The King of Ragtime

by Larry Karp

  “You have good eyesight.”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. But I’m sure you or anyone else would have come to the same conclusion.”

  “Hmm.” Ciccone smiled. “Miss Kuminsky, if you were tied to the bed, how did you manage to get your head out the window?”

  “The foot of the bed is right under the sill. I pushed myself up as far as I could, and then I leaned on the ledge, and called, “Help,” but not too loud.” She pointed at Dubie’s body. “I didn’t want him to hear me.”

  “What did you think would happen when Mrs. Stanley came up? Did you imagine that man with the gun was going to say he was sorry and let you go with her?”

  Birdie’s lip trembled. “I didn’t…I thought maybe a policeman would see me, or maybe someone would call a policeman.”

  “All right. Mr. Tabor, how is it you happen to have both a gun and a key to this apartment?”

  “I keep the gun in my desk. If you want, I can show you my license.”

  “We’ll get to that.” Ciccone paused long enough to send a message that the man’s attitude annoyed him. “But since you know about gun licenses, I’ve got to think you also know it’s illegal to discharge any firearm in the Borough of Manhattan.”

  Tabor got the message, didn’t like it. “What the hell’s the point of licensing a gun if you’re not allowed to use it to defend yourself?”

  Ciccone shrugged. “I don’t write the laws. I just enforce them.” He held out his hand. “The gun, please, Mr. Tabor.”

  Tabor pulled the weapon from his pocket, handed it to Ciccone, who passed it to Flaherty. “Thank you. Now, let’s talk about the key.”

  Tabor coughed and cleared his throat. “The apartment is mine,” he said. “I use it to entertain friends, evenings.”

  Ciccone looked at the body on the floor. “He wouldn’t be one of your friends, would he?”

  “Certainly not. I’d never set eyes on him until I came into the room today.”

  “And how was it that you did happen to come into the room today,” Ciccone asked. “At five o’clock in the afternoon, with a gun in your hand.”

  Tabor looked at Nell and Birdie, then sighed luxuriantly and turned a wry face onto the detective. “That man called the office and insisted on talking to someone who wasn’t there. I’m the office manager, so the receptionist asked me to take the call. Before I could say hello, the man told me there was a problem, he was holding a gun on a woman, and I should come right over. So I figured I’d better be prepared. When I opened the door, he pointed the gun at me. Fortunately, I fired first.”

  “Who was it the man asked for?” Ciccone’s voice went very soft. “On the phone. At your office?”

  By now, Tabor was giving a good impression of a man who’d accidentally sat on a nest of fire ants. “Uh…Mr. Berlin, one of the partners.”

  “Oh. This colored man is in your apartment, with a girl he’s kidnaped and tied to the bed, while he’s holding a gun on a woman. And he calls and asks Mr. Berlin—what? Why would he be asking Mr. Berlin what to do?”

  Tabor looked at Nell and Birdie, but there was no help forthcoming. Neither was a good reply written on the wall behind Ciccone and Flaherty. Finally, Tabor looked back to Ciccone. “I loaned Mr. Berlin a key the other day.” Nell could hardly hear the words. “Every now and then, he asks about using the apartment. I don’t ask him why. He’s my boss.”

  Nell felt Birdie sway against her side; she walked the girl to a chair, sat her down, then marched back to face the detective. “Mr. Ciccone, this girl is at the end of her rope. May I please take her home? If you need to talk more with her, perhaps you could see her there.”

  Ciccone glanced at Birdie. “Yeah, okay. We’ve got her address. Just give yours to the patrolman here.” As Nell reached for the pencil and pad in Flaherty’s hand, Ciccone added, “Just one more question, an easy one. Miss Kuminsky, did you see Mr. Berlin here at any time? Or anyone else, besides the man on the floor?”

  Birdie shook her head. “No. No one.”

  “Okay. Go ahead, then, Mrs. Stanley. Take her home.”

  Nell glanced at her wrist watch. After six o’clock. Her father would be at Joe Lamb’s by now, and at the least he’d be concerned. She took a step toward the telephone, but stopped. That detective was not a fool. All he’d have to do was hear her give the operator a Brooklyn number, right after she’d written down her Manhattan address, and he’d be all over her. Better to just go down to the street and find a phone booth.

  ***

  Martin was up and over to Nell before she got fully inside the room. “Where’s Birdie? Is she all right?”

  Stark had lowered his newspaper; now he folded it and set it on the coffee table. Lamb came out from the kitchen, a wooden spoon in his hand. Joplin, surprisingly, got up and walked away from the piano, then sat next to Stark on the sofa.

  Nell brushed past Martin, pulled off her hat, tossed it onto an end-table next to a lamp, and collapsed into an armchair. Martin followed at her heels. She gave the young man a warm smile. “Yes, she’s fine. I suspect she’ll sleep very well tonight.”

  “They didn’t hurt her, did they?”

  “From what she says, she is no longer kosher, but that’s the extent of it.”

  “Why didn’t you bring her here?”

  Stark pushed himself up and off the sofa, took Martin by the elbow, pulled him away from Nell. “There are many reasons why she didn’t bring the girl. In case you don’t recall, you and Joplin are still fugitives from the law, and the fewer people, your girlfriend included, who come traipsing over here, the better. Besides, she’ll be able to get some rest now, back in her own home.”

  Martin wrenched his arm away. “She got kidnaped once, she could get kidnaped again.”

  Stark saw him glance toward the door. “Martin!”

  “Damn it!” The young man stamped a foot. “Mr. Stark, you’re old. You don’t know what it’s like.”

  It seemed to Nell that everyone in the room, herself included, held their breath. But Stark’s face was calm, his voice level. “Old I may be, but my memory is in no way faulty. I remember well when I was twenty-four, and my new wife, sixteen. That was in 1865. I was in the Union Army, stationed in New Orleans, and shortly after the wedding ceremony, my company shipped out to Mobile Bay. Not long after, word came to me that neighbors were threatening my wife’s safety, and so I left my unit and made my way back to New Orleans, where I sent my wife, in the company of a young Negro man who posed as her servant, up the Mississippi to my brother’s farm. Can you imagine how much I would have given to go with her?”

  Nell thought Martin looked like a sailboat suddenly becalmed. “Your leave was only long enough to let you go back to New Orleans?” he asked.

  Stark looked at Nell, then pulled himself even straighter. “I was not given leave. I deserted. How I wished I could have gone up the river with my wife, but I knew she was safer on that boat with my friend than she would have been with me. Had I gone with her, and been apprehended as a deserter, she would have been entirely without help. Much against my will, I returned to my unit and served out my time, which passed slowly indeed. So yes, young man, I know very well what it is like. And you have my full sympathy.”

  Lamb waved the wooden spoon. “I don’t know if any of you are hungry—”

  “I am, for one,” said Nell. “I can fill you in at the table on what’s happened.”

  ***

  “Extraordinary,” Stark said when Nell finished her account. “Someone with Berlin’s success, going to such lengths to steal Joplin’s music and then put him and Martin out of the way.”

  “Some people can never be satisfied,” said Lamb.

  “I thought it was odd, though,” Nell said. “Everyone in the music business knows Berlin doesn’t chase women. I’ve heard some nasty jokes. But Tabor said Berlin often asked to borrow the apartment.”

  “He wouldn’t be the first man to be hypocritica
l about his private behavior,” said Lamb.

  “But why would he need Tabor’s apartment?” Martin spoke so softly, Nell had to listen with care to catch all his words. “He has his own place, and no one to stop him entertaining there.”

  “He’d have to face his staff the next morning,” said Stark. “Which would no doubt embarrass him severely. Not to mention what might happen if one of his lady friends were to show up at his home another time, uninvited. It does make sense. Perhaps at this point, we should just sit tight for a day or two. From what you tell me, Nell, I’d say the police are going to make Mr. Berlin shed a great deal of perspiration.”

  Nell suddenly pushed away from the table, walked into the living room, opened her purse, and came back holding out a slip of paper to her father. He worked a pair of spectacles from a pocket, adjusted them on his nose, then read aloud, “Mr. Irving Berlin. Columbus 8711.” He looked up at Nell? “So?”

  “This was in the colored man’s pocket.”

  Stark looked over his glasses at his daughter. “I still don’t see the importance. He had the phone number handy in case he had to call Berlin. Which he did.”

  “But it’s the Waterson, Berlin, and Snyder number. Where Berlin spends very little time.”

  Stark shrugged. “Perhaps Berlin didn’t want him calling at his home. The receptionist could have relayed messages. It’s also possible Berlin didn’t even give him the number. He could have decided on his own he’d like to have it handy, and copied it from a card or the telephone directory. In any case, I fail to see—”

  “Turn it over, Dad.”

  Stark flipped the paper. “Hmm. ‘Clarence and Ida Barbour. 215 West 131st Street, west of Seventh Avenue.’” Again, he looked over his glasses at Nell. “Who are they, do you suppose?”

  “I have no idea, but I’d like to find out.”

  Stark removed his glasses. “Nell, if this was in that man’s pocket, how did it happen to get from there into your purse?”

  Lamb coughed.

  “In steps. He left it on the telephone table when he called Berlin. Then, after Tabor shot him, when I took Birdie to the phone to call her mother, I palmed it.”

  “You palmed it? Nell! You could find yourself serious trouble, removing evidence like that.”

  “I’d found serious trouble before I ever called you to come out here. Maybe Clarence and Ida, whoever they are, can give us some information. I’m going to go up there and talk to them, right after dinner.” Cagey smile. “I can’t very well give the paper to Detective Ciccone now, can I?”

  Stark jabbed a finger toward the window. “For heaven’s sake, Nell, it’s after eight o’clock. You can’t go out on the streets by yourself, to a neighborhood you’re unfamiliar with.” He paused, just long enough to shake his head. “All right. You may consider me your escort.”

  “You won’t object, will you, if I give Lottie a call, and see whether she can slip down the fire escape and go with us? I think it might not hurt to have Mrs. Scott Joplin along. She knows the neighborhood, she knows the people.”

  “No, of course I won’t object, it’s a splendid idea. Go ahead, call her, and let’s get on our way before it becomes too late to pay a visit.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Manhattan

  Friday, August 25

  Evening

  Cliff Hess had never seen a face on his boss to match this one. Not that he was surprised. He knew right off there was big trouble when those two cops came in to speak privately with Mr. Berlin; then, not half an hour later, Max Josephson, Berlin’s lawyer, had rushed into the apartment and straight to the library, where the composer was sitting with the policemen. More than an hour went by before Robert showed the cops to the door, and for a good twenty minutes after that, Berlin stayed closeted with Josephson. When the composer finally stormed into the kitchen and up to the table where Miras and Hess sat over cups of coffee, Hess drew a deep breath. “Everything go all right, Mr. Berlin?”

  Robert Miras seemed to remember a job he needed to do. He got up, excused himself, left his cup in the sink, and walked out of the room.

  “Christ Almighty!” Berlin’s forehead glistened; his cheeks glowed. He threw himself onto a chair, yanked out a handkerchief, mopped viciously. “My God, Cliff, it just gets worse and worse. That girl, the assistant bookkeeper who disappeared yesterday? Some colored guy had her up in Bart Tabor’s love nest, and Tabor shot him dead. If it wasn’t for Max, those detectives’d be booking me in downtown right now. Max convinced them their evidence wasn’t completely airtight, and if they wanted to talk to me some more, they knew where they could find me. He told them if they put me away, I wouldn’t be able to finish writing this show, and if they were wrong, they’d be lucky to ever even be walking a beat again.” Berlin swiped the handkerchief across his face again.

  Hess struggled to make sense of what he’d just heard. He wondered whether the pressure of the upcoming show and the threats from that bumpkin, Stark, were loosening his boss’ hinges. “That’s awful, Mr. Berlin,” he said. “But how can they hold you responsible for what goes on in your manager’s playpen?”

  “Wait, I’ll tell you. The girl said the colored guy told her he had a deal with a ‘big music publisher’ to publish his tunes.” Berlin held up a hand to forestall the objection he saw coming from Hess. “I know, I know. There are a lot of big music publishers in New York. But that doesn’t matter. Just before five this afternoon, the colored guy called the office, told the receptionist she’d be out of a job if he didn’t get through to me, so she clued in Tabor, then connected him. According to Tabor, the guy said, ‘Hello, Mr. Berlin, I got a problem here, a woman came knocking on the door and said she was supposed to meet you—’”

  “You?”

  “Yeah. Me. The woman told the colored guy she was supposed to meet me there, so he pulled a gun and sat her down to wait while he called me to find out what to do. Tabor told him to sit tight, then ran on over like Wild Bill Hickok and blasted the son of a bitch to pieces.”

  Hess fumbled for the right words. “Mr. Berlin…that’s just unbelievable. What did you say to the police?”

  “What did I say? What the hell could I say? I told them I didn’t know a thing about any of this. And then they asked me wasn’t it true that I borrow Tabor’s key every now and then when I want to do a little ‘entertaining.’”

  Hess felt his face get warm. Berlin picked right up. “God damn it, Cliff. You don’t think I do that, do you?”

  “Of course not, Mr. Berlin.”

  “Well, that’s what I told them, so they asked me why would Mr. Tabor say I did. I said that was a good question and I didn’t know the answer. Then they told me to watch my wise mouth, and I’d better not set one foot out of Manhattan, or they’d be offering me their hospitality, which is how they put it. Soon as they left, Max and I called Tabor’s place, but he wasn’t there. But him and me are gonna have a good talk. I’ll catch him tomorrow at the office. And oh yeah, while I’m there, I’ll also have a chat with the new bookkeeper.”

  Again, Hess started to wonder about Berlin’s stability. The man was on the hook for a murder charge, he had a show to write, and he was going to have a chat with the new bookkeeper? “Why?”

  “Because, goddamn it, she’s the one who came up to the apartment and said she was supposed to meet me,” Berlin shouted. “The new bookkeeper. The one Tabor hired just yesterday.”

  ***

  Twilight was fading as Stark and Nell came up from the subway at 135th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. Lottie waved from behind the railing, then trotted over and embraced Nell. “Did you have any trouble?” Nell asked. “Getting away?”

  Lottie shook her head. “Truth, I didn’t even see no cops or delivery trucks out there today, but that don’t really ease my mind. Maybe they’s watchin’ from some place I can’t see ’em. When I goes out to the grocery, I steps bold as brass, but when I comes to see you, I still think best I goes down
the fire escape in back.”

  They walked most of a block eastward on West 131st, past kids playing a noisy game of stickball in the street. There were small gatherings on concrete stoops, women in summer dresses, fanning themselves, men mostly in undershirts and dirty work pants, many of them holding bottles of beer. People leaned out open windows to carry on conversations between buildings. The air was heavy with cigarette smoke.

  “Here it be,” Lottie said, pointing. “Number 215.”

  Stark looked down three reddish stone steps to a grocery. From somewhere to his left came the sound of lively syncopated music, a horn and a drum. “I’m sorry, we closed,” came a pleasant female voice from the stoop, five steps up from the sidewalk.

  Stark’s eyes followed the voice. A light-skinned Negro woman, jet hair piled high on her head, skin the color of coffee with a good deal of cream, smiled down at him. Next to her sat a round man, head clean-shaved, whose bread basket stretched his T-shirt to a remarkable extent. A pencil-thin moustache decorated his pear of a face. Two mounds of flesh, filling the entire top step.”

  “But if you in need of something, I can open up and get it for you.”

  The woman spoke in the lilting cadence of the light-skinned New Orleans Creoles, each word subtly tinged with French. It fell like music on Stark’s ears. The old man thought of what he had to tell her, and felt a pull in the pit of his stomach. He firmed his jaw, drew himself to full height. “That’s kind of you, but we don’t need groceries right now. We’re looking for Clarence and Ida Barbour. Would they be you?”

  The large man and woman looked at each other. Lottie stepped forward. “We don’t mean you no harm,” she said quietly.

  As the woman half-rose to peer at the new speaker, her face relaxed into a smile. “Is that Lottie? Lottie Joplin?”

  “None other. I didn’t know you knew me.”

  Now, the man spoke. “Everybody here know Scott Joplin and his Mrs. You come in sometimes and buy groceries.”

  I haven’t seen you for some good while now,” the woman said. “Or Mr. Joplin.” Her face went serious. “I hope he’s…”