Harlem Redux

by Persia Walker

  HARLEM REDUX

  A Novel

  Persia Walker

  * * * * *

  Blood Vintage Press

  Harlem Redux, Edition 2

  Copyright © Persia Walker 2000, 2002, 2011

  Blood Vintage Press Electronic Edition ISBN: 978-0-9792538-7-4

  Printed in the United States of America

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Publisher’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy.

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  Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  * * * * *

  Praise for Harlem Redux

  “Harlem’s fabled 1920s ‘Renaissance’ provides the dynamic backdrop for Persia Walker’s entertaining debut novel. A murder mystery set among the black bourgeoisie, it is also the heady tale of a bygone era….What distinguishes this novel is Walker’s attention to the workings and characters of the times, from the club stars to the numbers runners, to prickly class issues between Strivers’ Row residents and their working-class neighbors. A Harlem native, Walker understands this community and its history, crating a compelling family intrigue and a full, vibrant portrait of that storied era when Harlem’s pulse was the rhythm of black America.”

  ––The Boston Globe

  “Walker vividly captures the unique rhythms of Harlem while plotting a convoluted tale of internecine feuds and deadly retribution.”

  ––The Louis Post-Dispatch

  “Sexy.”

  ––The New York Daily News

  “A notable debut. This intriguing page-turner, convincingly set in the heady era of 1920s Harlem, is atmospheric and smart and will keep readers guessing until the very end.”

  ––Tananarive Due, author of The Living Blood and The Black Rose

  “A rich, thoroughly enjoyable tale of greed and deceit, passion and betrayal. With her elegant prose, Walker does an amazing job of recreating Harlem during the Renaissance of the 1920s. I loved her characters, their complexity and depth, the struggles they faced and their all too human responses. Walker kept me guessing right to the very end. Harlem Redux is a great read and Walker an author to look for in the future.”

  ––April Christofferson, author of The Protocol and Clinical Trial

  “Walker’s highly competent murder mystery … features exotic locales, an odd supporting cast, worthy subplots, and a baffling set of clues….At the center of this carefully constructed tale of murder, deception, and betrayal is a twisty whodunit. Walker slyly turns and teases readers with her shrewdly rendered characters….It’s entertaining to watch the various pieces of Walker’s puzzle come together.”

  ––Publisher’s Weekly

  “Good historical fun…with some impeccable scenery.”

  ––Kirkus Reviews

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  Acknowledgments

  This work owes a profound debt to the writers of the Harlem Renaissance … Countee Cullen, Rudolph Fisher, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, Nella Larsen, Claude McKay, Vivian Morris, and Wallace Thurman, among others. Their short stories, novels, memoirs, essays, and articles fired my imagination. Their writings were windows against which I pressed my nose, eager as a child, to spend many pleasurable hours viewing their world.

  Thanks also to historians David Levering Lewis, Carl T. Rowan, Michel Fabre, Tyler Stovall, Steven Watson, and Lionel C. Bascom. Their informative, perceptive, and very enjoyable works on the Harlem Renaissance provided a wealth of information––more than I, with my skills, could do justice to. For whatever insufficiencies this text might contain, debit them to me, not my sources.

  A special round of applause for Julie Castiglia, my agent, for her determination and steady guidance, and for Andrea Mullins at Simon & Schuster for making the editing process a genuine pleasure. Between these two dynamos, I was well taken care of.

  My heartfelt gratitude to Debbie Geiss-Haug, Sonia Ehrt, Michelle Bonnardot, Michelle Moore, Kathy Raymond, Dina Treu, Ilse Nehring, Gabriele Heblik-Hochholzer, and Swarthmore College Professor Charles James. And a special thanks to Henry Ferretti. They’ve been steadfast friends, forgiving unreturned phone calls, missed get-togethers, and general unavailability. Without their humor, patience, encouragement, and feedback, this novel might never have been completed.

  Most of all, I want to thank my mom, for her love and faith, and my little troopers, Tyler and Jordan, for so generously sharing their mom with David and Annie, Gem and Lilian, Nella, Rachel, and Sweet.

  Persia Walker

  November 9, 2001

  * * * * *

  HARLEM REDUX

  * * * * *

  Prologue

  Sunday, February 21, 1926-10:30 P.M.

  The room was dark, except for one silvery ray of moonlight. An icy wind slipped in through the open window, swept around the room, and caressed her with chilling fingertips. She came to with a start. The darkness shocked her. The silence told her she was alone. How long had she lain there?

  Her hands had been folded across her chest. She felt throbbing spurts of warm liquid spilling onto her breasts, drenching the soft cotton of her nightgown. And she sensed the approach of that final darkness. The urge to close her eyes, to give in, was overwhelming. The room seemed to revolve. Slowly. Her eyelids drooped. An inner voice asked:

  Are you really going to lie there … and bleed to death?

  Her eyes snapped open.

  No.

  At first, her hands seemed mercifully numb. But within minutes, the pain had grown more pronounced. Soon, it was agonizingly refined. The tortured nerve endings in her slashed wrists screamed with voices that echoed inside her, quickening and clarifying her thoughts.

  I have to get help.

  She tried to move her legs, but they were like logs, heavy and inert.

  Find another way.

  Pressing her elbows to her side, she twisted her upper torso and rocked back and forth. Her body rolled once, twice, then over the edge. The bed was high; the fall was hard. She landed with a heavy thump and for a moment lay stunned. Her heart pounded; her thoughts struggled for clarity.

  There was no way she could use her hands. They were half-dead clumps of flesh. But her legs had been jolted back to life. Elbows still pressed to her side, she rolled over onto her chest, drew her knees up under her, then pushed herself up with her elbows. Leaning on the mattress to brace herself, she could stand.

  The effort cost her. She sagged against a bedpost. Trying to hold on, she threw her forearms around the carved wooden beam. Her limp hands dangled, dripping their warm liquid. Cold sweat slipped down from her forehead and upper lips.r />
  The darkness crept nearer.

  Time had played a trick on her. She wasn’t in the house on Strivers’ Row, but elsewhere. The air didn’t smell of jasmine and tobacco, but of the sea. She was in the Hamptons, in Nella’s house. There came the sound of a life-and-death struggle, a gunshot. She again saw a pair of dead, staring eyes.

  “No,” she whispered. “No. I won’t let you do this.”

  She held on and the darkness receded. She knew where she was. She could make out the shapes of furniture by the moonlight—could even see her own shadow as she clung to the bedpost. But she felt seasick, as if she were clinging to the mast of a swaying boat. Her stomach heaved and she bent over, vomiting on herself and the bed. She clung to the bedpost as another wave of dizziness passed over her, then straightened up with a moan. Wiping her mouth with the back of her forearm, she smeared her face with blood.

  Time’s running out.

  She could make it to the bedroom door.

  Fifteen steps. That’s all it would take.

  But she hesitated. She did not know what—or more accurately, who— might be waiting for her on the other side. In a bizarre way, her bedroom meant safety. She heard a thump. Her heart lurched. Was it a footstep in the hallway—or just the house settling on its foundation? She swallowed and took a deep breath. She would have to make it down the stairs, creeping along with the help of the banister, then make it into the parlor before she could reach the telephone. If she fainted along the way, on the steps or at the parlor entrance, then ...

  No, not the door.

  What then?

  An icy breeze stroked her cheek.

  The open window. Get to it. Scream. Call out—that’s the way to go.

  She counted backward from three, focusing her energy. At zero, she let go of the bedpost and took a step toward the window. Her legs were weak and shaky. Her knees trembled, but they didn’t buckle. She took another tottering step. And another. That window had never seemed so far away; her body never so unwilling.

  She was nearly across the room when it happened.

  She tripped over the hem of her gown and toppled forward. Her head hit the corner of an antique linen chest. A sharp pain lanced through her skull and the moonlight, dim as it was, grew dimmer.

  No, not now. Please, not now.

  But her vision blurred and the light grew duskier. She lifted her head a wobbly inch or two, her eyelids drooped and her head sagged to the floor.

  She might have drifted away permanently if it hadn’t been for the wailing scream of a racing police siren. The sound expanded in the air, ballooned inside her head, until it seemed to explode inside her skull. She lay blinking in the dark, telling herself it was all a bad dream. But the cold floor under her face was real. So was the blood that had congealed and crusted on her face and arms and chest. She was awake and she had to get going. She didn’t know how much blood she’d lost, but she assumed she’d lost a great deal. If she passed out again, she wouldn’t wake up.

  She was too weak to stand again, so she half-crawled, half-dragged herself across the floor. An eternity passed before she reached the base of that window. She rested, panting, and looked up.

  The casement sill was little more than a yard above her head, but it might as well have been a mile. Her head throbbed. Her heart knocked. She wanted to sit and be still.

  Get to that windowsill. Find the strength.

  Curling up, she leaned one shoulder against the wall and inched her way up. It was taking forever. She was swimming up from way down deep. She held her breath, struggling against a vicious, relentless, downward pull. Clear droplets of agony slipped down from her temples. Would she ever reach the surface?

  Then she was up. Fully upright. She leaned into a blast of frigid air. It cut to the bone, but it felt good. So very good! To be standing. To be at the window To still be alive.

  Pushing aside a porcelain vase on the windowsill, she flopped down on the narrow ledge and looked out. The small dark street seemed empty.

  No! There has to be someone. Please, Lord, let there be someone. Help me this once, damn it. I’m begging you, begging you to help me. Now!

  She noticed a light shining in a second-floor window across the way.

  “Help! Help!” she screamed, but the wind, merry and malicious, kissed the words from her mouth and whipped them away. “Pleeease! Somebody! Anybody] HELP MEEEE!”

  Again the wind, ever careless and cruel, swallowed the sounds of her pleading, took them so fast she barely heard them herself.

  She pushed herself to hang out the window. Down the street to her left was a man walking his Doberman. He was stooped with age and bundled against the cold; his cap jammed down over his ears.

  “Hey, mister! Mister, please! Up here! Send help! Please, mister, please!”

  The man did not respond but the dog paused, perked up his ears, and howled. The wind that swept her words away served up the dog’s mournful wails with mocking efficiency.

  “Please! I don’t wanna die! I DON’T WANNA DIE!”

  The dog barked harder, louder, belting agitated yowls that rode the hellish gusts of wind up and down the street. Hope pulsed through her. The Doberman pulled on his leash, strained in her direction. The dog’s owner yanked him back. He cuffed him on the nose. And dragged him off down the street. Away from her.

  “NO!!!”

  Her elbow touched the vase. She turned without thinking and gave it a shove that sent it plunging out the window. She watched it turn and tumble as if in slow motion, saw it crash and explode into minute pieces. She looked down. Had they heard?

  They were gone. So quickly. Gone. As though they’d never been there.

  Her legs gave out. She crumpled to the floor, her outstretched arms smearing trails of blood on the wall. Her head sagged.

  “Oh, God ... no,” she wept. “Don’t let this happen. This can’t happen.”

  Then she felt the curtains. Made of lightweight silk, they billowed about her face, as familiar, as gentle, cool, and caressing as a loved one’s touch. She closed her eyes. An eerie calm crept over her. Odd, how the pain was receding. If only she could rest. Sleep.

  No! She wanted to live, to hold on. She loved life. She refused to let it slip away. Not like this. Not while she was young. Not when she finally ... had nearly everything ...

  But the darkness was getting hard to fight. She had never felt so tired. Her inhalations grew fainter. Her eyes slid shut. From behind her closed eyelids, she saw her inner lights fade individually, felt herself float away, bit by precious bit, as her blood-starved organs shut down, one after another. She was about to die and she knew it. Summoning her strength, she raised her face to bathe it in the moonlight. She held it there with stubborn determination for several exquisite seconds. Then her last inner light faded and with a moan she slumped down, a bloody but still beautiful corpse gazing blindly at the bleak night sky.

  1. The Lost Son Returns

  Lilian’s older brother had been away for years, but he had altered little, at least on the surface. He was thirty-five. Silver already touched his temples, but his hair was otherwise still dark and thick. Quite tall and lean, he had an oval face and clear olive skin with a strong fine profile. He had retained the lustrous dark eyes that had melted many a feminine resistance. Time had magnified their eloquence. Maturity had deepened them and experience saddened them. He was aware of his effect on women, but he tended toward solitude, and though he enjoyed female company, he always feared that in the end, a woman would ask for more than he could give. Or worse, that he would give all he had, then see her pull away in disappointment and leave him.

  Well-built and poised, David McKay had a reputation for dressing well with tasteful understatement. His clothes were of excellent quality, but close inspection would have shown them to be worn. There were no holes or tatters, hanging threads or missing buttons, but the clothes, like the man, gave off an intangible air of fatigue. Even so, he was usually the handsomest man in any crowd. That day, hi
s dark gray cashmere coat was buttoned high against the early spring chill. He wore his fedora tipped low to one side, just enough to cast a shadow, but not enough to hide the sad gleam in his eye.

  Like his sister, David preferred to stay out of the limelight. But his air of quiet distinction was noticeable to even the most casual observer. It was all the more evident that chilly March Thursday because of the mute pain in his eyes. The early evening’s dusky skies emphasized his pallor. Sorrow had grayed his complexion. Tension had cut furrows into his handsome face. He was bone-weary. From shock, grief, and lack of sleep. His sister was dead and buried some three weeks, but he had only learned of it the day before.

  He had forgotten much of the past twenty-four hours. The last moment he did recall was when he got that note while eating lunch at his desk in Philadelphia, that telegram summoning him home. He had an excellent memory. It could be useful, but there were times when it absorbed information he would have rather forgotten. The words to that telegram, for example, would remain etched in his memory until the day he died. It had turned his world upside down. When he left his law office to head home and pack, he was as disoriented as a man who suddenly finds himself walking on the ceiling.

  Lilian was a part of him. It was nearly impossible to accept that she was gone. He swung between anguish and numbness. His mind struggled to accept her death even as his heart rejected it. Her presence hovered in the air about him, a gentle warmth that carried a hint of the light powdery perfume she wore. Whenever he looked at a crowd, he thought he saw her face.