by Larry Karp
“He’s as good as he’s ever gonna be, thank you. Fact, he’s been real busy lately. Workin’ on a musical play for the stage, and a symphony.”
“A symphony, you say,” the man said. “Like for an orchestra?”
“Right.”
The man hauled himself to standing, and waddled down to the steps. Stark was surprised at how short he was, a real five-by-five. The man acknowledged Nell with a perfunctory bow, then looked from Stark to Lottie, as if trying to decide which one to address. Finally, he said, “I be Clarence, that be my wife, Ida. What can we do for you?”
He can’t figure out, Stark thought, what a colored woman from his neighborhood is doing, walking up to his house at eight-thirty in the evening, in the company of a white man and woman. “Mr. Barbour, Mrs. Barbour,” Stark said. “My name is John Stark. I’m Mr. Joplin’s publisher, and his friend. This is my daughter, Nell, also Mr. Joplin’s friend. Mrs. Joplin asked us to do her a favor, and we need some help from you.”
“God’s truth,” Lottie chirped.
Stark looked around. “I don’t mean to be rude, but might we go inside to talk?”
“Well, sure,” said the man. “I guess it must be pretty important.”
“Yes,” said Stark. “It is.”
***
Stark looked around the Barbours’ living room, smiled at the way the furniture fit with the inhabitants. Every chair, the sofa, and a love seat were overstuffed. Given the ten-foot ceilings, the floor lamps at the front and rear of the room didn’t spread much light. Grotesquely-shaped shadows fell in every direction. Ida brought out a tall glass of lemonade for each person in the room, and set a glass bowl full of pretzels on a circular table next to the sofa. Then, she smoothed her hair, and sat beside her husband. He reached for her hand, and the two, apparently having concluded that Stark was the spokesman, looked at him.
He was glad Nell had thought to bring Lottie. “Let’s begin with the fact that a man was killed the other day in a music-publishing office downtown.”
The Barbours exchanged a look that accelerated Stark’s speech. “The circumstances made it appear that Mr. Joplin might have been responsible, but none of us believe that. We think it’s possible someone tried to make it look that way, and we want to find out what really did happen.”
“Mr. Stark…” Ida, her singsong tone now tight and forced. “That publisher—he wouldn’t happen to be Irving Berlin, would he?”
“Yes,” Stark said, gently as he could. “He would. Why do you ask?”
Clarence’s face tightened into a mask. “Mr. Stark, please tell us why you be here.”
Stark nodded. “Fair enough. After the murder, a young woman from the office, the intended of a man who also works there, was kidnaped. Someone called the girl’s mother to tell her that if Mr. Joplin gave himself up to the police, her daughter would be released. But the plan went sour, and the kidnaper was shot dead.”
Ida let out a cry. Clarence’s face was stone.
Stark moved along even more quickly. “The kidnaper had a piece of paper in his pocket with your names and your address on it.”
“And you’re gonna tell me he was a colored boy.” Ida’s voice was a deathly monotone. “With a great big scar on his cheek.”
“Yes,” Nell said. “I’m sorry.”
Stark sat silent as Ida broke into crying. Clarence put both arms around her, whispered into her ear. Then he gave his wife a handkerchief. She dabbed at her eyes, then returned it. “I beg your pardon,” she said.
“Not at all.” Stark spoke gently. “Was he your son?”
“If’n he was my son, Mr. Stark, he woulda had a bringing-up so he never woulda done such a thing like this.” The venom in Clarence’s voice was appalling.
“He was our nephew, my sister’s son,” Ida said. “Name was Dubie Harris. He grew up in Missoura, didn’t have no daddy, and from all my sister say, he was a wild boy. That scar, he got from a fight in a craps game, he was only fourteen years old. But he was good with music, that was the one thing he would do. He played horn, and he wrote down tunes. He come to New York to stay with us while he found a way to make him a living.”
Clarence sat forward. “You people ain’t some kind of police, are you?”
Before Stark could answer, Lottie broke in. “No indeed. Mr. Stark and Mrs. Stanley there been the best friends Scott ever did have. They been tryin’ to find out who really did kill that man in Irving Berlin’s office, so the cops’ll leave Scott be. Please, won’t you see if you can’t help them.”
Stark said, “Before your nephew got killed, he made a telephone call to Irving Berlin. You mentioned Berlin a minute ago. Do you know whether he was having any dealings with your nephew?”
Ida sobbed into Clarence’s handkerchief. Stark took a swallow of lemonade. Lottie and Nell waited quietly. Clarence rested a hand on his wife’s shoulder, then began to speak. “Dubie got in just a couple days ago,” he said. “All set to make New York his very own. Somebody he met on the train, some musician, told him Irving Berlin’s was the place to have his music published, so next day, right after lunch, off he went, first up to get himself into James Reese Europe’s band, then down to Irving Berlin’s. He told us at supper that night, he played his tunes for some young kid who said they wasn’t any good, but Dubie made a mighty fuss out in the waiting room, wouldn’t leave till the receptionist went on back and got Irving Berlin out there. Dubie played his music for Mr. Berlin, and Mr. Berlin said he was gonna publish it. I told Dubie he better watch out, else his tunes was gonna end up like ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band.’ Didn’t I tell him that, Ida?”
Ida, bit her upper lip, nodded.
“But that boy wasn’t the least little bit concerned. He said nobody was gonna take advantage of Dubie Harris. These young colored, they think everything got set right in 1863, but not bein’ a slave any more is only the first part to bein’ free.” He paused, scanned the faces of his visitors. “I mean no offense.”
“None taken,” said Stark.
Ida picked up the conversation. “We got worried when Dubie didn’t come on home last night and all day yesterday. Clarence figured he found himself a woman. But now you’re tellin’ us he went and kidnaped a girl for Mr. Berlin? Why would he do that?”
“We think Berlin is trying to steal another piece of Joplin’s music,” said Stark. “He may have made a deal to publish Dubie’s tunes if Dubie would kidnap the girl. Then Berlin could squeeze her boyfriend to turn Joplin in to the police, and he’d have Joplin’s music free and clear.”
Ida said, “How’re we supposed to get Dubie’s body now?”
“What I’d like you to do,” said Stark, speaking very slowly. “Is go down to the nearest police station and report him missing. I suspect they’ll get back to you soon enough. And if you wouldn’t mind, please don’t say anything about our visit. We’ve got Scott Joplin in a safe place, but we don’t want the police to track him through us. Once they’ve got him in custody, that will be as far as their interest will go, and Berlin will get off.”
Lottie stepped forward. “If you needs to get ahold of any of us, I can give you my number.”
Clarence extended a hand to Stark. “I appreciate you coming here and talking to us like you did.” He looked around the group. “All of you.”
Ida said nothing. Stark thought she looked on pins and needles. Something more than grief… She caught him studying her, and that seemed to release her tongue. “The day Dubie come back after he been down to Mr. Berlin’s,” she began, her voice a hollow drone. “It was pretty late, after six. Clarence was still in the store, and I was up here, makin’ supper. I heard Dubie come in, but he went straight to his room, and when he come out and say hello to me, he had on a different shirt from when he left in the morning. So after we’s done eatin’, when Clarence and him went to sit outside on the stoop and smoke, I went in to the laundry, and there was the shirt, all wet like it was rinched out, but I saw plain, r
ight on the front, what was left from a bloodstain.”
“And you never said one word to me.” Clarence was furious.
Ida shook her head. “I figured if I hadn’t gone and snooped, I never woulda known in the first place, so I decided I wasn’t gonna say boo…oh, Clarence! I was scared. And all the time Dubie didn’t come home, I kept on thinking about that blood on his shirt, and that made me even scareder. But I thought maybe these people need to know.”
“I’m glad you told us,” Stark said. “Do you remember what day that was?”
Ida raised a hand, counted back on her fingers. “One, two, three…three days ago. On Tuesday.”
“His first whole day in New York,” Clarence rumbled. “He was gonna set the town on fire.”
***
Lottie led Nell and Stark along St. Nicholas Avenue, into a drug store and up to the soda fountain, where they ordered phosphates. The soda jerk, a dark-skinned hunchback, made a snappy production out of mixing the drinks, then set them in front of his customers, smiled, tipped his white paper hat, and retreated to the far end of the counter.
Stark took a long pull at his drink. “I’d say we got more than we’d bargained for. What with the blood on the boy’s shirt, it does sound as if the deal with Berlin involved murder as well as kidnaping. ‘Help me get rid of Joplin, whatever it takes, and I’ll publish your music.’ But then you became a monkey wrench, Nell, going up to that apartment.”
“I’m about to become an even bigger monkey wrench,” Nell said. Birdie told me Dubie bragged to her about the scene he made in the office, and the way the receptionist got Berlin to sort it out. If Fannie could say she was sure it happened on the afternoon of the murder, wouldn’t that nail everything down?”
“I’d think so,” Stark said. “Perhaps you could talk to her tomorrow.”
“I’ll talk to her tonight,” said Nell. “I’ll bet the soda jerk’s got a City Directory…Dad, what are you shaking your head for now?”
From the far end of the counter, the soda jerk called, “You wantin’ something else?”
“Thank you, no.” Nell gave him a big smile, then in much lower tones, said, “The sooner we get the information, the better. I’m going to go tonight. If you insist, you can come with me.”
“I think neither of us should go tonight,” said Stark. Sometimes, sooner is not better. If we go barging into the woman’s home at this hour, she’s going to wonder why, and she may be less forthcoming than if you casually mention over lunch tomorrow that you heard something about a ruckus in Reception a few days ago. Then it’s no more than a bit of gossip.”
“Your daddy be right,” said Lottie. “Go runnin’ off with your legs movin’ faster’n your head, you likely just gonna upset the applecart. Go on home now, get some sleep.”
Nell couldn’t fight off a smile. “All right. I know when I’m licked.”
***
When Nell walked up to the Waterson, Berlin, and Snyder office at eight forty-five next morning, the door was locked. She peered through the glass, saw no movement inside. Damn! Fannie was supposed to be in by eight-thirty to open up and have everything ready for business by nine. Nell cursed the woman and her flightiness, looked back down the corridor, then sighed and resigned herself to waiting.
During the fifteen minutes she stood and paced, she was joined by secretaries, salesmen, pluggers, shipping clerks, fifteen or twenty in all. Then she heard the elevator door open. Voices, coming closer—Waterson and Tabor. She couldn’t make out the conversation. The two men drew up to the door through the small crowd. “Mrs. Stanley,” Tabor said. “What’s going on here?”
“We’re waiting for someone to open the door.”
“Fannie’s not here?”
“Apparently not.”
Tabor pulled a ring of keys from his pocket, searched for the right one, opened the door, then stood aside as the employees ran in and scattered to their posts. Nell walked in alongside Tabor and Waterson. They stood in the Reception Room, looked all around. “Fannie,” the office manager boomed, but got no answer beyond an echo of the receptionist’s name. He picked up a small wooden box from the desk, flipped the lid, thumbed through file cards. “Ah, here.” He held up a card. “I’ll call her—maybe her alarm didn’t go off. I guess I’ll have to put up a CLOSED sign until she gets here.”
“Judas Priest!” Waterson roared. “Where can that woman be? The way things are going, we’re not going to have any employees at all.”
“You’ll have a bookkeeper,” said Nell. “I’ll get to work now. Good morning.” She started down the hall to her office.
***
By nine-thirty, Nell had her annoyance under reasonable control, and was working over the pile of sales lists Tabor had left for her. She had one ear open, listening for Fannie’s voice from Reception, but what came through, all of a sudden, was a man’s voice, angry, and from the sound of it, right across the hall. “Tabor, we’re going to settle this right now.”
No mistaking the reedy, high-pitched, hard-driving tone, the classic lower east side inflections. If Berlin saw her, the game would be over. Nell jumped from her chair to run and hide in the ladies’ room, but took only a couple of steps. Do that, and she wouldn’t hear anything. She grabbed the previous day’s receipts from her desk, carried them to the utility table next to the doorway, pretended to arrange them. If Berlin came out of Tabor’s office, she’d go back to her desk and face the other way.
“God damn it, Tabor, I want to know why you told those cops I borrowed the key to your apartment, and I want a straight answer… No, I ain’t going to close the door. Stop whispering like a thief at me. This is my company, and I don’t give a good goddamn who hears what I’ve got to say to you. Now, I asked you a question.”
“All right, Mr. Berlin. What was I supposed to tell them?” Tabor’s words were harder to make out than Berlin’s; he wasn’t shouting. “They’d have found out anyway, and then I’d be in a real pickle.”
“Found out anyway? Tabor, you’re a four-flushing, lying son of a bitch! I’ve never borrowed the key to your filthy little love nest, and you know it.”
“Listen, Mr. Berlin. You can’t talk to me like that. I—”
“I’ll talk to you the way you deserve being talked to. Now, I want a straight answer. Why did you lie to those cops about me borrowing your key?”
A pause. Nell strained to hear. Finally, Tabor’s voice burst through, louder now, as angry as Berlin’s. “Fine, Mr. Berlin. You want a straight answer? Here it is. I told the cops you borrowed my key because you did. I told them that you’ve borrowed it before because you have. I’ve never asked you why because it was none of my business, but it’s not my job to take a fall for you…hey, Mr. Berlin, back off. You lay a hand on me, I’ll wipe up the floor with you. Don’t think I can’t.”
“Bastard!” Nell heard the sound of glass or porcelain smashing. “You’re fired. You’ve got two hours to clean out your desk. If you’re anywhere in this office by lunchtime, I’ll call the cops to move you out. Got it?”
Another pause, then Tabor’s voice. “Get out of my way…no, you just stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Nell heard him stamp down the hall and out of earshot. A few minutes later, she heard Waterson’s voice. “Jesus Christ, what the hell’s going to happen next?” Tabor said something Nell couldn’t make out. Then Waterson spoke again. “All right, okay, Bart. Don’t worry, I’ll set him straight.”
A moment later, Berlin shouted, “Henry, you stay outa this. It’s between him and me.”
“Irvy, goddamn it, get hold of yourself. What the hell do you mean, it’s between you and him. He’s the office manager and I’m the senior partner—”
“I don’t care if you’re God Almighty. He’s not gonna tell the cops lies about me and hold onto his job—”
“What are you talking about, he told the cops lies about you?”
“That apartment where the colored guy was
holding the girl? Our bookkeeper-assistant? He told the cops he lent me the key the day before.”
Waterson laughed. “So what the hell’s the problem? Bart didn’t say you had the girl kidnaped. The night before it happened, you had yourself a nice shtup, all private, who the hell would care about that? Listen, why don’t you just get your girl to talk to the cops, you know, off the record, and then that takes care of that. God knows how the schvartzer got in there. Maybe you didn’t lock up when you left. That’s the cops’ problem.”
“Henry!” A shriek. “I have never borrowed that key. I’ve never seen the inside of that apartment. I don’t take girls to love nests. Never!”
“Oh, Irvy, come on. Why do you always have to go around pretending all you got between your legs is air? Now, listen to me. Our bookkeeper’s missing—thank God we at least got that Mrs. What’s-her-name to fill in. But the assistant’s off for we don’t know how long, maybe forever, and today, the receptionist didn’t come in. So let’s fire the business manager, terrific idea, ‘cause he told the cops that the great Irving Berlin likes girls the same as any man. Hey, I tell you what. Let’s just close up the office. Shut it down. File for bankruptcy, get it over with. Jesus Christ, Irvy, Bart is all that’s holding us together right now. I’ve got to tell you, you ain’t been yourself lately, and right now, you look like hell. Go on, go back to your place and get yourself some sleep, then sit down and write your tunes for the show. Leave the office to me for now, okay?”
“God damn it, no, it’s not okay. I’m a partner—”
“All right, Irvy, enough. What with all you got going right now, I thought I’d show you a little consideration. But you don’t want to be reasonable. Fine! Either you butt out of this, or I’m gonna call my lawyer. You can call Josephson if you want, and then you know what’s gonna happen? You and me get to spend the next two weeks in courts, which, by the way, do not meet in the nighttime. You want to do that, or you want to get your show done? You ain’t gonna be able to do both.”
