They all applauded.
Heney said. “I want you to think over what has been said. Begin the good work. You can all go with the exceptions of Mr. Hayden, Mr. Dent, Mr. Darton and Mr. Johnson,” And again he waved his hand like a radio announcer and they filed out obediently and in silence. Hayden locked the door and returned to the gilt chairs. Heney was mopping his face with a huge white handkerchief.
“I did a little too much speechin’. I always do. Now, you boys are the balls of this riot. Let’s begin. You, Darton. I hear you have some ideas for leaflets?” He spoke coarsely as if he had taken off his coat and rolled up his sleeves.
Darton said. “I’ve also got a clipping, Governor. This one appeared in The Harlem Independent News. It’s called, ‘A Song For Young Harlem.’ Shall I read it?”
“Go on.”
“ ‘The coppers are riding
The “dagoes” and “micks”
They’re riding in Harlem
With guns and nightsticks.’ That’s the first stanza,” Darton said. “The rest of it has all the stuff we want. ‘We see ourselves robbed by landlords and shops.’ Here’s another line.
‘You can weep for the Frenchman. You can shout for the Jew. But for our youth who are black. You have nothing to do.’ And so it goes.”
“The United Nigger Committee,” Heney said, not making a pretense of saying Negro as he had done before, “will reprint that nigger poem. You will give due credit to the nigger laureate and the paper in which it appeared. You will also run off another leaflet. But I’ll talk to you about that tomorrow.” He smiled at Dent. The insurance man was sitting upright in his chair as if about to testify in a courtroom. “What about Big Boy Bose?”
“It’s hard to say,” Dent said. “Big Boy’s men have been following Miller for days.”
“Will he or won’t he?” Heney said impatiently.
“He told me he wants to get even with Miller. He told me he’d get Miller this coming Monday.”
“I don’t believe it,” Hayden said.
“Why don’t you believe it?” Heney asked Dent and Hayden.
“For one thing,” Dent said, frowning, “following Miller, Big Boy’s found out that Miller was seeing Clair.”
“Damn!” the ex-Governor shouted. “We’ve got niggers in our short hair. Big Boy won’t then. He won’t.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Dent said. “Big Boy has a great deal of respect for Aden and Aden’s told him the cop’s a stool for the police. I’d say there’s a fifty-fifty chance Big Boy gets the cop.”
“I don’t believe it for an instant,” Hayden said to Heney. “Bose has read the Negro press. He has seen the call to the people in Harlem. Bose is — ”
“Hayden,” Heney interrupted. “You had a good idea usin’ niggers to get us our riot. But it’s too damn dangerous unless the nigger’s a fascist like this Aden. Aden’s got his own row to hoe and he’ll work with us. But Bose as I understand it is a nigger for the niggers.”
“That’s right,” Dent said. “He may even talk.”
They were all silent. Heney mopped his brow again. “Why do you say that, Dent?”
“He’s mad. He may talk.”
“You believe it’s a possibility?” Heney said.
Dent stiffened in his chair. “I do, Governor.”
“Who in the organization has the nigger seen besides you and Bill Johnson, here?”
“Nobody else, Governor.”
Heney tweaked the broad tip of his nose. His blue eyes studied Bill and the insurance man. “It’s a possibility, then. Dent, Johnson, you two must face the possibility of that nigger givin’ you away to the authorities.” Bill was too shocked to say anything. His head felt as if it had cracked open. He heard Heney drop the question of Big Boy Bose and go on to details of the riot but not one word registered. Their voices clashed in his ears. Their faces were empty bags out of which sound came. Suppose Big Boy talked, he thought stunned. Suppose? Suppose, suppose, suppose, suppose …
“Two of my men have been tailing Big Boy,” Bill heard Darton saying. “But they haven’t a thing of importance. The nigger’s careful. He sticks to his house most of the day. It’s a house he must use as an office. He eats his meals at his nightclub, The Grove. He sleeps at his apartment on St. Nicholas Avenue.”
Darton’s voice ticked in Bill’s consciousness but louder, louder was the hammering SUPPOSE. That was why Hayden’d told him to use his own judgment. They were going to scrap him. He’d been brought up from the South to be scrapped. They’d known Big Boy was dangerous so they’d brought him up.
“Aden is the head of the International Colored Brotherhood of the World,” Hayden was explaining to the ex-Governor. “The Buckles kidnapping would have been impossible without him. He had managed to plant one of his followers, a Marian Burrow, in the H.E.L. office.”
“Burrow got in touch with Aden?” Heney said. “I understand. Is this Aden nigger costing us much?”
“Not very much. I have the figures if you care to — ”
“Not now, Hayden. Here’s another point …”
The letter about Aden that he had mailed in to the Harlem Equality League typed itself out on Bill’s brain. They knew who’d sent in the letter. That was why they were scrapping him. They were just making believe they didn’t know. They knew. They knew. NO! he cried out inside himself as if already protesting his innocence; I never sent a letter. I never sent a letter.
“To sum up,” Heney was saying. “It’s my considered opinion, and I’m speakin’ for the national organization, that progress has been excellent. The mistakes have been minor mistakes. And we’re all men enough to admit our mistakes. Hayden, you planned skillful. Very skillful. Just a little too mathematical. That flamin’ cross, nigger shootin’ was too mathematical. But that’s been remedied. Your real mistake was relyin’ so much on that Bose nigger. And I have to share that mistake with you for I approved it. It was a mistake none of us could’ve foreseen. None of us could’ve foreseen the Hebrew volunteerin’ to work for that Clair mulatto. That gave us the situation we got with the Bose nigger. On the other hand, Hayden, the Buckles idea more than compensates. You deserve credit, Hayden. You, too, Darton, the way you managed it. We’re goin’ to roll up this Harlem situation into a nice ball. We know what we have to do. Darton, you’re windin’ it up. You’re goin’ to see Aden. We need his help to start off the riot.
“Now, how are we goin’ to wind it up? We got to consider there are two sides here. The nigger side. The white side. The nigger side’ll be taken care of by repeatin’ the 1935 riot. But what about the white side? We want the whites burnin’ up when the nigger riot starts. This Buckles girl’s the oomph in the whole situation. Where is she, Darton?”
“As I’ve mentioned,” Darton said. “She’s in a small house out on Great South Bay.”
“Hayden’s mentioned it, too. But I can’t keep it in my head.”
“She’s out there on Long Island,” Darton said. “About seventy-five miles from the city. I’ve got a white couple out there. The girl doesn’t know they’re in the house. She’s locked in a room and get her meals from a nigger, one of Aden’s men. In fact, the man who went up to Clair’s office.”
Heney wasn’t listening. “Very skillful, very skillful,” he kept on complimenting. When Darton concluded, Heney cried out. “The opportunities are excellent. The war can go to hell, the peace can go to hell!” he almost shouted. “We’re goin’ to teach the whites up here in the North a lesson they won’t forget. No white man’ll let his daughter sleep with a nigger, eat with a nigger, walk with a nigger. We’re goin’ to burn up all these God damn northern whites with this girl. That girl’s goin’ to be raped. Raped by niggers. That story’s goin’ to be in every paper in the land. That’s how we’ll handle the white side in this here situation.”
“Raped?” Darton said.
“Yes. She’s goin’ to be raped before she’s killed. The investigators will find what they want.”
&
nbsp; Dent pursed his lips, Hayden was examining his finger nails, Darton was smiling. Bill began to listen.
“She deserves no sympathy,” Heney said. “She’s white and a Protestant but she’s got the heart of a nigger lover. She was kidnapped by niggers. She’s held prisoner as far as she knows by niggers. She’ll be raped by them.”
“If this girl is assaulted,” Hayden said slowly. “If this girl is assaulted and then released — what would she do? She would go to the police and inform them that she had been assaulted by Negroes. These Negroes had become frightened and had let her go.”
“Are you suggestin’ another scheme?” Heney asked.
“In a sense. As I view it, it becomes a question of which tactic will arouse the most violent public opinion. An assaulted murdered girl is always a potent witness. But a girl who has escaped from Negroes after having been attacked by them becomes a continuing witness, as it were. The press interviews her. Her story is splashed everywhere. The story of a white girl, radical in her politics, a believer in racial equality, who now as it were becomes a witness against her own beliefs. I think the propaganda values would be greater if she is not killed.”
“Mm,” Heney said.
Suppose, Bill thought. Here he was in this room with these men and none of them gave a damn about him. He felt that he had always known that he would be in a room like this some day. He glanced at Dent. The insurance man looked as he had on that first day, his eyes pinkish, his neck stringy inside his celluloid collar.
“Mm,” Heney repeated thoughtfully. “I move we adjourn now. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, Darton. I’ll meet you in the lobby here at two o’clock. Gentlemen,” he addressed them all. “I have every expectation of success. As for you, Dent, and you, Johnson, the organization has every confidence in you. If the worst happens, and as men we ought to admit every possibility, if Big Boy Bose informs on you two, I can promise the best legal talent.” His blue eyes probed into Bill. “As is customary, the organization will deposit to your accounts while you are held in custody, or if you are sentenced to prison, sums of money equal to your present income. I don’t feel that Big Boy Bose will talk. Or if he does, that you will be inconvenienced for more than a year or two. But we must face all possibilities. Other patriots have been sentenced to prison by the Government. They have all kept their oath. You will do the same.” He rose from his chair and slapped Dent on the back. Then he put his arm around Bill’s shoulders as he had done in Washington. “Young man, I have observed your work in the South with deep satisfaction. I was prejudiced at first for you were a man from the north but the more I observed, the more positive I became you were a true Southerner in your thinkin’ and feelin.’ I wouldn’t worry too much, young man. Or you, Dent. The organization is behind you. By the way, all of you are invited to my reception tomorrow night at the Hotel Maurice.” He laughed as if forgetting what he had started to say. “I want you to hear me tickle the back-asses of what the papers call influential people.”
The dread bubbled in Bill like dark red blood, like blood pumping out of his own heart, flooding him from the inside, like blood bursting the walls of veins and arteries. He clenched his teeth together as if there were an informer inside that would bawl out his hate and fear if he didn’t control it.
Later, returning to Isabelle, he unlocked the door, rushed to her through the dark. In the dark, she cried out, frightened. “Is it you, Bill?” He folded his arms around her, bleated. “Only you care, Isa. Only you care. The nigger’ll squeal and I’ll go to jail. I won’t go. To hell with their oath! I won’t go. They won’t scrap me. If anything happens to me — Isabelle, you must know. I didn’t want to work with the nigger. I was right but I have to be the sucker. Dent, me. They can keep their damn money. I won’t go, I won’t. I’d go crazy. If anything happens you’ll help me. Isa, I love you. You’ll help me, darling, won’t you. You’ve got to help me. Isa, this is what’s happened …”
CHAPTER 14
WHERE IS SUZY BUCKLES? VICE RAIDS ROCK HARLEM. HARLEM NEAR RACE RIOT. WHITE GIRL’S FATE STILL UNKNOWN. SUZY BUCKLES’ MOTHER DISAPPEARS. MUGGERS ATTACK WHITE MAN IN PARK. MAYOR ASKS FOR CALM. SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN DELIVER SCATHING SPEECHES AGAINST POLL TAX ADVOCATES. SOUTHERN LEADERS ARE NOT SURPRISED BY BUCKLES CASE. ‘WE HAVE ALWAYS HAD OUR BUCKLES’ SOUTHERN MINISTER DECLARES.
Clair’s desk was covered with Friday’s headlines. Otherwise, the office was almost back to normal. The crowd of reporters, feature writers and officials had vanished. Downstairs, in front of the building, two policemen, were stationed. Instead of Marian Burrow, there was another secretary. She had just come inside the inner office where Clair and Sam had been discussing developments. The new girl was in her twenties and she spoke to Clair as if aware of his stature as a newspaper personality. “Mr. Clair, there’s a woman outside to see you. She says she read the editorial in The People’s Advocate and she has information.”
Sam had sketched to Clair the results of his visit with Marian Burrow; he intended to call on her again today: He had outlined the gist of the Maddigan-Blaine talk. Clair had reported that a Madison Square Garden meeting of all races, colors, and creeds was in the making. There was also to be a goodwill march of labor and religious groups.
The partition door opened and a Negro woman flounced in. She was about fifty, in a shiny purple dress trimmed with imitation lace, a rhinestone belt around her middle. Her floppy red hat might have suited Clair’s young secretary but not her sagging face. She waved her arms and her cheap rings and bracelets glittered. “Mister Hal Clair? Which of you’s Mister Hal Clair?”
“I am Mr. Clair.”
“You?” She stared at his light skin. “Mister Clair, I want to say to you there’s no justice in this city. I was over that Advocate and they won’t let me see nobody but the office boy — ”
“A newspaper is a big organization,” Clair said.
“No, no!” she shrieked and her face was as composed as an aging nun’s except for the eyes. “I’ve seen plenty cruelty to colored folks and to cats. When you got a neighborhood where it’s cruel to cats you got it cruel for the colored folks.”
“Have you any pertinent information?” Clair interrupted.
This school teacher, Sam thought; he’ll never learn.
“Hear me out!” the woman cried. “I got information about all the enemies of the black people. I’ve seen it. Those who’d spill our blood, they spill it, they spill it. It ain’t the Jew man or the Italian man — they, the tool of the big white. I find they burn cats in ash cans, the colored do it. Yesterday on the roof there was a man putting out the eyes of a cat. It’s the same. All over it’s cruel because they put the cruel wickedness in the heart of the people. The poor animals suffer and the black man, he suffers more than all.”
“I am sorry to hear about the way cats are treated,” Clair said. “I advise that you go to the magistrate and get a summons — ”
“There’s no magistrate in Harlem,” she wailed. “There’s no justice. How many times I go to that Harlem Magistrates’ Court and I show them affidavits from doctors proving cruelty and I ask for a summons. The poor animals. All the magistrates do is say why don’t I get a husband to take care of and forget about cats. Is that justice, Mister Clair? Not a day goes by without they get hurt and crippled and lose their eyes — ”
“My dear woman I have other work to do.”
“I thought you was no true colored man and I know it. You’re a white man, Mister Clair! Oh, you’ll be sorry. The cats, they’re the souls of the colored who die and they suffer. Stop the cruelty to cats and you’ll stop the cruelty in the world.” She walked out backwards, spitting her words. Backwards like a cat she went, her voice the voice of the alleys and basements.
“She’s my fifth caller this morning,” Clair said to Sam.
“Who were the others?”
“There was one grey Negro who told me that the whites would only stop killing Negroes when the Negroes killed back. There was a woman who told me that
two nights ago a Negro soldier was beaten up. His scalp was cut and he received a concussion of the brain. He had gotten into an argument, it seems, with some other Negroes. He had said that the United States was a democracy even though it had faults. This woman claimed that the Negroes who had beaten him had once been members of the Pacific Movement of the Eastern World.”
“What’s that?”
“A pro-Japanese society. This woman finally admitted that the soldier was her own son. She said I ought to investigate the Chinese laundries. She said that Japanese were disguised as Chinese laundrymen and that the Japanese had kidnapped Suzy Buckles. Another caller said I could stop the trouble in Harlem if the police arrested the white big-shots in the numbers racket. He claimed that these big-shots had worked up a crime scare in order to drive out the Negro racketeers.”
“Were all your callers Negroes?”
“Yes. I had a half dozen telephone calls, too.”
“Anything definite?”
“No.”
“Did you get any further word about the white man with the burn scars?”
“No.”
“It’s a crazy world,” Sam said. “I’ll see Marian again. If nothing turns up I’ll scratch her off. So long.”
“So long, Sam.”
Downstairs, in the bright light of noon, Sam thought of Clair’s crank visitors, of the cat woman. Downstairs, there was the sunny surface of the world on top, the chain stores, the liquor stores, the five and dime places, the red and green signs of the daylight world. He looked at the passing Negroes and he felt that the cat woman had spoken for them. She had spoken for the world below. “Well,” he muttered to himself. “Suzy’s still missing.” God, he prayed; protect her. All the time, he walked firmly, his body straight. The plate glass windows reflected his outer self. His outer self showed no inner man just as the outer selves of the passing Negroes showed nothing or almost nothing of their inner men. The outer selves walked and went about their business, carrying inside of them the shapes of maniacs, the shapes of the twisted, the tortured and the doomed, and the pathetic child-like selves of the hoping, the believing, the trusting.
Dark Stain Page 30