by Marlowe Benn
Baroque sconces bathed the room in the greenish light of a troll king’s grotto. Two sofas faced each other across a low table, and an oak bar festooned with sinewy carvings bracketed the far wall, an opulent altar promising refreshments as bottomless as those downstairs. Behind the bar hung a large painting of leering satyrs and taunting nymphs in the overwrought style of Böcklin or Rops, in a massive gilt frame. Julia fought not to smile. How Philip would yelp at the sight of it. Only yesterday he’d neglected his lunch—Christophine’s salmon terrine—for a spirited diatribe on such symbolist claptrap, whose emotional excesses he despised (though not more, he’d decided, than Boucher’s insipid cupids). His tastes in art were more modern than Julia’s—a bracing discovery, clarifying as a splash of ice water—yet even Philip would appreciate the sight of this voluptuous painting presiding over the lair of a Harlem gangster. She couldn’t wait to tell him.
Wallace stood near the bar, deftly pouring champagne into waiting glasses. He greeted them all by name with an expression that was cordial yet composed, neither guarded nor eager. He looked directly into Julia’s eyes as for the second time that evening he spoke her name. It was quiet, respectful. “Miss Kydd.” Did she imagine a resonance? In the next moment he greeted Austen, Duveen, and Goldsmith. She wished there had been time to talk with him earlier, downstairs before the show. What might they have said to each other, in that instant when their hands had met?
Timson scooped up the glasses, spilling what his friend had so skillfully poured, and distributed them to his guests. The second bottle had just been opened when Eva emerged from a door painted to blend into the adjacent wall, trailing Jerome Crockett behind her. Dressed in the blue uniform of the hall guards, he slipped behind the bar and took up a small white towel. Wiping the spotless counter in slow circles, he avoided Julia’s eye and gave no clue that he knew at least three of the guests in the room.
Eva greeted each guest with dazzling warmth. She embraced Duveen and kissed Julia’s cheek. When they settled onto the couches, Jerome remained behind the bar, silent and forgotten. Wallace too remained apart, leaning against the bar as he rolled the thin stem of his glass between his thumb and forefinger. Timson sat on the arm of one of the sofas and pulled Eva to his knee, her chiffon dressing gown lapping over his shoes.
“You were swell tonight, baby,” he said, planting a loud kiss on her cheek. He ran a finger along her throat. “Pretty neck needs something more. One of those nice necklaces you got.”
“They’re at home, Mr. Timson.” She smiled and pushed his finger away.
“You got some beauties. I bet Mrs. Clark here would love to see one of them dazzlers.”
“You know they’re not here, Leonard.”
Timson drained his champagne. “You earned those fancy rocks, you oughta show them off.”
She demurred again, but he rose and sauntered to the bar. At his approach Jerome stepped back, receding into the farthest corner. Timson swung aside the Böcklin painting, revealing a square wall safe. He twisted the combination lock, opened the door, and pulled out a large, ornately inlaid wood box. He lowered it onto the bar with a show of caution. “Open it, punkin seed.”
Eva stood, her face stormy, all gracious charm gone. “How did you get that? It’s mine, Leonard. You had no right to take it. Give it back.”
She took a step forward, and he swung an elbow, as if to fend her off. Whatever he had taken was important to Eva. Her jewelry? The room quieted.
“Who pays the rent for that place, punkin? That’s all the right I need.” Timson played with the lock as he spoke, and then he flicked aside the latch. It was broken, hanging from a single hinge.
“No!” Eva jerked out a hand in protest. “You can’t do that. You can’t go through my private things. That case was locked. It’s mine, and everything in it is mine.”
He lifted the lid, set aside the top tray of brooches, and drew out a sheaf of papers, tied with string.
“Wait!” Eva cried, but without effect.
The manuscript. It had to be. Eva’s hidden treasure. Julia had seen plenty of manuscripts before, and this one was ordinary enough, a stack of typewritten pages, corners bumped from handling. But the way Timson gripped it made Julia hold her breath. Something about it angered him, just as Eva had feared.
“No!” Eva objected. “That’s private.”
He waved the bundle in the air. “Harlem Angel, by Evangeline Pruitt. Real special, huh?”
Her novel. Eva’s prize, the achievement that would proclaim her name in print by Christmas. Julia held her breath. There was a perilous vulnerability to manuscripts that only those in the book business truly understood. Those papers represented hundreds or thousands of hours of thought and effort, of writing and rewriting, of doubt and despair and determination. Yet all that creative labor was only as secure as the paper it was typed on. Unless Eva had made a carbon copy—Julia fervently hoped she had—Timson held absolute power over the fate of all that work, that unrepeatable labor. Thank God there was no fire in the room, or Julia might faint from fear of it thudding into its flames.
Duveen must have felt the same terror. He leaped to his feet. “Thanks! We’ve been dying to get our hands on this. Eva’s going to be our next big thing.” He extended a hand for the manuscript as casually as if Timson had just found his lost umbrella.
“Think so, Duveen?”
Duveen hesitated, stalled by the menace in Timson’s voice. Sweat began to prickle Julia’s scalp. Were the radiators on?
Eva reached for the manuscript, but Timson pulled it to his chest. “You take me for a grade A idiot? I hear you wrote a book—you think I’m not gonna wonder what’s in it? You think I’m not gonna figure out where you stashed it and see for myself?” He chuckled. “You probably think a businessman like me ain’t gonna read a goddamn book. But this one, now, it was—interesting.”
“We can’t wait to read it,” Dolly Clark boomed, then giggled into her palm at the blast of her voice. “Pablo says it’ll make you famous.”
Eva forced a brittle laugh. “It’s just a story, Leonard. Mr. Goldsmith and Mr. Duveen think it’s good enough to publish. Isn’t that wonderful? It might bring in more people, like the lady said, even though it’s not about Carlotta’s. Just something like—people will know that.”
Timson smiled. “You think so? I ain’t so sure. I bet folks will think exactly that you’re talking about Carlotta’s. About me.”
He slapped the manuscript down onto the bar. The muscles in his jaw worked. “What’s all that crap about dope and messin’ up people? You know I treat my niggers just fine.” He spat the vile word in Eva’s face.
Julia choked on a gulp of air. Dolly Clark yelped like a startled parrot, splashing champagne onto Max’s shoe.
Eva shot a nervous glance at Jerome, who watched in alert silence, his dark face melting into the shadows behind Wallace. “It’s only a story. I made it up. It’s not Carlotta’s, and the owner, that Mr. Coburn, he isn’t you.”
“You’d be a pinked-up quiff if it weren’t for me, and your boy’d be pushing a broom.” Timson stabbed a squat thumb over his shoulder toward Jerome. “Some gratitude!”
Arms crossed, hands gripping his sleeves, Jerome dropped his eyes to the floor. Nothing in his face moved. Jerome the lauded poet. What language must be roiling in his mind, imperceptible beneath that smooth, subservient mask? Was it poetry or something more inchoate? Julia couldn’t imagine the strength needed to accept one’s own powerlessness. Yet she felt trapped too, pinned to the sofa as the drama played out in front of them.
Timson turned toward his guests. “Jungle energy, my ass. It’s her job to grease your pants, and she’s paid plenty to do it.”
Eva composed her face. “Please, Mr.—”
“And that god-awful crap about that Coburn guy screwing her with his gun.” His nostrils flared. “That’s disgusting. That’s—”
Julia’s stomach flinched as she registered the obscene menace of Timson’s words. It
rustled through the others as well, with a chorus of disgusted coughs and snarls. Wallace took a deep breath, then lowered his chin and settled his gaze on the carpet. Behind him, Jerome’s cheekbones seemed to contract, squeezing his eyes into black marbles.
“It’s a story!” Eva spun toward Jerome. “It’s fiction. No one will think it’s true. I made it all up.”
“Yeah, well, these babies don’t know that.” Timson waved toward the Clarks, whose eyes were large as coins. “They’ll think Leonard Timson is some kinda monster who screws his gals with a gun.”
Eva looked wildly around the room. “No, no. I promise they won’t. No one will think that.”
Timson pitched the manuscript back into the safe. He shoved the jewelry case and its tray in on top of it, spilling a pearl earring onto the floor, and slammed the door shut.
“Please, please,” Eva begged. “That’s mine. I need it. You can’t just take my things!”
“You got a job, girl, and it don’t need your brain. Stick to what I pay you for.” He swung the heavy picture back into place and turned to his guests with a grim smile.
“But we’ve paid for that manuscript,” Duveen squeaked. Julia wondered that he could speak at all. A snake of fear had closed around her own throat. “It belongs to Mr. Goldsmith now.”
Timson’s smile ripened. “No one paid me. It’s in my safe; looks to me like it’s mine. You been swindled if you paid this doll for something she don’t have to sell.” He paused. “But I’m a reasonable man. What’s it worth to you, Goldsmith?”
Goldsmith sat on the edge of the sofa, his back rigid. He had not yet spoken, and he was the only man in the room whose forehead was not blistered with perspiration. “A manuscript belongs to its author, Mr. Timson.”
Timson chortled. “That so? Let her sue me for it.”
Goldsmith rose. “You will hear from our lawyers.” His voice was cold and precise. “We will do everything in our power to secure Miss Pruitt’s property for her. We will seek prosecution if necessary, despite the ridiculous cretins behind whom you attempt to hide.”
“Ain’t that just dandy. Some sissy kike in a purple shirt thinks he can talk like a big boy. You’re never seeing that manuscript, fella. It’s mine now. Wave it bye-bye.” Timson flapped a toddler’s gesture.
“This is not over.” Fury whittled Goldsmith’s words into needles. “Pablo, deal with this person.”
With a slam that shook the doorframe, he was gone.
Duveen swiveled. “I’m afraid Arthur is right, Mr. Timson. Legally the manuscript is Eva’s, and she’s sold it to us.” He swallowed and persevered in a high, pinched voice. “Our readers are sophisticated folks. They don’t assume what’s depicted is literally true. Good writers set a realistic stage, but what happens there comes from their imaginations. That realism is what gives good literature the power to resonate in readers’ memory and to move them to sympathy.”
This discourse on literary method sounded an absurd note in the hot room. Timson stared as if Duveen were a new comic auditioning to join his show.
Duveen took this as encouragement. “What’s important is that such violence as Miss Pruitt depicts could happen, not that in fact it did. That rape scene is horrifying, yes, but it conveys the circumstances and dangers that a young woman might face in today’s Harlem. Readers will have no reason to suspect the Coburn character is real, Mr. Timson. But it’s vital that they believe such a fellow could exist, that such unspeakable acts could happen.” He paused and added dramatically, “And even that they probably do.”
Timson clapped twice. “Very pretty, Mister Professor. But full of crap. Could, would, did—makes no difference to me. Who cares about teacher ladies in Cleveland? Anybody in New York will sure as hell think she’s dishing the hash on bad old Leonard Timson.” His eyebrows rose as if challenging anyone to deny it. “Except they won’t. Because they’ll never read it.” His triumphant gaze traveled from one face to another before reaching Eva. “No one will.”
She met his eyes squarely. Julia saw determination in them, a resolve to reclaim what was rightly hers.
Then she sprang at him. Timson caught her raised arm and wrenched it behind her back. He gripped her hard against his chest, and she stilled. A gun was wedged under her cheekbone.
Julia heard herself gasp. Dolly Clark slapped both hands to her mouth. Duveen made a strange gulping noise. Jerome swallowed, but otherwise he remained motionless, still hidden behind Wallace.
Julia didn’t see where the gun had come from. One instant Eva had been about to slap him, and the next she was pinned into place by a muzzle. When she tried to move, Timson drove the gun in deeper, pinching her eye into a terrified wedge of flesh. Then her eyelids sank shut. Her face went lax.
Julia could not pull her horrified gaze from Eva’s limp face. Was this the look of someone who knew she was about to die? Was this how Julia’s first sweetheart had looked as he’d resolved to kick away the chair? After three long years of fighting a war that would never end inside his head, had poor Gerald’s face collapsed like this, in such fear and sorrow?
“Come, now.”
Wallace’s voice was like cream poured on a fiery dish. He moved from behind the bar and walked slowly toward Timson and Eva. Five soundless, patient, measured steps.
“Come now, Leonard. She meant no harm. Let her go.” He reached for the gun.
Timson regripped. Eva squeaked like a pinched rabbit. Or perhaps the noise came from Dolly, or even Julia’s own lungs.
Wallace scoffed gently. “You two need each other, am I not right? Forget that book; forget this little scene. Take a deep breath, both of you.” His fingertip reached Eva’s face. “Back to business? Eh?”
He slowly turned the gun away. Her jaw sagged to her shoulder, eyes still pressed shut. With a last twist Timson released Eva’s arm and jabbed the gun back into its holster under his jacket. Wallace nudged Eva’s chin, coaxing her to open her eyes and meet his own.
Timson shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Forget about that crazy book. No harm done.” He wiped his palms. “Hey, folks, didn’t mean for you to see a squabble. Employees, huh?” He reached for another bottle of champagne. “How about another drink?”
No one moved. Timson receded like a buzzing insect to the periphery of Julia’s vision as she watched Wallace slip his arm around Eva. When she finally looked up, it was to Jerome. Both blood and expression had drained from her face.
“Eva, baby, go get ready,” Timson said. “Take these ladies with you.”
Wallace squeezed Eva’s elbow before releasing it. “It will be all right,” he said into her ear. She nodded once and disappeared through the side door without looking back. Julia followed, with Dolly Clark dragging on her arm for help in navigating the tilting floor.
Timson shooed them on and refilled the men’s glasses. “More trouble than the little monkey’s worth,” he complained with a gusty chuckle.
CHAPTER 10
“Oh, sweetie, not so fast.” Dolly Clark listed heavily against Julia, engulfing her in a cloud of Guerlain, perspiration, and belched champagne. “I’m not feeling so pink.” Her cheeks had drained to a grayish white beneath a film of rouge. Julia struggled to keep her from drooping to the floor as they two-stepped into the back room. Someone shut the door behind them.
“Ohhh.” Dolly surged forward when Eva stepped out of a lavatory. Dolly rushed to the toilet, shuddering with imminent sickness. Julia turned on a tap and closed the door to give the miserable woman some semblance of privacy.
Julia took Eva’s hand and moved them away from the wrenching noises. It was clammy, despite the heat. Eva’s eyes held the same deadened chill. Did she understand that her dreams might soon dissolve? “Did he hurt you?”
A muzzle-shaped pock flamed high on Eva’s cheek. The answer was more air than sound. “Not really.”
They were in some kind of exotic bedroom. A large bed dominated the far wall, piled with pillows. Everything was covered in black satin. They sat on its
edge with a small bounce. Eva’s hands shook as she opened a carved box on the nightstand and pulled out a fat hand-rolled cigarette. She lit it and inhaled, holding her breath for some moments before releasing a thread of smoke and extending the cigarette to Julia.
Eva kicked off her mules as Julia declined. She sat back and stretched out her legs, her turbaned skull settling against the black padded headboard. She drew deep puffs into her lungs, savoring every vapor. From hips to head she was completely pillowed in black satin, as if laid out at an undertaker’s. She lay motionless, spine curled, eyes closed, breath faint.
“Eva?” Julia jiggled her friend’s hand to rouse her from a dangerous lethargy. Was she in shock? Did she not fathom the dire reality of Timson’s threat? He’d shoved a gun into her face.
Several seconds passed. When Eva opened her eyes, they were sheened with tears. Her voice was a mournful whisper. “Oh Lordy, I’ve queered that something royal.”
Did she mean losing her manuscript? Surely Timson and his gun posed the greater concern. “Eva, you’re not safe here. He might have killed you. You have to get away from him.”
Eva looked as if Julia were the one who didn’t understand. Her chin rose, and she spoke to the ceiling, her voice returned to its normal register. “I’m sorry you had to see that. But I’ll fix it. I have to get my book back.” She slid deeper into the bed’s dark meringue and crossed her legs. One bare foot brushed Julia’s calf.
“I don’t see how you can, unless you know the combination to that safe.” Julia lifted her voice—was there any chance?—but Eva simply closed her eyes. No.
“Do you have another copy?” Julia asked.
Eva’s jaw swung to one side. “I should have. I know that. But I didn’t think it was important, and Pablo kept suggesting things to add or take out. Carbons are just too much work, Julia. And messy.” She lifted her fingertips. “One smudge, and Leonard would have asked what I was up to. And it was hard enough to hide one copy. Where would I have tucked another?”
Julia nodded. There was nothing to be done about it now. “Is there anyone who can help you?” At Eva’s puzzled face she added, “Can Jerome do something?” She forced it into a question, though she knew the answer.
