Matthew Henson and the Ice Temple of Harlem

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Matthew Henson and the Ice Temple of Harlem Page 18

by Gary Phillips


  . They returned to his building and up the stairs they went. Tiptoeing to his door, he put his ear to the panel, and could hear the two going through his place. Maybe, he figured, they weren’t too worried about him suddenly coming home and finding them, given they were G-men and, really, what could he do about them burglarizing his place?

  “Light it,” he said to Stevenson, holding the canister.

  She struck a wooden match and got the makeshift fuse burning. He set the device down against the door and the two crept back to the stairwell, Henson counting to himself. Heading back down, he signaled Stevenson.

  “Oh my God,” she wailed.

  “Fire, fire,” Henson yelled.

  They pounded down the stairs, wanting to be heard. They then rushed back outside. By now smoke was filling the hallway.

  Upstairs at his door, the bulldog government man snatched it open, a sap in his other hand. “What the hell?” he snarled, the smoke bomb falling inward. The taller one came out of the bedroom in his fedora.

  Somebody put on the lone overhead light in the hallway, and several sleepy-eyed tenants came out of doorways in their underwear, pajamas or hastily putting on robes. Light spilled from behind their forms. The two white men stood out like giraffes in a dog pound.

  “Shit,” The bulldog one said, picking up the now depleted smoke bomb. “That goddamn sneaky darkie.”

  “Who you callin’ a darkie, cracker? And what devilment are you two up to in Matt’s apartment?” Edna Mullins demanded, her hair tied up in a scarf. She pointed at the object in the shorter one’s hand. “And you set that thing off pretending there was a fire? What you two pales up too, huh?” she repeated.

  The bulldog one was inclined to argue. His colleague intervened. “Let’s get out of here before you cause a riot.”

  The two stared away, Mullens and several others glaring at them as they went.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Okay, try this,” Destiny Stevenson said, handing a throwing star she’d modified to Henson. Inset in the center was a copper disk the size of a quarter. “Use that plank of wood I set up,” she added.

  Henson hefted the weight in his hand and spun the shuriken at the plank. He bit his bottom lip as he did so. “I didn’t compensate correctly.” Nonetheless, the star struck the wood and electricity crackled after the center piece split open.

  Henson said, “Wow.”

  “The problem is the casing is…temperamental, let’s say. I’m worried if you walk around with that thing up your sleeve, it might break and shock you.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Right out of whaddya call it?” an impressed Bessie Coleman said.

  “Science fiction,” Stevenson said.

  “Yeah,” Coleman said, snapping her fingers. “I read one of those stories once, all about metal men and half naked blondes screaming a lot.” She eyed Henson. “Got a stack of those on your nightstand do you, Matt?”

  “He better not,” Stevenson cracked. She began adjusting her copper disks.

  “If we could get back to business.” He did have a copy of Weird Tales somewhere in his apartment, but no sense bringing that up.

  They were in Stevenson’s workshop, a converted back room of her music shop. The three stood before a workbench where she had modified some of Henson’s other gear, and there were a few prototypes of her own making as well.

  “What’s this?” Coleman said, pointing at two capsule-shaped canisters joined in the middle by a short tube. All over it was silver, and the canisters were about the length of a comb.

  Stevenson smiled, picking the device up. ‘It’s meant to disorient your foe. I figured that might come in handy, considering.” She explained what the gizmo did.

  Henson and Coleman exchanged a knowing nod.

  They went over more of the equipment while Stevenson finished her tinkering. Afterward Henson tucked the devices away in two padded leather gym bags.

  “Seven o’clock, don’t be late,” Henson said to Stevenson and Coleman.

  “Wouldn’t think of it,” the flyer said.

  Stevenson locked up her store, and the three left the building by the back stairs. He gunned the motorcycle to life and waved at the two women who got into a Ford.

  Given he knew at least the two government men were bird-dogging him, Henson had taken precautions arriving here, doubling back at times, taking narrow passageways and so on.

  Later, as the sun set, the three began converging on their target, the Granady Truck Repair & Parts company in the Bronx. The place was on Kingsbridge Road a few blocks from where it ended at Fordham. This was the address on the note he’d found in Davis’ desk. Once he’d confirmed from Slip Latimore the business was a front controlled by Dutch Schultz, he was pretty certain this was where Ellsmere was being held. Near the garage he met the newsboy, Henry. This was far outside the young man’s regular route, but he’d paid him to recruit a few of his fellow newsies from around here to keep an eye on the garage. They told Henry what they’d seen, and now he told Henson.

  “There’s the usual mechanics closing up in there,” Henry Davenport him. “My pals figure no more than three of ‘em in there this time of the afternoon, Mr. Matt.”

  He handed the young man a five. “Anything else I should know?”

  The kid smiled at the money before tucking it away. “Yeah, there’s two other mugs of the gat variety who hang around. Sometimes different guys, but always two of ‘em.”

  “Now you’re talkin’.” He handed over another dollar and the kid went on, the bulldog edition of his papers under an arm. The frontpage story was about several underworld types associated with the Dutch Schultz gang shot dead in a grocery store in the Bronx. A hidden room was discovered, empty, but it was surmised recently occupied. Bullet patterns indicated handguns and a shotgun were used.

  Henson, his gunny sack over his shoulder like a delivery man, and walked past an Italian delicatessen. Inside, through the open doorway, he saw an older woman conversing in Italian with the counterman who was wrapping up a length of hard salami. Rounding a corner, there was an empty milk wagon at the curb. A horse was not hitched to it, but there was a barn across the way and the smell of the animals was strong. Further along in a luggage shops’ alcove, he met up with his compatriots. The shop owner frowned at the site of three negroes congregating in front of his window, not sure of what to make of two women wearing pants and leather coats. They walked back toward the parked milk wagon least they rouse the man further.

  He told them what he’d learned. “I figure, we wait till the mechanics leave, then proceed with the plan.”

  “Sounds right,” Bessie agreed.

  Stevenson was at the corner, looking down the street at the garage. She had a dual clasp messenger bag in hand and strapped it around her torso as she walked back to the others. Looking around conspiratorially, she reached into the bag and handed Henson the modified throwing stars.

  “I think these are more stable, less likely to go off prematurely.”

  “A perfectionist, huh?”

  She flashed a wry look at him.

  Coleman said, “A couple of the mechanics are just leaving.”

  “Okay, I’m going to get in position,” Henson said.

  Going back onto the main thoroughfare, twilight fell, the grey light much like the in between of the Arctic. A transitory state in which anything could happen. Now, three men stood outside, with one in a newsboy cap laughed at a clever remark from one of the others. Henson crossed the street before reaching them. Black folks weren’t unknown in the Bronx, but they weren’t plentiful, and he didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention.

  As if to taunt him, a street lamp came on as he passed underneath. Its bright white light illuminated his form sharply. But the men across the street weren’t paying him any attention. One of them padlocked a chain securing the front bay doors, and the three departed, two of them walking off in the same direc
tion, and the third the opposite. Henson lingered along the sidewalk, and when the mechanics were no longer in sight, double-backed to the facility. As he’d rode toward the garage, he’d reconnoitered the area. He walked through an overgrown lot of grass and weeds on the same block as the garage. Straight ahead, he came to the end of the lot at the wall of a two-story building. He knew from his scouting, there was a space behind the most immediate building bordering the lot to his right and a wooden fence. He went through the gap in the fence toward the garage. It was a narrow passage and he had to hold his bag in front of him. There was junk to get past and he climbed over. He was now at the rear of the garage where the gap. There was light from a window in the rear.

  Carrying over the rusted hulk of a discarded metal cabinet, he stood on the thing and chanced looking in the window. He spied Henrik Ellsmere standing at a table, making a sandwich. Not having paper or pen to make a note, Henson decided it was best to not tap on the glass and communicate with the scientist. The room Ellsmere was in seemed to be a combination of work area and sleeping quarters. There was a closed door in the back and beyond that, he guessed, would be the men guarding him. He checked his watch; time to get a move on.

  He got his grapple and line out of the gunny sack, and on the second throw, latched the hook onto the edge of the roof. Up he went, sealskin gloves on. There was no skylight, but there was a flush hatch for access. He pried the lock off, got the hatch open and, using a flashlight, worked the beam to see a set of built-in metal rungs in the wall below. Part of the floor was visible from where he was as well. He heard voices drifting upward and killed the light. Feeling in the square hole, he got his hand on a rung and down he went. He was in a small hallway and ahead of him was an opening onto the shop floor. A card slapped a tabletop below him.

  “Glad when this babysitting job is over.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” said the other one. “How long is Dutch gonna keep this bird on ice? When’s the thing he’s supposed to be working on getting here?”

  “Who knows? We drew the short straw.” A card was slapped down again. “Gin.”

  “Dammit,” the other one said.

  Henson looked at his watch, eyeing the sweep of the second hand. In less than twenty seconds came a knock at the front door. It echoed throughout the garage. Several work lights were on, throwing circular pools of illumination from their bulbs.

  “Who the hell is that?”

  “We due for a delivery of hooch?”

  “Naw, not tonight.” Chair legs scrapped across concrete as one of them went to the door. There was a slot there and he drew it back to see who was outside.

  “Yeah?” he said to the face of the colored gal standing there.

  “I’m your fairy godmother,” Destiny Stevenson smiled sweetly.

  “Huh, you drunk or you been smoking some loco weed? Maybe you oughta come in and share it with me and my pal,” he leered.

  Her palm held upward, she blew a silvery powder into his face.

  “What the fuck?” he declared, backing up, coughing and reaching for the gun in his shoulder holster. The hood got it free, but his muscles had become rubbery and his eyes rolled back in his head. He collapsed, unconscious, onto the oily concrete.

  “Pauly?” The other hood got up in a rush, knocking his chair over. As he ran to the aid of his fellow gunman, Henson stepped out and clubbed him once, twice, on the back of his head with a sap. He went down hard. There was an entry door inset in the garage’s bay doors and Henson opened this to let the two women inside. They went past a Kenworth truck being worked on and reached the room where Ellsmere was.

  “Matthew,” the white-haired physicist exclaimed, rising from where he’d been having his snack. “And ladies,” he said, bowing slightly. “I heard the shouting, but didn’t dare peek out.” He touched a bruise on his jaw. “I’d been reprimanded for trying to sneak away previously.” There was other evidence of his mistreatment.

  Henson picked up an empty unmarked bottle and smelled the opening. “Let’s blow,” he said, tossing the empty onto the bed.

  “Uh-oh,” Coleman said, hearing the chain rattle on the front doors.

  “You two hide,” Henson suggested. There was no back door, and while he and the two others might have gotten away via the roof and his rope, he didn’t think Ellsmere would make it.

  The bay doors were swung open and a driver got back in his truck and brought the vehicle inside. He came to a halt and turned off the engine. He opened the driver’s door and foot on the running board, leaned partially out of the truck and called out. “Alfonse? Pauly? Where the hell are you?”

  “They’re taking their naps,” Henson said, appearing at the side of the truck.

  “Where’d you come from, shine?” He was reaching into the cab, but Henson grabbed him by his leather coat and yanked him out of the truck. Just as he was about to sap the man, a flap of canvas put him on alert. He dove away as a hood with a shotgun clambered out the covered bed of the truck, blasting at him. Buckshot pelted the flank of a delivery truck that Henson dove under.

  “I got you black boy, ain’t no hiding from the likes of me.” He stalked over, bending down to shoot under the truck.

  “Hey now,” Coleman said, stepping into view.

  Quickly, the shotgunner spun around to fire, but Stevenson shot him first, dead center with the revolver she’d obtained from the unconscious Pauly. He went over onto his back, unseeing eyes locked on the ceiling.

  “Destiny…” Henson began, having gotten back on his feet. He tried to put a hand on her shoulder but she drew back. “You saved my hide.”

  She glared at him, tears in her eyes. She bit her bottom lip, pounding her fists against his chest. “Goddman you, Matthew Henson. Goddamn you and your Grim Destroyer.” She fixed on him. “Yeah, you want to do right by your people, but really, you make us sacrifice to your god of death. It’s all about the challenge to you—you against the odds. Was your soul frozen out there in all that ice and snow, Matt?”

  “Destiny, honey,” he began. But he knew the mixed emotions she was feeling. He’d felt the same way when he first had to kill another human being.

  “The Grim Destroyer of yours is a god of death you think you can outfox. But none of us beat death, Matt. None of us.”

  She went on some more then she let him hold her close, sobbing onto his shoulder.

  “We better get out of here,” Coleman said in a rasp.

  “Try not to think about it too much,” Henson advised, knowing the opposite would occur.

  Stevenson didn’t look at him.

  The four left. “I better drive,” Coleman said.

  Stevenson had a hollow look on her face as Henson helped her into the Ford. He left his motorcycle up the block after removing the spark plug wire and got in the rear of the car with the professor.

  “Are you taking me to the frog and his jade rock, Matthew?” Ellsmere said. The older man turned to look at his friend a grave set to his face. “The Frog Prince has the answers you know. How to unlock the secrets of Seqinek’s gift to us.”

  Henson said softly, “Is that what you told them, Henrik?”

  Ellsmere stiffened as if struck. “My dear, boy, I want you to know I held out despite physical violence and threats of more.” There were bruises on his neck the other man had noticed. “The frog told me it’s only you who will wield its power. Your destiny,” he said, not being ironic.

  “Okay, prof, sure you right.”

  Henson wondered what were Dutch Schultz, and by extension Davis, able to get out of Ellsmere this go-round about the Daughter. His captors had given him laudanum to better lubricate his tongue, but that also loosened the moorings he was having on sanity, he feared. He didn’t think taking him to a sanitarium was a good idea. He needed to be cared for but not so anyone could get to him in the condition he was in. He knew where he had to take him. Coleman stopped so he could make to make a phone call, and then they made one othe
r stop.

  "I’ll see y’all later,” he said to Coleman as he and Ellsmere stood on the sidewalk. Destiny Stevenson stared straight ahead. The aviatrix nodded and drove off.

  Henson took Ellsmere upstairs to Nikola Tesla’s apartment at the Service Hotel along with the scientist’s notes, retrieved from the basement at Columbia University.

  “I’ll see to it that he gets the help he needs,” the electrical wizard said, his hand on his colleague’s shoulder, the notes in the other. “I too have had bouts of…uncertainty.”

  Ellsmere nodded, muttering.

  Henson had heard like Slip Latimore, Tesla could spend hours feeding the pigeons in the park, no doubt lost in arcane calculations he was working out in his head. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this. And as much as possible, keep him under wraps, okay?” He’d told him briefly about how they’d rescued Ellsmere. “I’m not sure for how long, but I’ve got the feeling this is coming to a head for good or for ill soon.”

  “I concur on your assessment, Matthew. Forces are at play. You should know your Mr. Davis is part of…a council, I suppose it could be called. A grouping of plutocrats and a selected assortment of members of the government who, it is fair to say, stand closer to the tenets of a dictatorship that they do to democracy.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. A nest of vipers, is it?” Now it made sense how it was the government could spirit Ellsmere away from lock up, but wind up back in the hands of Davis working in cahoots with this bunch.

  “More like that of the Medusa of myth, it seems to me,” Tesla said. “With Davis looking to be the main head from which these snakes writhe. A Medusa Council, if you will.”

  “You mean, if he could possess the Daughter,” Henson said.

  Tesla regarded his visitor. “Is it here in New York?”

  “Let’s just say I can get a hold of a piece of it if I have to.”

  “I understand. But you must keep it safe.”

  “On that you can put all your money, Nikola.” To Ellsmere he said, “See you soon, Henrik.”

 

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