Palace Council

by Stephen L Carter

  But devoted to what? the girlfriends asked, unable to restrain themselves. Devoted to whom? To Aurelia?

  To a larger cause, sniffed Cynda, very satisfied. To love. To his sister.

  But his sister’s dead, cried the girlfriends, thrilling to the notion of a morbid obsession at the famous writer’s secret center. (After all, it was not as if he had dated one of them.)

  He doesn’t believe it, Cynda answered. He thinks she’s alive. He has all these notebooks and files and thingies. He sits up half the night going through them. He’s always calling people on the phone about her and writing on his yellow pads.

  And how do you know what he does half the night? the girlfriends demanded. Shame on you! they giggled, swooning.

  He’s a good man, was all Cynda would say, smiling complacently. I wish I had a brother like him. She did not mention how he would spend hours at his desk, neither working nor relaxing, but frowning at a tiny seed pod in the middle of his blotter.

  (II)

  AS FOR EDDIE, he found himself suddenly short of confidants. Aurelia was inaccessible. Gary was busy balancing protest marches, visits to Erebeth at Quonset Point to be trained for his new role in life, and visits to Mona in Chicago to keep in touch with his old one. Craving forward motion, Eddie dropped in on the Columbia philologist he had met at the party two years ago on Central Park South. The philologist introduced him to a biologist, who in turn referred him to a specialist in deciduous trees, who examined Castle’s prickly seed pod and told Eddie at a glance that it had fallen from a London plane tree, a variety, unfortunately, as common as cheese in the New York area, and, indeed, all across North America. It was an unusually sturdy tree, she explained, able to resist many forms of blight, a feature that helped explain its popularity. Eddie decided that it was the fact of the seed pod, not its species, that carried whatever message the lawyer had been trying to convey. At such a moment he craved Aurelia, not only because she lifted his spirit but because she served as so excellent a foil for his ideas, and was always buzzing with ideas of her own. And because she worked crossword puzzles. It was at this time that Cynda observed him sitting up in his apartment, twisting the pod this way and that, hoping to work out its meaning.

  If you need to find her, then find her.

  Eddie had another thought. Hoover had shown him a photograph of Langston Hughes. Just routine harassment, or did the Bureau know something? Eddie dropped in on the great man at his townhouse on 127th Street. Hughes, as it happened, was rather busy, trying to persuade the National Institute of Arts and Letters to deny William Faulkner its Gold Medal for Literature. Over drinks, Hughes gave Eddie an earful about the man he called “the leading Southern cracker novelist.” When Eddie had the chance to get a word in edgewise, he explained, shading his sources a bit, that he now believed his sister’s disappearance might be related to the murder of Phil Castle.

  Hughes was amused. “Do you think Junie killed him?”

  No, no, said Eddie, coloring, that was not the point at all. He thought there might have been a connection between the two while the lawyer was still alive.

  “You’re saying they had a fling?”

  “I’m saying they had a connection.”

  Hughes thought this over. They were sitting in his upstairs office. The place was a mess: file cabinets and bookshelves heaped with manuscript pages. Hughes always seemed to have about twelve projects going. He was a round, solid, encouraging man, who had helped an entire generation of Negro writers get their start before anybody had heard of Eddie Wesley. He drank, he smoked, he told stories, he was widely loved, and the writing was all he had. No one ever discovered what social life, if any, Hughes enjoyed. Perhaps the books and stories and plays were his true love. His books and his plays—and Harlem. Langston Hughes, who could have lived wherever he liked, had actually moved from Sugar Hill to the Valley. The Czarinas had never heard of such a thing.

  “I knew Phil Castle a bit,” Hughes said finally. “Have I mentioned that? Just the last six months of his life. We met at Matty Garland’s place up in Westchester. This would have been the summer of 1954, because Brown had just been decided. He turned out to be a huge fan of serious literature. We got to talking about this and that, and, well, he asked if we could get together sometime. He said he had an idea I might be able to help with.” The writer smiled. “Usually that means somebody wants a political endorsement. I don’t do many of those, as you know. I started to hem and haw, and Castle seemed to read my mind. He did not want anything public from me. He wanted my advice. That was all. I admit I was intrigued, this big white Wall Streeter asking my advice. We had lunch a few weeks later. And another lunch a couple of weeks after that, and—well, let me make a long story short. Castle was involved in something he had started to think might be dangerous. He wanted my advice on how to get out of it.”

  Eddie wondered if he meant the affair.

  Hughes poured freshly for them both. “Even now, I’m not exactly sure what Castle was talking about. He said he was part of a group of men who were in the process of doing what they thought was great work, but which he had decided was bound to end in disaster. He called what they were doing the Project, but refused to provide any details. I asked why he came to me. He said because I knew all the Negro leaders. He said that this group came largely out of our community—your darker nation—and he thought it was up to us to stop the Project. I suppose I gave him a hard time over how conveniently he managed to exclude his own responsibility. Probably I didn’t believe him anyway. I thought he must be exaggerating some perfectly reasonable scheme.”

  Hughes was fiddling with his glasses. He had a wide face, set low on his broad body. Eddie waited silently, remembering the garrote.

  “I told Castle to go to the authorities,” Hughes resumed. “That was how one prevented disaster. He said he could not. The defeat of the Project had to be handled quietly, or the disaster he worried about would come to pass. Disaster for our people, he said. I must admit, by this time I had begun to wonder whether he was entirely sane. But there was a seriousness about him, and—well, let’s just say, if he was indeed delusional, he believed his delusion fully. I decided to test him. I told him that I was a writer, not an activist. I gave him names of people to see. He refused. He said he did not want to take any more risks. That was what he said, Eddie. Take any more risks. He wanted me to serve as intermediary. I pointed out that, unless he told me more, I had nothing with which to intermediate. Since he was uncomfortable talking about whatever was on his mind, I proposed a writer’s solution. I suggested that he put it all down on paper, and then we would look at it together, and decide what to do next. That way, I could see just how crazy he was. Let’s fill you up.”

  Eddie held out his glass, marveling. Hughes poured, and lit a fresh cigar.

  “Did he put it down on paper?”

  “I don’t know what he did, Eddie. Somebody strangled him before our next meeting.”

  Eddie needed a moment to collect his thoughts. Again he sensed a malign intelligence behind all that had occurred. He remembered his father’s note about devil worship, and shuddered. “Did you tell this to—to the authorities?”

  “Of course. I called the police the same day I heard the news.”

  “And?”

  “And they did what they always do. They wrote it down in their notebooks, and that was the last I saw of them.”

  Riding home on the A, Eddie saw his sister’s letters to the lawyer in a fresh light. Maybe she was writing about an affair, yes. But maybe she was writing about whatever Castle had wanted Hughes to share with the Negro leadership.

  The conspiracy that portended disaster for the darker nation.

  Maybe Junie had been a part of it.

  Back in his apartment, Eddie looked over his notes. He kept coming back to the same two points: the information from Joseph Kennedy, and the report in the Negro newspaper in Nashville.

  Somebody had paid a “substantial fee” to move Junie—if it was Junie
—to Nashville. And an “incendiary device” had destroyed the house where Junie—if it was Junie—had lived while she was there.

  This did not sound like a couple of young women off on a lark. This sounded like somebody who had access to both money and bombs.

  Disaster, the lawyer had warned Langston Hughes.

  An idea was forming in Eddie’s head, an idea with its roots in Eddie’s own experiences when Junie was still a cheap train ride or an expensive phone call away: an idea he wanted to reject but suspected, more and more, might be the truth. Two days later, Eddie drove over to New Jersey, to look for the umpteenth time at the rest stop where Junie and her friend had vanished. He parked where the car had been found. The trees were brown and leafless. In the winter, the nearly empty lot seemed bleak and sorrowful, but it felt that way in every season, and not even the bright-orange snappiness of the Howard Johnson’s restaurant could—

  Wait.

  The rest stop was along the New Jersey Turnpike, and the Turnpike ran from north to south. At this time in America’s history, the network of interstate highways was far from complete, but the Turnpike was nevertheless a peculiar way to get to Chicago. This variation from more obvious westward routes had been discussed to death, both by the police and in the family, and the consensus was that the two women had come this way because the Turnpike was finished, and decent food was cheerily available from an integrated restaurant.

  But that would not be Junie. Junie would have driven to Chicago in a simple straight line, and Heaven help the owner of any roadside grill who tried to keep her out.

  The girls were headed south from the start. Maybe they had chosen this spot to meet up with the friends of Joseph Kennedy’s friends, who had transported them the rest of the way, or maybe that was some other girl, and there had indeed been foul play. But even if Junie and her girlfriend had been snatched against their will, they were not headed for Chicago.

  They were headed someplace else.

  They. Not she. They.

  Maybe the key was that Junie had not vanished alone.

  Eddie realized at last that half-measures would not do. Sneaking up on problems had never been his best thing, any more than it had been his baby sister’s. The only way he would find Junie was to look for Junie, and if that meant everybody would know, then everybody would just have to know.

  He even knew where to go next.

  CHAPTER 20

  A Companionable Journey

  (I)

  KEVIN GARLAND WAS DOING EVERYTHING in his power to keep his wife happy. Yes, they could move to the suburbs. Yes, he would spend more time at home, not only with her but with the children. Yes, it was fine if Aurelia wanted to go to Chicago for a week to visit Mona. Yes, yes, yes, to everything. Aurie was surprised by his fervor, and grateful for it. But she was also perplexed. One night, as they drove back to the city from an excruciating dinner at Matty’s house, she asked him, in as casual a voice as she could manage, what people meant when they mentioned the Garland heir.

  “I don’t understand,” said Kevin, eyes on the road.

  Aurie had her shoes off. She loosened her girdle, put her head back, and shut her eyes. “Our son. Somebody told me he’s the Garland heir.”

  “Locke?” The bewilderment in his voice seemed genuine. “I guess he’s one of the heirs, anyway. I inherit my father’s estate. Naturally, I would divide it between the children. And you, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Aurelia, very puzzled.

  “Unless you mean—” he began, and stopped.

  “Unless I mean what?” She was now awake, and alert. She could read her husband’s nervousness in the dipping of his head and the way he licked his lips. She sensed that this was the moment to press. The only moment. “Come on, honey. Unless I mean what? Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “That night in our bedroom,” he said. They rounded a curve. The lights of Manhattan loomed suddenly from the darkness. “What I said to you, how I said it—I wasn’t myself, Aurie. Please believe me.”

  She touched his cheek. “I believe you, honey.”

  “I shouldn’t have said it. I’m sorry. I love both of our children the same. I really do.”

  “I believe you,” she said again.

  “It’s just—in the family—there are certain traditions. You know. Passed on from father to son. My dad thinks things like that are important, and, well, we’re not a family that takes well to change.”

  “What traditions?”

  “Like running the family business. Garland & Son.”

  “You don’t think Zora could do that?”

  “It’s not the tradition,” he said, stubbornly, but she sensed that they had somehow veered into a different argument, and that Kevin was relieved to have distracted her.

  (II)

  THE FOLLOWING WEEK, Kevin had to go down to Washington for a couple of days to see some people, as he always put it. This was their new arrangement, that he would tell his wife exactly where he was going, and when he would return. Usually he asked if she wanted to go along. This time she said yes. She drove the children up to Dobbs Ferry to stay with their grandparents. Wanda, as chilly as ever toward her daughter-in-law, was delighted to have Zora and Locke.

  Kevin and Aurelia took the train. They stayed at the home of a relative on Sixteenth Street, an enclave of prosperous Negroes known as the Gold Coast. Kevin had meetings the first day. Aurelia shopped with Janine, her sorority sister. That night Kevin and Aurie dined with their hosts. The second day was much the same, and the second night they had dinner at the Wisconsin Avenue apartment of Congressman Lanning Frost and his wife, Margot. A couple of years ago, there had been this rumor about Eddie and Margot. Aurelia wondered whether it was true. Margot and Kevin talked about these new radicals, Agony, or Jewel Agony. Harlem was abuzz because the group had managed to set off a bomb at a Klan rally in Alabama. Nobody had been hurt, but Negroes across the country cheered. A letter from Agony’s head, somebody called Commander M, promised to target only “the most violent satraps of white reaction.” A couple of newspapers had published it, but not in the South. Kevin was telling Margot that this sort of thing would do more harm than good in the long run. Margot, for whom most questions were reducible to matters of who gained political advantage, said that her husband had gone to the well of the House to condemn the bombing while other liberals were dithering over whether they should seem to be protecting the Klan.

  “Violence is violence,” she said.

  Meanwhile, the Congressman entertained Aurelia. “The thing about the missile gap,” he said, “is that, whatever might be the precise amount, our preparedness has yet to be specific to our needs.” But she was getting the hang of him. Still listening with half an ear to the other conversation, she said something about civil defense and air-raid shelters, and Frost nodded enthusiastically. “Because otherwise,” he explained, “everyone in America is worse off in the rest of the world.”

  The doorbell announced the arrival of the remaining guests. Senator Van Epp apologized for his tardiness. His wife was olive-complected, perhaps Mediterranean. The Senator made a great fuss over Aurie, and, during dinner, kept the table laughing with his stories. Margot announced dessert. Then it was time for business. Kevin and the Senator withdrew with Lanning Frost to another room. After a moment, Margot apologetically joined them.

  Aurie was left alone with the Senator’s wife. Mrs. Van Epp sat very straight. Her voice came out of the side of her mouth in a lipless murmur. Aurie sensed the older woman’s disapproval, and wondered why. Perhaps it was true what Kevin had once told her: that the white matrons of Washington were far worse than the black matrons of Harlem. As soon as she decently could, Aurelia took herself off to the powder room adjoining the foyer. When she emerged, the Senator’s blond bodyguard was standing nearby, toying with a cigarette lighter.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Garland.”

  She refused to be cowed twice. “Will you be grabbing my arm this evening, Mr. Collier?”


  “Please accept my apologies.” Again he seemed amused, and even managed what must have been intended as humor. “You might have been an assassin.”

  “With my own key to the apartment?”

  “I’m afraid my function requires me to allow for that possibility, Mrs. Garland. Yes.”

  His evident friendliness intrigued her. “May I ask you a question, Mr. Collier?”

  “Please.”

  “Why does a United States Senator need a bodyguard?”

  He tilted his head as if to acknowledge a good point. “Mine not to question why, Mrs. Garland.”

  “Meaning, you’ll do what you’re hired to do? No matter what? Because, I have to tell you, Mr. Collier, that idea scares the hell out of me.”

  The blond man gave this objection serious consideration. “If there are limits to my function,” he finally said, “they are not found in the task. They are found in the men assigning the task.”

  “What you’re saying is—”

  “I am a bodyguard, Mrs. Garland. I will do what is necessary to protect my clients and their interests.” The blue eyes were fierce diamonds now. “But there certainly exist people, Mrs. Garland, who are not worth protecting.”

  He slipped away. The Senator’s wife came up behind her. “I understand you have young children, dear. You simply must tell me all about them.” But she had to say it twice before Aurelia heard.