“She’s onstage now.”
“Is she making them cry?”
Horace nodded.
“Then she’s almost done.”
El liked to start the night with vulgarity and end it with sincerity. A successful combination that made her more than just a novelty act and kept people coming back for more.
Horace cast an anxious look at the long line.
Dash said, “I know, it’ll cause a little trouble for you, but it’s urgent. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”
Horace sighed. “She’s about to do her last number. You get on in there. But hurry out, you hear?”
Dash thanked him, slipped a bill into his hand, and started towards the speak’s entrance.
The irate man in line said, “Oh hell no. Did you see that? Did you just see that? This is our neighborhood and we still get put second. Now tell me, y’all, why can’t ofay wait? Huh? Why can’t ofay wait? Why can’t ofay wait?”
The man got other people in line to chant along with him.
Horace said, “He’s not seeing the show, he’s dropping off a message.”
“Bullshit!”
“Hey! You know what? He paid me money, too. Y’all want in early? Pay the doorman. Otherwise, hush your mouths!”
To the chant of “Why can’t ofay wait?” Dash entered the club just as El was introducing her last song.
El said to the crowd, “This next one comes straight out of N’awlins. Nobody knows who wrote it and nobody cares, ’cause it’s like the truth of the heart, folks. And in a world of lies and disguises”—she paused to thump the brim of her top hat—“when someone tells you the truth, it doesn’t matter who said it first. Just as long as it keeps getting said.”
Dash found an open space about halfway down the bar. He ordered a Gin Rickey as she began playing the minor chords of a mournful ballad and sang in that deep, expansive voice of hers:
I went down to the infirmary
Saw my sweetheart there
And they had her stretched out on the table
Poor child, so white, so pale, so bare
Soon they’ll be sixteen coal-black horses
All hitched to a rubber-tired hearse
There’ll be seven gals goin’ to the graveyard
But I'm ’fraid only six of ’em is coming back
As she mourned the death of her lover, Dash sat transfixed, filled with emotion. It wasn’t sadness, per se. It was loss, a feeling he had more and more of these days. Was this what getting older meant? Dealing with increasing amounts of loss? He’d already lost his family, as they’d disowned him when they discovered why he spent so much time down in Greenwich Village.
Filthy, his mother had called him.
His father had called him something worse.
His older brother Max refused to call him anything at all.
Only his younger sister Sarah knew the truth before the rest of them. “I see you looking at Victor,” she wrote in a letter as she lay in quarantine, dying from the influenza. “I see the way he looks at you. Promise me, Dash, you’ll live your life your way. It’s too damned short to live otherwise.”
But how? Dash had asked himself at her funeral, fingering the letter’s pages in his pocket. It’s not possible. It’s not even legal.
He tried though. Escaped to the Village, to Victor, who left him in the end. Now all Dash had was Victor’s tailor shop and too many memories he tried to cover up with jazz and clinking glasses.
El sang on.
Now, when I die, I just want you to bury me
With a box-back coat and a high roller hat
And put a twenty-dollar gold piece on my watch chain
So that the boys’ll know that I am standing pat
Then there was the loss of Karl, the loss of a friendship that might’ve been. Death—for Dash could no longer deny that Walter was telling the truth about his brother—had ended the possibility with cold, cruel finality. And the guilt of not having protected the kid made Dash’s head feel as heavy as the weariness in El’s song.
And I want six crapshooters for my pallbearers
And of course girlies sing me a red-hot song
And put a jazz band on ahead of my hearse
And let ’em raise hell as they roll along
Beyond that, Dash felt the loss of friends. Many died in the War, that bloody pointless conflict in Europe, the supposed War-To-End-All-Wars he had managed to escape because of his father’s social and financial position. Young lives were ripped apart by shells or burned from the inside out by mustard gas, destroying families in the aftermath.
Now, in a different kind of war, friends were lost over arguments about the state of the country. Disputes over immigrants (let them in? keep them out?), workers’ rights (an American value? Bolshevik anarchy?), the role of women (in the workforce and independent? married and at home?), and race (equal? separate?).
Life is filled with loss, El’s voice seemed to say on the stage tonight, the blue notes bending and curling over and under themselves. And Dash—as well as the rest of the room—breathed in the melody and the words in a reverent silence.
And, now, my good friends, since you’ve heard my story
Mister Bartender, I’ll take another shot of that booze
Oh, I guess I’ll be on my way
I've got those gambler’s blues
One could’ve heard a pin drop during the final note. When the concluding chord finally faded away, the room exploded into applause. A few shouted “Yes, girl!” “Sing it!” “Tell the truth, now!”
Something warm landed on Dash’s face. He thought it was an errant drop of liquor from a bartender’s shaker, maybe even a squirt of fruit from the makings of a cocktail. When he reached up with his hand to wipe it away, he was surprised to discover it was his own tears. Guess he couldn’t stop them after all. He joined in the applause, crying as he clapped and cheered.
El walked off the stage, not appearing to see him. He finished his drink, went to Leslie Charles’s office door, and knocked. He expected the black man with the sapphire eyes to open the door, but instead, it was El.
When she saw him, she said, “Les is going to hit the roof when he sees you. You’re lucky he’s in the basement right now. That little friend of yours left after all we did for him. Hell, after all I did for him.”
“El—”
“I tried to do him a favor, and he repays me by making me look like a fool to Leslie! I have a system of debits and credits with that man, and I always make it a point that he owes me far more than I owe him. Karl futzed that up. Next time I see him, I’m gonna raise some hell on his ass.”
“You can’t, El.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because he’s dead.”
El paused. She seemed to register, for the first time, Dash’s tear stains, then the pain in his eyes. Her expression softened.
“Well, shit.” She opened the office door wider. “Come on in.”
10
Dash sat on the windowsill in Leslie Charles’s office just like he did the night before and explained the whole story, including Horace seeing Karl on Leslie’s telephone. El was sitting in Leslie’s desk chair during this tale of woe.
When he finished, she sighed. “Les will not be happy when he sees that bill. You know that boy didn’t call anybody in the next few blocks, so it’s long-distance.”
“He was trying to warn somebody, but I don’t know who.” Dash looked at Leslie’s phone sitting on his desk. He nodded towards it. “Think we can ask the operator where that call was placed last night?”
El hooted a laugh. “I doubt it. How many people are in this city? You know those poor operator girls transfer at least a hundred calls a day.”
“You’re right,” Dash said. “He didn’t mention any names to you, by any chance. A Tyler Smith? A Miss Avery?”
“Nope, just someone named Pru.”
“Pru?”
“Short for Prudence, I imagine. Sounds like a white bull
, the way he was describing her.”
“How so?”
“She wore suits. He said she wore them better than he did.”
Dash nodded to himself. “There was a woman in a tuxedo last night in my club. She was with the female impersonator Walter was looking for.”
“Might’ve been her.”
“So if Miss Tuxedo is Pru, that makes the female impersonator Miss Avery,” Dash said. “Why was Karl mentioning her suits?”
El adjusted herself in Leslie’s desk chair and crossed her legs. “Because she was in a trouser-wearing profession. According to him, Pru’s an attorney.”
Dash blinked. “An attorney? A woman lawyer?”
El nodded. “They got those now. Not sure who would hire them, ’cause men only want to do business with other men.” She tapped Leslie’s desk. “This one is a prime example of that. Do you know how long it took for him to get used to dealing with just me? Damn near a year and even then, he still has his bad habits. The amount of training I have to do with menfolk, I swear. Slow and ungrateful learners. No wonder I don’t want them in my bed.”
Dash wasn’t listening all that closely. When she paused to take a breath, he asked, “Why was Karl gallivanting around town with an attorney?”
El shrugged. “He didn’t say.”
Dash leaned forward. “Did he say anything else about her? What law firm she works for? Where she lives?”
“Nope. Only that Pru’s plan failed. Kept muttering it under his breath. ‘It didn’t work, it didn’t work.’” She flicked a look at Dash’s confused face. “I take it you don’t know what that means neither.”
“He said a lot of things last night that were odd. First, he said they chose my club because it was a special occasion. Then he said he was thinking about changing his name and starting a new life.”
“Running from something.”
“Or somebody.”
“His brother’s a good guess.”
“He knows!” Karl had said. “He knows!”
Dash asked, “And he never said anything about this plan?”
El paused a moment to think. “I got the feeling there was something he wanted to tell but for whatever reason, he couldn’t get the words out.”
“His brother said Karl had something this Miss Avery wanted.”
“Walter didn’t say what it was?”
“Not a word.”
“Huh. If I were a gambling woman, I’d say it was money.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s the only thing we all spend over half our lives chasing!”
“True enough. Still. Seems a bit excessive given the lengths Walter is going to get it back.”
“Unless it was substantial.” El blew out a breath. “Lord, Dash. You are in some kind of mess. And I don’t know a cop who could help you out of it by locking up Walter for blackmail without locking you up in the same breath for degeneracy.” She hesitated. “Walter doesn’t know Karl came up here, does he?”
Dash shook his head.
“Neither do the cops?”
He shook his head again.
“Thank God for that.”
He looked down at his shoes. They were in desperate need of a shine. “And Pru was the only name Karl mentioned? I know I’m asking again, but I want to make sure. Not a Miss Avery? A Tyler Smith?”
“Nope on both counts.”
“What about a Zora Mae?”
A slight pause. “He didn’t mention her but . . .”
Dash looked up. “You know who she is?”
El replied, “I think the better question is how do you know who she is?”
He explained about the cards Karl had.
“I see,” El said. “Why would a small white boy be working for her?”
“Who is she, El?”
“She the premier party girl of Harlem. Hosts rent parties, theme parties, and from what I hear, certain specialty parties.”
Dash caught her hint. Naked petting parties. “So is she a . . . ?”
“She calls herself the ‘Baroness of Business.’ Not sure what this boy was doing with the likes of her.”
“Handing out her rent party cards, at the very least. Could he have gone to her? He said she didn’t take in strays, but maybe he had to work for her last night.”
“Like I said, he only mentioned Pru. And then he disappeared.”
“I see.” Dash gathered his courage, knowing El wasn’t going to like his request. “El, how do I find this Zora Mae?”
El closed her eyes. “Dash, listen to me. You do not want to mess with that one. She’s dangerous.”
“She can’t be any more dangerous than Walter Müller.”
“Oh yes, she can!” El opened her eyes and looked hard at Dash. “Listen now. You didn’t grow up in the streets and in the alleys of this city. You were in palaces with doormen and the police at your beck and call. This world, the world she lives in? You don’t know anything about it. And you can get yourself killed without realizing you caused offense to the one killing you.”
Dash stood up and started pacing around the small, cramped office. “I don’t have any options, El. I’m trying not to get innocent people hurt by Walter, but he is insistent on finding this female impersonator. And he is damn serious about putting me, Joe, Finn, and Atty in prison. If this Zora Mae can point me in the right direction or, hell, give me a clue as to who could’ve killed his brother, then I have to speak with her.”
“I understand you’re feeling panicked, Dash. Even desperate. I certainly would feel the same in your shoes.” El leaned forward in the chair, her elbows resting on her thighs, her eyes pleading. “But you have to understand, you will be messing with some dangerous people. People with hardened hearts. People without a soul. You will not be safe with a woman like Zora Mae.”
“If Walter puts me in prison, how safe will I be?”
El narrowed her eyes. “This isn’t the only reason you’re doing this, is it?”
Dash was startled by the question. He stopped pacing. “What do you mean?”
El sat up, leaning back in Leslie’s office chair. “I mean, you’re up to something. Why else would you intentionally go to a place you have no business going?”
“I . . .” Dash’s voice faltered. He kept seeing the shy smile on Karl’s face, the gentle way he clasped his hands together, the slight hesitation before giving Dash the quick peck on his cheek.
I tried to help him.
El saw the look on his face. “Oh hell.”
Just then, the office door swung open and there stood Leslie Charles. It took a moment for the sapphire-eyed man to register Dash’s appearance. When he did, he said, “Oh no. No, no, hell, no. What is this ofay doing in my office?”
“Les!” El replied. “Watch your mouth.”
“I don’t have to watch anything. This is my office in my club. And that ofay is causing me nothing but trouble. Your friend? The one who’s supposed to help me out?”
“Les—”
“He done skipped out on me.”
“Les—”
“And nobody skips out on a deal with Leslie Charles. Uh uh. He owes me two days of labor. When you see that little sauerkraut, you tell him—”
“Les!”
“What!”
The little man turned to El.
El said, “The little sauerkraut is dead.”
Leslie stared at El. “Say again?”
“Somebody killed him.”
Leslie turned and looked straight on at Dash. “Get out.” His voice was low and guttural. “Get out now.”
El tried to intervene “Les—”
Leslie held up a hand and, for once, silenced El. He pointed at Dash. “You’re not bringing cops to my club over some dumb white kid. You got me? Now get out.”
Dash slowly stood up. “I’m leaving. And don’t worry, the cops don’t know he was up here.”
“They better not. You hear? They better. Not.”
Dash made his way t
owards the door. El dropped her head, her eyes not meeting Dash’s. He didn’t blame either of them for their reactions. He hadn’t meant to cause them trouble, but good intentions didn’t change the outcome.
When Dash got to the doorway, he said, “Thank you both for trying to help. And I—”
“Don’t apologize. Just get out.”
Dash looked from Leslie to El and back again. He took a deep breath and left the office.
Out on the street, he said goodbye to Horace. The irate man in line, the one who started the chant “Why can’t ofay wait?” said, “Hope you had a good time!”
Dash ignored him and stood on the curb, waiting for a cab, wondering what in the world he was going to do. He had just successfully hailed a taxi when he heard a rustling sound behind him. He turned and saw El. A few people in the line noticed her and started cheering and calling out her name.
She pushed a piece of paper into his hand. He took it out and read the hastily scribbled note: Hot Cha, near Seventh and 134th, ask for Clarence, then say you’re here to walk his dog and you’re the dog walker.
Dash looked up at El.
She replied to his questioning gaze, “That’s where you’ll find Zora Mae. She’s there almost every night.”
Dash tried to stammer a thank you when she waved him off.
“Knock it off with that. I’m doing this favor for you because I like you. I hate it and I’ll deny it to my dying day, but I like you. But you can’t futz this up, understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t fucking ma’am me.” The words were harsh, but the corners of her mouth twitched.
Dash nodded. “Thank you, El.” He looked down at the note again. “I sincerely appreciate this.”
“Don’t thank me yet. First off, you can’t just go there by yourself. They don’t like solo downtowners. They look like cops.”
“Will you go with me?”
“Hell, no! I am way too conspicuous. And this place ain’t for B.D. women like myself. You need someone more refined, like fine china. See, I’m the bull in the china shop, but—”
The Double Vice: The 1st Hidden Gotham Novel Page 9