The King of Ragtime

by Larry Karp

  “You’ve been so very successful, writing popular tunes, and musical theater as well. But you’ve been saying for a couple of years now that you’re going to write a ragtime opera with the story set in the south. ‘Syncopation for peoples’ hearts as well as for their toes?’. Is that an accurate quote? Theatre Magazine?”

  Berlin swiped his hands against the sides of his pants legs. “You’ve been reading about me.”

  “Oh yes. I always try to know my subjects as well as I can before I interview them. How are you coming along with that opera?”

  Berlin thought frantically. This society-broad scribbler knew better than he did what he’d said to other reporters, and the last thing he wanted to do was contradict himself. “An opera…now that is a project. But in the meanwhile, a man needs to make a living. I work at the opera when I’ve got a few minutes here and there. Not saying I wouldn’t like to, but I can’t just up and take off a year or two to turn out—”

  Mrs. Allred smiled. “Donizetti wrote Don Pasquale in two weeks.”

  “Oh sure. Sure he did! But Donizetti was studying music from before he even got outa diapers. When the damn guinea was just a kid, he was playing a violin in front of fancy people. When I was a kid, I was waiting tables at Nigger Mike’s, singing dirty songs so they’d throw nickels at me”.

  Berlin picked up on the alarm in the woman’s eyes as she moved a step away from him. He muscled Izzy aside, and said quietly, “I think things were a little bit different for a composer those days.”

  “Oh, Mr. Berlin.” Never mind her well-applied face powder, Mrs. Allred’s name described her complexion. “I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just that your songs and shows are so popular and so wonderful, you’ve got us all curious over your opera. I’m just dying to hear it.”

  “Well, you will, you can count on it.” Delivered through the most ingratiating smile in his repertoire. “Here, let me show you something.” He led his guest past the piano to an inbuilt bookshelf, filled with every piece of European literature Robert Miras could find, all in the classiest leather bindings. On the lowest shelf, waist-high, sat two Swiss music boxes. Berlin opened one, a fair-sized rectangular case with an impressive inlay of brass, ebony and enamel on the lid and across the front. He turned the oval-headed key that stuck out from the left side of the box, then pushed a small lever beneath the key. Music began to play. Berlin pointed to the little brass plate inside the opened lid. “See, now, Mrs. Allred, this is ‘La Donna Mobile.’” He pronounced the last word, ‘Mo-beel.’ “By Verdi, from his opera, Rigoletto. Nice, huh?”

  Mrs. Allred nodded. “Lovely. Just exquisite.”

  When the music stopped, Berlin said, “Okay, now,” and opened the second box, a much smaller one with a decal featuring musical instruments on its lid. The mechanism inside was about one-third the size of the first one, and when Berlin started the music playing, Mrs. Allred fought to keep her feelings off her face. The tone of the first machine had been rich and full, the musical arrangement gorgeously ornamented, but this box spoke in painfully strident tones as it played a pedestrian arrangement of some popular song she’d heard a few years back. The tune finished, but Berlin let the box play on. A few bars into the second melody, Mrs. Allred said, “Oh…why, that’s your song, Mr. Berlin, isn’t it?”

  If Berlin had been a cat and Mrs. Allred a canary, it would have been all over right then. “Sure, that’s my tune, but so was the first one. That was ‘When the Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam,’ and now you’re hearing ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band.’ See, the other box was made in Eighteen-sixty-something, back when Verdi’s music was popular. This one was made just a couple of years ago, so it’s got my music on it. You gotta give the people what they want. Back then it was Verdi, now it’s Berlin. So, yeah, one of these years, you’re definitely going to hear my opera. And I’ll tell you something else. If a syncopated opera isn’t high-class enough for the Met, I’ll take it over to Broadway and call it a musical play in syncopation. And everybody except maybe the Juilliard profs’ll love it. I’ll be sure and send you comps for that, too. I don’t forget.”

  The woman smiled, closed her pad, slipped it into her purse. She extended a gloved hand. “I’m sure I’ll be applauding madly, Mr. Berlin, thank you. And thank you for taking the time to talk with me.”

  “No trouble. No trouble at all. My pleasure.”

  As Berlin opened the door to the hall for Mrs. Allred, he saw himself reflected in the reporter’s eyes: a sawed-off runt, swarthy, scrawny as a starved cat, all got up in an expensive dark blue summer-worsted suit, sharp lapels, vest to match, perfect tie, spotless neckband starched to the limit. Shoes shined, clean-shaved, not a trace of five-o’clock shadow. Dark, wavy hair pomaded to the nines, cleanly parted on the left. But with his grand piano in his luxury apartment facing Riverside Drive, Mr. Irving Berlin was just a brassy little…what was that French word he knew they called him behind his back? Parvenu, yeah. He could call himself Irving Berlin till he was blue in the face, but to people like Mrs. Allred, he’d still and always be Izzy Baline, a cheeky little kike from down on Cherry Street. A parvenu. She’d probably crucify him in the article.

  She didn’t, though. Never even thought to do it. As she walked slowly back to her office, she felt the article start to grow in her head; she tried to encourage it. Yes, it was like trying to persuade a bashful child to come forward—why, what a marvelous thought. Such a clever man, Irving Berlin, such a talented young songwriter. So sad, though, and strange. Standing in his doorway as he said goodbye, he’d seemed positively forlorn, looking for all the world like the timorous child holding the key to his own song. She’d wanted to put her arms around him and tell him not to worry, he’d get it right, everything would be fine. But she’d hurried away down the hall, heat radiating from her face, feeling as ashamed as if she’d abandoned a lost and frightened little boy.

  Chapter Four

  Harlem

  Tuesday, August 22

  About 7pm

  Lottie heard the pounding at the door from all the way back in the kitchen. Sure trouble, that kind of knock. She sighed, turned off the burner under the cornmeal pancake, hurried through the living room into the hall, opened the door a crack—whereupon her husband and that Martin kid burst through. One look at their faces, and Lottie slammed the door shut and threw the bolt. Oh yes, trouble, all right, big trouble. “Somebody comin’ right up after you?”

  Joplin and Martin, four wide eyes, two open mouths, two heaving chests, stared at each other. Finally, Martin spoke. “Not for a little while, anyway.”

  Lottie looked Joplin up and down. Aside from his shirt being on inside-out, and those dark stains on his clothes, he seemed all right, not any more worked up than Martin. She pointed toward the living room. “Come on inside and sit down, the both of you, and tell me what’s goin’ on”.

  Martin scratched here, twitched there, as he told a short version of the story. Joplin sat and looked idly around the room. Like he don’t even know what happened, Lottie thought. Sweet Jesus, where is this all gonna end?

  “I figured I’d better get him up here,” Martin said. “I didn’t know where else to go with him.”

  Lottie nodded. “No good havin’ an anchor around your ankle when you’re tryin’ to run from the police.” She stood. “You just sit there a minute, the two a you. I be right back.” She walked out into the hall.

  Not three minutes later, she was back. “All right, now.” She took Joplin by the elbow, led him into the bedroom. A few minutes later, they were back, Joplin wearing clean clothing, not a trace of blood on him. Lottie motioned the men to the fire escape. “Best nobody sees us goin’ out the front door.” They all scrambled onto the platform, then Lottie pulled the window shut behind them and led her charges down the ladder to the alley below.

  ***

  Nell Stanley turned a very hard eye onto the trio as they scampered into her apartment, then ushered them
through the little vestibule and into the living room. Joplin and Martin sat on the sofa, while Lottie lowered herself into a straight-backed chair. Nell pointed at an overstuffed armchair. “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable there?”

  One side of Lottie’s mouth curled upward. “Prob’ly so. But sometimes it ain’t the best idea for a person to get too comfortable.”

  Nell nodded. She picked up a wooden tray from the table in front of the sofa, gave each of her guests a glass of iced tea, then settled into the armchair.

  Lottie spoke first. “Thanks for lettin’ us come by here, Nell. Martin did right, bringin’ Scott home, but I knew he couldn’t stay there. Anybody wants to go lookin’ for him, that’s the first stop they gonna make.”

  “That and my family’s apartment,” said Martin, then squirmed as Nell turned her gaze onto him.

  “Tell her, boy,” Lottie said. “Tell the lady what-all happened.”

  Nell leaned forward to take in Martin’s every word. When he finished his story, she said, “Well, I’m sure the police would have looked on the two of you with a good deal of suspicion. But now, when they catch up with you, they’re going to be even more suspicious. Particularly of you, Martin—it was your office and your friend. What were you and…what was his name?”

  “Sid. Sid Altman.”

  “Fine. What were you and Sid doing there after hours, anyway?”

  “Putting in overtime.”

  Nell started to tell the young man this was no time to crack wise, but he wasn’t through talking. “I spent most of yesterday going through some numbers for Mr. Tabor, he’s the office manager. They proved one of the partners, Mr. Waterson, is skimming profits. It’s no secret he plays the horses, so maybe he needs to pay off some losses. But that made me fall behind on this month’s sales figures, and Mr. Tabor said I had to get them caught up tonight. Sid usually comes by on his way home from work, and we go the rest of the way together—us and Birdie, my girlfriend, she works at W, B, and S too. But her old man makes a fuss when she’s late getting home, so she left on time, and Sid waited for me.”

  “And you went to the bathroom, came back, and found Mr. Joplin there holding…” Nell looked at the razor Martin had set on the piano bench next to Stark. “I don’t see anything unusual there—no initials, no carvings. Just a plain black razor.”

  “Mine’s back home—I can show you. In the bathroom, where it belongs.”

  The first words out of Joplin. Nell had thought he wasn’t paying the least attention, that his mind was off somewhere, trying to put together a line of music. She waved off his concern. “No need, Scott. I wouldn’t believe for a minute that you killed that young man.”

  Martin wondered whether there was anything to the fact that Nell didn’t say, ‘either of you’.

  “Well, of course not, of course I didn’t.” Joplin spat words like bullets from a machine-gun, punctuating them with jabs of a shaking index finger. “I went down there because Irving Berlin called me. I think he wants to publish If. I should have stayed there and found him. I should not have let Martin take me away.”

  Nell felt pity mixed with annoyance. Joplin, all his life such a reserved, dignified man, was operating at the level of a child, and not a very bright child at that. She felt a fury at the disease that was turning that marvelous brain into mush, then told herself she was being as irrational as Joplin. The situation was as it was, and her job was simply to do what she could to help. As if from a distance away, she heard Martin say, “…never knew Mr. Joplin took his music to Mr. Berlin. We were supposed to go together.”

  Nell held up a hand, palm out, a patrolman at a conversational corner with heavy traffic on all sides. “All right, Martin, wait with that for now.” She turned to Lottie. “We need to get the two of them somewhere safe while we try to figure out what’s going on, but neither one of us can keep them. The police will certainly visit you, and they’ll probably find out how close I’ve been to you and Scott, and come here, too. I’m going to call Joe Lamb. I’ll bet he’ll put them up.”

  “Hmmmm.” Lottie’s uncertainty showed all over her face. “Ain’t seen Joe in near a year, now. Used to be, there was always a bunch of Scott’s friends stoppin’ by, Sam Patterson, Bob Slater, Wilbur Sweatman, Will Spiller…so many of them. Joe sometimes came up and played, and he would wow ‘em—a white man writin’ and playin’ real colored rags like he did. But the way Scott locks himself up these days…you think Joe’ll be willin’ to do that?”

  “I’m sure he will. He adores Scott. Every time I see him, he has a new story to tell me about some way Scott has helped him.” Tight little smile. “And it won’t hurt that Dad published three of Joe’s rags last year, one so far this year, and has another one coming up in November.”

  “But ain’t the cops gonna go talk to him, too?”

  Nell shook her head. “I don’t think so. There’s nothing to connect him to Scott. He’s just a young white man who leaves Brooklyn to get to his job by nine, then comes home at five o’clock to his wife and baby. He doesn’t play in clubs, doesn’t even go to them. Yes, he does write ragtime that Dad publishes, but the police aren’t going to pick his name off a sheet music cover and go after him.”

  “Mmmm.” Lottie rubbed at her chin, then snickered. “Nell, if they took women in the army, I expect you’d be a general in nothing flat.”

  On her way to the phone on the little table between the sofa and the armchair, Nell said, “I learned at the feet of the master.” Then she thumbed through a small book, held it open with one hand while she took the earpiece off the hook and pressed it to the side of her head. “Yes, operator. Please give me Prospect 4025… Joe, hello, this is Nell Stanley. I’ve got a little problem and need your help.”

  ***

  Bartlett Tabor wondered whether these goddamn cops were ever going to leave. His evening was shot. He’d had to call and cancel his date, a real looker, and she’d made it clear enough that she thought he was feeding her a line, and there’d be icicles in hell before she’d ever go out with him again. When these flatfeet were done, he’d grab a quick dinner, alone, then go back to his place and hit the sack, alone. Damn!

  “Mr. Tabor…”

  Tabor blinked himself back. The older man, an olive-skinned fireplug in a dark brown suit, fedora to match, who’d introduced himself as Detective Niccolo Ciccone, stood over him. “Yes?”

  “I just want to be sure I have this straight. You were here tonight because…?”

  The dick had the face of a beagle in mourning. Tabor looked up at his spare tire and rounded shoulders, then blew a windy sigh. “I’ve told you—”

  “Tell me again.” Fatso smirked. “Humor me.”

  If the son of a bitch wasn’t a cop, Tabor thought, I’d humor him, all right. With my knee to his nuts. “Okay, Detective. Niederhoffer, the bookkeeper, was behind in his work, and we needed to get the month’s figures straight. So I made the kid stay overtime. At five o’clock, when the office closed for the day, I went up to Mr. Berlin’s, on Seventy-second Street, to give him some papers. He wasn’t in, so I left them with Miras, his valet. It was still early, so I stopped at Houlihan’s, on Broadway, and had a couple of drinks. Then I figured I’d better make sure Niederhoffer had the work done, so I went on back to the office. I got there just about six twenty-five. There was a man on the floor in Bookkeeping, blood all over everything. I didn’t see or hear anybody in the office, but when I went over to the window, I saw Niederhoffer going out the door and down the street. I recognized him by that red hair of his. He had a colored man with him, Scott Joplin, we’ve published some of his music. It looked like Joplin was having some trouble walking, and Niederhoffer was hustling him along. Then I grabbed the phone and called you. That’s it.”

  The detective pursed his lips. “Okay. You don’t happen to have this Niederhoffer’s address, do you? Or Joplin’s?”

  “Niederhoffer’s, yes, it’s out at the front desk. I’ll get it for you. Jopl
in lives someplace up in Harlem.”

  The young cop in uniform, an angular beanpole Ciccone had introduced as Patrolman Flaherty, took off his cap, releasing a head of thick blond hair that looked to Tabor like it had been cut with a lawnmower. The cop wiped his forehead and laughed. “Great. We can just go out and look for a nigger in Harlem.”

  The plainclothes detective shot Flaherty a look that got the patrolman’s cap back onto his head in a hurry, straightened his spine, and closed his mouth.

  Tabor smiled privately, then started to walk to the front desk, but Ciccone called him back. “One other thing. Do Mr. Waterson, Mr. Berlin, or Mr. Snyder know about what happened here?

  Tabor shook his head. “Mr. Waterson left a little early today. It’s been pretty hot, and he was starting to look thirsty.”

  Patrolman Flaherty guffawed. Ciccone confined himself to a polite smile.

  “And Mr. Berlin’s been mostly working at home lately. That’s where he does his composing, and he’s got a new musical opening in a couple of months. He just comes in now and then to check up on things.”

  “When’s the last time he came in to check on something?”

  “Earlier in the afternoon.”

  “What time did he leave?”

  Tabor paused, then shrugged. “I’m not sure. I didn’t see him go out.”

  “And he wasn’t at his home a little after five, when you went to see him.”

  “No. His valet said he was working someplace with Victor Herbert on their musical.”

  Ciccone scribbled on his notepad. “All right. How about Mr. Snyder.”

  “He’s been away all week, on vacation. Atlantic City.”

  Ciccone nodded. “Okay. Would you please get me their addresses too.”

  Tabor walked off, down the hallway. He was back in just a couple of minutes, holding a piece of yellow lined paper to the detective. Ciccone scanned the list. “Niederhoffer…fifteen eighty-two Madison…okay. Waterson…Berlin…Snyder…” He looked up to Tabor. “Who’s this other person? ‘Birdie Kuminsky?”