Southern Cross

by Stephen Greenleaf

  “Daddy!” Jane Jean exclaimed when she twisted to see who had fondled her. “I thought you had a meeting with Crossley.”

  “Hog’s been gutted, sugar,” the man said smugly. “Time to feed the furnace.” He looked left. “Seth.”

  “Monty.”

  “Daddy, this is Mr. Tanner. From San Francisco. He was in college with Seth up North. Mr. Tanner, this is my daddy, R. Montgomery Hendersen.”

  Daddy slapped my shoulder and stuck out a beefy hand. After I stood to take it, he still loomed over me; his stolid stance and massive flesh made him as daunting as an ox.

  “Welcome to South Carolina, sir. Are you enjoying your stay in the Holy City?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Fine. Just don’t tell your neighbors about us. We got plenty of fruitcakes flitting around already; don’t we, Seth?”

  “If you say so, Monty.”

  “I most definitely do.” Monty’s hearty voice lowered to a conspiratorial hiss, and his eyes turned as dark as the stains on his tie as he leaned toward Seth like a giant cobra. “Might interest you to know I just cut a sweet little piece of cheese for Senator Poulson with our friend Crossley—six months at Club Fed; fine in low five figures; public service in the grade schools as penance. If I were you, I’d get in line while Crossley’s still got a warm nose.”

  “My man wants to go to trial, Monty.”

  “Don’t matter what he wants; just matters what he needs. And what he needs is to keep his future out of the hands of a jury of people who elected him to do something up in the state capital besides take bribes from federal agents.”

  Seth’s smile was thin and forced. “I keep telling you Monroe’s innocent, Monty. The only thing he took on that tape was good bourbon and a handshake. To my knowledge, they haven’t made either of them a crime.” Seth grinned to take the edge off his intensity. “If they do, we’ll both be behind bars.”

  “You don’t cut a deal pretty soon, Crossley will decide to make an example of him, and Monroe’ll spend five years in Lexington. A word to the wise, son.”

  Finished with his lecture, Monty checked the force field of the room. When he didn’t find anyone worthy of acknowledgment, he looked back at his daughter. “Did we win one for the cause this morning, sugar?”

  “We surely did, Daddy,” she said.

  “How long were they out?”

  “Twenty-three minutes.”

  R. Montgomery Hendersen positively beamed. “God bless her, she could walk Christ out the door and make Pontius Pilate call him a cab. Y’all have a nice day, ya hear?”

  Monty wheeled away and joined another table. Seth and I glanced briefly at each other, then watched Jane Jean watch her father. Her expression was an odd mix of worry and rapture—I couldn’t tell whether she expected him to drop dead or levitate. But I had a feeling that Seth and I were both wishing she would look at us that way just once.

  SIXTEEN

  Jane Jean had to rush back to her office to catch up on the business she’d neglected during the trial. After she kissed Seth on the cheek and gave my hand a farewell squeeze, all eyes in the place went with her out the door. As she disappeared down the block with a wave that blessed each one of us, from the waiter to the busboy to me, the room seemed to emit a collective whistle of applause.

  When the drama of her departure had subsided, Seth looked at me and grinned. “She’s something, isn’t she?”

  “She is indeed.”

  “You seemed taken by her.”

  “My eyes still work; blood still moves through my veins—how could I not be taken by her?” I stuck out my tongue and panted just a bit, to take the edge off my thrall. “Are you going to marry her, or do I still have a chance to beat you out?”

  Seth didn’t find my antic as funny as he should have. “I want to; she’s still not sure.”

  “Why not?”

  “She’s had some tough times with men. You’d think she’d have it all her way in that department, looking like she does, but it hasn’t worked that way. Her marriage was pretty rough. He was a drinker. And a sadist. She put up with it lots longer than she should have.”

  The description was sufficiently ominous to bring to mind the reason I was there. “Where’s her husband now?”

  “Manages a car dealership west of town. Overindulges on weekends and calls her up and begs her to take him back.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Bilbow.”

  “Does he threaten her?”

  Seth shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

  “Has he ever threatened you?”

  Seth blinked. “Why would he do that?”

  “He may think you’re the reason she won’t come home to Papa.”

  Although Seth quickly rejected it, the idea sprinkled sweat across his brow. He shifted after a moment. “Did you talk to Rick Last?”

  I nodded. “Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to know much about your friends in the Alliance. They’re new players on the scene apparently. Except for a guy named Bedford. Know him?”

  Seth shook his head. “What else do you have to go on?”

  “Only your son,” I said.

  Seth’s response was a grunt of paternal pain, but if I was going to do my job, it was a line I had to pursue.

  “I didn’t get a chance to ask last night—do you have any idea where he’s living?”

  Seth shook his head.

  “Not even a phone number?”

  “Afraid not.” His look was stricken. “That’s shameful, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not shameful, but it’s unfortunate. Do you think your wife knows how to reach him?”

  “Callie? Possibly. I think she sends him money.”

  Seth looked at his watch, then took a sip of water. “Before you start out after Colin, there’s someone back at the office you should talk to.”

  “Who?”

  “Alameda Smallings. The girl who’s trying to get into the Palisade. She got a tape, too.”

  While I steeled myself for another dose of racist rhetoric, Seth paid the bill, and I didn’t make an issue of it. When we got to his office, the receptionist still held down the fort with blithe good nature—nothing had dented her day during the lunch hour.

  As Seth hurried toward the waiting room to greet his client, the receptionist and I made eyes at each other. The steamy sensuality that was as present in Charleston as lizards and palm fronds had rendered me as randy as a rabbit. When I asked her name, she said it was Elmira.

  “Marsh?” Seth spoke from the couch in the anteroom and put a stop to my foolishness with his staff. “I’d like you to meet Alameda Smallings.”

  The young woman on the couch rose to her feet with the fluid grace of an athlete; I hurried to shake her hand.

  Her grip was firm and brisk, her figure tall and lean; the legs that emerged from her short brown skirt were at least as long as mine. Her face was solemn and imperious, with skin the tint and density of crude oil and eyes that had decided long ago to regard everything within their focal point as suspect. If we were going to get along, the eyes advised, the burden of persuasion was on me.

  I told her it was nice to meet her. She tilted her head and asked me why. The candor was jarring—all I could think to say was that she was pursuing a courageous course, and I wished her well with it.

  “Maybe it’s just a stupid one,” she said without inflection. “That’s what most folks think.”

  “White folks?” I asked.

  “White and black,” she instructed.

  Seth suggested we go into his office. I’d never seen his sanctum sanctorum before, and I was as impressed as I’d expected to be.

  The floor was a precise parquet, and the ceiling was covered in gray flannel. The lighting was soft and indirect, the desk was big enough to skate on, the chairs and couches were inviting mounds of leather and gray tweed. In his creamy summer suit and dark and dashing look, Seth fit the room the way Cary Grant fit a tux. The effect was so striking I e
xperienced an epiphany—I’d finally encountered a life I’d have been tempted to exchange for my own.

  Seth urged us to sit down, asked if we wanted coffee or a soft drink, then took the seat behind his desk when we both declined refreshment. “If you don’t mind, Alameda,” he began, “I’d like you to tell Mr. Tanner what it is you’re trying to do. With your lawsuit and all.”

  She swiveled in her seat and looked at me. I wanted her to decide I was worthy of her story, but the hooded eyes declared she wasn’t ready to make that judgment. “Who is he, anyway?”

  “An old friend,” Seth answered. “He’s a private investigator, from California. He’s spending a few days in Charleston to help me with some problems I’ve got in one of my other cases. I thought maybe he could help you, too.”

  “I don’t need help,” she said simply. “Unless he’s got a key to the Palisade.”

  “Why do you want to go there so badly?” I asked.

  Her eyes branded me a simpleton. “Because I want a career in the military.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my daddy said black people have a better chance to advance themselves in the army than anywhere else.”

  “Alameda’s father was a master sergeant with the Ninth Division,” Seth interjected. “Killed in Vietnam in 1972. Alameda was born six months later. She never met him.”

  “Mama saved his letters,” Alameda explained, her black eyes animated for the first time. “He knew he might not make it back to the world, and he wanted to leave me words to live by in case he couldn’t raise me himself.”

  “What makes you so sure he was right about the army?” I asked.

  “I haven’t been in the army yet, but what I’ve observed in civilian life is that white people don’t want black people to show their talent and rise up. Whereas Daddy says that the army lets you rise as high as you can go. He says the army couldn’t run for a day without black people.” A smile flattened her lips. “Also I want to go in the military ’cause I like telling people what to do. Mama says I’m like Daddy in that. Except I’m going to be a general.”

  “You’re lucky to have your father’s letters,” I said, still trolling for approval.

  Alameda nodded soberly. “I hope to have them published one day. People could learn a lot by reading them. Not just black people, either.”

  “What made you pick the Palisade over West Point?” I went on. “They admitted women to the national academies a long time ago.”

  “I didn’t get a nomination,” Alameda said sullenly, her lips rolling into a pout. “I was political in high school—demonstrations against apartheid and pollution at the pulp mill and all. Made me controversial.”

  Objective or not, Alameda was direct and determined; it was easy to see why Seth had taken her case and also why he was worried about her.

  “So you’ve filed a lawsuit,” I said. “To make the Palisade admit the first woman in its history.”

  She nodded. “Court date’s the fifth of next month. Summary judgment, they call it. After we win that, I’ll enroll as a knob in the fall.”

  “There’s been a ton of press on this down here,” Seth said. “VMI—Virginia Military Institute—which is a state-funded academy like the Palisade, was ordered to admit women a couple of years ago. But that ruling got reversed by one of Reagan’s federal judges, so the law in the area is uncertain.”

  “The law isn’t the problem,” Alameda said. “Those fat-assed judges are the problem.”

  “I stand corrected,” Seth said, then looked at me with what looked like envy of her spunk. “Just so you won’t think this is going to be some kind of lark for her, the Confederate Stars and Bars is the Palisade school colors, and the Palisade song is ‘Dixie.’”

  I shook my head in wonder. “Are there any black men there?”

  “Some,” Alameda said. “Mostly athletes. They’re just being used—one of them got shot a while back.”

  “Where?”

  “Right on campus. Had his uniform on and everything.”

  “Who shot him?”

  “No one knows,” she sneered. “Supposedly.”

  “You’re willing to live with that kind of risk?”

  She met my eye. “Got to, to get where I’m going.”

  “Tell Mr. Tanner what happened last week while I was away,” Seth said.

  Alameda twisted her chair so she could speak to me directly. “I’ve been getting dissed ever since I filed my case, mostly from brothers who can’t see why I want to be in the white man’s army anyway. There’s been lots of calls and letters, from black and white both, telling me to give it up and keep my place. But this one was different.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “For one thing, he was polite. Made it sound like a … business proposition, not just a threat; made it seem like giving up my dream was for my own good. Also, he used my name, not some racial shit. Called me Ms. Smallings—formal and all.”

  “When was this?”

  “Last Monday.”

  “At your home?”

  She nodded. “After dinner.”

  “It was a man?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Black or white?”

  “White.”

  “Educated?”

  “Yes.”

  “How old?”

  “Middle, maybe. Hard to say.”

  “Southern?”

  “Yes.”

  “What exactly did he say?”

  “He asked if I was Ms. Smallings. I said I was one of them—there’s a bunch on John’s Island. He asked if I was the one trying to get in the Palisade. I said I was. He asked if I minded talking about it. I asked if he was a news reporter. He said he was just a patriot. That’s what he called himself, a patriot. I told him I was a patriot, too. As my daddy had been before me.”

  Seth smiled. “What did he say to that?”

  “He said he’d heard that was the case. He wasn’t insulting or anything; he said he’d heard my daddy was a fine man.”

  “What next?”

  “Then he asked me to think about whether I wanted to be responsible for destroying an institution of historic importance to the state. Then he said it wasn’t that I wasn’t qualified—said he knew I was intelligent and was obviously a highly motivated individual. But he said the fact is that the Palisade isn’t the place for a woman, even a fine representative of my sex such as myself. He said I surely knew that the traditions that made the Palisade what it was wouldn’t survive if women were allowed to enroll.”

  “What did you say to that?”

  “I told him that wasn’t the way I saw it, that it was time the place lived up to the law. That was when he started to get nasty.”

  “How?”

  “Said if I kept on with my case, I’d be despised by all patriotic Americans. I’d be a traitor to the South and deprived of all opportunity for advancement because of what I’d done.”

  “What was your response?”

  “I said that as far as I could see, I was already being shut out of most opportunities around here, and that the best way I could improve myself was to become an officer in the Women’s Army Corps. And the best way to do that was to go to the Palisade. And I was pretty sure they could learn something from my traditions, too.”

  I suppressed a grin. “And he said?”

  “He said if it was a matter of money, he was sure some arrangement could be made. And if it was a matter of finding a civilian job, he could guarantee that, too. Thirty thousand a year would be no problem, he said. Maybe not in Charleston, but somewhere in the Carolinas. All I had to do was quit.” She paused. “If he’d read my daddy’s letters, he’d have known he was wasting breath.”

  “Anything else in the call?”

  “Nothing particular.”

  “Was there a next time?”

  She closed her eyes; the hands in her lap became twin lumps of coal. “Next time I got this. Yesterday. But the man talking the trash is someone different.”
r />   She reached in her purse and pulled out a tape and handed it to Seth.

  “We don’t need to hear this, Alameda,” Seth said quickly. “I’m sure we’ve got a good idea of what it says.”

  Alameda shook her head. “Might be something that will help you find him.”

  “I doubt it. Really. There’s no need for you to put yourself through this.”

  She was immense with determination. “I brought it for you to hear.”

  Seth hesitated, then sighed, then fit the tape in the deck behind him.

  “This is Field Directive Number Nine from the Purification Brigade of the Alliance for Southern Pride.

  “We know what you are, nigger bitch. And we know what you want. Like all mud women, your highest goal in life is to copulate with white men, to be impregnated by a strong white seed, to strengthen your inferior racial strain with the mighty fibers of the Great White Race. That is your true purpose, not the phony claims of patriotism you spout to the mindless media.

  “Listen closely, mud woman—you will not succeed; if necessary, you will be nullified.

  “The Palisade cadet is the purest product of the racial South, the warrior of the nation, the golden savior of the Southern Way of Life.

  “He will not have his body corrupted by your degenerate sexual appetites.

  “He will not have his health destroyed by the alien diseases that you carry.

  “He will not have his tissue invaded by the worms that inhabit the food you eat.

  “He will not have his strength sapped by the effeminate notions you espouse.

  “He will not have his mind disjointed by the jungle music you are slave to.

  “He will not have his body broken by the narcotic drugs you are addicted to.

  “He will not have the power of his mighty intellect diluted by your light-brained incapacities.

  “God will not allow the Great White Race to be stained by the daughters of Lucifer. Pre-Adamics such as yourself must and will be made to stand separate and apart from the Sons of the South, who are the true and only heirs of Adam. Heed the word of First Corinthians: ‘Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sodomites, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.’