“She’s at your place?”
“Yeah,” Fats replied. “I had to open the store this morning, so I left Winnie with her.”
“Thanks, man. I owe you big time.” He leaped to his feet, grabbed Fats’s hand, and hugged him.
Fats’s store was on a corner. His apartment was on the same level as Memphis’s, but the entrance was from the opposite side of the building, facing a less-traveled street.
Memphis ran up the stairs calling Winnie’s name and pounded on the door. It flew open with the second blow, and he crouched immediately as joy turned to dread.
Everything he feared crashed down on him with his next few steps. Winnie Morgan lay facedown on the floor in front of her couch. Broken lamps and overturned chairs explained the nature of her encounter. She was a bubbly, sensuous expanse of light in the midst of a storm that shouldn’t have affected her. She had been a warm friend with whom he had probably taken inappropriate liberties. Fats was his friend, too, and he felt the terrible burden of being responsible for her death. He touched her cool skin and withdrew his hand instantly.
Margo Flowers was not there. He hoped that meant she wasn’t dead yet, but death was following Memphis, or so it seemed. Bazemore, Margolis, and now Winnie—his Winnie, Fats’s Winnie. It was Winnie’s death that cut him the deepest, even deeper than Bazemore.
“Why, Memphis? Why they do that to my Winnie? She ain’t never hurt nobody. All she do is try to help people.”
Memphis sat silently and watched the big man cry. Questions posed by his grief were the most difficult imaginable, especially when they were the same questions that plagued his own heart.
Memphis left Fats with his grief because he could offer nothing to assuage it. He returned to his apartment and tried to think, but answers were not forthcoming. He thumbed through the contents of the box for want of something better to do. Margolis was no fool. Written names were dangerous and people were identified only with initials.
G.B. How many delusional women on meprobamate could there be wandering the streets of Harlem? He was sure this was Geraldine. By absconding with these files, he had at least prevented this unfortunate woman from showing up on the cops’ radar. But who were J.M., C.T., V.W., and thirty or forty other files belonging to people who had been treated by this street doctor?
Frustration made him push the files aside. Even though he knew Ben Wallace had set this entire thing in motion, he couldn’t connect all of the dots. Wallace was insulated, protected, and untouchable. Some things had never made sense, so he returned to the place where it all began, The Cotton Club, where Margo Flowers and Bobby Bazemore’s lives had become entangled.
“You’re getting to be a regular, aren’t you?” Nick Genovese asked when he spotted Memphis.
“Not really,” Memphis replied. “Is this early or late for you?” he asked, observing that Genovese was still wearing a tuxedo at eleven A.M.
“Didn’t have much choice. Had to get Marlene back for rehearsal.”
“You know a lot of these girls, don’t you?”
“I’ve met a few,” Genovese replied with a smug nonchalance. “These colored girls are different. I find them ... interesting, stimulating,” he added with a smile. “You have no idea what they can do to a man. Don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t marry one of ’em, but they have their charm.” His face became increasingly animated with excitement as he spoke.
“You know Margo Flowers?” Memphis asked.
“Margo Flowers,” Genovese laughed. “Hell, I wouldn’t fool around with her.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The girl’s hot as an atom bomb.”
“I thought you liked ’em hot.”
“Not that kind of hot. I mean hot like she’ll vaporize your johnson if you put it in the right place.”
“How do you know that?”
Genovese shrugged without replying.
“I heard she’s got a rich boyfriend,” Memphis said.
“How do you know that?” Genovese smirked. “Those colored friends of yours? I hear they treat you like you’re one of them.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Memphis replied.
“I guess you’ve got a point because I also heard somebody wanted you dead.”
“What?”
There was a sudden change in the seriousness in Genovese’s face. Memphis almost could have forgotten who he was during the casual banter about women. This mask was a reminder of what had made him so threatening—a soldier in a dark army that had more influence in the city than most were willing to admit.
“Who?”
“I didn’t ask,” Genovese answered casually.
“Why would somebody want to kill me?”
“You just said it. Margo Flowers.”
“I was just looking for her for the cops,” Memphis explained.
“What cops?” Genovese laughed. “Besides, I heard you had her.”
“Look, Nick ...”
“Hey, I like you, Memphis. We’re friends, aren’t we? You don’t have to lie to me. I got no interest in this except for its comedy value. I do hate seeing my friends get in over their heads. I could help you out if you want.”
“You know where she is now?”
“I hear the cops have her now,” he replied, making quotation marks with his fingers when he said cops.
“What do you know about this?” Memphis asked pointedly.
“Nothing that you don’t know, but tell me something. Why is this so important to you?”
“I’ve got a dead friend, and everywhere I look for an answer leads someplace that gets darker and darker. Everybody has to make a stand somewhere, sometime. Somebody has to pay. If they don’t, what are they gonna be brave enough to try next time?”
Genovese took a deep breath and sighed. “I can understand that,” he said. “Good men make bad choices sometimes. I’ve made a few myself. I’ve got to go, but let me give you a little advice that might help you stay alive. Those so-called cops—if you don’t find them, they’ll find you. The world hasn’t changed in ten thousand years. It’s the same story. It’s about wanting things, fighting to get them, and killing to protect them. It’s the way of the world. Even God killed his enemies, and who am I to question the wisdom of God?”
Memphis sat there for some time after Genovese had gone, trying to digest the convoluted thought ostensibly being disguised as philosophy. Nick Genovese had told him something important. He was sure of it. Now he had to figure out what it was.
“What are you doing here?” Susie Momon asked, watching Memphis make his way past the dozens of backstage workers who were beginning the organized chaos that gave The Cotton Club its polished image.
“Looking for you,” he replied.
She watched intently as he came closer.
“It’s been a long time since a young man came looking for me,” she said, offering a coquettish smirk. “Especially one that looks like you.” Her eyes slid down his body and back up again.
“Did you see who gave Bazemore the message to give Margo Flowers?”
“I—” she began.
“Before you answer that,” Memphis interrupted. “Why would somebody pick a dumb drunk like Bazemore to deliver a message for them?”
“How the hell would I know? He had been telling people he was in the band. I guess somebody believed him.”
“When did The Cotton Club start letting drunk Negroes stagger around the floor rubbing shoulders with the good white folks?”
Susie didn’t reply. She simply stood there staring at him stoically.
“You know what I think, Susie? I think Bazemore talked his way back here just like you said. I think he went through his drunken whining about being in love with Margo Flowers and somebody who was supposed to give her a message decided to let him deliver it. You see, Margo thought the bullets that killed Bazemore were meant for her. I think whoever was supposed to deliver that message knew there was a hit out for Margo. If that person
had been seen delivering a letter to Margo just before she was killed, it could look a bit suspicious. Or maybe it was a matter of conscience; it takes moxie to look a friend in the eye and deliver what you know is a death sentence.”
“What are you trying to say, Memphis?” She asked folding her arms across her chest.
“If somebody wanted to get a message to one of The Cotton Club’s dancers, who would they most likely ask to pass that message, Bazemore or somebody like you?”
“Get the hell off me, Memphis!”
She turned and walked away.
Memphis raised his voice. “They snatched Margo out of Fats’s place and killed his wife.”
The flurry of backstage activity abruptly stopped as Memphis’s outburst got their attention. Susie kept walking.
“Who’s next? What do you know?”
Susie froze momentarily and then turned to face him, her eyes darting among the nearby workers who were watching them.
“Not here,” she said, leading him to a small off-stage storage room that apparently served as a makeshift office.
“I tried to tell that girl that there are things in this world that aren’t for us. These young people, they think the world has changed. A girl like her can’t do what she did and not pay for it.”
“And you were supposed to help make her pay?” he asked.
“I did what I was told.”
“And that includes being an accessory to murder?”
“She didn’t get killed.”
“But Bazemore did, or did you decide that he didn’t matter?”
“Don’t try to judge me, Memphis. Not you. I’m trying to survive. These people can take your life away with the snap of a finger. I got rent to pay, children to feed. Where else am I going to get a job like this? How many places do you see hiring colored women to do what I’m doing and paying the kind of money I’m making? I don’t want to hear nothin’ from you. You go where you want to go, Memphis. You walk through any door you want ’cause everybody thinks you’re white. If you ain’t gonna get one of your white friends to give me a job, don’t judge me for what I’ve done.”
“What’s this about, Susie? Who wants to kill Margo Flowers?”
“Leave it alone, Memphis. Leave it alone. Please!”
“You know I won’t.”
She fidgeted, hiding behind a reluctant attitude. “Margo Flowers had bad blood.”
She looked away with a distasteful frown as she spoke the words, and once she had uttered them, the rest tumbled out unrestrained.
“Dr. Margolis came here to treat her, but she wouldn’t let him. She thought she was too good for that. She wanted a real doctor so she went to one, and he reported her to the Health Department. You know how they are. They talk to everybody—everybody you screwed and everybody who screwed anybody you screwed.”
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered. Margolis was in this too. Memphis knew where it was leading now.
Susie studied his face as if looking for direction.
“You couldn’t tell that girl nothin’,” she continued. “You can’t mess with these kinds of people.”
Memphis turned toward the door, shaking his head in an unconscious acknowledgement of the sad motivation for the death of his friend.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“I don’t know. You got the skin to find out. Why don’t you ask Ben Wallace?”
Now he knew who the V.W. was in Margolis’s file. Violet Wallace. Ben Wallace had probably paid Margolis to treat his wife for the bad blood he had contracted from Margo Flowers and passed to his wife. His wife had kicked him out of the house, but it was still contained. The knowledge remained confined to a small group, each of whom had their own reasons to keep the information secret. But Margo had made a stupid move, and once she had been reported to the public health department, their relentless investigation of syphilis contacts threatened to spread Ben Wallace’s indiscretion to a sufficient number of ears such that the truth might escape to the outside world. It could cause devastating political damage to the next mayor of New York City. Bazemore had been an inadvertent victim in the systematic elimination of anyone who could confirm the truth of what Ben Wallace had done. His wife knew the truth, but an estranged husband was more valuable to her as mayor than a husband who had simply been disgraced.
A wide body blocked his way as he approached the stage door. Memphis reached for his gun, but pressure in the small of his back made him stop.
“You don’t know when to leave well enough alone,” the man at his rear growled as he relieved him of his weapon.
He recognized the men as the “cops” he had encountered previously. Memphis turned in time to see Susie watching in the distance just as the men forced him out of the rear door.
It probably wasn’t dark, but it could have been. The back of Memphis’s head throbbed. The last thing he remembered was being blindfolded and shoved into the backseat of a car behind The Cotton Club. He had been groggy and unsteady when he was being dragged up some steps. When the blindfold was removed, he found himself in a strange shaded room. He decided he was still in Harlem. It sounded like Harlem. It smelled like Harlem.
He rubbed his head and sat up. Margo Flowers lay on a decrepit couch with her ankles, wrists, and mouth bound with tape. One of the “cops” sat in a chair next to her, and the other one sat at a table near the door.
“Well, isn’t this nice?” Memphis observed sarcastically. “What are you boys waiting for? I figured you would have done the girl by now.”
“Don’t be so anxious, sport,” the man near the door replied. “All things at their appointed time.”
“So I guess that means you’re gonna have to do me, too, so the big man’s secret won’t get out.” Memphis’s eyes desperately sought for some way out as he needled his captors.
“Put some tape on that idiot’s mouth so I don’t have to listen to him,” his captor retorted.
“You’re waiting for Ben Wallace, aren’t you,” Memphis persisted. “You boys aren’t smart enough to do all of this on your own, are you? You accidentally killed Bazemore trying to get this girl. Then you killed Fats’s wife the next time you tried to snatch her, and now you’ve got me. I’ll bet you Wallace ain’t got the heart for all of this killing. He probably thought he could knock off the girl without much trouble, but the grocer’s wife ... and I forgot about the doctor.”
“What doctor?” the other man asked as he began to tape Memphis’s wrists.
A knock at the door interrupted them.
The man nearest the door opened it cautiously with his pistol ready.
A high-pitched, ear-splitting female scream tore through the room. The man with the tape turned startled eyes toward the door. His partner stepped slowly backwards.
“What the hell is that, Mike?” he asked, confused, as his partner took another wobbly step.
“What the hell ...”
Mike’s right hand drifted slowly to his side until a rhythmic jerk allowed his gun to fall to the floor. He turned slightly, giving Memphis a partial view of what was in front of him before collapsing onto his back.
Memphis crashed into his remaining captor, knocking him to the floor. His pistol went sliding under the couch. Memphis then looped the tape that loosely restrained his wrists around the man’s neck and twisted it. The man gurgled and jerked spasmodically. It seemed to go on forever, but Memphis never released the pressure until he was completely limp. When it was over he collapsed against the wall, exhausted more emotionally than physically.
His eyes turned back toward the door, and the woman was still standing there holding a bloody knife. Geraldine had plunged the butcher’s knife into the man’s belly.
“You want to give me the knife, baby?” Memphis asked softly, still unable to decipher any reasoning behind the wild look in her eyes.
“You all right, Memphis?” She asked in a surprisingly calm and rational voice.
“Yeah, I’m all right, baby,” he replied as if speaking to
a child.
“I saw them bring you up here, Memphis. I could tell they were hurting you.”
“It’s all right, baby. They didn’t hurt me too bad. You saved me.”
A small smile stole into her face, and he knew she was with him.
“We’ve got to get you out of here,” he said, and she allowed him to slip the knife from her hand. “Geraldine ...” He began to ask a question, then noticed there was dried blood on the knife’s handle. He looked into her vacuous eyes and sighed. “What the hell,” he muttered. What did it matter anyway?
He freed Margo and guided the women through the alley and down a crowded street where they melted unnoticed into the bustling sea of humanity.
The soft and sweet strains of the Ellington orchestra persuaded elegant bodies to press together and sway to familiar music. Travis Redman walked across the dance floor casting a flirtatious eye at young women, many of whom seemed eager and receptive. He found Nicholas Genovese at his usual table with three beautiful women doting over him.
“Memphis Red,” he roared over the music and gestured for him to sit. “This is my friend Memphis Red, ladies,” he said to the women. “Don’t get your hopes up. He doesn’t like white women. The blacker the berry the sweeter the juice, eh, Memphis?”
“More or less.” Memphis smiled. “Terrible thing about Ben Wallace, wasn’t it?” He asked assuming Nick would know about Wallace’s fatal, self-inflicted gunshot wound over the past weekend.
“Why don’t you girls go find something to do?” Nick said with a wave of his hand.
“Accidents happen,” he added after they had left.
“You sure it was an accident?” Memphis asked.
“More or less,” Nick replied with a smile. “He was a crappy guy, not the sort a man can count on. If a man can’t manage his own business, how can he manage a city?”
“I didn’t think you were into politics.”
“I have interests, Memphis. La Guardia’s a better mayor for my interests.”
“I don’t suppose you’d have any reason to tell me if you’d made any moves to protect your interests.”
Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine 01/01/11 Page 18