Harlem Redux (13 page)

“Admirably.”

Her eyes twinkled. “You’re a very serious man, aren’t you? Don’t you ever laugh?”

“When I have reason to.”

“Yes, of course.” She crossed her legs and became suitably serious. “You’ve been gone a long time, haven’t you?”

“I wasn’t here while Lilian was ill, no.”

“And now you’d like to talk to people who knew her?”

He nodded.

“Well, I can’t help you,” she said. “I didn’t know her that well—certainly not well enough to explain why she did what she did.” She paused. “I could tell you about Gem. Would that help?”

Why was she claiming to know Gem, but not Lilian? His answer was cautious. “Perhaps.”

She studied him, curiosity beaming out of one eye, calculation out of the other. “But why should I tell you anything? What do I get out of it?”

“What do you want? Money?”

She threw her head back, laughed, and gestured to the overdone room. “Good god, no! I’ve got more than enough of that, don’t you think!” Then she leaned closer. “What I want,” she whispered, “is much more costly.”

Her jewel-like eyes glided over him. My, my, she was a live one. On a side table, he noticed a copy of
The Beautiful and the Damned,
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s mood piece depicting the dissipated lives of a wealthy couple.

“You haven’t introduced me to your husband,” he said.

“He’s out of town this week.” She leaned closer to him. “Convenient, don’t you think?”

“I suppose it depends ... on what you have in mind.”

Her bright eyes grew even brighter. “You just must come and see me. One day next week. I’ll be at the Fifth Avenue address.” She told him exactly where. “Come, darling. I’ll give you everything you want. And more.”

Yes, he was sure she would.

“That’s a lovely offer, but I can’t accept it. I’ll be leaving town.”

At that, she straightened up, her cherry lips in a pout.

“Must you?”

“Absolutely.”

“How tiresome.”

“So, we have to talk. Now.” He put his glass down on the table nearby. “I wanted to ask you—”

Nella raised a hand and pointed. Her gaze had fixed on a point across the room. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

He followed Nella’s pointing finger and saw a large man cutting through the crowd toward them. Actually, it wasn’t so much that he was cutting through the crowd as that it was parting before him.

People were actually moving to get out of his way.

The newcomer’s robust figure was sleekly packaged in an expensive suit. His left hand was shoved into one pocket; his right held a short, fat cigar. He bore no resemblance to his newspaper photographs. The grainy newsprint had always conveyed the sense of a crude ruffian, but in life Adrian Snyder presented the image of the polished, successful businessman. He was in his early fifties. There was nothing to hint at ruthlessness, nothing to show that here was a man whose rivals tended to end up in the East River.

Nella cheerfully waved him over.

No one knew for certain how Adrian Snyder had made his fortune, neither the numbers runners under him nor the Feds who kept a covert eye and watched him. But no one seemed to doubt that Snyder was a major player in organized gambling. All agreed that he had impressive financial resources.

His holdings included some of Harlem’s best apartment buildings, a Long Island estate, and several thousand acres of prime New Jersey farmland. He was an influential and generous patron of small businesses and community efforts. His thriving operation at the Forest Club financed the Agamemnon awards given out by the
Black Arrow.

But, as David knew, not even Snyder’s wealth could bridge the cleft of prejudice that divided American blacks from their West Indian counterparts. The intimate cliques of genteel Harlem excluded him. They coolly accepted his money but rejected his person.

He, in turn, viewed upper-crust Harlem with contempt. He could afford to. West Indian society had its own circle. Among his own, he was highly esteemed.

David and Nella stood. She made the introductions. Adrian smiled amiably at David and warmly extended his hand.

“Nella said she’d invited you. I’m glad to see that you’ve come.”

David accepted the handshake, but he was taken aback at the man’s engaging familiarity. To the best of his knowledge he had never met him before. Snyder must’ve read David’s expression.

“I knew your sister, Gem.”

David understood. “So you’re the one.” He withdrew his hand.

“I see you’ve heard.”

“Of course I have.”

Nella stepped in with a mild pleasantry and the three of them chatted awkwardly for several minutes.

“Oh, there are the Lunts!” she cried. “I’ve just got to go and greet them.” She laid a light hand on David’s forearm. “You’ll be all right, won’t you?” She glanced at Snyder and gave him a gay smile. “You’ll take care of him for me? No games with cement shoes now.”

She gave a mischievous giggle and scooted off. David watched her go. Had she invited him there to meet Snyder? He turned back to the gangster. Snyder’s expression had changed. His demeanor of affability was gone. His face was hard and drawn.

“We have to talk,” Snyder said. “Come see me.”

“I don’t have time. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Whatever you got to do, it can wait.”

“I’m afraid it can’t.”

There was a pause.

“I’m not used to hearing the word ‘no,’” Snyder said.

“Then perhaps it’s time you learned.”

“Do you know who I am? I mean
really
know?”

“You’re a crook. A rich crook. And you don’t mind spilling blood to get your way.”

“But that doesn’t bother you, huh? You’re not scared?”

“What bothers me is what happened between you and my sister.”

“Humph. Funny you should say that, ‘cause it’s been bothering me too.”

“It’s a bit late to apologize, isn’t it?”

The corners of Snyder’s mouth curved in a brief, humorless smile.

“You’ve got a smart mouth. I hope you’ve got the brains to go with it.” He studied David, then said. “Come see me. I’m paying you the compliment of inviting you, not ordering you.”

He paused and an unexpected gentleness entered his eyes. “I’ll even say please. For both our sakes, please change your mind.”

Before David could utter another word and assure him that he would not, under any circumstances, change his mind, Snyder had turned and gone. David watched him, torn between curiosity and indignation.
What was
that
all about?

Selena Ashburn’s brassy voice boomed across the room, commanding just about everyone’s attention. “Who’s serving? I need a drink, damn it, and some music. Roland, where
are
you?”

The tall, loose-jointed man with an easy grin broke away from a group in one corner. “Yo, Selena,” he said. “Take it easy.”

“Easy, my ass. I want some music, honey. Gimme the good stuff.”

Roland Pierce chuckled. “Calm down, Mama. You giving me a fright. You know that Papa’s here and he gonna do you right.”

He ambled over to the piano and sat down. After first tickling a few treble keys experimentally, he slid into a medley of silken jazz. Conversational clusters broke up as people arranged themselves around the piano. Nella reappeared. She clutched David’s arm possessively and sighed happily.

“Negro music is marvelous, simply marvelous! I adore spirituals and jazz and the way you people sing the blues. Two years ago, Nikki and I attended our first Negro Orphan League Ball. That was it. Since then, you people have taken up all my time. I hardly see any white people anymore. But I don’t mind. I do so love to help whenever, however, I can.”

David gave her a look. Nella had made a name for herself by writing columns in the white press about Negro music and the people behind it. Gospel, spirituals, jazz, the blues: She praised them all rhapsodically in review after review. She astutely mixed gossip, fact, and innuendo in a colorful and potent brew. Few readers could distinguish one element from another. Nella’s articles had helped the careers of a few colored artists, but more than anyone else’s, they had helped her own. David allowed himself a raised eyebrow but chose to remain tactfully silent.

Roland’s performance started off an evening of apparently spontaneous entertainment. Someone cleared a space and Luella Hughes performed a solo from the latest work by the Black Orpheus Ballet Group. Her sleek and sinuous movements cast a hush over the gathering. Julian Woodstock inserted a melancholy note with a reading from his
Heaven’s Trumpet.
And Sylvia Burroughs brought everyone to tears with a spiritual.

Then the butler passed around a new round of drinks and Nella told Roland to pick up the pace while she turned down the lights. Roland’s nimble fingers danced over the keys in a jaunty ragtime and the guests drifted back into conversation, well-lubricated by Nella’s superior gin.

By then, David was also beginning to get a pleasant buzz. Nella had stepped briefly from his side. He let his gaze wander over the gathering. It happened to land on a cluster of faces nearby and his attention snapped into focus. Two men and one woman were engaged in a hefty discussion. Actually, only one man was doing most of the talking. He was tall and lean, of aristocratic bearing, with a handsome light brown face. He appeared to be in his late fifties. His head was balding, his forehead broad, his silver-flecked mustache and goatee meticulously groomed. His dark eyes revealed an incisive intelligence; his jaw suggested determination. Everything about his demeanor bespoke discipline and precision, concern and compassion; it also indicated intolerance, impatience, and absolute conviction in his own beliefs. David recognized him instantly: Byron Canfield was the author of the seminal work
The Color Line,
a collection of essays on the plight of black Americans.

He was also a magisterial officer of the Movement.

David’s thoughts raced. How could he have missed seeing Canfield before? The man must’ve arrived during the performances.

I’ve got to get of here. But no—that won’t do. I haven’t gotten Nella to talk. I’ll simply have to stay clear of Canfield. Make use of the fact that although I know him, he doesn’t know me.

He could at least move to the other side of the room.

He was about to do so when one of Canfield’s comments caught his attention.

“What Nella thinks is good and what I, as a colored man, think is good, have nothing to do with one another.”

“Don’t dismiss the book so quickly,” said the other man. “She’s made white people aware of educated Negroes.”

“Humph! She’s made caricatures of us—rarefied versions of the ‘noble savage.’”

“Give the woman her due. Her book deals with passing, segregation, the differences between DuBois and Booker T. In some ways, the book is deep.”

“The book is trash. And she’s a leech, a culture-sucking parasite.”

“She talks about the shit we’re doing to ourselves. Like how we light-skinned colored scorn white separatists, then turn around and cut against our own people. People are upset ‘cause Nella hit dirt. She exposed family secrets.”