Black Water Rising by Attica Locke

office.
    â€œThey’re not going to strike,” Charlie assures him.
    â€œYou better hope you’re right, Charlie. Rest of the country ain’t doing so hot. You get north of Oklahoma and it’s a whole different story, boy. The rest of the country is on the verge of a goddamned recession. Oil’s the only thing keeping this goddamned city afloat. And we’re down to thirty dollars a barrel as it is. That’s another five from last week. Now you throw a port strike in the mix—”
    â€œOil don’t run through the port, J.T. That’s not your jurisdiction. Those oil tankers up and down the Ship Channel dock on private land. The Coles, Exxon, Shell…they all got their own refinery workers. The longshoremen, the ones unloading little plastic dolls from China or some shit, they don’t have a goddamn thing to do with oil. They can picket all they want to.”
    â€œYou haven’t heard the latest then,” J.T. says, smiling darkly, happy to impart bad news if it means he knows something that Charlie doesn’t. “OCAW’s talking about walking out too…in solidarity.” OCAW, the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union, is one of the largest labor groups in this energy-obsessed city. “They strike too…and this has everything to do with oil.”
    Charlie’s eyes narrow momentarily, then he breaks into a lopsided grin, shaking his head at J.T. as if J.T. had tried to pull a fast one, telling Charlie a tall tale about the Loch Ness monster or Big Foot, something only a fool or a child would believe. “Oh, hell, J.T., look around you. This economy is foolproof,” Charlie says, motioning to the room of wealthy white men in case anyone needs reminding that everything is as it should be. “Do these men look nervous to you?” he asks, pointing in particular to Thomas Cole, a few tables over. “He don’t look nervous to me.” Charlie motions for the cocktail waitress. “Have a drink, J.T. Matter fact, have two drinks. You worry too goddamned much.”
    Â 
    After lunch, Jay tries Stella again, from a pay phone on Richmond. She picks up on the second ring. She hasn’t seen Jimmy’s cousin either, not for a week. He owes her $20, so she doesn’t imagine she’ll be hearing from him anytime soon. She tells Jay to try a lady named Mary Patterson who stays off 288.
    Jay finds a street address for M. Patterson in the phone book.
    He hops in his car and drives back to his side of town, to a neighborhood just south of Sunnyside.
    The house, when he finds it, is green and white with an aged pecan tree shading most of the yard and littering the driveway with broken shells. There’s a woman in her late forties leaning up against the back side of a ’67 Lincoln. She’s wearing a red halter top and house slippers, a pair of shears in her hand. There’s a teenage boy in front of her. He’s perched on top of a blue suitcase that’s sitting upright, a bath towel draped around his shoulders. The woman looks up once as Jay walks up the drive, then goes back to cutting hair, holding the boy’s head still whenever he moves. “I’m not taking no new customers today,” she says matter-of-factly to Jay. “This here’s just a favor I’m doing for his mama.”
    â€œI’m looking for Marshall,” Jay says, meaning Jimmy’scousin.
    She glances at Jay again, his suit and dress shoes.
    â€œMe and Marshall are through.”
    â€œYou know how I can get ahold of him?”
    â€œI ain’t the one to ask,” Mary says, her expression as stoic as if she were reporting on the weather. She picks up a pink can of Afro sheen from the top of the Lincoln’s trunk and sprays the boy’s head, instructing him to cover his eyes. “Marshall was supposed to be home Saturday night, said he’d done a run up the bayou and that he’d be over just as soon as