by Ed Ifkovic
I drew in my breath. “Jed, in some ways you are responsible for everything bad that has happened.”
“I’m going to Florida, Edna,” he seethed. “Goodbye.” He hung up on me, something that I prefer to do to people.
So Jed would not be at my afternoon tea, but I figured his presence would be painfully and colossally felt. His malignant spirit, dark and bitter, hung in the room, splashed against the backdrop of a sleety, windy Manhattan afternoon. People let themselves be manipulated. Mantra for a devil’s afternoon. Delightful, indeed.
“Why are we here?” Harriet finally asked when the last of the sandwiches disappeared and Rebecca returned to the kitchen to brew more tea. The presumptuous question hung in the air, stifled the small talk, and every head turned, as though mechanized, toward me, sitting there on the edge of my favorite rose-colored wing chair, a cup and saucer demurely poised in my lap.
I cleared my throat. “Obviously, as you guess, not just for a social tea.”
Ellie started to say something, but it came out a thin whistle, for which she apologized.
“I have questions,” I began. “And maybe a few answers.”
Waters, standing in the kitchen door, said the words everyone was thinking, “Roddy’s murder.” Said by the young boy in a tremulous voice, the words seemed to punctuate the room, a stage announcement proclaiming the start of Act Five, the awful denouement to a Shakespearean tragedy.
“Well, yes,” I answered him. “I wanted to share my thinking with you and…”
Bella interrupted. “You want to name one of us the murderer.” She stopped, gasped. “Preposterous. Skidder Scott, the homeless man…”
“Didn’t kill Roddy,” I concluded for her.
“Proof?” yelled Freddy, who seemed surprised at his own raised voice.
I stood and walked to the edge of the group, watching their upturned, eager faces, and for a moment, light-headed, I wavered: a circle of young, bright men and women, creative, driven, yet removed from America. What price did these young people pay for wanting to succeed…to achieve…to get their rightful place? What? They struggled against their own blackness. Against the white world that looked right through them. Hated them. Worse, perhaps, was indifferent. Yet one of them was most likely a murderer of a young man who also wanted his chance.
I breathed in, held onto the back of my chair. Rebecca had come in from the kitchen and stood near me, concern in her eyes. I noticed she repeatedly glanced toward Waters, who had sat down on the sofa next to Lawson, her mother-eye cool yet covetous. “Some things bothered me,” I began. “Just the other day, talking with Ellie during her rehearsal, she confessed that she’d visited Roddy that night—against his wishes. He’d told her to stay away. She came as far as his apartment door.”
“So?” Ellie said.
“What I found interesting was that everyone assumed you’d been there, but given the upstairs tenant’s remarks, everyone also assumed it was early, minutes before Bella hid in the alley.” Bella grunted. “And Freddy had seen Ellie at midnight at the subway stop. What I learned is that Ellie admitted going there later, at two in the morning. She never told the police because she just assumed Skidder Scott arrived shortly afterwards, bungled the burglary, and stabbed Roddy. But you told me you heard Roddy on the phone, angry, talking to someone. He wasn’t on the phone, Ellie. They’d had their phone cut off. Didn’t pay the bill. Waters told me that.” Waters nodded vigorously. “He was talking to someone in the apartment. True, you only heard—or thought you heard—his voice. You were nervous about being there and you left quickly, so you didn’t hear the confrontation during which Roddy was stabbed.”
Silence in the room. “You don’t know that,” Harriet said in a low voice.
“True, it’s speculation. And something else is speculation: Bella and Lawson talking about how Jed Harris, a man without a conscience, had taken away the element of chance from some of your lives. That word—chance—held me. Failure or success, the toss of the dice, Dame Fortune’s hit-or-miss game. Yes, Jed played God, destroying careers or threatening to destroy careers. And he has it in his power, unfortunately. But it got me to thinking about desperation, last-chance despair. The house of cards tumbling down. What happens when you believe everything is now gone—everything you’ve worked hard for, believed you deserved? What happens?”
Waters, spellbound by my words, mouthed the words: What happens?
“What happens are acts of desperation, irrational behavior, changes of character or acting out of character.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Bella hissed. She wrapped her arms around her body. She was trembling.
“I think Jed Harris, who is not here, set in motion a path of destruction and murder. A game to him, but life-and-death to another.”
“Miss Ferber…” Bella began, pleading in her voice. “You misunderstood what I told you. I mean, what I told him. Jed Harris. That thing about taking away chance, well, it…”
I held up my hand. “Stop, Bella. You’re also a culprit here with your game-playing, manipulation, attraction.”
She started to protest. “I never…”
“Oh, but you did.” I took a breath. “The other day I took a walk on Fifth Avenue, not certain what I was doing. A busy avenue, that one, and I found myself thinking of…the Easter Parade each spring. It’s always a parade there. But a street filled with white folks. The Negroes are in doorways, hauling trash, sweeping floors. Not their parade. They watch. I recalled that scene in Lawson’s novel, Hell Fighters, the Negro doughboys back from France, marching up Fifth Avenue, filled with pride and joy, back into Harlem. Yet nothing changed—that burst of heroism in France, on the front lines, altered nothing. Negroes are excluded from the parade.”
“We parade up in Harlem.” Freddy’s voice was a whisper.
A pause. “A curious tableau, that moment on Fifth Avenue. People talked to me without saying a word.”
“Miss Edna?” Waters questioned.
“Let me go on.” I walked to the dining room table and returned with a small sheaf of papers. “Roddy had started writing an essay called ‘Letter to Mr. P,’ an attack on old-style negritude, folks who mocked the young generations. He also jotted down a scattered bunch of ideas, including some remarks about Americans in exile in France, even a French quotation about keeping a horrible secret. He, too, remembered the doughboys on Fifth Avenue. A muddle of ideas, but probably reflecting Roddy’s recent confusions. Roddy did, indeed, have a secret that was bothering him. He made some quick notations in a little spiral notebook, mostly concerning his fears about Harriet’s father, Mr. Porter.”
“What? Wait just a minute!” screamed Harriet.
“Wait, Harriet, wait. Give me time. Roddy was concerned that Mr. Porter was going into the apartment, rifling through his possessions. Three pages, two with just a line or two. One of the pages said simply, ‘I don’t trust him.’ Another: ‘It was not a good idea to talk about it,’ followed by an attack on God. The third page was filled with anger at Mr. Porter. Now I assumed all these lines referred to Mr. Porter, but perhaps not so. Perhaps Roddy was sending a different message.”
Harriet was fuming. “Railroading, that’s what this is.”
I ignored her. “A few years back, Roddy submitted a juvenile short story to Opportunity, and Langston Hughes just returned it to me. A sophomoric piece called ‘Time to Die,’ a stale Civil War costume drama, a young boy’s playing with themes well beyond him.” I held up the sheets. “Unwittingly, after his death, he has told us the name of the murderer.”
Everyone in the room reacted, Ellie actually screaming, Freddy standing and bumping into a table.
“Let me read you a little of what Roddy said.” I shuffled through the pages. “A couple revealing lines. ‘At night, insects buzz above the tents, dizzy from the light of the lanterns.’ Another line. ‘The soldie
r lay on the ground alive, I thought, because I saw an eye flicker, yet when I reached out to him, white maggots slid off his face and I stared at the black stare of a dead man.’ And one more…”
Bella grunted. “For God’s sake, Miss Ferber…”
I went on. “‘When I pulled my hand from the back of my head, I found myself bewildered. The wetness that I thought was sweat was crimson, sticky.’ And: ‘Now I hear the chorus echo: got no time to die, hear me, Jesus…Jesus…now I got no time.’” I paused, dramatically. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve made a mistake. I’m not reading from Roddy’s short story now. These are some notes I scribbled on another sheet of paper. I get confused…”
“Never mind.” A thin, metallic voice, almost inaudible rose from the sofa. “Never mind.” Louder. I looked down at Lawson, who was sitting there with tears steaming down his cheeks, his hands pressed against the sides of his face. He blubbered, “Never mind.”
“I don’t understand,” Harriet whispered, staring at Lawson.
“No, don’t,” Bella cried out. “Impossible.”
Lawson was shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I truly am. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.”
“Lawson?” I asked.
He nodded. “I killed Roddy.” A soft voice, wispy, shattered. “I’m so sorry.”
A humming swept the room, a low rumbling of question and confusion. I held up my hand. I pointed to the dining room table and all the heads turned. “There,” I said. “There. The last line I read to you was taken from Lawson’s novel Hell Fighters, which Waters had rescued from the apartment. A beautiful novel of Negroes fighting in France in the Great War, its sentences stayed with me. The other night I read Roddy’s failed short story, ‘No Time to Die.’ Later I realized I’d heard echoes of many of its lines. And then I remembered where I had read them.”
“Lawson,” Bella called out. “No.”
“That got me to thinking. Why would Lawson steal Roddy’s manuscript? How could he get away with it? And why? Why? Then I remembered Jed Harris and what he did to Lawson. Taking away chance. Taking away a future. Especially from such an ambitious, driven life.”
Lawson whined. “He said I was finished. No acting, no writing, no plays. Nothing.” He stopped short, looked around. “I was finished in this town. I had to have a future.”
“But you can’t blame Jed Harris, beast that he is,” I said.
Lawson was sobbing now, rubbing his wrists into his eyes. “I just got…obsessed.”
Bella sputtered. “But he couldn’t, Miss Ferber. I drugged him. He was sleeping on the sofa…”
“Tell us, Lawson,” I demanded.
Lawson breathed in, looked into my face. His lips trembled. “I didn’t think you saw me, Miss Ferber, the other night. Across from our apartment.”
“Why were you there?”
Helpless, sobbing now. “I couldn’t stay away. I was like…like I could undo what I did. I was so depressed, hurt. Night after night I stood there in the cold. I wanted a different ending. But the ending was always the same. I couldn’t change the story.”
“Tell us,” I repeated.
“It started as a joke in my head. Sort of a…mental game. Roddy hinted that he was working on a secret project, some novel. A great idea. He was going to surprise us all.” Lawson looked at the others, but then faced me. “I’d told him about the Hell Fighters, showed him an article in the news. I was the one. I told him that I wanted to do a novel someday. He got excited, rushed to the library. He shared his poetry with everyone, but this was to be a surprise. He taunted me because I’d said I was going to use the Hell Fighters but he said maybe he was going to do it first. Someday. Maybe beat me to it. I didn’t listen to him, he was always crowing about something; but he’d be in his room, typing madly. And I never got around to writing anything about them.”
Ellie sputtered, “I don’t…” She stopped, stifled a sob.
Waters looked confused. “He took the idea from you?”
Lawson nodded. “I started to wonder. Could he be stealing my idea? I sneaked into his room so many times, went through his stuff. One day he left the pile of manuscript on his desk. I’d not been around for a few days. Usually he locked his stuff in a drawer, made certain it was hidden. And I read it. My God, it was so good! I couldn’t put it down.” Lawson stopped, gulped, and wiped his eyes. When he started speaking again, his voice was stronger, with an edge. “I knew it would make his name. But so what? I wished it was mine, I felt it should be mine, and it got me to thinking. Not seriously, you know. It was supposed to be my idea.”
I caught Rebecca’s eye. Such sadness there.
Waters was watching her, too. “Ma.”
But she held up her hand and shook her head.
Freddy glared at Lawson, and his fist smashed into his palm. We all watched him. “Christ, Lawson. Christ.”
Lawson stared out the window. “Then my own life started to fall apart. Jed Harris rejected my play, and we got nasty with each other. He blackballed me—or threatened to. I felt my life spiraling out of control, and, well, I panicked. No more acting, in fact. My looks carried me, but no more. And my writing. Nothing. Nothing. I got stupid. So jealous of Roddy. Then when he started sleeping with Bella, I got a little crazy. Ellie, then Bella. Then neither. He gloated about it. Everyone thought I was okay with it—after all, Bella and I kept starting and stopping—but it made me furious. My girl now. I wanted to kill him. I mean, it was the last straw. I knew he was planning to leave the apartment, he hinted at that, and I had nowhere to go. Belle was through with me. Nothing. Failure. So I thought—if Hell Fighters is my book, I’ll be famous. I want to be famous.”
“Lawson,” Bella interrupted, but he held up his hand. I looked at her, expecting to see compassion in her face—what I saw was contempt, ice.
“You know, it was a game I played with myself. Getting rid of Roddy. I planned for him to, you know, kill himself with pills. I got some pills, saved them, and even typed a suicide note on his machine. I don’t like the way my life is going. That kind of thing. I’d get drunk with him one night, feed him the pills in a drink, and leave the note on his dresser. I don’t know if I would have gone through with it—it was a mental game, you know. But when he wasn’t there, I’d go through his things—I didn’t know he suspected and made that note in his notebook. Miss Ferber thought it was about Mr. Porter. But I know that he didn’t trust me.”
Lawson stopped for breath. “Well, I found the key to his desk. Secretly, over time, I typed my own copy of his novel. I knew where he kept his folder of notes, that kind of thing. He was real organized. It wasn’t done, the book, and he’d put it aside, but…well, I loved the book. I thought I’d stage a break-in. We’d had the earlier break-in, and everyone suspected Skidder Scott, of course. We even laughed about it later, saying, ‘You know it was Skidder. That drunk! It had to be him.’ He’d dropped an empty pack of Camels on the bedroom floor, I’d noticed, and I hid it away. I’m not sure why, but I thought I’d use it somehow. And I did. I didn’t know what to do about Roddy. I was gonna be left alone—with nothing. And he was getting colder and colder. I had nowhere to turn.”
“But you were at Bella’s that night,” Waters said.
He shook his head. “Bella had this obsession with Roddy because he fooled around with her but then shooed her away”—Bella grunted—“and Ellie was mouthing the we’re-just-friends crap that only Freddy wanted to believe, and I waited for a chance.” He laughed sarcastically. “Chance, Miss Ferber. You hit the nail on the head. Jed Harris took away even a hope for a fair chance. But that night I didn’t plan anything, not really, but I was mad at Bella who was mad at Roddy and Ellie. I knew she was up to something, right after I told her that Ellie was headed to Roddy’s. I could see she was faking getting drunk and I did the same, but I was clear headed. Back at the apartment, she poured me a drink and I spotted her slipping somethin
g in. I wasn’t stupid, so I acted drunk and drugged, and passed out. I am a good actor.” A thin smile. “She beat it out of there, and I followed minutes later. Everyone was headed for Roddy’s, even me, but I never saw Bella there—or Ellie. Of course, I avoided coming too close to the house. I walked the streets, looking for Bella, but nothing. I kept checking the back alley—I was getting nuts. Finally, late, I went in through the back door. I thought maybe Bella was inside, or maybe Ellie. Or both. No one. I was going nuts. But only Roddy was there, alone. In his bed. He heard me and I went into his room.”
“And killed him,” Harriet yelled, furious.
He ignored her. “He was awake, reading. He was angry, accusing me. ‘Why are you back in the middle of the night?’ he yelled. ‘Now what are you up to?’ The problem is that, suspicious, he’d gone through my stuff that day, and found my copy of his book. It baffled him. Then he actually pointed to my copy of his book. It was right there on a shelf. God, I jumped. I was so startled. He said it was over. I was done for. With my friends, everyone. He said he was moving out in a day or so, so what was I trying to pull? He made fun of me—so good looking and getting nowhere on the fastest bus in town. I was standing over him, shaking, and when he said get out, you thief, you’re through going through my stuff and wait till I tell everyone, well, I lost it. You know, he kept that knife on the stand. I grabbed it, and I plunged it into his chest…” A gasp, a fresh wash of tears covered his face.
Ellie had started to cry.
Lawson watched her, bothered. “It was over like that.” He stressed the word. “You know, at the moment I felt triumphant, but it didn’t last. I felt this…this hollowness come over me. Frantic, I rushed around, faking a robbery. I put my gloves back on—they were in my coat pocket. I dropped the cigarette pack by the door, stole money from the dresser and some cuff links, and I messed up my room. I spread my copy of his book all over the floor in my room. I grabbed stuff from my bureau—that damn ring. I grabbed his copy of his book, even his folder of his notes. I knew where everything was, of course. I opened the front door, stepped out, closed it, and with my pocketknife I pried it opening, splintering the wood. The old lock just snapped. Easy. But it made a terrific noise. Within seconds, I heard someone coming in, the upstairs tenant, so I ducked in, switched off the lights but couldn’t close the door. I ran out the back. I was carrying piles of stuff in a bag. Sweating, crazy, I rushed up the street. I knew where Skidder Scott slept nights—we all do—the abandoned building, out of the winter cold. He was near the corner, but drunk, begging, so I wrapped my ring and cuff links in some rags, and got out of there. I threw Roddy’s papers in a trash bin. A mess, I headed to Bella’s.”