Palace Council (15 page)

“The cross,” Eddie breathed. “All of this is about the cross. The big speech. Warning me off of the search. It's not about Junie. It's about that stupid upside-down cross.” Perry said nothing. “What is it, Perry? What does it mean? What are you afraid I'm going to uncover?” Another thought struck him. “Do you have one, too?”

To his surprise, Perry smiled, almost sheepishly. He looked, again, like the adolescent who had wooed Junie and never won her. “Maybe you'll find her after all,” he said, tone gentler, even consoling. “If you find your sister, you should ask her. Otherwise”—the hard-faced golden boy was back—“otherwise, you need to get your nose out of things that aren't your business.”

“Things like what?”

“I have a lot of respect for you, Eddie. A lot of respect. You're going to be a major talent.” From royalty, crumbs for the commoner. “But let me tell you what my father always used to say. The Caucasians have no idea what we're capable of. No idea. And you know something? Half the time, neither do we.” A sharp nod. “Well, you'll see, Eddie. Stay out of our way, and you'll see. One day, we'll shake the throne, and then the whole world will know.”

“Shake what throne? Perry—”

But the golden boy was striding angrily away. It would be more than a decade before Eddie laid eyes on him again.

CHAPTER
23

Pink Gin

(I)

“H
ARLEM HAS SECRETS
,” said Langston Hughes with a smile. “Well, well. They'll be inventing steam next.”

Eddie smiled back, but uncertainly. They were in a taxi, bumping their way along the expressway toward Idlewild Airport. Langston was heading to Paris, to oversee the opening of one of his plays. He had invited Eddie to join him, on the ground that the trip would do the young man good, but Eddie preferred to stay and keep looking. So they settled for the cab ride.

“He really said that?” Hughes asked. “About shaking the throne?”

“And that after they shook the throne the whole world would know.”

The great man shook his heavy head. He glanced at his watch. “His father used to use that phrase a lot. Burton. Usually in the context of daring greatly, the way the old Leninists used to talk about shocking the bourgeoisie. Your friend Perry is up to something.”

“I figured that part out for myself,” said Eddie. “And he isn't my friend.”

Hughes ignored this. “Your friend Perry has had a difficult life. Never had many friends. His mother was this cold, distant Czarina, and in any case died when Perry was still young. And nothing the boy did was ever enough for Burton. I'm told the boy adored his Aunt Sumner when he was little, but she passed into whiteness and disappeared, oh, twenty years ago. More. So Burton was all the family Perry had. Then the car crash last year, and Perry was alone. And of course Burton would have raised him on those wild theories—the darker nation as a force, conspiracies, shaking the throne, all the claptrap your friend threw at you.” He fell silent. Eddie watched the gray city go by. “I know what you're thinking, Eddie. Maybe Burton decided to put his theories into action. Maybe this is the Project Phil Castle wanted to warn me about.” He shook his head. “It doesn't work, Eddie. It doesn't hold together. Castle was white, and no sort of liberal. Not even a spellbinder like Burton Mount would be able to tempt him into a conspiracy aimed at elevating our community. Besides, Burton was a lot of things, not all of them attractive, but he was no killer.”

“Killer?”

“Well, Phil Castle was murdered, wasn't he? And that's not the sort of thing Burton Mount would have put up with. He talked a good game, Eddie, but he was an armchair radical all the way.”

Traffic had slowed. They had reached the long turnaround for the airport. Hughes was patting his pockets. Eddie reminded him that he would be keeping the taxi.

The men stood beside the car as the bags were unloaded. Hughes, only half joking, warned Eddie not to do anything foolish while he was away. They shared an awkward hug. Riding back to Harlem, Eddie reflected on the great man's analysis, and spotted the flaw. The late Burton Mount, Langston had insisted, was no killer. That was why whatever Perry was up to could not be the same as the Project that had spooked Philmont Castle. But that theory made an assumption that was not necessarily true.

Burton Mount might not have been in charge.

(II)

L
ATER THAT NIGHT,
Eddie attended a meeting of a political circle of which he had recently become a member, but the subject of that evening's lecture—the possible consequences for the price of securities should the United States ever abandon Bretton Woods and delink the dollar from the gold standard—was sufficiently abstruse, not to mention absurd, that he was glad he had warned them in advance that he would be departing early. He took the subway down to a gallery in the Village, where one of Gary's friends was opening an exhibit. For once Gary had no girl on his arm. Eddie knew that his friend remained stuck on Mona, but had heard no details. Gary said a quick hello, then was lost in the throng. Eddie wandered the exhibit. Actually, he had little experience of the fine arts, and the paintings, over which everyone oohed and aahed, seemed to him mostly gaudy slashes of one color against a background of another. He heard people praising the particularism of this one and the subversive integrity of that one, but dismissing a third as derivative in its pretensions, and he wondered whether they got together to vote on the jargon first or just made it up as they went along. He slipped away to the bar but settled for a club soda. A voice beside him said, “And a pink gin fizz. With Kirschwasser. Put it on his tab.”

Eddie turned in delight.

Aurelia touched his hand, down where nobody could see. “Hello, darling,” she said. He opened his mouth to answer, but Aurie shook her head. She handed him a note, and was gone.

(III)

T
WO NIGHTS LATER,
as the note instructed, he stopped at the corner of 145th and Edgecombe in a gypsy cab, borrowed from a bemused Lenny Rouse. Aurelia scrambled into the back seat and gave him the address of a girlfriend's new place in Brooklyn. After a moment, he realized that she was serious.

“You stay on your side and I'll stay on my side and everything will be fine,” Aurelia said.

“That makes me your chauffeur.”

“And it makes me your responsibility. Isn't that what you always wanted?”

They drove for several minutes in silence. He glanced at her often in the mirror, but she did not glance back. She had taken up smoking again, and made it through two cigarettes before he decided to speak first.

“I'm sorry about before, Aurie. I really am. I wasn't myself, but that's no excuse. I had no right to talk to you that way. Forgive me?”

She smiled at him in the mirror. “We've known each other a very long time, Eddie. How many times would you say you've apologized to me? I mean, really, sincerely, apologized?”

“Fifty? A hundred?”

“I think this makes three.” She looked out the window. She seemed quite content. “And how many times have I apologized to you?”

He took the bait. “Three?”

“Closer to zero. I don't do apologies.”

“Oh.” It was a Wednesday, and late-night traffic was light. They had already reached midtown. “What do you do?”

“Evidently, I do your detective work.”

“My detective work?”

“Tell me about this cross of yours, darling. Where did you see it?”

Eddie was not sure how to explain. “Ah, I saw a woman wearing one on her necklace. A white woman.”

“And that made you decide to investigate further? Or did you just want to investigate
her
?”

“I saw another one. The circumstances—well, I shouldn't say.”

“That fits.” She was looking out the window. “The cross is a secret, sacred symbol of a silly little Harlem men's club. They've got a hundred of them.”

“Symbols?”

“Men's clubs, silly. Every year somebody founds a new one, every one is more exclusive than the next—you know how it goes. The password, the secret handshake, the loyalty till death or till you stop paying your dues. You're probably a member of three or four yourself, except you're not allowed to say. Kevin's in Empyreals, darling. Heard of them?”

He frowned. “They're not the most prestigious.”

“Or the most exclusive or the richest or the oldest. They're not the most anything.”

“So, the cross is a dead end.”

She shrugged, crossed her legs, saw his eyes in the mirror, adjusted her skirt. Downward. “Or else the cross means something else, too.”

“Do you happen to know if Perry Mount is an Empyreal?”

“The members aren't allowed to name the other members, darling. Not to outsiders, especially wives.” The car lurched to a halt. Aurelia peered at the vast sea of brake lights ahead in the darkness. She pointed. “Don't go that way; turn left, then go down Third.” She waited to make sure her instructions were followed, then relaxed. “You saw the cross around a white girl's neck, darling. Harlem men's clubs don't actually admit white girls as members. I don't know if you were aware of that.” She laughed. He didn't. “And don't go thinking that some paramour gave it to her. The men in these clubs take them too seriously for that.”

“If you're so smart, you explain it.”

“I can't yet. But I will.” Pointing at the sign. “See? You listened to me, and you're already at the bridge.”

“It's a couple of blocks yet.”

“Well, hurry, driver, Anita is expecting me.”

Eddie's eyes met hers in the mirror. “I was hoping you were going to tell me the house was empty.”

“Don't be silly, darling. I'm an upstanding member of society. They even put me in the Garden Club, did you know that?”—no Harlem women's group being more difficult to crack. “You're good at this driving business, Eddie, darling. You should try it, if the writing doesn't work out.”

“I'll remember that.”

More silence. Eddie felt teased, which he hated, and used, which he hated more. They crossed the bridge. Aurelia gave more directions. Eddie followed them woodenly. They made several turns, and then Aurelia told him to stop. They were on a pretty side street of row houses, less ostentatious than anything in Sugar Hill, but clean and attractive all the same.

“Is this part of the darker nation?” he asked.

Aurelia chuckled. “What you mean is, is this neighborhood segregated?” She touched his shoulder. “Mostly West Indians, a few Italians, Jews.” She had her purse open. “Look around, Eddie. This is the future.”

“What is?”

“A different kind of America.”

“I don't understand.”

Instead of explaining further, Aurelia opened her handbag and pulled out a bill.

Eddie's eyes narrowed. Insult to injury. “You don't actually think—”

“My girlfriend is watching from the window. If she sees me pay you, she'll never even remember what kind of car I came in.” A thought struck her, and she held the dollar just beyond his reach. “Eddie, listen. This ride. It isn't just a lark. I have something to tell you.”

“Tell away.”

“We're leaving Harlem, Eddie. Kevin and I and the children. I wanted to tell you in person is all. We bought a house in the suburbs. The children deserve the space, don't they?” She seemed to be having an argument with herself. “It's what I always wanted. A family. Stability. I never had that. I want it for my kids.”

“I thought you had all that in Cleveland, growing up.”

Aurelia seemed not to hear. “Sometimes in life you do what you have to, not what you want to. I'm a wife now. A mother. I have to hold tight to that which is good, and, well, once I move, we probably won't see much of each other—”

And then the dollar was in his hand and Aurie was marching up the front walk, strong and confident and very fast, the way a woman of quality walks alone at night. Eddie drove back to Manhattan in a fog. He nearly had two accidents on the way. This could not be happening. Not so suddenly. Even though Aurelia was right. He parked the car where Lenny had instructed, on a side street not far from the Columbia campus, and slid the key into the tailpipe. One of Lenny's people would pick it up later. So dizzied was he by the swift turn of the evening's events that he did not notice the black sedan shadowing his stride until it pulled up next to him, dispensing two men of his nation who obviously meant business, and whose invitation to climb in did not admit of refusal.

CHAPTER
24

Again the Carpenter

(I)

T
HEY SAT HIM
in the back, then boxed him in. No one spoke. The driver headed north along Amsterdam Avenue into the Valley. Eddie struggled not to tremble; and, therefore, trembled worse. On West 123rd Street, dead quiet at this hour, the car pulled into an alley beside a nightclub where the last guests were filing out and the neon marquee was going dark.

“Closing early tonight,” said Eddie, heart sinking, for he knew whose den this was.

“Yeah,” said one of the toughs.

“On my account?”

“Yeah,” the man repeated, ending the conversation.

They hustled Eddie in by the stage door. Lenny Rouse stood near the curtain, eyes cold as the grave. You would never know that a few hours ago they had been laughing and joking together, when Lenny handed over the keys to the cab. Now the gangster took his friend by the upper arm and leaned in close. “Keep your mouth shut,” he warned, not unkindly. “Just listen unless he asks you a question. Tell him the truth. He'll know if you don't.” Lenny marched him down a narrow hallway and out onto the main floor, where he pointed to the booth where Scarlett waited, then stood aside to let Eddie make the final trek alone. Even in the days when he had carried little packages for the organization, Eddie had met the boss only once, and not enjoyed the experience. Scarlett was a bluff barrel of a man who favored fancy wide-brimmed hats and zoot suits, even as they slipped out of style. His temper was a Harlem legend. His yellow eyes were not able to focus on the same spot, so that he always looked at you with one of them as the other jittered and juked. If you reacted, you were in trouble. If you looked away, you were in trouble. If you were smart, you stared at his nose. The two of them sat alone in the booth while the waiters cleaned and the band packed up, the stale air blue with tobacco and beer and sweat, the bad eye jumping all over the place.

“You gettin out of line, boy,” Scarlett said by way of introduction.

“Ah, Mr. Scarlett—”

“My man Lenny tells me you're a good listener. So listen. You went to South Carolina.”

Eddie, not sure whether the gangster's remark counted as a question, remembered Lenny's caution, and said nothing.

“You hearin me, boy?”

“Yes, Mr. Scarlett. I hear you.”

“Then answer the damn question.”

Eddie fought down the urge to reply that he had not been asked a question. “Yes,” he said, unsure of the scope of either the gangster's knowledge or the present inquiry. “I went to South Carolina.”

“Went to that church.”

“What church?”

“Don't mess with me, boy. Castle's sweet little wife. That white lady gave you something.”

Eddie shook his head. “I asked her to, but she refused.” He began to see the wisdom of the pastor. “If you had a source there, the source must have told you, she walked out on me.”

Scarlett, until now airy and dismissive, was interested. The band and waiters were gone, Eddie noticed. It was just the two of them, and whoever else was out in the shadows. “Maybe she walked out on you, and maybe she more like
pretended
to walk out on you. Now, tell me what she gave you, and you can go on home.”

“She didn't give me the time of day.” Emboldened, Eddie embroidered. “I don't think she liked me very much.”

“I don't like you, either, but you're gonna tell me.”

“I already said—”

That was as far as he got. Eddie never noticed a signal. Nevertheless, out of the shadows came Lenny Rouse and one of the toughs from the car. Lenny had him around the neck, and twisted his left arm high at his back, making it impossible for him to rise. The other man had Eddie's right arm in a granite grip, pressing it to the table.

“You're gonna tell me,” said the gangster again.

“What are you doing?” Eddie demanded, hot liquid fear dancing afresh through his loins. He tugged at the hands holding his. “Let me go.”

“Hold him tight,” said Scarlett, shucking his suit jacket, and Eddie remembered his nickname.

The Carpenter.

It was not possible that they meant to—

Except that it was.

From beneath the table, the Carpenter pulled a heavy toolbox, painted bright red, so shiny it was probably polished twice a day. He flipped the twin catches and opened the lid.

“You can't do this,” Eddie breathed.

“They say you're a big man,” said Scarlett. “They tell me you're famous. I guess you prob'ly think you're brave, too. But brave don't got nothin to do with it. You're gonna tell me what she gave you.”

“She didn't give me anything!”

The Carpenter reached into the box. He came up with a carton of heavy common nails. He shook three into his palm, then held them in his mouth by their heads. Eddie followed every move. Never had nails seemed so scary. The hand went into the box again. This time the Carpenter pulled out a hammer.

“You're gonna tell me,” he said. The second man from the car approached. Eddie made a fist. The man squeezed Eddie's hand right on the ball of the thumb. Pain slowly forced the fingers open. The pressure would not let him close them again. The palm was facedown on the table. The fingers were splayed. The Carpenter patted Eddie's middle finger, found the spot he wanted, just past the knuckle. “The meat is really tender here,” he said, and tapped it with the head of a nail. Eddie flinched.
Meat,
he registered. Scarlett lifted the hammer. “You got something to tell me?”

At that moment Eddie would happily have told the gangster anything to stop that nail from going in—anything except the secret that might lead to his sister.

His wife has it.

Eddie glared at Scarlett. “She didn't tell me anything,” he said.

Scarlett stopped. At first Eddie thought his tough words had gotten through. Then he realized that the gangster was looking past him, into the shadows. Eddie wanted to turn his head but was afraid to show any weakness.

Without warning the hammer came down.

It missed the nail and struck the very tip of Eddie's finger.

Eddie gasped but held in the howl.

“That ain't gonna give you nothin but a blood blister,” said Scarlett. “The next one is gonna be the knuckle. I hit it a good whack, you won't ever write with that hand again. Then the nail goes in after that. Understand?”

“You can't do this,” said Eddie.

“Tell me what she gave you.”

Eddie fought to swallow the bile rising in his throat. “She didn't give me anything,” he said.

“Tell me, boy.”

“There's nothing to tell!”

The hammer went up.

Eddie shut his eyes. He waited. Waited for Agent Stilwell to burst in and rescue him. Waited for Lenny to shoot his boss and take over the business. Waited for the hammer to smash his hand to bits.

(II)

“I
'M GONNA LET THIS ONE GO
,” said Scarlett, close to his ear. Eddie opened his eyes. His hand was whole. Turning to look at the gangster, he saw movement elsewhere in the room. Maybe the man who was signaling the Carpenter, giving him instructions. Lenny and the other tough were still holding on to Eddie now, but more loosely. Scarlett patted his own palm with the hammer. The bad eye kept jumping. “My boys gonna take you out in the alley and give you a little somethin to remember me by. Gonna trim you up, boy. But what they're gonna do won't be anything like as bad as what's gonna happen, I find out you were lyin to me. You hearin me, boy?”

“Yes,” said Eddie, through chattering teeth.

“You lyin to me, I'm gonna take off some pieces. You understand?”

“Yes.”

“You know what pieces I'm talkin about, right, boy?”

Eddie tried and failed to swallow. “Yes.”

The Carpenter nodded. Lenny courteously held the door. The toughs from the car dragged Eddie into the alley and beat him so soundly he missed most of the action. At first he tried to fight back, but fighting was not his thing, and after two minutes he just covered up and let them do what they wanted. Lenny supervised, finally calling time. He shoved Eddie into a gypsy cab, drove him to Harlem Hospital, explained things to the doctors, who nodded. They gave him a shot. He woke up in the dreary, dripping ward and lay there, thinking, for the next four days. There was some internal problem he never quite got straight, and the doctors kept prodding him to see if it was better.

He had visitors. He had a teasing telegram from Langston Hughes, who said he had promised to stay out of trouble. He was kissed on the forehead by Aurelia, who came every day and turned every head, and frowned upon by the doctors, who waited vainly for him to take an exciting turn for the worse. Gary Fatek brought the largest spray of flowers the hospital had ever seen and offered to move him someplace better, but Eddie would not turn his back on Harlem. His sister Marcella came down from Springfield—Gary had called her—and sat at his bedside for a day and a half, mostly reading the Bible aloud, and warning him that it was time to stop carousing and settle down. Eddie smiled at everyone who dropped in and said all the right things, but his mind was occupied with the memory of Scarlett's club. Not the memory of the beating, or of the fear. The memory was of a face.

The face in the shadows, glimpsed only for a moment, the man with the power to tell the Carpenter to stop.

The man had smooth blond hair. His face was white.

(III)

W
HEN
E
DDIE WAS RELEASED,
Gary and Marcella drove him back to 435 Convent Avenue. Marcie had been staying at the apartment, and stayed on to make sure her brother got all the lecturing he deserved. A couple of girls had called to check on him, but Marcie had not taken their names or messages, because they were obviously fast little hussies, calling up a man that way. Marcella stayed another week and nearly killed him. Eddie took his sister to Shirley Elden's salon, but she sat unspeaking in the corner, gazing out on the cream of Harlem society with elaborate disapproval. She joined him at lunch with Kasten, his literary agent, but Marcie kept insisting that Eddie's novels would sell better if there was a little less sex in them. For all of that, Marcella was attentive and patient, prepared to serve his smallest whim.

She simply served a side order of lecture every time.

On the afternoon of the seventh day, his sister left. That night, Eddie went to dinner at Amaretta Veazie's. They asked him to talk about his third novel, due out early next year, which everyone knew was some sort of wry comment on Sugar Hill. He told them they would have to wait and see. More cautious now, he took a taxi back to Convent Avenue instead of walking, and found a sleekly officious white man waiting for him in the lobby, despite the hour.

“Are you Edward Trotter Wesley Junior?”

“Yes,” he said, warily, wondering if he was about to be served with a subpoena, or perhaps even arrested.

“Do you have any identification?”

Eddie showed him the scrap of poorly printed paper that New York issued as a driver's license.

“I have a package for you.”

“At this time of night?”

The man nodded, brandishing a manila envelope. He held out a form. “Sign here.”

Eddie signed, turned away, stormed up to his apartment, put Billie Holiday on the record player, opened a notebook, and began writing for the first time since his beating. It felt good to have pen in hand again. Only when he had written for three straight hours and poured himself a one-thirty nightcap did he remember the delivery. He actually had to hunt around to find the envelope. He had left it in the kitchen. He opened the flap and slid out two glossy black-and-white photographs. There was an unsigned note. Eddie did not recognize the clumsy handwriting.
Thanks for all your good work for your country. Thought you'd like to have this.
The first photo was a crowd scene, and Eddie needed a moment to place it.

Then he remembered.

It was the battle at Maxton, North Carolina, the Klan facing off against the Lumbee Indians. One of the Indians was circled in red ink. The second photo was a grainy blowup of the same person.

Except, seen close, it was no Indian.

David Yee had said that the Negroes were not involved in the battle, but Eddie was holding in his hand evidence to the contrary. The figure was a black woman, toting a rifle like she knew how to use it.

The woman in the picture was Junie.