought.

  “One more thing,” Harry said. “The mayor and aldermen don’t have a free hand in this town.”

  “Oh?”

  “Little club called the Board of Audit and Finance. Five men, all appointed by the governor.”

  There it is again, Sam thought, just like Chicago—that old fear of actual democracy. “So the aldermen can pass whatever laws they please, but the Finance Board holds the purse strings—contracts, hiring, bonds.”

  “You’re catching on just fine. U
sed to be three Republicans and two Democrats. Now, the tables are turned.”

  “But the governor is a Republican.”

  “That fat old boy don’t want no trouble.” Governor Russell was a three-hundred-pound embarrassment. “Wants to keep the lid on down here. Keep things at a stalemate.”

  “So, whichever Board of Aldermen is ruled legal, they still have to pry loose their budget from the Democrats,” Sam said.

  “Sooner bleed a turnip.”

  “But the Democrats can’t actually do anything without controlling the Board of Aldermen.”

  “That’s a fact. Got to control both boards.” Harry laughed. “Whereas, they’ve each got control of only one board.”

  Sam shook his head to clear it. “God bless democracy.” Calabash raised his glass and waited until Sam picked up his.

  “To the Bourbon Democrats.”

  “Bourbon Democrats?”

  Calabash hacked into his bare hand. “Redeemers, son. Redeemers. Call themselves Bourbons. And they ain’t named after the kings of France.”

  They clinked glasses, and Calabash drank. Sam shoved his glass across the table. He felt relieved he could do it so easily—no hesitation, not a second thought, no twinge of regret. “I took the cure, Harry. It’s all yours.”

  Calabash hesitated. “What could it hurt to have just one?”

  It was still easy to refuse—one drink and he’d have his old appetite back. He knew that as surely as he knew his own name. It was the one thing that could sink him, sink his marriage, for good. Calabash ought to know better. In Chicago, all the newspapermen Sam had known were like Calabash, sleepwalking between boozy good times and hangovers.

  “It would kill me,” Sam said.

  “My word. You mean I’ll have to work with you sober?”

  “Harry, believe me—you wouldn’t want it any other way.”

  Calabash sighed. “It’s going to be a long campaign, son.” Then he shot the whiskey to the back of his throat, smacked his lips, and set the glass down gently on the tablecloth.

  “What’s all this have to do with Mr. Manly?” Sam said.

  “Mr. Alexander Manly is the editor of our rival newspaper, the Record. Negro paper. I fear he is about to be evicted.”

  Out the window, a band of five Red Shirts appeared on the wharf. Two had pistols shoved into their belts. They taunted the stevedores, oily with sweat. The stevedores ignored them. A white policeman stood by and did nothing.

  Harry Calabash said quietly, “I do detest a bully.” Sam said nothing—just watched the Red Shirts move down the wharf like a gang of schoolyard toughs out for mischief. “Well, let’s go get you started.”

  Sam hesitated, then asked, “Do you think I might get away for lunch? I promised my cousin I’d meet him and get reacquainted. It’s been years.”

  “Who’s your cousin?”

  “Hugh MacRae.”

  For the first time since Sam had met him, Calabash looked nonplussed. “Tom didn’t tell me that.”

  “You know him?”

  “He’s only one of the three richest men in town. Put him on your list, too—right at the top. Where are you meeting him?”

  “A place called the Cape Fear Club.”

  Calabash laughed, and then his laughter dissolved into a fit of coughing. “Joke’s on me. Come on, let’s check in at the office. You’ll need your coat. Then I’ll walk you over there.” He got up from the table with difficulty, then stamped his left foot on the floor a couple of times, hard. “Leg stiffens up,” he explained. “Got to get some fresh blood into it.”

  As they walked, the town was full of racket. Buildings were going up, shoehorned into alleys. Second and third stories were being added to old structures. Everywhere, workmen were hammering, sawing, slapping bricks onto mortar, stirring concrete in big, dented tubs. Sam took it all in. Something was strange about the scene, though, and all at once he realized what it was: from hod carrier to foreman, all the tradesmen were black.

  On the way back up Market Street, thick with the traffic of drays, carriages, and freight wagons, Sam spotted Colonel Waddell strutting along the opposite sidewalk. He waved and called out, but the street was too noisy. The wagons crunched over the loose oyster-shell paving and stirred up a constant cloud of lime dust. Calabash held his handkerchief over his nose but hacked relentlessly anyway.

  Another man, dressed in a black suit despite the heat, encountered Waddell from the other direction. The two stopped and conversed as pedestrians flowed around them.

  Calabash pointed a crooked finger. “That man is a vector of ambition.”

  “The Colonel? But you said—”

  “George Rountree—he already made the list. Vice president of the club that’s serving you lunch today.”

  George Rountree had been avoiding Waddell for weeks. Waddell was a fossil, but canny and potentially troublesome. He had a way of getting into everybody’s business and taking a piece of it.

  “Morning, Colonel. Too hot to be walking.”

  Waddell took his arm. Rountree was a large man, powerfully built, his middle already running to fat though he was barely into his forties. Waddell steered him against a lamppost. “Mr. Rountree, I wonder if I might have a word with you.”

  “My office?”

  “Too hot. The club?”

  Rountree should have known—every time he had anything to do with the old fox, it cost him money. But he was trapped. “Fine.” Three blocks away, in the dining room of the Cape Fear Club, which billed itself as the second-oldest men’s club in the South, the air was cool and the dim light was easy on the eyes. Overhead, electric ceiling fans rotated lazily, gently humming. Heavy drapes and stout doors kept out the street noise. Plush Oriental carpets soaked up the occasional clatter of sterling forks on Dresden plates. A dozen early luncheon patrons sat in twos and threes over linen tablecloths and silver place settings, talking business—attorneys, importers, aldermen, wholesalers. Members and their guests. White men who owned things. Negro waiters in spotless white jackets and black bow ties glided noiselessly among the tables, the kitchen, and the bar, delivering entrées and iced drinks on silver platters.

  Men came and went seriously, without socializing—no visiting table to table. This was a place of business, of public privacy, each table a confidential enclave.

  In a corner alcove, behind a hand-rubbed mahogany bar, a white-haired Negro in a hunter-green waistcoat poured liquor. Behind him shimmered racks of crystal glasses, decanters in staggered rows, a bar-length mirror framed in brass.

  Waddell sipped Chardonnay—he would allow himself one glass to go with the stuffed shrimp. Rountree wondered if Waddell expected him to pick up the tab again. It was common knowledge that Waddell’s law practice was falling off. Lately, he’d been reduced to litigating petty squabbles over tradesmen’s contracts, minor probate matters, police court. The Colonel had rich tastes and a new, young wife, but he hadn’t gotten the dowry he’d expected from a deRosset, and his own resources were thin. Still, he’d always had a knack for getting other people to foot the bill—a born politician.

  Holding it by the stem, Waddell carefully replaced his wineglass on the tablecloth and flicked his tongue across his lips. “Frankly, George, I’m a little put out. Apparently, the boys don’t want me to help.”

  “Not at all,” Rountree said. “It’s early. It’s a very early stage of things.” He rubbed his bald head thoughtfully. He felt his baldness made him look distinguished. The silvering hair at his temples was razor-short.

  “George.” Waddell smiled with his lips. “We are both gentlemen. We both understand the need for discretion.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Of course you didn’t.” The Colonel was still smiling.

  “Nobody doubts your discretion.” But the truth was, Rountree’s associates didn’t want their plans trumpeted all over town, not just yet. This was the quiet phase of the campaign—a time to plan, to marshal resources, to gather into a common purpose me
n who could be trusted.

  “I fought for this country once, and by God, I’ll do it again,” Waddell said. “That’s how strongly I feel about this matter.”

  “You’re not the only one.”

  “There’s nothing I wouldn’t be willing to undertake.”

  Waddell had once gotten himself elected to a term in the United States House of Representatives. Ever since then, he’d been trying to get back into office. He had tried for the Senate, but Dan Russell, currently governor, had trounced him good. Rountree figured that, at this point, the Colonel would settle for any office—alderman, customs collector, health inspector—but he didn’t say so. Waddell still had a following in town, in the capitol in Raleigh, on the State Democratic Committee. No sense starting a feud—just put him off awhile.

  “It’s time we took back this country,” Waddell said, stabbing an index finger into the white tablecloth. His voice was a note too strident. The waiter glanced his way, then quickly went about his chores. “It’s getting so it isn’t safe to walk the streets. God-fearing women are being shoved into the gutter, gentlemen are being set upon by roving gangs—”

  “You’re preaching to the choir, Colonel.”

  More quietly, the Colonel said, “Some men can hold a crowd—maybe you need such a man.”

  Waddell could hold a crowd, Rountree had to admit. Waddell was one of the last of the old-time barnburners. He could throw his voice to a thousand people. He could work them up and gentle them down and then get them hot again, plying them with fiery slogans, sentimental clichés, and cheap showman’s tricks. Mainly, he had that voice: sonorous, rhythmical, hypnotic. When he’d spoken at the old Opera House during his congressional canvass, it had sounded like the voice of God. It would get so soft the crowd would hush, leaning in to hear. Then in the next sentence, it would box their ears. Men came away with glassy eyes and balled fists; women came away in love.

  But the others had been quite definite: keep Waddell out of it.