The Ragtime Fool

by Larry Karp

  Barton grabbed the bag with one hand, shook it upside down, peered inside. Then he flung it to the floor. “God damn, boy, I’m startin’ to lose my temper with you. Where the hell is that book?”

  “I don’t know,” Alan said. “It was in here. Maybe it dropped out somewhere.”

  Barton half-closed one eye. “‘Maybe it dropped out?’ How thick d’you think I am?”

  “No, really. I slung the bag down on Mr. Klein’s couch when I sat there this morning. The book could’ve slid out and gotten under a cushion.”

  “And you didn’t notice how light the bag was when you picked it up?” Barton waved the pistol. “Get out of the truck.”

  Long hike back to town, Alan thought, but that would be a bargain. He’d go straight to the police station, ask the cops to go with him to Kleins’, get back the journal, and then hole up in a hotel room with a chair wedged under the doorknob until the ceremony. Mr. Campbell would just have to wait till then.

  But as Alan pushed the door open and stepped down to the ground, Barton jumped out from his side, ran around the truck and up to the boy. “Okay, now.” The man’s face was blotchy, lips twisted into a snarl. “One more time. Where’s that book?”

  “I told you, I don’t—”

  Barton delivered an open-handed crack to Alan’s cheek, then brought the handle of his pistol down hard against the side of the boy’s head. Alan staggered, fell.

  Barton nudged him with a boot. “Get up.”

  Alan tried to stand, couldn’t get past hands and knees. Barton grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him to his feet. “I got all day, boy. Keep messing with me, an’ you’re gonna be hamburg steak. Now, where the hell is—”

  Barton froze. Car coming down the dirt road, and from the sound, it was not somebody out for a nice drive in the country. Damn, couldn’t be the cops, could it? How would they know? He loosened his grip on Alan, who crumpled to the ground.

  A brown Hudson roared up and screeched to a stop, practically on the rear bumper of Barton’s truck. Before the engine had completely quieted, Otto Klein was out and running up to Barton.

  ***

  Richard Curd, Jr. stopped digging again. Another car? Something ain’t right. He cocked his head toward the clearing, listened.

  ***

  Klein looked wildly from the man to the boy on the ground. “You didn’t kill him,” Klein shouted.

  “Not yet. I’m just getting started. Little son of a bitch’s got that book hid away somewhere. Otto, what the hell you doing out here?”

  “We can’t kill him,” Klein bawled. “He took my daughter to the Bible school supper last night, and met Old Lady Rohrbaugh there. So now she knows he’s been staying with us. She just came around my shop with a geezer from California, he looks like death warmed over. He’s the one the kid picked up the book for.”

  Barton’s expression said if they made stupider people than Otto Klein, he didn’t want to see them. “Christ Almighty, Otto. Why in holy hell did you let him out of the house in the first place, never mind to go and talk to a room full of people?”

  ***

  Curd frowned. He couldn’t quite make out words, but no problem picking up on the fact he was hearing two angry men shouting at each other. He started walking toward the edge of the forest.

  ***

  “What was I supposed to do, huh?” Klein howled. “What was I supposed to say when Eileen wanted to take him to the supper? I don’t got any idea how Rohrbaugh and the California guy got together, but it don’t matter. Question is, what the hell we gonna do now?”

  Barton blew out a chestful of vexation. “God damn, Otto, you are a lily-liver. Lettin’ some old bag get your bowels in an uproar, then hightailin’ it out here. What did you tell her about where the kid was?”

  “I said I left him at the house when I drove Eileen to school and went to work. Told ’em to go ring the doorbell.”

  Barton wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Fine. No problem. The kid ain’t got the book here, but you better believe I’m gonna get him to tell me where he stashed it. Then I’ll do just what we planned with him. If Rohrbaugh or anybody else comes around asking, you say you don’t know where he is, he was there when you left the house. Rowena’ll say the same, because he was. Maybe he ran off, he was a weird kind of kid. Maybe he just ain’t right in his head.”

  Now it was Klein’s turn to look disgusted. “Sure, Jerry, great. That Rohrbaugh bitch was loaded for bear, God knows why, and you gotta figure the old goat from California’s gonna be plenty pissed off if he’s out the five K he paid for the stinkin’ book. Between the two of them, I’m gonna have the cops on me, and what then?”

  ***

  As he approached the clearing, Curd walked slowly, carefully, balancing himself at each step with the handle of his shovel. He slid up behind an old-growth maple tree at the edge of the woods, then peered around the edge. Jerry Barton and Otto Klein, Lord! For damn sure, they couldn’t be up to anything good. Let them see him, and he’d have problems he didn’t even want to think about.

  He squinched behind the tree, and edged his head forward, just far enough to see they had a man down on the ground. Curd’s palms went cold and slippery. He wiped them on his pants. Better get himself far away, fast. He took a half-step toward retreating, but Klein was facing his way, so he slid back behind the tree.

  ***

  Barton glanced at Alan, who’d just pushed himself to his knees, then pointed the gun at the boy. “Stay down there, kid, or you’ll be dead before you’re all the way up.” Then he turned a face full of contempt onto Klein. “‘What then?’ Damn it to hell, Otto. You tell the cops exactly the same thing. No one’s gonna come out here lookin’ for him, and even if they did, I’ll fix the hole so nobody’ll ever notice.”

  ***

  Curd’s stomach knotted. That ain’t no man they got there, it’s jus’ a boy. An’ they means to kill him.

  ***

  Barton rested his free hand on Klein’s shoulder, spoke softly. “Listen here. Cool off, or you’re gonna have a goddamn stroke. Get yourself back in your shop before Rohrbaugh and her friend see you’re missing, and wonder about that.”

  “I told them I had to make a delivery over lunch hour.”

  “Good.” Barton felt as if he were talking to a little kid who was sure he’d just seen the bogeyman. “That’s great. Now, haul your ass outa here, and let me do my work. I’ll get back to you soon’s I’m done and we’ll take it from there.”

  Klein trudged back to his car. Behind his back, Barton shook his head. As the Hudson chugged out of sight down the dirt road, the man turned to face Alan. “You heard all that, huh?”

  “Just the last part.”

  “So you got a good idea what you’re in for. You can make it tough for yourself or easy. Tell me where that book is, and you’re not going to have any more pain. Otherwise…” Nasty grin. “You play piana, huh? Guess I’ll start with your fingers.”

  Barton reached for Alan’s right hand; the boy scuttled away. Barton cursed him, stepped forward, grabbed. A sense of motion toward his right side pulled him up short, then a blinding red light filled his vision. He fell to his knees, agony bouncing back and forth inside his skull. Another blow sent brilliant white stars shooting through his head, and he fell forward into blackness.

  ***

  Alan watched the twitching man go still, then goggled at his rescuer, a well-built colored man in a blue work shirt and dungarees, and wearing an old broad-brimmed leather hat stained with years of sweat and dirt. The man held a long-handled shovel by the business end. He bent to touch the side of Alan’s head; the boy winced. “Dirty dog gave you a good li’l shot there,” the man said. “Well, I give him one better, an’ one for good measure.” He bent to pick up Barton’s gun, jammed it into his pocket. “Can you get up?” he asked.

  The boy nodded. “I think so, yeah.” He struggled to his feet.

  The colored
man had started moving off toward the woods. “Be right back. Go on over by his truck, get inside.”

  By the time Alan had slid into the passenger seat, the man was back, carrying a large gunnysack over his shoulder. In one motion, he slung the sack and his shovel into the truck bed, and hopped in behind the steering wheel. “Glad he left us the keys.” The man turned on the motor, began backing out. “Gotta get us a good head start.”

  For once in his life, Alan said nothing.

  When they got to the Georgetown Highway, the colored man turned southward, drove half a mile, then pulled the truck to the side of the road, killed the motor, slipped the key into his pocket, and got out. Alan followed suit, pausing just long enough to grab the empty book bag from the floor. The man picked up a twig, bent over the right rear tire, unscrewed the cap from the stem, and pushed the twig into the recess, sending air hissing out. A couple of minutes, the tire was flat. The Negro nodded approval, then grinned up at Alan. “Mr. Barton see this, he think we was headin’ to town and had a flat.” The man motioned toward the woods at the other side of the road. “We goin’ that way, though. I knows my way through these woods like nobody else, an’ he ain’t never gonna find us.” He grabbed his sack from the truck, slung it over a shoulder, then snatched up his shovel. “Come on, boy. Best we get us movin’.”

  Alan trotted across the road after him. Every step made the side of his head pound, but he was not about to complain. Once they’d entered the woods and the road had disappeared from view, he said, “I didn’t even have a chance to thank you. Who are you, anyway?”

  “Lotta people call me Samson, but my right name’s Richard Curd,” the man called over his shoulder. “Richard Curd, Junior. But let’s just keep walkin’ for now. We get ourselves clear, there’ll be plenty time for the formalities. Anyways, it was my pleasure to give that motherfucker Barton a couple good cracks upside his head.”

  ***

  Brun looked around the tidy living room, and thought he might have taken a trip in one of Cal’s time machines. Sedalia, 1899. Tufted chairs and a sofa, antimacassars set just so on their arms. A small music box rested on an oak table under the window; a Bible sat on the little mahogany table inside the door from the hall. Only a telephone on the wall above the Bible seemed out of place.

  That the woman would be in any way kindly disposed toward him surprised Brun no end. Damn her eyes, if it hadn’t been for her, he’d have stayed in Sedalia, kept taking lessons from Mr. Joplin, then gone along to St. Louis with Mr. Stark and his new music publishing business. And when Mr. Joplin and Mr. Stark both went to New York, how different Brun’s life would’ve turned out. He’d be a big shot in the music business now, not a dinky-town barber in a shop too small to swing a cat in.

  Luella showed no sign of finishing up her phone conversation, so Brun walked across the room, opened the lid of the music box, peered at the shiny brass cylinder and steel comb. He bent stiffly to read the colorful card with its list of eight tunes, pinned to the inside of the lid. Six opera songs, all Italian names, then “Home Sweet Home,” and last, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.”

  Damn! All those years he’d pissed into the wind, talking up Scott Joplin and ragtime music, and people still thought Irving Berlin had sat down one morning on Tin Pan Alley and invented ragtime. Well, maybe this ceremony and Joplin’s journal were going to turn things around. He had to get that journal, whatever it took.

  As he heard Luella hang up the phone, he quickly closed the lid to the music box.

  “Would you like to hear it?” Luella asked.

  He waved off her offer. “Thanks. Did you get hold of Mr. Rosenthal?”

  “Not yet. His wife said he had to go to St. Louis today, but he’ll be at the Hubbard High School all day tomorrow, getting ready for the ceremony. She said you should go see him then. She’ll tell him to expect you.”

  Brun swallowed disappointment. “Took a long time for her to say that.”

  She smiled. “No phone conversation with Fannye Rosenthal is short.”

  Again, Brun wondered why she was going miles out of her way to help him. He coughed politely, then said, “Well, I sure do appreciate all your kindnesses.”

  Gray eyes flashed behind rimless glasses. “I don’t know that I’d call it kindness. As far as I’m concerned, it’s Christian charity, a proper concern for others, and I’m not talking about you. You’ve somehow bamboozled a boy into coming out from back east to bring you an important book, and I’m concerned he’s fallen into some very bad company. I think it’s time for you to tell me the whole story. Then, I might be better able to help him, and yes, perhaps you, in the process.”

  Brun drew a breath, but before he could speak, Luella said, “The real story, Brun. All of it, and straight.”

  He smiled. She didn’t.

  He began to talk.

  When he finished, she sat for a moment, studying him. “Is that the whole story?”

  “Yes. God’s truth.”

  She almost told him not to take the Lord’s name in vain, but settled to make a wry face. “You’re as impetuous as ever, Brun. You have no regard for the harm your reckless behavior might cause others. I don’t believe in gambling, but if I did, I would bet everything I own that all you have on your mind right now is how to get your hands on that journal and wave it around in front of people tomorrow night. Just where did that boy get his hands on five thousand dollars?”

  The way Brun banged a fist against his chest, Luella thought he was doing a mea culpa. But then he said, “I got the money in a pouch here. I’m gonna make that right.”

  Just a bit of wind left her sails. “Well, good. I’m glad. But that’s not nearly my greatest concern. Otto Klein is a despicable man. He hates the colored. I don’t know how or why he got your young man to stay at their house, but it makes me fear for the boy’s safety. Brun, aren’t you at all concerned? Just a little?”

  He lowered his eyes, didn’t speak.

  “Well, at least you do have some capacity to feel shame. Now, why didn’t the boy answer the door when we rang the bell?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he was in the toilet? Maybe he was asleep.”

  “At nearly twelve noon? And when we came back here and called, he didn’t answer the phone either. Brun, that boy is not there, or if he is—”

  “Does Klein got a wife? Maybe we could talk to her.”

  “Hah! Rowena Klein is afraid of her own shadow, probably because when she sees it, she thinks it might be her husband’s. We’d get nothing out of her.”

  The venom in her voice took Brun aback. He worked his glasses off the bridge of his nose, pulled out a handkerchief, slowly wiped at the lenses. “You think we oughta go talk to the cops?”

  A sour look came over Luella’s face. “I’ve thought of that, but it’s probably not a good idea. The first thing they’d do would be to talk to Klein, and he’d tell them exactly what he told us. And then Klein might get scared enough to do something he hadn’t originally intended. I think it would be safer to keep our counsel, and try to find the boy and the journal ourselves.”

  Brun reached absently into his shirt pocket, pulled out the little container, took a pill between his fingers, and slid it into his mouth.

  “Would you like a glass of water?” Luella asked.

  Brun shook his head. “Unda mah toeng.”

  “That’s the medicine they use for heart pain?” Luella struggled to keep her voice even.

  Brun nodded. “Nitroglycerin.”

  She remembered the beautiful fifteen-year-old boy, full of energy, radiating desire and ambition. “Just imagine,” her Uncle Bob had said to her. “Fifteen years old, he runs away from home because he wants to learn to play this ragtime music, and only Scott Joplin’s good enough to teach him. I’ve never seen a boy with so much get up and go. He could be president of the United States if he doesn’t get hung first.”

  “Whew.” Brun took a deep breath. “That stuff really w
orks fast.”

  Luella looked at the old man, slumped in his chair, dewlap under his chin, bags under his eyes, and willed tears not to pour down her cheeks. Fortunately, just then, Brun pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “No!” Luella barked. “Not in my house, you don’t smoke.”

  He wondered why her voice was so quavery. “Beg your pardon.” He slid the pack back into his pocket.

  “Thank you,” she said primly. “All right, now. Thinking about Rowena Klein gives me an idea. We wouldn’t get any information from her, but Eileen is another story.”

  Brun cocked his head. “Eileen?”

  “Otto and Rowena’s daughter, the one who brought Alan to the supper last night. How a girl can be so different from her mother, I’ll never know. But I’ll bet…I believe if she knows anything, I can get her to tell us.”

  Brun started out of his chair; Luella motioned him back. “School doesn’t let out till three-twenty. Just sit back and rest a bit. I’ll make us some lunch.”

  Brun’s smile could have broken her heart. “Like I said, Luella. I appreciate your kindness.”

  Smile at Eileen Klein like that, Luella thought, she’ll spill every bean in the pot. “As I said, Brun, just consider it Christian charity. For the boy.”

  ***

  Alan couldn’t imagine how this was going to end. He’d followed Richard or Samson or whatever the man’s name was for miles through the woods, getting smacked in the face by low-hanging branches, tripping over roots. His feet and legs ached all the way to his armpits, and his head pounded something fierce. Samson didn’t seem the least bothered, never mind the big gunnysack, filled with God knew what, slung over his shoulder.

  As they drew up to a half-rotted tree trunk, Samson signaled for Alan to sit, which he did gladly. The colored man pulled a canteen from his belt, handed it to the boy, who drank deeply, then passed the water back to Samson. “Thank you,” Alan said softly.

  Samson grinned, took off his wide-brimmed hat, mopped his face with a raggedy sleeve. “Sorry to make you move so fast, young mister, but I figured before Mr. Barton woke up, we better get as much space as we could between us and him. Nobody knows these woods good as I do, so I believes we’s safe. Just in case, though, I got me a trusty shotgun in my house.”