Shuttered for years from the looks of it. “The Theater Where People See Cinema.” Giving the hard sell there. The SRO was right across the street.
He had to get the briefcase out of his safe, whatever it was. Carney had considered jimmying the cheap lock but he was too good at imagining outlandish contents: heroin, gold bullion, strontium 90 in a lead case with Russian lettering. Holding it one night was enough to fulfill his family obligation. Freddie had to get his ass downtown and take it away and not come back until the heat was off.
What kind of loony bird rips off Chink Montague? Or rips off someone with enough juice to mobilize Chink on his behalf? It was Freddie who’d put Carney on the mobster’s map with the Theresa job, and now he had returned him to Chink’s attention by fucking up once more. I didn’t mean to get you in trouble. That was fine when they were kids. Adult trouble was more permanent than Aunt Millie smacking you with a hairbrush or his father taking off his belt. He could still make it downtown to Union Square to check out the Bella Fontaines if he wrapped it up quick.
There had been no reason for Carney to notice the west side of Broadway and 171st, all those times he came to the Imperial. Cafeteria, tobacco store, hair salon, the insignificant front door to 4043 Broadway. It was called the Eagleton—like his childhood home, it was a building that didn’t deserve a name, despite the ambitions of its architects. Fate has a way of striking places with lightning so that you can never see them the same way again. Carney reached for the knob—in raw spots the metal door was gray beneath the red paint—as a short white man with a long, gnarled beard barged out of the SRO, one hand holding his brown trilby fast to his head.
“Watch it,” the man said, scowling. A mottled canvas bag was slung over his shoulder and his elbows sawed back and forth as he zoomed toward the subway. Carney stepped inside the lobby. A thin, inexplicable layer of grease covered the lobby’s chartreuse walls, as if he were exploring a five-story chicken place. The front desk was empty. Carney heard a toilet flush; he beat it up to the second floor before the clerk returned.
There were six rooms on every floor. On the second floor, one resident watched The Andy Griffith Show at high volume, the next one blasted a Ford commercial, and a third man merely screamed about “them.”
Room 306 was silent. A breeze sucked in the door an inch. Through the crack, the mirror leaning against the wall relinquished few details. “Freddie? Linus?” He pushed in.
They had only been there a few days, but his cousin and his pal had made a nest. The sheets on the twin bed were a grimy bundle, and a makeshift bed on the floor had been gathered from frayed couch cushions. In one corner Freddie and Linus had built a trash pile of soda bottles, beer cans, and grease-soaked wax paper; flies zagged above it in deranged loops. They’d lugged their clothing uptown in pillowcases, which sat half deflated by the window.
“Freddie?” Carney said, loudly, to alert anyone in the bathroom before he tried the door.
But Linus was beyond listening. He was scrunched in the bathtub in an odd position, on his side, as if he had been trying to break through the cast iron with his back. The overdose had turned his lips and fingertips blue. Against the white of the bathtub, dingy as it was, they appeared purplish.
THREE
Elizabeth threw off the sheet and walked to the bathroom. “You’re keeping me up with all the sighing.”
Carney sighed all evening and into the wee hours, often mouthing “Mother of fucking God” as a chaser. He regretted his jokes about Freddie’s friend the last few years, the beatnik putdowns and Bowery bum comments. Linus’s family had locked him up in the nuthouse, doctors had tied him down and sent a million volts through him. He slunk into a drug hole, where he died. Carney’s derision had been a way to let off steam, to express disappointment in and worry over his cousin. Now he thought about the poor man and his last view of earth: the groove of rust worn from the tub’s leaky faucet, like the ooze from a wound.
Did you go quick when you died like that? He hoped it had been quick.
Had Freddie returned from a chicken run, or scoring, and discovered his friend’s corpse, or had he awakened to the scene in the bathroom? He must be scared. And sad. On top of his fears about blowback from whatever job he and Linus had pulled. An unlocked door in a building like the Eagleton, ajar—they would have called the cops by now. Some down-and-outer pops in to see if anything’s lying unattended and gets a big surprise.
No one could identify Carney except the man he bumped into at the Eagleton’s entrance, the crotchety dude with the beard. What does that man do when he returns and sees the cops milling about, or hears about it in a few days—speak up or keep it zipped?
When Elizabeth returned she slipped her arm around his chest and pressed her face to his neck. “You’re going to kill them tomorrow.”
“It’s a lot.” When he tried to focus on the Bella Fontaine meeting, orchestrate the visit, the floor gave way and he tumbled into room 306 again, hand reaching for the bathroom door.
“You’ll be making history.” They chuckled.
“I don’t think First Negro to Become an Authorized Dealer for Bella Fontaine is going to make the papers. It’s not like I’m doing a million things with a peanut.”
“What?”
“George Washington Carver.”
“George Washington Carver. Just because nobody knows doesn’t mean it’s not happening. You worked your butt off.”
“Trying to keep up with my wife,” Carney said. He squeezed her hand. Black Star Travel had opened two satellite offices in the last year. With Dale Baker, the president of the firm, spending half the year in Chicago and Miami, someone had to run the home office—and Elizabeth got the nod. It was more money and fewer hours once they staffed up, which the kids liked, and so did Carney.
Elizabeth brought home enough that from time to time Carney considered dropping the fencing line altogether. They didn’t need the cash, not really; any sober analysis rendered the side untenable. They certainly didn’t need the risk. With Freddie drawing him into crooked complexities once more, walking away made more sense than ever.
“I’ll try to sleep,” he said. And was immediately embroiled again. Let’s say Freddie comes for his briefcase and moves to Timbuktu. Someone’s watching the furniture store, they report to Chink that Freddie came by and Carney didn’t speak up. He suffered the momentary image of a torture chamber, basement of the laundromat: splash a bucket of water on the floor to wash the blood down the drain. Meet Freddie for a handoff somewhere else? What if he’s being tailed? Back in the basement chamber, naked bulb swinging over a table covered by sharp, gleaming tools, cartoon-colored cartons of detergent piled to the ceiling. Carney was in a fix.
Carney was about to fall asleep when it occurred to him that Linus’s overdose was not an accident. “Mother of fucking God,” he said, out loud this time. Elizabeth put a pillow over her head.
Where was Freddie?
He grabbed a blanket from the linen closet and spent the rest of the night on the couch.
* * *
* * *
For all the worry that the man from Bella Fontaine might cancel, that the protests might prevent it from proceeding, the meeting was on. Events had left little time to prepare. Carney had Rusty and Marie arrive a half hour early for a run-through. Rusty delivered his Argent and Collins-Hathaway pitches while Carney listened for holes. Mr. Gibbs doubtless maintained a mental conception of how a Negro furniture salesman walked and talked, of what the store would look like; he and Rusty would show him that he didn’t know shit. He was ashamed at his relief that six years in the city had sawed the edges off Rusty’s hick accent.
Marie had stopped bringing in baked goods last year, but this morning she blessed the store with a tray of caramel apple cookies topped with chopped pecans, “like they eat out there, or so I’ve heard.” Out there meaning Nebraska. If this was th
e kind of treat they went for, Carney thought, who knew what other primitive customs the whites out there claimed as their own?
Carney tidied his desk and stiffened when Linus’s cold, contorted body appeared in his mind. He shook it off. He’d seen a dead body in this very room—Miami Joe. But the bathtub—it reminded Carney of a picture of a womb, the way Linus was curled up and pressed against the cast-iron sides. “You guys ready?” Carney called out.
Marie gave him a thumbs-up, like an ace pilot in a war movie.
Mr. Gibbs arrived at five minutes after eleven.
He was younger than Carney had imagined, slim-built, freckled in a band across his nose and cheeks. Gibbs kept his brown hair in a close, hayseed crew cut, and he wore a white short-sleeve shirt with a dark brown tie. He gripped a black satchel in his right hand and hooked his seersucker jacket over his back with his other hand.
Carney welcomed him. “Hot enough for you? How’s the weather in Omaha?” In the back of the store, Rusty leaned over Marie’s desk, the two of them engaged in a fake conversation.
Mr. Gibbs smiled and looked over his shoulder at 125th Street. Carney wagered he’d seen more Negroes in five minutes than he had in his whole life.
The sales rep had a friendly manner as he recounted the dull details of his semiannual trip out East. A simple phone call took care of most client relations, he said, but it was good to put names to faces. “You know how it is, Mr. Carney.”
“Call me Ray.”
“Nice operation you got here,” Mr. Gibbs said. It was paramount to visit prospective dealers in person, for obvious reasons. For the right fit. Bella Fontaine had a corporate personality; sometimes certain personalities didn’t mix as well as others. And of course there was the problem of geography, he said. You didn’t want to turn local establishments into rivals so that they’re cannibalizing one another’s business.
The euphemisms made Carney dizzy and he’d have to check with Elizabeth over whether the cannibal thing was a slur.
Mr. Gibbs asked how long he had been in business and Carney gave him the lowdown. The seed money had been a “dedicated savings plan,” instead of a bunch of his father’s stolen money hidden in an old tire. The importance of repeat business, maintaining the customer relationship, intimate knowledge of the neighborhood. Carney alluded to last week’s unrest—“The city may change, but everybody needs a fine-quality sofa”—as a segue to opine on the waves of Southern transplants. “They’re here for good. They’re raising a family and like any other family, they need to furnish their house.”
Carney had taken Gibbs on a small circuit around the showroom and now directed him into his office. He was about to redirect his pitch to the specific virtues of Bella Fontaine, and then take a brief foray into racial harmony, when Marie distracted him.
Two white cops—they had to be cops—lumbered toward Carney’s office.
“Please, sirs, you have to listen,” Marie said. They breezed past her.
Rusty asked the men if he could assist them. The cops materialized in the doorway of the office, with sour expressions. They were simultaneously doughy and sturdy, like TV wrestlers, moving quicker than you’d think, given their lumpy physiques. “I’m Detective Fitzgerald of the 33rd Precinct,” the taller one said, “and that’s my partner Garrett. We’re investigating a death that occurred last night uptown. A deceased person.”
Also like TV wrestlers: They liked to lay it on thick.
Which would have been fine if Mr. Gibbs had not been present.
At Carney’s request, the cops displayed their badges with petulant resignation. The cow-faced one, Garrett, appraised Mr. Gibbs as if he’d stumbled on a narcotics transaction. Mr. Gibbs’s mouth fell open and he started blinking rapidly.
Fitzgerald pulled out a notebook. Garrett checked his watch and exhaled loudly.
“Look, I’m in the middle—” Carney said.
“I should be going,” Mr. Gibbs said, rising.
They stepped aside to let him pass.
Carney trailed the regional sales manager across the showroom. Marie and Rusty stood by the maroon Collins-Hathaway armchair, dumbfounded. She covered her mouth with her palm.
“Perhaps this visit was not meant to be,” Mr. Gibbs said. He weaved through the floor models. “Last week. The unpleasantness.”
“This is—” Carney began. He stopped.
He wasn’t going to beg this white man for a goddamn crumb. Fuck him. Fuck the cops, too.
Mr. Gibbs walked two yards onto the sidewalk and stared into the Harlem hurly-burly. His shoulders slumped. “How do I get out of here?”
“Rusty!” Carney yelled. As the associate sales manager delivered Mr. Gibbs into the embrace of the New York City Taxi Commission, Carney returned to the detectives. There would be plenty of time for rage if he made it past this new, unscheduled interview.
Carney sat at his desk and the detectives loomed in the doorway. Fitzgerald did the talking while his partner used his X-ray vision to scan on the sidelines. “A young man died last night in a transient house on 171st,” Fitzgerald said. “The Eagleton? His name was Linus Van Wyck. We believe you knew him?”
“Van Wyck?”
“Like the expressway.”
Carney was confident in his salesmanship, especially on his home turf. Today’s specials: surprise and sadness and curiosity. Yes, he knew Linus, he was a friend of his cousin Freddie. “What happened?”
“If we knew, do you think we’d be here? Your cousin is Frederick Dupree?”
“Yes.”
According to the building manager, the detective said, Freddie was the last person to see Linus alive. “He was picked up a while back on drug charges—did you know that?”
Because Freddie had been eating a meal with Biz Dixon when the police arrested the drug peddler. The arrest Carney had set up. Carney shook his head. Garrett prowled the office. He bent to peer at the items on the bulletin board, inspecting.
“The case was dropped,” Fitzgerald said. “Didn’t say why. Is your cousin a user of narcotics?”
“Not that I know of.”
Fitzgerald peered up from his notebook. “What about you?”
“What about me? I met Linus once.”
Garrett stood before the safe and gave an idle tug on the handle. It didn’t budge. “When was that?”
“Years ago.”
“Your father was Michael Carney?” Fitzgerald said.
“We weren’t close.”
The detectives looked at each other. “Rough character, he’s the one I’m thinking of,” Garrett said. He dislodged some food in his back teeth with his tongue. “When’s the last time you saw Frederick Dupree?”
Carney answered their questions. Once it was clear that the man at the Eagleton hadn’t fingered him yet, he dummied up. He’d dummied up his whole life, covering for Freddie. All of it practice for this: Chink Montague, the cops.
Who else was coming for Freddie?
Garrett stiffened. “What’s that?” he said.
“What?” Carney said.
“That.” He pointed into the showroom.
Carney didn’t have a lot of cop customers, as far as he knew, but they usually went for the decorative accent pieces for some reason. In the two months the Egon sculpture had hung on the wall no customer had ever remarked upon it. The metal sunburst was four feet in diameter, with three layers of copper spikes that radiated from a polished brass center. The perfect finishing piece for a contemporary living room, or so Carney said to himself. But nobody bit, even after Marie affixed the sale tag. Detective Garrett asked him to put it on hold for him until Wednesday, payday, plus he had all this overtime due from the riots.
“We still want to hear from your cousin regardless,” he said. “This Linus character came from a big Park Avenue family. Did you know he was from money?”<
br />
“Only met him the one time.”
“Freddie sees this rich kid slumming it, maybe he can make a quick score,” Garrett said. “There were items that were stolen, according to his family. Missing.”
“And this family, they’ve got connections,” Fitzgerald said. “In fact—” He stopped himself. He closed his notebook. “You see that cousin of yours, you tell him to come by the station. And you call us—you don’t want to get mixed up in this.”
“Good riddance,” Rusty said once the policemen departed. He and Marie did their best to cheer Carney up.
Carney told them it was a minor setback. Then he called Mr. Gibbs’s hotel and left a message that he doubted would be returned.
* * *
* * *
The decor of the Dumas Club hadn’t changed in decades, save for the absence of the full-length portrait of Wilfred Duke which had hung in the library. A brass light had conferred upon Duke a dependable, stately glow. Following the “unfortunate incident,” as the members referred to it, anonymous parties removed the painting one wintry night and burned it in the street with kerosene.
Wilfred Duke—and the money he embezzled—had yet to surface, although Patrick Carson, dentist to Harlem’s elite, swore he caught a glimpse of the disgraced banker at a New Year’s Eve revel in Bridgetown, Barbados. Carson hurried through the crowd but was unable to catch up with the man. A faction recalled Duke mentioning Bajan ancestry at some point, which lent credence to the tale. A private detective was dispatched but nothing came of it.
The membership had changed, however. The bankruptcies, assorted ruinations, and multitiered reversals of fortune caused by Duke’s betrayal had necessitated a campaign for new blood. As the recently installed vice president of the club, Calvin Pierce made sure the prospective members represented the variety of Harlem’s vanguard. Raymond Carney, local entrepreneur, was delighted to receive their invitation. He was accepted without mishap.
Harlem Shuffle Page 23