Rage in Paris

by Kirby Williams

  Stanley was looking at me serenely. He wagged a finger.

  “Don’t you be studyin’ the Count and his bully boys. I got peoples comin’ who be packin’ guns, shivs, brass knuckles, saps, you name it. I got peoples comin’ so ugly, they make the baddest Harlem gangsters look like French ladies at a tea party with old Marie-Antoinette, holdin’ they teacups with they pinky stickin’ out. Hambone and his Frenchy eye-talians try nothin’ with us, and his club gone to be blown to glory.”

  “We’ve got to be careful with the Corsicans and the Count, Stanley. They’re Frenchmen on their own ground.”

  “I got me some Corsicans, too, Urby, and they don’t like Bone’s Corsicans. They settle it French to French. We got some French workers comin’ for the charity concert, too, and they bound to keep the Count and his bully boys in line. What we got to do is get our hands on the Hambone and Baby Langston and squeeze out some answers about where goldilocks be at. We gone know by the end of this evening, and we gone take back that girl. I reckon we still good to ask her daddy for ten grand for yo’ troubles when you return her, not no hundred grand for no ransom.” He blew a perfect smoke ring, stabbed his panatela through it, and went on.

  “Ten grand in good old-fashion greenbacks. Dropped off where the police afraid to go, like the Versailles forest. Then you turns the girl over to him honest-like, ’cause you ain’t a cheat like him. And you learns him not to fool colored folk with goldback money get us jailed up by J. Edgar and his G-men.”

  “The ransom note asks for one hundred grand. If the press and police get wind of it, like they did with the fifty grand ransom for baby Lindbergh that Jean Fletcher told me about, we’d be in for a heap of trouble, Stanley. If the cops pinned a kidnapping on us, even for ten grand, they’d ship our behinds back to Jim Crow land to stand trial. I say we find her, get the fee I signed on for with Robinson at the outset, and drop the rest.”

  “Believe me, Urby, we bring home the bacon for ten grand, Robinson be so happy he be dancin’ the cancan with us at the Moulin Rouge and servin’ us champagne in gold goblets. ’Cause we not talkin’ no hundred grand, Urby; we talkin’ ten. Any man know in his soul that be righteous. But we gone hold off for now, you so worried.”

  I was relieved, but a lot could still go wrong.

  The more I thought about Daphne, the more I felt the music burning in me like lava, and my fingers had taken on a life of their own, as if already playing the keys on my clarinet. I was nervous about how things would go, but I was excited about playing the clarinet again. I had six long hours to wait until the charity concert began.

  I went over the program with Stanley. It would be a repeat of the last gig we had ever played together at Johnny Sutton’s Blue Heaven Club when Buster Thigpen was, for one night, the best drummer on the planet.

  The only worry I had about finding my music again was that it was all because of Daphne. I didn’t know anything about her except that she was the most beautiful woman that I’d ever set eyes on, but I’d loved a lot of beautiful women in my heyday. None of them turned out to be good for me, except Hannah Korngold, and a bad Daphne could send me back into the pit, without a Hannah around to rescue me.

  CHAPTER 13

  Paris, Saturday evening, February 10, 1934

  Mardi Gras would fall on Tuesday, February 13, in three days, so Hambone Gaylord had a New Orleans Mardi Gras Masked Ball as the theme of the charity concert, just as it had been the theme of my and Hannah’s nightclub. He told the audience crammed into La Belle Princesse that he had chosen the masked ball theme to honor the three “great” New Orleans Creole musicians in the quartet (Lonny Jones, the drummer, was from Mobile, Alabama): Stanley Bontemps on the soprano saxophone, myself on the clarinet, and Buddy Baudoin on the cornet.

  As customers filed in, they were handed New Orleans Mardi Gras carnival masks. Hambone had piled folding chairs into every nook and cranny of his club. Celebrities milled around the bar. Workers in their blue overalls and cloth caps puzzled over their carnival masks, and the women with them gawked at the celebrities. One overly made-up prostitute spotted the movie star Charles Boyer at the bar and unabashedly opened the top of her dress and asked him to autograph her slip, which he did with a laugh and a big kiss on her cheek. The workers’ section cheered. Boyer motioned for them to don their masks and mimed how to put them on. The workers copied him, and Boyer ordered bottles of wine and doled them out. He made an elaborate bow and toasted them as applause rang out from the workers.

  A half dozen “celebrity tables” had been placed next to the stage, and the chanteuse Mistinguett was laughing uproariously as she and the actress Yvonne Printemps pulled at the masks of Maurice Chevalier and the boxer Georges Carpentier. The writers James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, not wearing masks, were speaking earnestly with empty glasses littering their table.

  The hubbub in La Belle Princesse rose even higher when Jean Cocteau came in with Pablo Picasso. Someone had told them about the Mardi Gras theme, and Picasso had made masks for the occasion which some of Stanley’s friends were staring at with very quizzical expressions on their faces.

  Stanley and Redtop had called out the reserves for the charity concert. I recognized some of the leading figures in the Harlem-in-Montmartre scene, not the owners of bars and restaurants and nightclubs, but their most highly trusted enforcers. They sat together in La Belle Princesse where they could watch everything that was going on. It was obvious that they were packing serious hardware; as they laughed and drank, they clanked against each other, the sound of the guns, metal pipes, and shivs that they were carrying making a metallic din as they grew more and more boisterous.

  In another section of the nightclub stood Hambone’s backup, a group of Corsicans whose looks were improved when they put on their masks. They were dressed impeccably, nearly identically, wearing black Borsalino hats and gray and white pinstripe suits with matching vests and black and white two-toned shoes. They were all packing weapons, which were slim-lined handguns and stiletto knives that did not rumple their suits.

  I felt nervous, not so much at what might happen but at playing the clarinet again after two years. But I knew that it would go well. The music was boiling inside me again, and I felt the same excitement I had twenty years ago playing a gig in Harlem. In my mind, I was dedicating my music to Hannah Korngold, but I was kidding myself; deep down I knew that if I made my clarinet sing tonight, Daphne was my muse.

  Suddenly, La Belle Princesse fell silent as the Count, followed by Pierre and four other Oriflamme, came in. The workers nudged each other, and a few of them had to be restrained from attacking them. The Count and his men refused to put on the proffered masks and hunkered down at one of the celebrity tables that Hambone had reserved for them on Stanley’s orders. After a brief pause, the noise level rose, and then there was silence again as a professorial-looking man wearing a thick mustache and glasses entered the club. He was immediately greeted by applause and cheers from the workers who leapt to their feet and flashed him clenched-fist salutes. The man saluted back to louder cheers from the workers. They started chanting, “Léon Blum, Léon Blum, Léon Blum.” He smiled and waved and put on a carnival mask and sat down among the workers. I looked over at the Count and his followers. As if by reflex action, their hands went to the parts of their bodies where they were carrying their weapons. The workers started singing the Internationale with Léon Blum joining in.

  I felt a nudge in my ribs and turned around. It was Jean Fletcher.

  “Hi, kiddo,” she said. “Good luck tonight. I hope you’ve got your metal Homburg somewhere. With Léon Blum and your daddy in the same room, things could get ugly.”

  At that moment, Lonny Jones played a drumroll, and Hambone Gaylord bounded onto the small stage. The feeble lights around it went up, and Hambone cupped his hands like a megaphone to shout, “Welcome to La Belle Princesse in Nouvelle Orleans, Paris.”

  There was loud applause from everyone. Hambone continued,

  “Hambone tha
nks y’all. We all come in peace tonight, in aid of the victims of the . . . troubles of last Tuesday night. The proceeds from our concert will all go to the victims and they family.”

  “That’s right, brother,” Hambone’s backup men intoned. “That sure be a fine thing for ole Hambone to do, ummmmummmphh.”

  Hambone continued, “Ain’t none of these musicians gone take home nary a penny. No sirree. All the money we gone collect, gone go to the victims. Now, we gone pass the collection plate around at the end of the service . . . the concert . . . and I ax y’all to be gen’rous. I don’t wanna hear no metal in them plates. I wants to hear silent money. French francs and dollars be welcome but, please, give us paper money and not them itty-bitty pieces of metal.

  “Now we got some fine New Orleans lagniappe lined up for y’all tonight,” Hambone continued. “We got a battle of the bones, ’twixt the old-timers and the new-timers. First up: New Orleans and Paris own Stanley Bontemps, king of the Creole soprano sax.” There were cheers and the stomping of feet as Stanley stood up in his white silk tuxedo and white shoes to acknowledge the applause.

  “Next up, we got Buddy . . . Baudoin, the baronet of the cornet.” Buddy played a few flashy riffs stolen straight off Louis Armstrong.

  Mistinguett leapt to her feet, waving her fur boa around, and everyone cheered, more for Mistinguett than for the great Buddy Baudoin.

  “Then we got my man making his return engagement tonight after two years where he ain’t done touch his clarinet not once. I’m talkin’ ’bout the man they done called the Mozart of the Creole clarinet, Mr. Urrrrrrbyyyy Brownnnnnn.” There was wild clapping, and Jean Fletcher and Redtop leapt to their feet. To my astonishment, the Count stood up to applaud.

  Hambone rushed through the rest of his spiel. “Last but not least, we got Lonny Jones on the drums. This here boy can really make them drumskins sing.” Hambone’s backup muscle boys all leapt to their feet, whistling and making a lot of noise. Hambone shushed the audience with a finger to his lips. He hummed some kind of lullaby. “Folks, forget you in Paris and dream you is far away in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, so ‘laissez les bons temps rouler.’”

  Stanley donned his mask, gave the downbeat, and the quartet broke out into a frantic “Tiger Rag.” The audience burst into applause. Suddenly, a small masked man jumped onto the stage and twirled his horn. From his first riffs, I recognized the inimitable clarinet style of Sidney Bechet, even before he took off his mask. The audience stood up and applauded, some crying out, “Bechet, Bechet.” Sidney and I started a clarinet duel, “cutting and bucking” against each other like cornet players. I improvised fantastic runs and riffs, and Bechet responded. The other musicians stopped playing to listen, open-mouthed. It was like the old days; I was deep down into the music, listening to it roaring from my brain to my lips and fingers, but I could hear the comments around the stage crystal clear. One man, really surprised, said, “Sidney playin’ real good.” He hesitated. “But Urby carvin’ him up!”

  I heard Jean crying, “Play it, Urby. Play it!”

  Sidney Bechet looked at me with a sweet smile on his face as he ducked under my riff and let me carry the music for a while; he was figuring out my next notes, waiting to ambush me with better ones as soon as I let him in.

  The bucking went on through chorus after chorus. I lost count how many. Finally, Sidney started playing more softly and slowly, but I kept blowing harder, shaping my phrases like I was painting with light and fire. Then I heard just the sound of my own horn and its images and touches reeling through my senses; I saw again the look of concern on Hannah’s face, felt Daphne’s soft hand on my forehead. I smelled the perfume on her hand. My music curved and swept and moved alone through the air.

  Sidney Bechet was sitting down now, watching me with a sweet smile on his face and his head bouncing in time to the rhythm. Sidney stood up, shrugged his shoulders, and mimed throwing his clarinet to the floor in surrender. The audience had gone quiet, listening to every note. Stanley, Buddy Baudoin, and I played the final bars with the skillful drumming of Lonny Jones so fine that he sounded like Baby Dodds—or Buster when he was clean and happy. We finished “Tiger Rag” in a cacophony of sound, all golden and rich. Stanley hugged me, and there was wild applause at the finale. Sidney got up again and waved his hands around, urging the audience on to clap and cheer me even harder. I saw the Count smiling, pretending to be proud of me. Jean vaulted onto the stage and planted a sloppy kiss on my forehead.

  “You were great,” she said. “You were really great.”

  Hambone was making his way to the stage to announce the next number when a scuffle broke out between Hambone’s Corsicans and the workers surrounding Léon Blum. Word had got to the Corsicans that a major prize was in their midst, and the Alfieri clan had decided to try to kidnap Blum then and there.

  The workers pulled out their saps and brass knuckles and bicycle chains and were facing down the Corsicans, the incredibly calm Léon Blum standing, arms folded, among the workers. Then the Oriflamme rushed the workers to join forces with the Corsicans, and Buddy Baudoin blew the call to charge on his cornet. Redtop raced out the door with James Joyce and Samuel Beckett hot on her heels.

  Suddenly, Stanley’s backups, dressed up in Mardi Gras carnival Indian masks, rushed across the nightclub to join the fray, attacking the Corsicans and the Oriflamme with sawed-off baseball bats, straight-edge razors, and their huge ham-sized fists. Lonny Jones had tackled Hambone on the stage, and he was holding a straight-edge razor against his jugular vein.

  The Count was watching the fight dispassionately, seeing his Oriflamme goons being driven back by the enraged band of Stanley’s friends. Then he just smiled, tugged at Pierre’s sleeve, and walked majestically through the heaving, thrusting bodies, clearing a path with his ivory cane. He turned as he passed me, smiled, and patted me on the shoulder. Then he kept on walking as Pierre joined him with an angry snarl directed at me. They walked straight out the main door and onto rue Ordener.

  Stanley took out his Colt, raised it to fire a shot into the ceiling, and then lowered it. He did not want the police to come to break up the fray. Stanley nodded at Buddy who blew another series of loud blasts on his cornet that imitated the sound of a fire engine. That stopped the fighting, and everyone looked toward the stage, where Stanley stood, waving his Colt.

  “Clear on out,” he shouted. “Y’all clear on out. We don’t want no cops in here.” I could see Leon Blum conferring with the workers, who then escorted him through the door, forming a bodyguard around him. The Corsicans followed, brushing the dirt off their suits. One of the three remaining Oriflamme had been knocked out by a blow from a baseball bat and had to be dragged out by his colleagues.

  Stanley went over to his group, slapped backs, and handed out wads of franc notes to the enforcers of his nightclub owner friends, and they went off into the night to party on elsewhere.

  The last patrons left in the club were the celebrities who had watched everything with enjoyment. They were toasting Stanley with champagne as Hambone squirmed on all fours on the stage in the vise-like grip of Lonny Jones.

  Stanley went over to the celebrities, all smiles, whipped out some photographs of himself from an inside pocket of his all-white tuxedo, and autographed the photos for them. He promised Picasso that he would pose for him, and then they all left the club, the great Mistinguett giving me the “bise” on both cheeks, Jean Cocteau and Picasso shaking my hand. Picasso’s dark eyes burned into mine, and I wondered if I would end up in one of his strange-looking paintings.

  For the celebrities, it had been an exciting spectacle, a settling of accounts in the Harlem-in-Montmartre underworld with a dash of jazz and high politics thrown in. I was sure that they would return to the nightclub with more of their coterie after word spread about the Mardi Gras brawl in La Belle Princesse.

  We had done big publicity for La Belle Princesse, but Hambone was in a tight spot right now, pinned to the stage with Lonny’s blade against h
is neck. Jean was the last to leave. I had searched the club for stragglers and flushed her out of her hiding place near the toilets. She always, she had said, wanted to be in at the kill. But this time, there might be a real one.

  “Time to go, Jean,” I said. She smiled at me and gave me a peck on the cheek. She was as sober as I’d ever seen her.

  “You were nothing short of genius out there tonight, Urby,” she said. “Promise me you’ll tell me no later than Monday what befalls our dear Hambone. Looks like he’s in a tight spot.”

  My promise given, I walked Jean to the door, and she stepped out into the night as Stanley’s chauffeur glided up. She got in, waved goodbye, and headed off to the Left Bank.

  Buddy Baudoin picked up his illegal wages and cut out, leaving four people in the club: Stanley, me, Lonny Jones, and Hambone Gaylord.

  After everyone had gone, I locked the main door. I went behind the bar, took down a bottle of calvados, and filled a tumbler with it. Stanley nodded to me, and I got down the rye and poured him a glass of it straight, no chaser.

  Lonny was still holding the gigantic Hambone down with one arm as if he had wrestled a steer to the ground. At a nod from Stanley, Lonny pressed his straight-edge razor across Hambone’s throat and drew blood. Hambone’s eyes moved wildly in his head as he visualized blood spouting out of his neck.

  Stanley motioned for Lonny to put his razor away, and Lonny pulled up a chair for Hambone. Lonny stood behind him with his razor at the ready in case Hambone tried to do a runner.

  “How much money you collect tonight, Bone?” Stanley asked.