The Ragtime Kid

by Larry Karp

  “I gave them the money, Johnny,” said Mrs. Stark, and pointed at a big carpetbag on the floor near the door. “They were going to shoot Frankie if I didn’t.”

  “It’s all right, Sarah.”

  Stark seemed about to say more, but Maisie spoke first. All the time Freitag talked, she’d been examining something in her hand; now she bent over Brun to hold a small gold object in front of his face. “Where did you get this from, Junior?”

  While Brun tried to figure what to say, Freitag walked over, and when he saw the gold locket, all color drained from his face. He delivered a sharp blow to the side of Brun’s head with the butt of his gun. “You had this? Where the hell’d you get it?”

  “It was in his pocket, Elmo. And it’s got your picture in it. What’s going on?”

  Freitag’s clout wasn’t hard enough or placed just right to knock Brun unconscious, but it did loosen up his tongue. “Found it in the weeds where Sallie Rudolph was lying, after you strangled her to death.”

  Freitag suddenly looked out of reason, eyes wild, foam flecking the corners of his mouth. His jaw jerked. “You killed her?” A hoarse whisper, like a child whining. “Strangled her? You told me Saunders went and talked to her, and got her to go back home.”

  “Oh, Elmo, you damn fool. All you could do was take her to the station and tell her to go home and see the doctor and get rid of the baby. You really thought I’d trust Saunders to get her out of our hair? He’d have just tried to talk her out of her drawers, that’s the only thing he ever was any good at, that and pocket-prowling. I got him to go lift Joplin’s money-clip, then we went over to Kaiser’s, and I waited out back in the alley while he peeked at the hotel register and got her room number. Then I climbed up the building, through the window and into her room. You should have heard her. Nothing was going to stop her having that baby, and she was going to stay here in town until she had you with her on a train back to Kay Cee. So I shut her up, pushed her out the window, went down the fire escape, and Saunders helped me carry her down to the corner and through back yards over to Washington. We dropped her by the side of the road and left Joplin’s money-clip next to the body where the cops couldn’t help finding it. We figured with Joplin put away, Saunders could get his hands on every manuscript Joplin ever wrote—except it seems like they never did find that damn money-clip. Now, damn it, Elmo, get hold of yourself, would you. Forget about Sallie. Whole lot of good she ever did you.”

  Freitag’s body shook. He sobbed and honked, and wrapped his arm tight around Frankie’s neck. The little boy squalled; Mrs. Fitzgerald jumped to her feet, the chair tied to her back. “You let him go,” she shrieked, and took a step toward her son. Maisie pointed her gun at Frankie, then glanced at his mother, who quickly sat back down, her face nearly black.

  “What the hell good did you ever do me?” Freitag bawled. His voice was shrill, a good octave higher than usual. “You were gonna sweet-talk a pile of music out of these niggers, but all you got was crap nobody would ever publish. You spent a whole night with that little punk there, telling him bedtime stories about going on the vaudeville stage, and you didn’t get shit for that, either.”

  “Cut it out, Elmo. It was my house you came sniveling to after these yokels ran you off, but I’m not here out of the goodness of my heart. I don’t give a hoot in hell about Mobile Bay, your old man, or your Sallie. Did you really figure I was going to spend the next twenty years thanking you for tossing me a song here and there on your way to the bank? You’re even a bigger damn fool than I thought you were. First chance I had, I was going to be off and gone with the whole pile of music. Now, at least let’s get out of here with some money.” She pointed at the carpetbag. “That’s my ticket to a vaudeville circuit. We’ll get rid of these chumps, split the take, then you go your way and I’ll go mine.”

  Freitag sobbed convulsively. With his gun pointed more or less at Frankie’s chest, every time the man’s hand jerked or shook, Brun’s stomach did a barrel-roll. “You cheap floozie. There was more worth in Sallie’s little finger than you’ve got in your whole body.”

  Maisie’s eyes narrowed to slits. Her lips tightened. She turned the barrel of her gun toward Freitag and Frankie. Brun’s eyes went big as dinner plates as he saw Isaac edging through the doorway. Shouting at each other like they were, neither Freitag nor Maisie had heard him. Isaac slipped a pistol out of his pocket, raised the gun, took aim. Brun drew a breath, held it. If Isaac shot at Freitag, his aim better be perfect. Anything less, he might hit Frankie.

  Apparently, Isaac thought the same way, because when he pulled the trigger and the room filled with the sound of the gunshot, a look of amazement came over Maisie’s face. Her gun fired once, then she toppled.

  Just as fast, Freitag’s gun was against Frankie’s head. The little boy shrieked, kicked his legs and flailed his arms.

  “God damn fool!” Freitag shouted. Brun wasn’t sure whether the man was talking about Maisie, Isaac or himself. Frankie, hysterical, cried, “Mommy, Mommy!” Freitag tightened his finger on the trigger. “Put down your gun, nigger,” he said to Isaac. “Otherwise, we got us a dead kid here.”

  Mrs. Fitzgerald loosed a scream that set gooseflesh onto every square inch of Brun’s body. Isaac, however, kept his pistol trained on Freitag. “I don’t think so,” Isaac said. “That boy’s all that’s keepin’ me from blowin’ you to kingdom come. He ain’t no good to you dead.”

  Freitag giggled. “Hey, pretty smart nigger you got here, Stark. He knows how to pull a Mexican standoff. Well, we’re gonna play it just a little different.” He bent to croon at the child, “Hey, now, don’t you worry there, Frankie. How’d you like to come with me, huh? You like candy, right? You come with me, we’re gonna take a nice train ride, and you’ll get all the candy you want.”

  Brun looked at Mrs. Fitzgerald, thinking she’d be having a conniption, but she just sat quietly. Try and figure crazy people. Frankie reached his arms toward his mother and moaned, “Ma-ma.”

  “Me and little Frankie here, we’re gonna walk right past that nigger, and Frankie’s gonna be in between his gun and me, every step. Nigger shoots, the kid’s dead—and so’s the nigger, ’cause soon as he shoots, I shoot him.” Freitag wrestled Frankie squarely in front of himself, and bent down to make the little boy a perfect cover. Then he started duckwalking toward the door, past Stark, Joplin, Brun and Weiss. “Easy, now, nigger…that’s right. I said you were a smart one—”

  An astonished Brun saw Scott Joplin launch himself toward Frankie, knock him down and away from Freitag, then grab at Freitag’s ankles. Freitag pointed his gun toward Isaac and fired; Isaac’s pistol flew out of his hand and clattered against the far wall. Then Freitag aimed down at Joplin, and Brun heard a shot. Someone screamed, “No!” Who it was, Brun realized afterward, was himself.

  Joplin let out a cry of pain, and rubbed fiercely at his left hand. Freitag staggered backward, then fell like a poleaxed steer, and lay still next to Maisie.

  Mrs. Fitzgerald called out, “Come here, Frankie. Right this minute.” As the child ran to her, she looked around the room at the frozen faces, all turned on the tiny pearl-handled Derringer in her right hand, which was still tied at the wrist to her left. “Well, whatever did you expect?” she said. “That I would come all the way from Buffalo on a train, without the means to protect myself and my child?” She dropped the little gun into a front pocket of her dress.

  Sarah Stark said, “I thank our good fortune that you and Frankie were in the bedroom when they came bursting in here.”

  Mrs. Fitzgerald favored her audience with a crooked smile. “Before that strumpet made us come out here, I took the gun out of my pocketbook, and put it into my dress pocket with one of Frankie’s shirts over it. That way, she didn’t feel the gun while she was pawing me.”

  All through the exchange, Joplin, eyes squinched, held his left hand in his right, trying to squeeze the hurt from it. Mrs. Fitzgerald lifted Frankie onto her lap, and on
ly then commenced to bawl, “My baby, my baby… I lost two, but I’m not going to lose you.”

  Stark said, “Joplin, what happened to you?”

  “He stomped on my hand when she shot him.”

  Isaac, shaking his right hand, stalked over to retrieve his gun. He said something Brun couldn’t make out, then walked to the kitchen, came back with a knife, and cut Stark loose. Stark was instantly up and over to Joplin, took hold of the composer’s hand. He frowned. “I think you’ve got a break there. Let’s get the rest cut free, then I’ll take you across to Doc Overstreet’s.”

  As everyone stood and stretched their arms and legs, Mrs. Fitzgerald, holding Frankie by the hand, marched up to Sarah Stark. “Mrs. Stark, I’ll need a hot bath for Frankie, right away. An experience like this is a terrible shock for a young child.” She shot a quick glance at Joplin, Stark’s arm around one of his shoulders, Weiss’ around the other, as they moved him toward the door. “A hot bath will calm his nerves.”

  Brun thought she was more concerned that a colored man had touched her child than anything else. She never even said a thank-you to Joplin.

  Nell took Mrs. Fitzgerald by the hand. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll heat water for you.”

  They disappeared into the back of the apartment. Everyone else stood in place, not a word. From the doorway, Stark looked back. “I guess I’d better get Bud Hastain again. Soon as we’re done at Doc Overstreet’s—”

  Right then, Higdon walked in. He got as far as “I’ve got the horse” before he spotted the two bodies in the middle of the floor. He stared at Stark and Weiss, supporting Joplin between them. Stark grabbed him by the arm. “Come along,” Stark said. “I’ll tell you on the way over to Doc’s.”

  Brun followed Isaac and Mrs. Stark to the kitchen. His knees wobbled for a moment as he thought what might have happened if he’d followed his first inclination after the music had been stolen, and put the money-clip into his pocket.

  ***

  When Nell returned from the bath room, Mrs. Stark, Isaac and Brun were sitting around a fresh pot of coffee on the kitchen table. Nell cocked her head sidewise at Brun. “Lucky you had that locket.”

  Not a question, but Brun knew an answer past “Yes” was in order. “Mr. Stark told me I should bring the locket along tonight when they were going to sign the contract, and maybe we could use it to smoke Freitag out. I knew Saunders and Miss McAllister were involved, and probably Miss McAllister actually did the murder.”

  “Why Miss McAllister?” Nell asked. “What made you think of her?”

  “Well, for one thing, I knew how strong she was. I found that out when, er, when she and I…” Brun felt his cheeks catch fire.

  “That’s all right.” Nell’s grin was a mile wide. “We’ll just take your word.”

  “She’d been an aerialist in the circus—that’s how she came to be so strong. I figured she got into the room by shinnying up the wall and through the window, just like she said before Isaac shot her. And then one night last week I was walking along Lamine, past Kaiser’s, and Romulus, the ice-cream man, was standing outside the liquor store—”

  “In his usual state for the evening, I imagine.”

  “Nell!” Mrs. Stark tried to sound severe, but couldn’t carry it off.

  “He was as drunk as ever. And he told me to stay out of the alley behind Kaiser’s because it was haunted. He said the other night he’d seen a ghost there. I thought he was just having the DTs, but after I got to thinking about it, I went back and talked to him some more. He said he saw the ghost fly down to the ground, stay there for a minute or two, then float away off down the alley. I remembered that Mr. Fitzgerald told Mr. Higdon and me that the dead woman was wearing a white dress, so I figured Miss McAllister had thrown the body out of the window, and that was what Romulus thought was a ghost flying. Miss McAllister would have been wearing dark clothes to go up the wall into the room, and whoever was helping her, Freitag or Saunders, would’ve also dressed dark. There was a full moon that night—I remember because it was the same night I came into town—so when they carried the body off down the alley, Romulus must have seen the white dress again and thought it was the ghost floating away.”

  Nell narrowed her eyes. “It makes sense. They wanted to implicate Scott Joplin, but if they’d left his money-clip next to the body in a room of a whites-only hotel, people might have wondered. Strange that no one ever found that clip.”

  “I don’t know,” Brun said, angel-faced. “I’m just glad they didn’t.”

  Isaac reached for the coffee-pot and refilled his cup. “How about Saunders? What put you on to him?”

  “First thing was, I saw Saunders with Freitag and Mais—Miss McAllister one night at Boutell’s, and then I remembered how the first time I ever met Freitag, he knew I was taking lessons from Scott Joplin, and I couldn’t think of anybody but Saunders who could’ve known to tell him. Also, before I went through Freitag’s room the other night, I was looking around in Miss McAllister’s place for the music, but I had to get out in a hurry ’cause I heard her coming in with a man. I thought it was Freitag, but not all that long after, I saw him standing outside Boutell’s, and it hit me that it was actually Saunders I heard with Miss McAllister. The corker was when I found the tunes Saunders stole off Mr. Joplin, in the suitcase in Freitag’s closet.”

  “Well, now, Brun dear, that was all very clever of you.” By the tone of Mrs. Stark’s voice, Brun knew she was not quite paying him a compliment. “But why on earth didn’t you tell any of that to Mr. Stark or Mr. Higdon, and get yourself some help?”

  “Ma always used to say I had too much of an imagination for my own good. I was afraid I’d just sound foolish.”

  “Mothers can do that,” said Nell.

  Brun looked away from Mrs. Stark. “And after I found the music at Freitag’s, things were happening so fast I just didn’t have it in mind at the right time. Not until we were in there with the guns aimed at us.”

  “Well, then.” Mrs. Stark leaned over to give him a kiss on the cheek. “However it happened, Brun, you were very brave to go snooping after the music. I think you are the hero of this story.”

  Brun started to say no, but Isaac broke in. “That’s truth, Brun. Don’t go tryin’ to deny it.”

  Truth sure does look different, depending on where you’re standing, Brun thought. “But I’m sorry I couldn’t get back The Ragtime Dance.”

  “Oh, no worry there,” said Nell. “Mr. Joplin can write it down again. I can help him.”

  ***

  If Overstreet and Hastain had been disquieted before, when they came back in with Higdon, Stark, Joplin and Weiss, they were thoroughly disconcerted. Overstreet went directly to crouch over the two bodies.

  Joplin’s right hand was covered with a white bandage. Brun asked if he was all right.

  “Yes. The doctor gave me a shot, and it feels much better.”

  “But your hand… Will you be able to play piano?”

  Overstreet dismissed the corpses with a back-handed wave, grunted and got to his feet. “Not for a little while. That stomp broke a couple of bones above the knuckles. I set them, and now we’ll just have to hope no tendons were damaged. But his hands and arms are in remarkable condition, what with all those exercises he does. Once the bones are healed, I think he won’t have trouble going back to piano work.”

  “It’s my left hand,” said Joplin. “I can still write music.”

  “Mr. Joplin…”

  Everyone turned to look at Stark.

  “How did you manage to get yourself free?”

  “Those same exercises, the ones with the rubber ball. While she was tying the ropes down on my wrists, I kept the bottoms of my hands a little apart and tightened my arm and hand muscles. When she was done and I relaxed, the ropes were loose enough that I could work them off. Then, while they were arguing, it was easy to get the ropes off my ankles.”

  Hastain pointed down at Fr
eitag and Maisie. “Is this the end of it, John? Or are you planning on more?”

  Stark smiled with tight lips. “It’s the end, unless Saunders really didn’t run. But I’d bet a lot of money he did.”

  Overstreet lowered himself into a chair by degrees. His face was gaunt; again, Brun felt worried for him. “Four bodies,” he murmured. “How can we just take four bodies out and bury them somewhere in the woods?”

  Higdon looked ready to say something, but Hastain beat him to the punch. “I can’t see we have a lot of choice. In fact, we’ve probably got twice as much reason as we did a couple of hours ago. And Bob, from what John tells me, it looks as if your client is in the clear now, but unfortunately his wife seems to have shot someone dead. How she managed to nail him square between the eyes with a puny little Derringer, never mind with her hands tied together, I can’t begin to guess, but—”

  “The Lord tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,” Stark muttered.

  Hastain looked like a kid whose mother had just forced a spoonful of castor oil down his throat. “John… All right, now. What if Ed Love takes that woman in and starts asking questions? Yes, she’d eventually get off, but can you imagine what might come out of that mouth of hers at a hearing?”

  Higdon put a hand to his forehead.

  “And there’s something else. Who’s going to explain to Ed why he never got to see that locket? Especially after he comes back in the morning, empty-handed, and finds Mrs. Fitzgerald in the cooler, and two more bodies on a slab?”

  Amid nervous laughs, Overstreet heard the rumble of his father’s voice, upright Dr. Overstreet, who wore a black suit in winter, white in summer, and never once to his son’s memory ever wore gray. Just his way, the doctor thought, he didn’t know any other. But those poor Fitzgeralds, old Mr. Weiss, Isaac—none of them was guilty of anything other than being human. Nor was that prostitute Overstreet hadn’t had time to try to help because he was too busy in his medical office.