by Larry Karp
‘Stark: Well, for heaven’s sake, man, is that all? Why, nothing would delight me more. I see trouble coming in Sedalia. No doubt, the reformers will close down the Main Street establishments, and that will drive music and musicians from the city. By all means, Mr. Joplin, come along with us to St. Louis. I have no doubt we’ll enjoy a close and rewarding relationship—or better, a close and rewarding friendship. I can’t understand why you appear so reticent.’
‘Joplin: (pulls handkerchief from pocket, wipes forehead). Mr. Stark, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you say. But that is only part of what I wish to speak with you about. Mr. Stark…’
‘Stark (leans forward in chair). For the love of God, Mr. Joplin, out with it. Speak your mind. You need have no concerns.’
‘Joplin (blurts): Mr. Stark, I wish to marry your daughter. Nell and I have come to regard each other with the most tender affection, and I believe I can provide for her and make her happy.’
‘(The two men sit, silent. Joplin appears to be having the greatest trouble keeping himself in his chair). Finally, Stark speaks: Well, Mr. Joplin, I now appreciate your hesitancy, though I can’t say I’m completely surprised. I’ve watched you and my daughter at the piano, and I’ve listened endlessly to her demands that I publish The Ragtime Dance. I assume you’ve discussed this with Nell before coming to me. What does she have to say?’
‘Joplin: Of course she and I have spoken. She says she wishes it as much as I do.’
‘Stark: Mr. Joplin, my daughter is a mature woman, nearly thirty years old. I would not in any way presume to object to any course of action she might set for herself. You have no obstacle in me, and you may be sure this will have no effect on our business relationship.’
‘Joplin (leaning forward, urgently): But we wish for more than that. We hope for your blessing. Without that, we could not enjoy complete happiness.’
‘Stark: My dear fellow. I’m afraid you’ll find complete happiness a chimera, but in any event, you do have my blessing. Anything other than that, and I should be a sham, a pious hypocrite. You both know the difficulties you’ll encounter.’
‘Joplin: Only too well, sir. But I’d say not to marry on that account would speak poorly for both Nell and me.’
‘Stark: You will find me your ally in any situation that may arise. (stands). I think I’d best have a word with Mrs. Stark. (He leaves the room).’
‘(Joplin wrings his hands, takes out the handkerchief, wipes his face again. As Mrs. Stark enters the room, accompanied by her husband and Nell, he practically leaps to his feet. Mrs. Joplin’s face radiates light. She takes Joplin’s right hand between the two of hers). Why, Mr. Joplin, I thought you would never ask. I’m so happy for you both. And for us all.’”
Nell’s voice cracked. She got up, walked to the window, and with her back to the room, leaned on the ledge. Against his will, Stark read on to the end. “‘One musical success after the last. We publish The Ragtime Dance, then The Guest of Honor, then Treemonisha, all to great acclamation, both for the composer and his pianist-wife, who played every piano part’ ‘…triumphant European tour with his darling Nell and the two beautiful chocolate-colored children, both gifted musicians’ ‘…dying in the fullness of his years, never knowing a moment of sadness or frustration.’”
Stark turned over the last page. Slowly, he released his grip on the edge of the table; bursts of exquisite pain shot up his arm. He got to his feet, walked slowly toward his daughter.
She turned a calcimined face to him. “How did he ever…”
Stark’s cheeks warmed as he found himself wondering whether the composer had worked altogether from imagination. He groped for the right words, as tongue-tied in reality as Joplin had been in fantasy. “Can you begin to imagine how painful the man’s life has been?” he muttered.
Nell wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “I don’t need to imagine it. I’ve seen it at first hand for seventeen years now.”
Stark’s hands stuttered forward. He clutched Nell’s shoulders, embraced her, but could not speak. At last, Nell pulled back, wiped her eyes again. “Dad, what would you have said if Scott really had asked your permission to marry me?”
Stark shook his head, a boxer trying to get to his feet at the count of nine. “Precisely what he wrote, including the part about hypocrisy. It’s difficult to believe. Did he ever—”
“Speak to me about it? No. If he had, and was afraid to talk to you, I would have.”
“I have no doubt of that. What surprises me is that you never spoke to him.”
Nell’s self-control melted. She lowered herself into a chair, covered her face, and wept without restraint. Stark rested a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Nell. I shouldn’t have said that.”
She looked up. “Can you imagine how many times I’ve said exactly that to myself?” she wailed. “I have a good marriage, no complaints. But I’ll never know what a marriage like yours and Mother’s felt like.” Nell pulled her handkerchief from below her shirtwaist, did a quick cleanup of her face, then picked up the manuscript. “I’ve got to hear some of the music. I can’t imagine what it’ll sound like.”
“Unfortunately, I can,” said Stark.
Nell sighed. “I suppose unfortunately, so can I.”
***
After only a few minutes, Stark said to Nell, “That’s enough, my dear. I don’t think I want to hear any more. It’s gibberish. Musical nonsense.”
“Not altogether. Some of it is quite lovely.” She flipped a couple of pages, played a short passage. Stark nodded. “Yes, but there’s no—”
“Connection between the short pieces. It’s as if he couldn’t remember what he’d just written, or thought he’d written something else.”
“Which would be in line with the way he remembered Waterson as Berlin. His memory must be scrambled.”
“How in the world are we going to tell him he’s too far gone to write any more music?” Nell tapped a fingernail against a piano key, click, click. Then she turned abruptly, and marched toward the kitchen. Stark hurried after her. “Nell?”
She snatched a glass from the shelf above the sink, filled it, took a long swallow, and plopped into a chair. Stark sat beside her.
Nell pursed, then relaxed, her lips. “Dad, there’s something…while I was waiting for you, I kept thinking about Henry Waterson.” She ticked off points on her fingers. “Scott identified him as the man he thought was Berlin. You found Scott’s play in his desk. He’s not a musician, so he wouldn’t have known how bad the music is. I’ll bet he was going to wait for Scott to die, then publish under a pseudonym, but when Tabor cut off his gambling money, his patience also ran out, and he decided to hurry the process along. But the killer got the wrong man, Martin got Scott away—”
“So Waterson borrowed the key to Tabor’s apartment, supposedly for a few days of hanky-panky,” said Stark. “And if the kidnaping had worked, Martin and Scott would have turned themselves in, Waterson would have given Tabor back his key, and that would have been that.”
“But I sent it all topsy-turvy by finding Birdie—and here’s the connection. When Tabor came flying into the apartment and shot Dubie, he must have realized what Waterson was up to, and seen both a problem and an opportunity. If Waterson went to jail for kidnaping and murder, Tabor’s evidence would be useless. On the other hand, if he played his cards right, he could have the junior partner up on a murder charge, and the senior partner in his hip pocket. So he decided on the spot to tell the police he’d loaned the key to Berlin. Then he made a deal with Waterson, and that’s why Waterson took Tabor’s side the next morning in the office. They’d probably set the whole thing up the night before.”
Stark nodded. “That’s brilliant, Nell. Waterson’s full of bluster, but I don’t know how much nerve he has. I’ll pay the man a visit in the morning, and—”
“Waterson’s barely in the office weekdays. I don’t think you’ll find him there on a Sunday.�
��
“Blast! I keep forgetting.”
Like a steamroller that can’t understand it has to stop when the engine is turned off, Nell thought. She pointed toward the window. “Look, it’s light already. I’m exhausted, and I can’t imagine you’re not. Let’s get some sleep. We have all day tomorrow to decide what to do, and make sure we’ve got it just right.” Weary smile. “Might as well take advantage of the Lord’s Day.”
Chapter Fourteen
Manhattan
Monday, August 28
Morning
Morning came early at the Stanley apartment, Stark’s screams piercing the dawn’s marginal light a little after six. Nell was into her father’s room before she herself was fully awake. “Dad, wake up, wake up.” She took him by the shoulders, but he thrashed in her grip, screamed louder, then at last, blinked his eyes open. “Nell…?”
She thought he looked puzzled at seeing her. “You were having that dream again. Dad, what is that dream about?”
Stark looked away. “We’re not going to waste time discussing a bit of moonshine in the brain.” He made a point of peering at the alarm clock on his bedside table. “It’s a quarter to six. We need to be up in less than an hour. We’d both be wise to spend that time in sleep, not talking about a silly dream.”
“It’s so silly, it’s been waking both of us for almost half a century.”
Stark lowered his head and stretched his legs full length. “Go back to bed, Nell. I’ll see you at six-thirty.” He closed his eyes. A moment later, the door to his bedroom slammed with such force as to shower plaster from the ceiling onto his head. For the next forty-five minutes, he lay there, examining and re-examining every angle of the plan they’d put together the day before.
***
At a quarter to eight, Nell and Stark walked into Reception. Nell locked the door, then led her father down the hall to Waterson’s office. The old man quickly opened and closed each drawer in the desk; that done, he followed Nell into Tabor’s office, and made straight for the manager’s desk. He pulled the center drawer open, rummaged toward the back, came out with a small revolver with a patterned black plastic handle, and held it up to the light. “Hopkins-Allen thirty-two.” He pointed at the encircled H&A trademark at the upper edge of the handgrip. “Is this the gun he killed the Harris boy with?”
Nell shook her head. “I never got a good look at it. But Detective Ciccone took it away from him.”
“So either he got it back or he got another gun.” Stark snapped the weapon open, shook out four lead slugs, slipped them into his jacket pocket. Then he pulled the drawer all the way out, picked up a small cardboard box, emptied it into his pocket. Finally, he replaced the little revolver into the drawer. “It won’t be much help to him now. Let’s go back out to Reception and wait for our friend.”
***
At precisely eight, Irving Berlin unlocked the door and hurried into Reception. For a moment, he stood in the middle of the room, then growled at Stark, “Where’s Joplin?”
Stark raised an eyebrow. “Joplin is not here.”
“What do you mean, he’s not here? You called me last night and said—”
“That I was going to give you your meeting, but I did not say it would be with Joplin. You assumed that. We’re going to meet with Waterson and Tabor. I’m no longer certain you stole Joplin’s music or had the girl kidnaped, but I’ll need your help to prove that, and to trap the guilty party.”
Berlin stared at Nell. He cocked his head, aimed a finger in her direction. “Hey, wait a minute, I’ve seen you before. You’re that reporter, came to my place—”
Nell smiled. “I’ve also been your bookkeeper for the last few days.” She nodded in Stark’s direction. “This is my father. And Scott Joplin is my friend.”
Berlin’s laugh rang flat. “You got a lot of talents, don’t you, Miss Stark?”
Stark cleared his throat. “Let me explain the situation.”
“First, maybe you ought to explain how you managed to get yourselves into this office. And why you don’t just go to the cops, if you think you know what’s what.”
“The first,” said Stark, “is a trade secret, and will so remain. Be assured I did nothing you would be displeased to know. As to talking to the police, I need to be certain of Joplin’s and young Niederhoffer’s safety until the matter is resolved.”
Berlin narrowed his eyes. “So, I’m just supposed to trust you now. How do I know you aren’t setting me up?”
“You don’t. You can either trust me, or put your faith in Mr. Waterson and Mr. Tabor, and then wait for your dental appointment this evening.” He pulled out his watch. “It’s nearly a quarter after eight, Mr. Berlin. Your receptionist will be here at eight-thirty. If Waterson or Tabor walks in before we’re ready, our plan will be out the window. You need to make a choice.”
Berlin glanced at Nell, who smiled with tight lips. “All right,” the composer muttered. “But why didn’t you come and talk to me last night?”
“Because I was concerned you might go off on your own, half-cocked.” Stark stood. “Let’s go back to your office and prepare ourselves.”
***
When Henry Waterson strolled through the door a few minutes before nine o’clock, he smiled at Nell, sitting at the Reception Desk, a pile of ledger pages in front of her. “Doing double-duty, Mrs. Stanley? Fannie’s still out?”
“I’m afraid so, sir.”
“Where’s the temporary?”
“Off running an errand for Mr. Berlin. He asked me to watch the front while she was gone.
The man’s demeanor changed on a dime. “Judas Priest! As short-handed as we are, Berlin sends her off on some errand? And what in the name of anything holy is he doing here at this hour?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Waterson, I don’t know. He’s back in his office, but he said he doesn’t want to be disturbed.”
“Oh, he doesn’t!” Waterson scowled, then, without another word, stomped off toward his office. Nell went back to her ledgers.
By five past the hour, the cacophony of several pianos being played at once filled the office. Nell realized she’d been checking her watch a couple of times a minute. But then, the door swung open and Tabor strode in. He asked the same questions Waterson had, and got the same answers.
Nell watched him disappear around the corner, then jogged across the room and taped a handwritten sign to the door: TEMPORARILY CLOSED DUE TO EMERGENCY. WILL RE-OPEN AT 11AM. Then, she hurried down the business corridor, past Tabor’s office, past Waterson’s, and knocked lightly at Berlin’s door. It opened immediately. She answered the questions on her father’s face and Berlin’s with a nod, then walked back to Waterson’s office.
The senior partner looked up, a cigar in his left hand, a clipper in his right. “I’m sorry to bother you, sir,” Nell said. “But Mr. Berlin wants to talk to you and Mr. Tabor, in Mr. Tabor’s office. He says it’s extremely important.”
Waterson snapped off the cigar tip with a vicious thrust of his thumb, rammed the cigar into his mouth, then spoke around it. “He expects me to jump when he calls, does he?”
“I don’t know, sir. He asked me to give you the message, and now I’ve done that.” She turned to leave.
Waterson dropped the unlit cigar onto his desk, muttered something Nell couldn’t hear, and worked himself to his feet. She stood aside to let him pass, then followed him down the hall toward Tabor’s office. But before he got there, the door to Berlin’s office opened, and the composer and Stark strode into the hall. Waterson gawked, then blurted, “Irvy, what the hell is going on here?” He pointed at Stark. “What’s he doing here?”
“I invited him,” Berlin snapped. “Go on, go inside.” The little man practically shoved Waterson into Tabor’s office. Nell, then Stark, followed.
Tabor looked up at the parade. His eyes moved from Berlin to Waterson to Nell to Stark. At the sight of her father’s face, Nell clutched at his arm. “Dad, w
hat’s the matter?”
The old man was ghastly white, eyes bulging, lips drawn and twisted, as if he were in terrible pain. She’d seen that same face just a few hours before, when she’d awakened him from his nightmare. Was he having a heart attack? She eased him into a chair at the side of the desk, then sat beside him, all the while silently rebuking herself. The man was seventy-five, and for the better part of a week, she’d let him go running around the city like a colt, getting his dander up at Berlin or Waterson.
Berlin broke into Nell’s brown study. “Henry, Bart, we need to talk a little.”
Tabor leaned back in his chair. Waterson spluttered, pointed toward Stark. “I’ve got nothing to say to him. And what is she doing in here?”
“You’ll find out,” said Berlin. “Sit down. You can talk to us, or you can talk to the police. You’ll do a lot better dealing with us.”
Nell saw lines deepen around Waterson’s eyes and at the corners of his mouth. “Irvy, you’re the last guy I’d think would be calling the cops right now. What are you going to do—confess about how you got Bart to lend you the key to his apartment, then made a deal with the schwartzer to publish his music if he’d kidnap the girl and—”
“Henry, just shut up and let them talk.” Tabor could have been reprimanding a child whose babbling had become irritating.
Waterson slowly lowered himself into a chair. Berlin sat next to him.
Stark cleared his throat. “Mr. Waterson, we found Scott Joplin’s musical play in your desk.” Not his usual booming tone, but the thin, reedy voice of an old man. “Furthermore, Joplin picked you out of a group photograph as the man who represented himself as Irving Berlin, and took his music. You went on to misrepresent yourself as Berlin to Dubie Harris, and told him you’d publish his tunes if he’d kill Martin Niederhoffer for you. You wanted to frame Joplin for that murder, by phoning him and telling him to come down to the office at just the right time. Then you could have done whatever you liked with his music, no need to wait for him to die before you could publish it. But the murder went wrong, so you—not Mr. Berlin—borrowed the key to Mr. Tabor’s apartment—”
