Bill handed Isabelle her cocktail, lifted his glass in a toast. “To you,” he said.
She slid her arm through his. “You should have said, to us.”
They left the bar but he saw no one he knew. He heard snatches of talk, diamond-hard as the jewels the women were wearing. He wondered where Hayden had found all these people? They were all in the money, he thought. They were sitting pretty. They were safe, secure. Not like himself. “How about another drink, Isa?”
“Weren’t you drunk enough the other day?”
“That day’s gone.” At the bar, he ran into Hayden. In his evening clothes, Hayden was slimmer, blonder than Bill remembered. Hayden had been conversing with an elderly couple; the man was small with an intelligent terrier-like face; the woman should have been fat but her body had been haggardly streamlined; her dough-colored arms shiny with bracelets. Hayden immediately excused himself and stepped over to Bill and Isabelle. Bill introduced them.
“Now I understand why Bill has been keeping you in hiding,” Hayden said as if reading the remark off a slip of paper. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Johnson.”
Isabelle was smiling, correct and formal. It was a smile, Bill appreciated, that was as enameled as the smiles in the society pages. He smiled, too. He felt an almost convulsive relief. He could depend on her.
“Our guest of honor has not arrived as yet,” Hayden went on.
“What do you do if the guest of honor fails to arrive?” Isabelle asked.
“I might think of stealing you for a few minutes.” Hayden laughed. “Bill, would you mind if I took Isabelle away for a few minutes?”
Isabelle took Bill’s arm. “And leave my husband all alone?”
“I won’t mind,” Bill said. “Be good, Isa.”
“I will.”
Bill stared after them, Isabelle in her gown pulled in at the middle, as tall as Hayden. He thought; the bastard’s not wasting any time. He walked to the bar. “Champagne cocktail,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
He drained the second cocktail in four swallows. Near him, a crowd of women and their escorts were calling for fizzes. Bill ordered a third cocktail, killed it, and wandered across the floor. Where was Isabelle and the bastard, he wondered. To hell with Hayden. He could depend on Isabelle, he could, he could … Somebody at his elbow was saying. “So many foreigners in town at the clubs. Any one speaking English feels out of place.” Somebody else: “Why if it isn’t Harry? How are things in Detroit?” Somebody else: “My dear, diamonds are emphatically not an investment.”
He stood among strangers and was fearful of meeting anyone he knew. The oath he had broken ripped across his brain. He didn’t want to remember. He didn’t want to think of Big Boy Bose pointing the finger at him. A great black finger pointed at him, right at him … His brain had become a machine manufacturing one product: You shouldn’t have told her, you shouldn’t have told her … He compelled himself to listen to the strangers. Anything not to think, not to remember. He stood as if in a trance, half-listening. He sensed or imagined he sensed a wariness in the voices. They spoke guardedly of the war, of the President, of the allies of the United States, of labor, of the food shortage. He listened and all the time his brain produced: You shouldn’t have told her. The great black finger was pointing and Big Boy Bose’s black moon face was shouting: You South … And he listened to the people who had turned out to honor the ex-Governor. He sensed, at this reception in one of the city’s best hotels, no rock, no ground of permanence. Why was that? Why should that be? Was it the presence of the men in uniform, those perpetual reminders of the global war, of secret comings and goings to Iceland, to Australia, to the European continent, to China? YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE TOLD HER! YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE TOLD HER … YOU SOUTH! YOU SOUTH … YOU, YOU, YOU, YOU, YOU …
A snout-nosed blond man was talking to three other men about futures. Somebody told an anti-Administration joke. “Now I’m for the Federal Government but I want to tell of my experience with that New Dealer Brodkin. Brodkin’s a clever Jew, a wizard in contracts, but I taught him a few things.” They had all shown up to honor the ex-Governor. And Heney would lead them, Bill thought; into a world of guaranteed receptions and guaranteed contracts. What hadn’t Heney said? What hadn’t Heney promised? Bill recalled speeches of Heney’s he had heard over the years, Klan-like speeches upholding the white races of the world against all comers, liberal-like speeches in which Heney insisted the white nations had to admit the world’s colored peoples into the world theatre, but only after they had prepared themselves for government. And he saw Hayden and Isabelle, with a woman as blond as Hayden, who almost looked like his sister but whom Hayden introduced as his wife.
“Glad to know you,” Bill said. His face was flushed. His burn scars gleamed paler than his skin.
Isabelle smiled at Bill. Mrs. Hayden resumed what she had been saying. “I believe that my daughter has been a greater source of satisfaction than my son. Don’t you think so, Norris?”
Christ, Bill thought. He had a mad idea that Hayden’s two children must also look like Hayden; that if Hayden had a dozen children they would all look like him; that all the ops in the organization would look like Hayden after awhile; that in time the city, the country would be full of people like Hayden. Bill wanted to laugh. Imagine the streets jammed with blond youngish-faced people, their chins receding a little, their eyes blue between long blond eyelashes. He squeezed Isabelle’s fingers and he wanted another drink badly. It was as if his insides had changed into a multitude of dry lips. And Hayden was saying to the two women, “I want both of my children to be activists. Now I am a statistics expert, not an activist. But I realize that eventually this nation will be saved or lost by our men of action.” He was enjoying himself, Bill guessed. And why shouldn’t Hayden enjoy himself and mouth nice phrases? Hayden took no chances. “The Paul Reveres have always come to the fore in times of disaster,” Hayden was saying. “Bill, how about you and I hunting up some of our acquaintances?”
“All right. Be back soon, Isa.”
“All right, darling.”
He walked off with Hayden. He felt how much taller and stronger he was than Hayden.
“The Governor still hasn’t come,” Hayden said. “Everybody is waiting for him.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s at that Brooklyn establishment he is so fond of.”
“What establishment?”
“No woman permitted,” Hayden said curtly. “I want you to go there. You will remind the Governor of his reception. The password is: Madam Fox of Buffalo, New York. That will secure your admission. You will then ask for Madam Mobile.” He grinned at Bill. “Amazed, aren’t you? Understand, please. The Governor’s a statue. Do you understand? A statue. Very few of us are permitted a glimpse of his foibles. I wasn’t going to send you for the Governor. But Darton hasn’t come. Darton knows of the Governor’s foibles and I would have sent him after the Governor — ”
“I understand.”
When he turned away, he was smiling like a mad man. He was thinking that he would arrive at the establishment. He would not find the Heney he had known, the red-faced bullish man, but a slight man with a blondish face and a receding chin.
The address was a brownstone house in a street of brownstones and lofts where Chinese and Filipino sailors met in dingy upstairs clubrooms. Bill climbed the stoop of his address, rang the bell. This house was like Big Boy’s in Harlem but the man he had come for wasn’t Big Boy. No, he pondered. Not Big Boy.
The door opened a foot, a hidden voice called, “Who’s there?”
“Madame Fox of Buffalo, New York.”
As the door sheered wide, Bill stepped into the foyer. He saw a man in a blue sweater and corduroy trousers. The man had watery eyes, a chin that was clefted and thin silvery hair. He wasn’t old. He was in his forties. Behind him, a walnut staircase ascended to the floors above; walnut doors locked in the rooms on Bill’s left. In the street, no light had ye
llowed from the windows but inside the house, from behind the doors, Bill heard laughing voices and a radio playing sweet music.
“Welcome.” The watery eyes twinkled and glanced at the doors. “We have two brunettes in there. Josie and Cleo. One blond, Sonny. Upstairs, we have another blond, Goldie. Goldie is engaged.”
Blonds! Bill thought. “I don’t give a damn,” he said.
“What shall we call you? Where are you from?”
“You’ve got me wrong, sister or brother or whoever the hell you are. I’ve come for Madame Mobile, pal. Hop to it. It’s important.”
The man nodded. “So you are a regular guy. Very well. Do you want to wait, please?”
“Step on it, pal.”
“Who shall I say — ”
“A blond,” Bill said nervously, smiling. “Just a. blond.”
The man left. Bill raised his hands. He stared at his wrists. How would it feel to be handcuffed? He laughed stupidly and peered at the walnut doors. Hayden’s blond slightly effeminate face was knocking in his head like a fist on a door.
Ex-Governor Heney, after being introduced by a gentleman, who had first humorously introduced himself as a Georgian pioneer in the wilds of New York City, stepped forward on the platform at the head of the hall. “My dear friends,” the ex-Governor began. “I have a clippin’ I’d like to read to you. Here it is. It’s a clippin’ from ‘The People’s Advocate.’ ‘The People’s Advocate’ is not one of those small town newspapers our fathers used to read. It is a high-powered Negro enterprise published in the wilds of this city by your Councilman, Louis Vincent. Let me read this clippin’. It is goin’ to serve as my text. Quote. ‘This is modern history’s most chaotic hour. Whether willingly or unwillingly, every nation, every race, every individual must make the choice immediately and travel towards their rendezvous with destiny.’ Unquote. My dear friends, truer words than these have not been written or said anywheres in these broad states. Why have we gathered here at this reception? Ostensibly, I am the guest of honor. But, although I have served in public office as a representative of the majority America we all love, I am only a symbol of our true guest of honor. Which is — Our own dearly beloved American traditions. Yes, my friends, we are indeed living in: Quote. ‘History’s most chaotic hour.’ Unquote. I hope that we will have the energy, the foresight, the true love for our children and our women folk to face this: Quote. ‘Most chaotic hour.’ Unquote: with clear brains.
“I am a Democrat in my politics, a Southerner by birth but in this ‘chaotic hour’ I am neither South nor North, neither Democrat nor Republican, neither mule nor elephant. I am simply an American without any narrow allegiances.”
Hundreds of hands applauded.
“Let us all make our choices. Let us all ask ourselves what destiny do we want for ourselves and for our children? Do we not all hope that the next generation will be sound, Christian and patriotic? Do we not desire that the next generation be inculcated in the Christian white traditions of the founding fathers? If this is the case, let us have the courage to say so. In Washington, in New York, nay, in every city of the land, I have listened to many people denouncing that scarecrow the left has given us: The Reactionaries. Who are these Reactionaries? Sometimes, I have heard them described as Southerners, reactionary Bourbons, reactionary Poll-Taxers, reactionary Cotton-land Demagogues. In the North, the scarecrow has been denounced as the Economic Royalists, the Tories, and so on. My dear friends, there are Reactionaries, genuine Reactionaries in the South and in the North but they must not be confused with those traditional Americans who desire only to continue, to expand and to magnify the traditions of their ancestors.”
Applause. A young man cheered.
“Yes, we can learn from this Negro newspaper. We can learn from ‘The People’s Advocate’ how to approach our destiny. Let me read again. Quote. ‘Every nation, every race, every individual must make the choice immediately.’ Unquote. Yes, I say: Immediately! Immediately, we must begin to solve our national and racial problems. Do you think that the race problem is a problem that Hitler has given us? Do you think that the Negro problem, for example, is a sectional problem confined to the South? The only difference has been in the treatment of this problem as events happening right this minute in this city amply demonstrate. The Anglo-Saxon white man of the South has always opposed draggin’ the white man down to the Negro’s level. The white man of the North, this mixed German-Italian-Polish-Greek-Jewish-Spanish white man of the North has, on the other hand, espoused a yes-and-no treatment for the Negro problem. Who is right? Who is wrong? I do not know because I do not know how to solve the Negro problem.
“But I do know and I do affirm that if there is room in this great Republic for a Negro N.A.A.C.P., for a Negro H.E.L., for a Negro ‘People’s Advocate’, for a Negro Councilman like Mr. Vincent and a Negro Vice-Presidential candidate on the Communist ticket; if there is room for all the myriad Negro societies, organizations, groups and parties; if there is room for all the white Negrophiles and their societies, organizations, groups and parties, then in God’s name, there is room for our societies, organizations, groups and parties. There is no such thing as freedom if we aren’t free as the Negro or the Jew or the left-wing unionist or the communist or any other element in America is free, to propagandize our viewpoint.”
The applause mounted, deafening.
“I say! I say! Please let me continue, my friends! I say that we have a right, for example, to examine the recent events in this great city and to learn from them. I refer to the events in Harlem. What is Harlem? It is a city of three hundred thousand Negroes to begin with. It is a city with the highest infant death rate, the highest T.B. rate. It is the crime capital of the nation. It has fifteen thousand prostitutes who are daily contaminating our soldiers. It has four thousand panders. It has muggers and gangsters without number. As is well known, the State of New York and the City of New York permits equality with Negroes in vice and in crime. What is the result of this subtler treatment? Periodically, violence looms in Harlem. Right now a race riot on a scale unheard of in the benighted South is in the making. You know the facts. A white girl reared in the subtler North, imbued with leftist ideas, has been kidnapped by Negroes; these same Negroes bein’ imbued with the North’s subtler attitude towards white women. I say, my dear friends, that this is a dangerous and diabolic equality.
“We, in the South, do not want to lynch innocent Negroes. We, in the South, would be happy if there were no Negro sex maniacs in our midst. But when a Negro sex maniac rapes and murders one of our women, we must in honor to ourselves exact swift merciless justice. And the subtler North cries out with horror. What is the South thinkin’ of this Harlem situation today? The South is not cryin’ out with intellectual horror. The South is merely hoping that the North will realize some day that the Negro problem and every other problem is a national problem to be solved by the majority. In conclusion, let me say that some of our Southern leaders still regard the Republican party as the Negro party. That is an example of regional and not national thinking. We can again learn from ‘The People’s Advocate.’ In this ‘chaotic hour’ we must realize that there are no more regions. There are only nations, continents, a colored world of Indias, Africas, Chinas. A vast Russia and a vast South America that are mixed. The Mongol and the Tartar have mixed with the Russian. The Indian and the Negro have mixed with the Latin American. We are living in a colored world of war, unrest, rebellion and riot. I say that we white Americans must unite with our brothers be they Northerners or Southerners. We must join our hands and meet our destiny together.”
Every morning Sam left his fear outside the subway entrance. It was as if he had struck a bargain with fear. But when he returned at night, he had to fulfill his end of the bargain. Reaching the street level, Friday night, all that he had done during the daytime hours was junked in his mind. Suzy was still missing. What good had it done Suzy to consult with Hal Clair, to see Marian Burrow, to smoke marihuana? He had seen Detective
Maddigan again. He had seen Vine again. He had met two labor lawyers, Willy Speeder and Tom Cohlan; they had listened to the story he had told them; Speeder had a big baldish dome with a blond sweeping forelock; Cohlan had a tight face built around the pipe he hardly ever removed except to refill with Revelation tobacco. God, what good did it do Suzy? Suzy believed in the people, he thought. Suzy said to get the people into the fight. But the people didn’t know how to fight their enemies. Clumsy and gigantic and many-bodied, the people pulled in all directions. Against the machine-gun events of the last few weeks, the people presented a sprawling lumbering target: The people: The H.E.L. The A.H.N.C. The other Negro organizations.
The churches. The unions. The union leaders, labor lawyers, the Speeders, the Vines, the Clairs. Resolutions. Editorials. Union protest meetings. What good did it do Suzy?
He looked out on the darkened streets and the day had ended, another day during which seven million people in the city had eaten and worked and gone to the movies and made love and read the newspapers; another vast day like a vast forest in which they had hidden from all the seeking eyes, hidden in a thousand hours. All that could be seen of them were their bloody tracks recorded in newsprint.
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