Dark Stain

by Appel, Benjamin

  “That’s common sense,” Maddigan approved.

  “You’re going to ask me what about the Italians,” Blaine said. “And I’ll admit the motives are mixed-up motives with the Italians. There are Negro bars that’d like nothing better than to take over the Italian liquor business. There’s a big-shot like Big Boy Bose who owns a half dozen bars and Bose’d like nothing better than to put the Italians against the wall.”

  “Who printed the leaflets?” Sam said. “Bose?”

  Blaine held up a round big hand. “The A.H.N.C. printed them.”

  “That’s what I thought. Once,” Sam said.

  “Who changed your mind? Clair?” Maddigan questioned.

  Sam shrugged. So this is why they had come, the white detective and the Negro detective who spoke as the white man wanted him to do.

  Blaine said, “The first leaflet was printed and it was signed by the A.H.N.C. It fussed up City Hall. It worried the Mayor and the Police Commissioner. It worried the politicians.”

  “Well?” Sam said.

  “There he pops,” Maddigan said. “What do you know about Harlem? The A.H.N.C.’s loaded with politicians. They come up for election, don’t they? When the pressure got hot on top they stopped signing their leaflets.”

  “Why didn’t they stop the meeting?” Sam said. “The pressure was hot enough.”

  “Votes,” said Maddigan.

  “Right,” Blaine seconded. “Negro officeholders, Miller, are no different from white ones. They were in a spot, that Committee. They saw Harlem wanted action. A mass meeting’d give them the chance to get up before the votes and pound their chests.” Blaine laughed. “If you want to know Harlem, you got to know that the Negro is afraid of one thing more than anything else in the world. The Negro’s always afraid his leaders’ll let him down. That’s why the leaders hopped the bandwagon. They knew all Harlem was sore about Randolph. Something had to be done. The leaders had to ride along. At the same time they had to keep their political fences up. The big-shot Republican and Democrat leaders, the whites, they didn’t like the A.H.N.C. leaflet. That’s why the second one was signed United Negro Committee and the third one wasn’t signed at all.”

  “No,” Sam said.

  “They need their white backing,” Blaine said. “That’s why the meeting was toned down. That’s why the eyewitnesses didn’t speak even though they were announced. If they’d’ve spoken, you’d have had your riot Sunday. But a riot’d ruin the A.H.N.C. with the white big-shots. That’s what it all is. An undercover fight between the white big-shots and the A.H.N.C. The A.N.H.C. doesn’t want a riot but they want to show the whites how strong they are. They’re smart. They see the time’s coming when colored candidates are going to run for all kinds of offices. For Congress, too. And not only up in the North. But in the South, too. The poll tax is going to be licked soon.”

  Maddigan punched his fist into the bed. “That’s straight gospel. Miller. Let me add something to what Blaine’s said. There were Irish cracks in the second leaflet. Those Irish cracks were cut out of the third leaflet because the word was passed on to these colored big-shots that they were going too far dragging in the Irish. Jews was okay. Italian was okay. But the Irish were too strong to fool around with.”

  “Who passed the word?” Sam asked.

  “I don’t know. But it was passed on.”

  Sam considered. There was some truth in what they had told him. It was possible that the Jewish outbreaks were sporadic. And weren’t the Negro bar owners business men first? Wouldn’t they stand to profit if the Italian bars lost their Negro customers? Weren’t there Negro politicians only loyal to their positions and salaries? Hadn’t the two Negro newspapers featured the Randolph killing and underplayed the follow-up crimes? Hadn’t one of the A.H.N.C. members at the “Y” called him a police agent? Maybe he had spun himself a fascist fairy tale; maybe Suzy and Johnny and Cashman had made him see fascists in thin air?

  “What do you know of the Harlem Equality League?” Blaine asked Sam.

  “It stands for equality between the races — ”

  “Where do they get their dough?” Blaine said quietly.

  “From contributions I suppose.”

  “They collect from Negroes,” Blaine said. “And from rich white people. They got to show the people putting up the cash they’re earning their keep. They got to keep in the limelight or the collection falls off. They got to have publicity all the time. That’s why whenever some no-good black rapes a white woman and gets lynched, the H.E.L. hollers frameup. They’re always looking for Scottsboro cases. If they don’t find them, they make them. They’re the worst enemies of the Negro you can find, these H.E.L.’s, N.A.A.C.P.’s and Negro Congresses!” Blaine nodded emphatically. “That’s why Clair took you and the girl into his office. For the publicity. So he could say to the rich whites: ‘See what I’m doing? I believe in white folks.’ ” Blaine shoved his palm out. He rubbed his thumb up and down on the lifeline like someone asking for money. “He’s got his publicity now. The town’s gone to his hole in the wall. He’s in all the papers and take it from me, Miller, that Harvard no-good who says he’s a Negro but who’s no more a Negro than I’m a white man, just loves it.”

  Sam understood the truth he had heard from Blaine; it was Matty Rosenberg’s “truth.” “Maybe Clair kidnapped Suzy for the publicity.”

  “Don’t get wise!” Maddigan shouted, his face reddening through the talcum. “You don’t believe us. You don’t believe Blaine, a real Negro with the lowdown. The Department should’ve let you get the hell out. Department treats you like a man and you kick it in the face.”

  They were third-degreeing him, Sam realized. They hadn’t locked him in a cell or flashed searchlights in his eyes. They had come into his own home, into his own room to hammer at him, to flatter, to threaten, to explain to. Maddigan had played the tune of cops sticking together. Blaine had been the explainer. And Sam looked at them, knowing at last why they had come. His face was as hard as their faces, his jaw square, his brown eyes concealed behind half-lowered lids. “The Department’s been good to me,” he said. “I won’t hurt the Department.”

  “That’s more like it,” Maddigan said but he smiled as if to add: You’re not putting anything over on us.

  To that smile, Sam said. “I want my girl back. That’s all I want.” He sat bolt upright. In this third degree, he and not the detectives had called the showdown.

  “Miller,” Maddigan said. “You’ve been forgetting you’re a cop but I guess you are a cop at heart. You and me know that the Department can throw the whole works into the Buckles case. It can go all-out or it can handle it routine. The Buckles case means a lot to you but the Department’s got plenty of other headaches.”

  “Are you speaking for the Department?”

  “Speaking for Frank X. Maddigan. Sure, you want the Department to go all-out! It’s only natural. It’s only natural you cooperate. The Department doesn’t care for this private dick agency you’ve set up for yourself. Of course you can’t sit still with your girl missing. But you can’t help her. You haven’t been trained to be a detective. Where’s your common sense?”

  “I want the Department to go all-out.”

  “Then listen hard, rookie,” Maddigan said. “The private dick agency is kaput, get me. Then there’s another thing.

  Councilman Vincent and his pals’re working their heads off to get you up for trial. They want you booked on a homicide. They don’t want a Grand Jury hearing on the grounds that the Grand Jury’ll give you the whitewash. They may get you up for trial. They got pull. But in any case you’ll be up to the Grand Jury and the D.A. How’ll you behave? Like a loyal cop? We hope so. It wouldn’t be so hot if you made some half-baked speech about how you and the muggers are like brothers. It wouldn’t be so hot if you popped off with any kind of a Red speech. Like I said, I figure you for a loyal cop. Rosenberg was saying he thought a Jewish cop ought to be more loyal than any other kind. Rosenberg’s right. Lots of peo
ple in the Department don’t like Jewish cops. So why give them more arguments? Be a credit to your race and the Department — that’s only decent. And if you don’t do the decent thing, there’s always some in the Department who’d resent it. The Department’s all-out and it’ll stay all-out on the Buckles case. But you know how it is.”

  “I understand.”

  “I knew you were okay, Miller. I can tell the boys you’ll cooperate?”

  “You can.”

  “One thing more.” Maddigan leaned across the bed and tapped Sam on the ankle with one manicured finger. “This is in strict confidence. We’re building up a case, Blaine and me, against some of these faking Negro politicians. I don’t know when we’ll spring it. The time ain’t ripe. But when it’s ripe we might need a little cooperation.”

  “I see.”

  “How about it?”

  “I’ll cooperate. Get my girl back.”

  Maddigan stood up. “We will. Ain’t it a shame. So long, Miller.”

  “Good bye,” Blaine said. “Glad to know you.”

  “Good bye.” He watched them walk out of his room. He shut the door. He thought: It’s clear, it’s clear. Somebody high up wants to smear Harlem. Somebody high up was building a frame against the Councilman. Somebody high up was sick of all the liberal and left-wing attacks against police brutality. What next? Sam knew that the difference between a routine investigation and an all-out investigation was the difference between failure and success. He put his hand to his aching head. His brow was cold and clammy, his hand shaking. Inescapably, he realized that behind all these facts was still another fact, the big fact. Somebody high up didn’t want him crying fascists all over town. Somebody high up was interested in protecting the fascists operating in Harlem. Somebody high up had written him down as a Jew nigger-lover.

  “Sam,” his mother was calling. “They’re gone. Come out and eat something.”

  His mouth opened wide. He tore air into his lungs, feeling strangled as if the great iron net that he had always feared had at last closed on him. It had caught Suzy. Now it was his turn.

  His mother rattled the door knob. “Come out and eat. They’re gone. Such nice detectives. The white one knows a bissel Yiddish. He said ‘alles vet zein git.’ Yes, Sam. All will be good yet.”

  CHAPTER 13

  AT FIVE minutes after ten o’clock, there were eleven white men and two white women in Suite 23 of the Hotel Pennston. The two women and nine of the men were sitting in a semi-circle of gilt chairs. Inside the semi-circle and facing the gilt chairs, Hayden was whispering to the eleventh man. The eleventh man wore a black suit, a white shirt, a black string bow tie. His jowly face looked red even in the electricity. His nose, thin at the bridge, broadened at the tip; his lips were like the edges of two pieces of paper; he was smiling one of those I’m-everybody’s-friend smiles that takes years to perfect.

  Hayden consulted his wrist watch, stood up. “Will somebody please see that the door is locked? Thank you. Without further delay, let me introduce Governor Heney.”

  One of the two women gently patted her fingers together as if she were afraid of rubbing off the skin. There was no other applause. The ex-Governor heaved out of his chair. He tossed a silencing hand like a radio announcer’s at the applauding lady. On his feet, he seemed heavier than while sitting. He bulged in his black suit as if he had crashed through the pale green and gold walls of Suite 23.

  “Friends and fellow-patriots,” the ex-Governor began. “The logic of world and national events dictates our directives. The minorities of America, the citizens who were aliens only a short generation or two ago, are strugglin’ for power with unmitigated ferocity. It’s goin’ to be mighty hard to limit their ambitions accordin’ to our traditions and the Constitution. Our traditions, let us remember, are not the traditions of the alien, be he Pole or Russian Jew or Greek or Negro.” He pronounced Negro as Nigreh; the eh sound almost inaudible; smiles appeared on the faces of his listeners. “We are the upholders of the traditions of majority America yet the four million Jews, the fourteen million Negroes and all the other minorities are more articulate than majority America. We need search no further than today’s newspapers to illustrate what I mean. Let us analyze this current situation in Harlem. A Hebrew policeman shoots a Negro maniac on the streets of Harlem. A race riot is in the air. What can we learn from this here situation? One, we have learned that Hebrews are too high-strung to make good officers of the law. The Hebrew just isn’t fitted by his race for many of the jobs and positions he now occupies. A Christian would have handled the situation much better. Two, we have learned that Negro politicians have temperaments that might be called Hebrew.”

  The woman who had applauded, now giggled.

  Heney silenced her with his waving hand. “The Negro isn’t fitted by his temperament to hold the jobs and positions he now occupies in the North. The job of Government belongs to majority America. Now, I mentioned the directives we want. But first let me relate a story. I was ridin’ in the subway the other day and I overheard two men, two white men, discussing this here Harlem situation. One of them said he hoped Harlem quieted down before the Negroes got so excited they’d bust loose in a riot. He said that suppose a flamin’ cross attached to a speedin’ car were to be seen in Harlem. He said suppose a Negro was shot by a white man.” Heney nodded at Hayden. “This won’t happen!” Bill, in the second row, now knew why Hayden had been upset in the morning. The flaming cross and the shooting must have been Hayden’s plan. And Heney had canceled it for some other wind-up. “This won’t happen! That is, I don’t think so. A flamin’ cross, a Negro shot by a white man — that’s what people expect in the South. It’s too mathematical. A riot grows natural as a plant out of its own native soil. It doesn’t grow out of a mathematical equation. True, a riot can be nurtured like a plant in the hothouse but it’s best when it’s natural. To return to these men in the subway. The second man said that public opinion and some of the press believed that Negro politicians and Negro underworld characters such as Big Boy Bose were promotin’ these troubles in Harlem. I believe that this man’s hit the nail on the head. All of us are askin’ ourselves what’s goin’ to happen up there in Harlem in the next day or two. As a Southerner who has studied the subject, let me tell you of the Harlem riot in the year, 1935. I have read about this riot and it will interest all of us interested in this problem.”

  Like all the others, Bill was listening intently. “In 1935,” Heney continued, “a Negro boy stole a ten cent store trinket in one of the big stores on One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Street. The boy was caught by the manager. In the struggle, the Negro bit the manager’s hands. At the time, there were hundreds of Negroes in the store. Bein’ Negroes, they became excited and hysterical. A hysterical Negro woman cried out that the Negro boy was bein’ beaten up. That started all those hundreds of Negroes to throwin’ the merchandise on the floor, to shout like wild animals and to riot. A policeman came in and not bein’ a high-strung Hebrew he realized he couldn’t restore order himself. He left quietly and called for help. Emergency squads cleared the store. My friends, this riot grew natural out of its own soil. Well, by six o’clock that night the Reds dived into the muddied waters. Two Negro and two white pickets paraded up and down in front of the store, carryin’ signs that a Negro child’d been beaten. A Negro agitator got up and spoke anti-white talk to the crowds gatherin’ around those Red pickets. The crowd got to be over three thousand. I don’t have to mention that in the South a Negro crowd of one hundredth that size would not be tolerated. We in the South have learned from bitter experience how dangerous a Negro crowd can become. Now, just as that big crowd was listenin’ to that Negro agitator, a hearse pulled up on the street. The sight of the hearse caused those over-stimulated Negroes to run amok. Somebody yelled that the Negro boy was dead and the hearse’d come for his poor body. This wasn’t true as the later investigations revealed. But that Negro mob believed it. The Harlem riots of 1935 now began.”

  Hen
ey flung his hand towards the ceiling. “Two hundred plateglass windows were smashed.” He flung his hand to the ceiling again and again as he enumerated the results of the 1935 riot. “Three thousand Negroes were dispersed by seventy-five mounted police, foot police and radio cars. And three hundred thousand Negroes in Harlem, fourteen million Negroes in the nation, believed that that Negro boy was killed for stealin’ a trinket. The riot raged on. Negroes were shot and killed and the riot raged on. The Chief Inspector and the Deputy Chief Inspector of the City of New York had to take charge of the police army sent into Harlem. And did these Negro mobs quiet down? No. They still saw that hearse in their souls. They fought the police. They beat up reporters and cameramen on the streets. Rovin’ Negro guerilla bands ran inside the houses when they saw the police and they ran out when the police were some place else. Like wild jungle animals they were hunted, and they hunted all night long over a vast area. Their jungle stretched between One Hundred and Forty-Fifth Street and One Hundred and Tenth Street. West to Morningside Heights. East to Park Avenue. Six emergency squads stood by on One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Street and Seventh Avenue alone. Other emergency squads took up strategic points all over Harlem. And to no avail. Pistol shots rang out all that night.” His hand flapped again. “One hundred people were shot, stabbed and clubbed. Hundreds of Negroes were arrested. Police from the Bronx and Brooklyn were called in. The terrorized white storekeepers put up signs saying they employed colored help. Negro storekeepers and Chinese laundries whitewashed the word, colored, on their windows. And how did it all begin? A ten cent trinket. A hysterical Negro woman. Four pickets. And a hearse. Simple ingredients. No flamin’ cross. No shootin’ of a Negro by a white man. Let me read what Dr. R. W. Searle, the General Secretary of the Greater New York Federation of Churches, had to say back in 1935.”

  He fumbled for and found a clipping. “ ‘The white race which controls every phase of life in the city must recognize full responsibility. Riots will go on and the helpless Negro will be a victim of exploitation by those who care not for him save as a means to the ends of confusion and disorder.’ My friends, I believe, I predict that history will repeat itself. Race riots will continue until our Republic returns to the traditions of the founders. I predict riots that will shake the nation and that will open the eyes of the American people.”