by Larry Karp
The boy retraced his steps along Main, then turned the corner. The colored man at the magazine rack stepped out of the doorway and smiled as he watched Alan cross the street and go into the MoPac Station.
Inside the station, the boy walked up to the ticket window. Different clerk from yesterday, good. “What time does the train from Los Angeles come in?”
The clerk smiled. “Expecting somebody, sonny?”
“My grandpa.”
“Didn’t he tell you what train he’d be on?”
Alan shook his head. “He just said he’d be here today.”
The clerk’s face went sour. “I swan, people today! Well, from Los Angeles, your grandpa’s gonna have to change in Kans’ City, and there’ll be more’n one train come in there from L. A. So I really don’t know what to tell you. Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Alan said. “Thanks anyway.”
He walked out into what was developing into a sunny day. pulled his jacket tighter around himself, zipped it. He wanted to do something, felt as if he had to do something.
His eyes fell on a sign at the street corner: Liberty Park, with an arrow below the words. On Sundays back home, sometimes he’d go up to Eastside Park, play some tennis, go to the carousel with the big organ, have some ice cream or popcorn. Some Sundays, there were concerts on the bandstand. He hurried back inside. “How do I get to Liberty Park, please?” he asked the ticket clerk.
The man eyed him. “Bit of a walk.”
“I don’t mind.”
The clerk pointed outside. “Go down to Third, then turn right and keep on walking. Liberty Park starts at the corner of Third and Park. You miss it, you need to get yourself some glasses.”
Alan thanked him, and went out. All the way down Third, the boy and the dark man moved in tandem, two blocks between them.
***
Liberty Park was pretty, but not much was happening, just a couple of families enjoying picnics on the grass. Maybe after church was out, it’d get livelier. Alan walked toward the lake, where ducks and geese fed at water’s edge, found a comfortable spot under a maple tree just coming into leaf. He sat against the tree, opened the book bag and took out the journal. Might as well have another read, see if he’d missed anything important.
Alonzo Green hunkered down behind a giant maple next to the bandstand. Damn, if those picnickers were just a little farther away, he could amble over and make like a snake, grab the book out of the kid’s hands, and take off. But if the kid gave him any trouble, or started yelling, the picnickers could decide to have themselves a little Sunday coon-chase. Alonzo told himself to cool off. He’d been on stakeouts a lot longer than this one.
An hour and a half later, the kid closed the book, slipped it into the bag. Green started to stand, but then the kid put the bag under his head and stretched out on the grass. Green couldn’t see whether his eyes were open or shut. Didn’t matter. He had to wait this one out.
***
While Alan lay under Green’s surveillance, daydreaming about how grateful Brun Campbell was going to be and how he might show that gratitude, a mountain of a Negro man, neatly dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, Navy-blue tie, and black derby got off the train from St. Louis. He wasn’t about to admit it to anybody, but it did make him nervous, coming out to this little burg in the middle of Noplace, Missouri to scratch around and find a white boy with five thousand dollars. No question, people were going to notice him, and he wondered whether he should’ve dressed down a bit. Nah, probably not. Any way he dressed, the Reubens weren’t going to miss a six-foot, six-inch, three hundred-pound colored man who shows up out of nowhere. If he was lucky, he’d get his business done in a hurry, and if he was really lucky, the kid would still have the money on him. But if he’d already bought the book from this Mrs. Joplin, wherever the hell she lived, he’d take the little bastard there by the ear, and get back the dough.
Slim followed the crowd out of the terminal. He felt one small step away from starving. That stuff on trains they call food looks and smells like somebody already ate it and it came outa one end or the other. First move, he’d get a good meal inside of him, and then he’d find a place to stay. He scanned the crowd, saw a young colored man in a slick yellow suit, derby to match. Slim hustled up, tugged at his arm. The dude spun, hand inside his suit jacket in nothing flat. Man’s got a problem, Slim thought. Best it don’t get to be mine. He smiled. “Sorry, didn’t mean to make you nervous. You know where a man can get some decent food here on a Sunday?”
The young man relaxed. His pencil-thin mustache spread even thinner. “If’n you was white, I could tell you a lotta places. But since you ain’t, I’ll take you by Davis’ Café, over on East Main, I gotta go that way anyhow. Maybe it ain’t the Ritz, but ‘least you won’t get poisoned.”
Slim tipped his hat. “Much obliged.”
***
The big man leaned back in his chair and burped louder than he’d intended. The pork chops and gravy had gone down real easy, and the custard pie hadn’t been any trouble, either. He waved at the waitress, a chubby young woman with ebony hair halfway down her back. Girl must spend half her tips on Mrs. C. W. Walker’s hair straightener.
She smiled at Slim. “Bring you something more?”
He shook his head. “Just the tab. And if you can tell me which hotel I oughta be goin’ to, I’d be obliged.”
The waitress gave him a long, hard look. “You ain’t from ‘round here, are you?”
“No, I’m just in from N’ Jersey. Why you askin’?”
“’Cause if you was from these parts, you’d know you ain’t gonna be stayin’ at no hotel.”
“That’s how it is here? I thought I was comin’ to Missoura, not Miss’ippi.”
The waitress jutted a hip. “Listen, Mister, I been to Miss’ippi, and it ain’t nothin’ here like it is there. Colored and white gets along pretty good in Sedalia, we don’t have no trouble. Long as you knows your place and stays there, you be fine. But a wise-mouth nigger’s gonna go back to Jersey without the teeth he came here with. Now…” She pointed toward the street. “You just take you’self down Main to Kentucky, ‘bout three blocks. Right past the feed store, you go up the li’l stairway, and that be Olive Simmons’ place. She gonna give you a good, clean room, seventy-five cents a night. An’ that be ninety cents for your dinner.”
Slim pulled a small roll of bills from his pocket, put one in the woman’s hand, then replaced the bills and brought out a handful of change. “Keep the dime, and here’s another quarter for your kindness.”
The waitress’ face brightened. “Wish we had more like you here, Mister.”
“Ain’t no more like me any place.” The big man threw back his head and laughed.
***
He trudged along Main Street, glancing right and left. Sad-lookin’ burg, no wonder that girl got so happy over a quarter. A man could live here a whole lot cheaper’n in New Jersey, that is if you could call it livin’. Slim’s legs felt weighted, his suitcase heavy. After that long damn train ride, and with a belly-full of food, he had himself a good case of the Sunday afternoon drowsies. Before he did anything else, he’d go get that room at Miz Simmons’ and grab a nap.
He crossed Ohio, not a moving car in sight, and walked slowly along West Main. But at the corner of Osage, his fatigue suddenly vanished. Halfway down the block, coming right at him, there was that boy. Alan. Carrying some kind of blue knapsack…hold on. He’s setting down the sack. Tying his shoelace.
Slim’s eyes bulged. His nostrils flared, then he dropped his suitcase, took off across Osage, and as he approached the boy, went into overdrive. Alan looked up, saw the huge man bearing down on him, grabbed his book bag and started to run, but Slim caught him from behind, spun him around, then steadied him on his feet and turned on a grin the size of Texas. “Well, now, Mr. Alan Chandler, what a surprise we got here. Fancy us just chancin’ to meet like this in Sedalia, Missouri.”
Alan
tried to wrench away, but Slim had a firm hold on both his arms. If that lad was white before, the big man thought, now he be bleached. Slim shoved him against the wall next to the window of the Main Street Cigar Store. “Boy, you just hold you’self real still now, or you gonna be sorry you ever was born.” Slim pulled back the lapel of his jacket, just enough to show a pistol in a holster. “Make one bad move, and it be the last move you ever make. Now. I do b’lieve you got something in that bag there for me.”
Alan clutched the book bag to his chest. “You wouldn’t shoot me right here on the street.”
Slim’s jaw fell. Kid had moxie, give him that. “Look here, boy,” a growl. “You take just one step to run off, you ain’t never again gonna walk on them legs. Anybody sees, I gonna tell ’em I be a detective from Jersey, Dr. Broaca hired me to get back the five thousand dollars you stole offa him. Then you can go back home and spend the resta your life in a wheelchair.” Slim extended a hand. “Now, gimme here, real nice and easy.” He grabbed for the book bag.
Alan swung the bag to the side. “Get away from me, or I’ll yell for help. I don’t have the money.”
“You got that book then.” Slim wiggled fingers. “That’ll do. Gimme.”
“Hell I will. Help! Help!”
The boy dodged to the left, but ran squarely into Slim’s fist. He reeled back against the brick wall, then sank by degrees to the sidewalk. Slim yanked out the pistol, pointed it at Alan’s face. “I swear, boy, you have got me real close on my limit. You try shoutin’ or runnin’ again, you be full of lead.”
Alan shook his head, tried to focus his eyes.
Slim squatted, tore the book bag from the boy’s hand. But as he got to his feet, he heard, “Hands up, Nigger. Quick.”
Slim turned, pistol in one hand, book bag in the other. A rangy man with blue eyes and blond hair spilling down from under the bill of a blue baseball cap stood ten feet away, pointing a large gray pistol squarely at the black man’s chest. “Drop ’em both,” the intruder growled. “And put up your hands. I ain’t known much for my patience, and I ain’t gonna miss a fat piece of shit like you.”
Slim opened his fingers. The book bag thumped to the sidewalk, the gun beside it.
The white man gestured with his pistol. “Okay, now. Get your hands up on that wall and keep ’em there. Turn your head and I’ll blow it off.” He swept up Slim’s gun, stuffed it into his pocket.
Slim glanced sidewise at Alan, spat on the boy, then slowly moved into position.
Alan pushed himself to a crouch, grabbed the book bag, pulled it toward him. The white man bent over him, put fingers to his face. Alan winced. “Just a cut lip,” the white man said. “Lucky for you I come outa the restaurant right then. What the hell’s that buck want with you, anyway?”
Alan pointed at the book bag. “I think he’s crazy, sir. He says there’s five thousand dollars in here, and he wants it.”
“Listen here,” Slim shouted, being careful not to turn his head. “I come out from New Jersey to get back—”
The white man’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Shut it. When somebody’s pointin’ a gun at you, you speak only when spoken to. Now, get your black lard-ass the hell outa here. If you got a brain in that thick head, you’ll be on the next train to New Jersey.”
Slim lowered his hands, flashed Alan a look that sent the boy edging backward, then started to walk away. As he crossed Osage and snatched up his suitcase, the white man waggled his gun, and called, “Keep going. Train station’s a block down and across the tracks.”
Alan got to his feet. He and his rescuer watched Slim vanish around the corner. The white man put away his gun, then cleared his throat. “That true, what he said? You come out from Jersey with five thousand dollars in that bag?”
Alan paused just long enough to bring a tight smile to the man’s face. “No, ‘course not. I’m out here for the Scott Joplin ceremony Tuesday night, and I’ve got a journal that Mr. Joplin wrote. I’m going to—”
The man laughed in his throat. “Tell you what. You had dinner yet?”
“That’s why I was coming along here. I had supper last night at the Pacific Café, and I was starting to get hungry, so I decided to go back there.”
The man draped an arm around Alan’s shoulders. “Come on, I’ll stand you to dinner.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Alan said. “You did plenty for me already. Besides, you already ate.”
The man waved him off. “We got pride in our city, and we don’t feel right when a stranger who comes out to visit gets slugged by a nigger. So, figure dinner on the house is Sedalia’s way of sayin’ we’re sorry. I’ll have another cup of coffee, and while you’re eatin’, you can tell me the rest of why you’re here and what-all you got there in the bag.” He put out a hand. “I’m Jerry Barton.”
The boy gave Barton’s hand a quick shake. “Alan Chandler. I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Barton.”
“Jerry’ll do. Pleasure’s mine, Alan.”
***
Slim marched far enough up Osage to be sure he was out of sight. Then he set down his suitcase, took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, tapped out a smoke, absently slipped it between his lips. Before he could get to his matches, a very dark Negro in a well-worn tan fedora walked up to him, flicked a lighter, and reached up to light Slim’s smoke. Slim nodded. “Thanks.”
The Negro nodded, replaced the lighter into his pocket. “You don’t mind me sayin’ so, Mister, that was not real clever of you. Tryin’ to do that boy right there on West Main Street, an’ in broad daylight.”
Slim’s eyes flared, but the fire receded quickly. “I come all the way out from Jersey to find the kid, and not an hour after I get to town, I walk right into him on the street. So, yeah, I got hasty. Sheet! Shoulda drug him in an alley, sapped him, and just took…just left him there.”
“What’s that boy matter to you, huh?”
Slim took a moment to study the man’s face, but got no enlightenment. “He stole a bunch of money from my boss, and my boss think I done it. He say ‘less I get it back, I don’t have a job no more.”
The dark man shrugged. “I think if a man tell me I stole his money and I didn’t, I’d just tell him where to put his job.”
Slim wondered whether he ought to come clean, but decided he’d already been dumb once that afternoon, which was one time too many. “I thought about doing that,” he said. “But there’s more to the story.”
The dark man adjusted his hat. “Seems like there always be more to a story. Like that boy gave your boss’ five grand to Scott Joplin’s widow, and now he’s got Joplin’s personal journal in his book bag.”
Slim’s cigarette dropped to the ground. “How you know that? Who you be, anyway?”
“Alonzo Green.” The man stuck out a hand. “And you.”
“Slim Sanders. But you still ain’t told me how you know—”
“I’m working for a man here, he wants that journal bad.” Green pointed down the block to where wooden soda bottle cases stood in piles in front of a brick storefront. “Come on, take a load off, an’ let’s do a li’l talkin’. We can see from over there when the boy comes out, and whether his friend’s stayin’ with him. Oh, and by the by, it’s a good thing you didn’t mess with that man. There ain’t a better shot in all Pettis County than Jerry Barton, and he wouldn’t give a first thought, never mind a second one, to air-conditioning a nigger.”
“So you do got white trash,” Slim said. “I’d been thinking, people here’re really nice.”
“Most of ’em are,” said Green. “But I ain’t sure you can rightly call Barton white trash. He runs one of the biggest wheat farms in the county. Got him some livestock too.”
“Sometimes trash come wrapped in a pretty package,” Slim growled.
Green laughed. “Ain’t gonna argue that.”
***
While Alan wolfed down a heap of meat loaf and potatoes, he told his rescuer so
mething close to the real story. “Mr. Brun Campbell was Scott Joplin’s only white pupil,” the boy said. “And he’ll be here for the ceremony Tuesday night, to honor Scott Joplin. Do you know about it?”
Barton smiled. “Well, sure. You already said that’s the reason you came out.”
Alan swallowed a mouthful. “Yes, sir. And Mr. Campbell wants to do better for Mr. Joplin than just hanging a plaque in the high school. He says he could use Mr. Joplin’s journal to get people talking about putting up a statue of Mr. Joplin, and maybe even starting up a ragtime museum. So he asked me to get the journal from Mr. Joplin’s widow in New York, and bring it out to him.”
Both pairs of eyes went to the book bag in Alan’s lap. “And you got that journal in there,” said Barton.
Alan nodded, and without thinking, pulled the bag in closer to his body.
The motion was not lost on Barton. “Well, that’s really interesting. But why did that colored man think you had five thousand dollars in there?”
Alan laughed. “Well, I did, back in New York. I gave it to Mrs. Joplin, to pay for the journal.”
“You did? Five thousand dollars?” Barton loosed a low whistle. “You don’t mind me asking, where’d a kid like you…I mean, how old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
Barton half-closed one eye. “Hmmm. Not many folks ever get to have five thousand bucks to spare their whole lives long. Not to be nosy, but how’d you ever come up with that kind of scratch?”
“I guess Mr. Campbell’s got money to burn. He said he didn’t want to send it straight to Mrs. Joplin, ‘cause she’s pretty old and sick. Besides, he didn’t want to take a chance that the journal might get lost in the mail. So he told me if I would go get it and bring out here, he’d wire me the five thousand, and also pay my train fare.”
“When are you supposed to meet him?”
“I’m not sure. He just said to get the journal, and he’d meet me here.”
Barton kept his response to a bland smile. Was he supposed to believe a man would wire a boy five thousand dollars to bring a book out from New Jersey to Missouri, and not set up a time and place to meet him? But what kind of idiot would spend anything like that kind of money on a diary from some spade who played piano in cat houses fifty years ago? “What about the big colored guy, the one who said you stole the money off his boss?” Barton asked. “Why was he hasslin’ you?”