The King of Ragtime (29 page)

“Thank you, Nell. That makes me happy, and I haven’t felt happy for a long while now.”

Nell patted his arm. “I guess we ought to go out. We don’t want to give them any funny ideas, do we?”

“We would not want to do that.” Joplin extended an elbow. Nell slid her hand inside, and walked with him to the door, then into the living room.

A cluster of questioning eyes greeted them. Stark looked from Joplin’s reddened eyes to Nell’s, then fixed on his daughter’s hand nestled in the crook of the composer’s elbow. “I see everything is settled,” he said.

“Not quite.” Joplin released Nell’s hand, and walked over to Stark who stood to face him. “I want to thank you for what you’ve done for my music,” Joplin said. “Without what you did, I’d still be in Sedalia, teaching piano and playing at dances.”

Considering what’s happened over the past seventeen years, that might not be so bad, Stark thought. But he said, “I wish I had done more. And I’m sorry for some of the things I’ve said and written about you in recent years. I was angry, and it was wrong of me to let that anger determine my words and actions.” He extended a hand; Joplin gripped it.

Stark felt the tremors in the composer’s fingers. “Well, it’s been a long day.” The old man’s voice was husky. “Joe, I think we’re finally out of your hair. Martin, why don’t you and Birdie take Mr. Joplin home and settle that business at the Alamo.”

“Yes,” Joplin said. “I’m very tired. I think it’s time for me to go home.”

***

Stark and Nell walked slowly westward along West Seventy-second. The evening air was warm, but its only perfume was an unsavory bouquet of horse droppings and exhaust from internal-combustion engines. Summer evenings in St. Louis, you could smell the flowers on vines draped over stone walls in the residential areas; in Maplewood, the air was often so heavy with scent, a man could get drunk by taking a few deep breaths. The old man shook his head. “Nell, I think this will be my last trip to New York.”

She looked at him curiously. “Dad—you’re not sick?”

“No, my dear, don’t worry yourself on that score. But I’m seventy-five, and…oh, damn and blast, Nell. It’s painful to say, but Berlin and Waterson were right about me. I just don’t belong here. I couldn’t compete with Tin Pan Alley, not with the music I was trying to sell. You don’t see Mr. Tiffany walking around town behind a pushcart, but unfortunately, there’s not the call for fine music that there is for fine jewelry. If only I’d stayed in St. Louis, I could have published so many fine rags from those young composers who went to Kansas City instead.”

“Another if. You tried New York, and it didn’t work out. There’s no shame in that.”

“‘It didn’t work out?’ No, my dear, that won’t do. Put plainly and simply, I failed. And the shame is, if I’d stayed in St. Louis and courted those youngsters, I might have been able to afford to publish Joplin’s operas and ballets. His life would have been very different. He doesn’t belong out here, either.”

“No,” said Nell. “He doesn’t. But that’s not the point. Before Scott ever came to New York, there was a moment that could have made his life very different, but both he and I lacked nerve, and we missed our opportunity. Your failure, if you insist it really was failure, is small potatoes next to Scott’s and mine.”

Stark groped for words to lighten his daughter’s burden, but before he could frame a reply, Nell let out a little shriek. Stark looked around, and in the gathering darkness, saw Bartlett Tabor move quickly to Nell’s side. “Just keep walking.” Tabor’s voice was level, more frightening than if he’d shouted an order. “We’re three good friends, taking an evening stroll. I’ve got bullets in the gun now, and if either one of you makes a wrong move or says a wrong thing, you’re both dead. Nice of you to leave your address in the employee file, Mrs. Stanley. I thought you were smarter than that.”

“You’d have checked it in the city directory anyway.”

Tabor laughed. “You’re right. I did.” He pressed the barrel of the gun against Nell’s shoulder. “Keep walking.”

They walked on in silence. Stark thought Tabor was going to herd them up to Nell’s apartment and shoot them there, but two buildings before they got to Nell’s, the manager growled, “All right, quick now—into the alley, all the way to the back. No funny stuff.”

Stark glanced around, saw no one on the sidewalk within a half-block. The four people directly across the street would never notice them duck into the alley. And even if they did notice, they wouldn’t think anything of it. Not in New York.

“Come on, Mrs. Stanley, move.” Urgency now in Tabor’s voice. “You first, then your old man. I’ll be right behind him.”

The space was wide enough for three people to stand abreast, but they went single-file. Stark could see no way to catch Tabor off guard. Brick walls on both sides, no windows. Tabor delivered a nasty kick to the back of Stark’s knee; the old man buckled, but kept his balance. “Watch where you’re going, Grandpa.” Tabor sneered. “You don’t want to take a fall here, all this broken glass. You could get cut pretty bad.”

They drew up to a high wooden fence that divided the alley, separating Seventy-second Street from Seventy-third. Tabor motioned Nell against the boards, then turned his attention to Stark. “Bet you thought I was long gone, didn’t you, Gramps?”

“No,” Stark said. “Scum stays in the bathtub until you wipe it out. I didn’t imagine I’d see you quite this soon, but I knew it was just a matter of where and when.”

Tabor laughed. “I
will
be gone shortly, but I wouldn’t have thought of going off without saying good-bye to the two of you. I have better manners than that. In fact, I’ll show you right now how good my manners are. Ladies before gentlemen.”

Keeping Stark in view, Tabor pointed the gun at Nell, but before he could pull the trigger, Stark lunged, sending his straw hat flying. Tabor reacted with a knee to his attacker’s abdomen, then flipped the pistol in his hand and brought the butt down hard onto the crown of Stark’s head. The old man crumpled; darkness swallowed him.

“I ordered you to shoot that colored boy at Mobile Bay.” The voice, strange, hollow, seemed to come from a great distance. “But you shot me instead and ran off with the nigger. You thought that was the end of me, but how very wrong you were. Crows and buzzards fed off my rotting flesh, then flew off in all directions, and wherever they came back down, they left part of me. I fertilized locoweed, skunk cabbage, dog fennel, jimson weed, nettles—every foul plant you can name—and everyone who breathed the air for miles around, I infected. The joke’s on you, Stark. I’ve been here long before you ever saw light, and I’ll still be around long after you’ve gone back to darkness. I’ve been itching to give you what you so richly deserve, and now I’m going to do it.”

The blast of a gunshot roared through the alley. “That’s it,” Stark thought. “I’m dead. The end.”

Chapter Fifteen

Manhattan
Tuesday, August 29
Early morning

He was falling, falling, falling, as if the descent had begun at the moment of his birth and would continue through all time. Suddenly he slowed, floated for a moment, then turned heels over head and plunged downward at a rate as exhilarating as it was alarming. The earth rose to meet him; he thought he’d be dashed to pieces, but instead he landed gently in the long, soft grass of a meadow. He knew the place—the open stretch behind Mr. and Mrs. Kohlmeier’s little house in Gosport, just a short walk from his brother Etilmon’s farm.

A woman stood beside him. Sarah. All Stark’s life, he’d pooh-poohed the notion of an afterlife as just so much poppycock, but if this wasn’t heaven, what was it? The woman leaned over him. “Dad, you’re awake.”

Stark blinked several times, then said, foolishly, “Nell?”

She clutched his hand. “Yes, who else?”

“Of course. I was…confused.” He looked past her, tried to sit, then groaned, grabbed at the top of his head, and sank back into the pillow. Moving only his eyes, he saw he was in some sort of large room with beds set around the perimeter, most of them occupied, one with a white folding screen set around it. “Where am I?”

“Bellevue Hospital. They brought you here after—”

“Jordan shot me? Did they operate?” He felt at his abdomen. No pain, no wound, surgical or otherwise.”

Nell looked puzzled. “’Jordan?’ Nobody shot you, Dad. Tabor hit you over the head with the butt of his gun. He
was
going to shoot you then, but I shot him first.”

“
You
shot
him
? With what? Where did you get a gun?”

“From the dresser drawer in your room at my apartment. Isaac’s gun, remember? The one he gave you in St. Louis.”

“But how on earth did you…oh. All those hours you used to spend in Isaac’s back yard, shooting at tin cans.”

Nell couldn’t begin to keep the smile off her face. “Isaac always said I was a better shot than either of my brothers. And after I’d seen Tabor shoot Dubie Harris before he could say a word, I decided I was going to be ready this morning in case either Tabor or Waterson tried to pull anything like that on us. Good thing Tabor found us before we got back to the apartment and I’d put the gun back in the drawer. But, Dad—who’s ‘Jordan’?”

Stark weakly waved off the question. “I imagine I must be a little mixed up. What time is it, Nell? How long was I out?”

“Almost five hours—it’s a little past one in the morning. But you’re trying to change the subject, and I’m not going to let you. I want to know why you thought someone named Jordan had shot you.”

“I…it was just a bit of temporary confusion, my dear. Considering I’d just been hit over the head—”

“Damn it!” Nell looked around, but no one was near enough to notice her slip in etiquette. She lowered her voice considerably. “Your face this morning, in the office, when you saw Tabor for the first time—you looked exactly like you did when I woke you up from your dream. Now, Dad, you are going to tell me about that dream…
and
about Jordan.”

Stark sighed, deeply but quietly. “You heard what he said after he hit me?”

“Said?” She looked puzzled. “After you fell, he turned the gun around in his hand, and stood and stared at you for fifteen or twenty seconds, licking his lips like an animal. It was as if he’d forgotten I was even there. That gave me plenty of time to open the catch on my pocketbook, slide out the gun, and shoot him.”

“Well, I’m glad your work compels you to carry that gigantic handbag. But Nell—you didn’t hear
anything
? Really?”

She shook her head. “Not a word.”

“I can’t believe it,” Stark murmured.

Nell sat, silent. Waited.

“You know the story.” Spoken so softly, Nell had to lean forward to hear. “Mobile Bay, 1865. Isaac was fifteen years old. He tipped off our regiment that a bunch of rebs were waiting for us behind a knoll, so we were able to turn the tables on them. But then, my lieutenant said we couldn’t march back into Mobile with Isaac in our company. Word would get around about what he’d done, and we’d have riots.”

“Yes, of course I know the story,” Nell said. “He ordered you to take Isaac into the woods and shoot him. But you fired a shot into the air, then both of you ran off, and traveled at night all the way back to New Orleans. You sent Isaac and Mother up the Mississippi to Gosport, then went back to your regiment and told them you’d been surprised in the woods by rebels who took you prisoner and killed Isaac, but you finally managed to escape and get back to the unit. My brothers and I have known that story all our lives, chapter and verse.”

“Well, there’s one chapter you don’t know,” said Stark. “That lieutenant’s name was Preston Jordan. And Tabor was his spitting image.”

Nell began to wonder whether she’d been wrong to pry at this particular door. “Dad, it’s been over half a century. Your lieutenant would be at least your age now. Maybe Tabor looked a little like the way you remember the lieu—”

“Damn and blast, Nell. You asked, and I’m telling you. Tabor was the very image of Jordan, his build, his face, that cleft in his chin.”

Hot and stuffy as it was on that hospital ward, Nell’s hands went icy.

“And Jordan didn’t send me out with Isaac. He took the two of us into the woods. Not every Union soldier was enthusiastic about emancipation, and it rankled Jordan that he owed his life and the lives of his soldiers to a fifteen-year-old Negro boy. Neither did he have much use for me, a little bugler, a coward who hid behind a horn. He thought it was a good joke to take me out, give me his pistol, and order me to shoot Isaac. I refused, of course. Finally, he told me I was a lily-liver, and if I didn’t shoot Isaac, he would. When he reached for the gun in my hand, I shot
him
.” And I’ve been dreaming that scene ever since, fifty-one years now. Jordan insults me, orders me to shoot, I refuse, he goes for the gun, I point it at him, and the blast wakes me up.”

“And you never told anyone? Not even Mother.”

Stark nodded.“ Only Isaac and I have ever known the truth.”

“Why on earth didn’t you tell Mother?”

“Oh, Nell, for heaven’s sake. She was all of sixteen, and we were just married. What sort of man would she think I was, shooting down an officer in cold blood?”

“You underestimated her. She knew.”

“Nonsense. How could she possibly have known? And how do you know she did?”

“Because she told me. She said after all you’d told her about your Lieutenant Jordan, she was not so silly that she’d believe for a minute he just gave you a gun and sent you out on your own to shoot Isaac, and didn’t go along to see it for himself. She was furious.”

“At me? For not telling her?”

“No, at the lieutenant. You know what she once said to me? ‘Ordering your father to shoot Isaac down like a dog, after he’d saved all their lives? If
I’d
been there with a gun, I’d have shot that man myself, and been glad of the opportunity.’”

Nell disregarded her father’s ox-like stare. “Those were her exact words. Now, tell me—what was it you heard Tabor say before I shot him?”

“With Jordan’s gun.”

“With…Jordan’s gun.”

Stark repeated Tabor’s speech. Nell shook her head. “I didn’t hear a word of that, and I was standing right there.”

Behind his beard, Stark frowned. He drummed the bed-sheets with his fingertips.

Nell got to her feet just a bit more abruptly than she’d intended. “I’ll let the nurse know you’re awake,” she said. “Then, if you really are feeling all right, I think I’ll go home for the night.”

“By all means, my dear. You’re looking a bit drawn. Sleep late tomorrow, why don’t you? I’ll be fine.”

She kissed his cheek, got to her feet, started to walk away, but then turned around, and came back to the bedside. “I forgot to tell you. While you were still unconscious, Detective Ciccone came by, and I told him what happened. He’ll be back in the morning to get a statement from you.”

Stark coughed. “Was he concerned about your having the gun?”

“Officially, yes. He told me he was glad I happened to have it along, but thought I ought to stop playing cops and robbers, and let the police do their work. I’ll have to face a magistrate for carrying and firing a concealed gun without a license, but he doesn’t think there will be any problem.”

Stark watched Nell walk across the room toward the nurse’s desk. His head hurt like the very devil, and he felt giddy, but that dazed, whirling lightness of mind seemed to mitigate his pain. He felt like a man whose lease on life had been rewritten on more favorable terms.

***

Visiting hours didn’t begin until three the next afternoon. Stark, sitting up in bed against a couple of pillows, stopped reading his newspaper, and watched the thin stream of visitors coming in through the doorway. No Nell. He was surprised, but thought probably she’d slept late, then had errands to run. He went back to his paper.

By half past the hour, though, he began to worry. This was not at all like her. It was nearly a quarter after four before she came hurrying into the ward and up to his bed. He reached for her hand. “Are you all right?”

She pulled the little wooden bedside chair around, sat, took a deep breath, blew it out. “Yes, I’m fine. I called in to the hospital, but couldn’t get anyone to take a message to you. How are you feeling?”

“Much better, thank you. My head is fine now, so long as I don’t touch the spot where Tabor crowned me. What on earth have you been up to all this time?”

She set her handbag onto the little bedside table. “Detective Ciccone came by to bring me up to date, and everything considered, he was quite nice. He told me my hearing is scheduled for Thursday afternoon, and not to worry, the shooting will be declared self-defense and I’ll get off with a lecture about carrying unlicensed guns. But we shouldn’t count on getting Isaac’s pistol back.” She paused, then went on. “He also told me they’d found Fannie…the receptionist. Just about the time Tabor found us, in fact. She was up against a piling under one of the Hudson River shipping piers. The bullets in her body were the same kind as they found in the gun Tabor was holding on us.”

Stark’s face darkened; his thick brows bristled.

“They also found two music manuscripts, tucked away between Tabor’s desk blotter and the pad. Both had Dubie Harris’ name on them.”

Stark grunted. “Perhaps Waterson will want to publish them.”

“Oh yes, Waterson. He swore he had nothing to do with the murder and kidnaping. Supposedly, Tabor told him Berlin had borrowed the apartment key, and that the price of Tabor’s silence about the embezzling would be Berlin’s position in the company, once Berlin was arrested and convicted. He also insisted he’d taken Scott’s music in good faith, to consider it for publishing, and that he’d tried to tell Scott he was not Berlin. Ciccone didn’t believe him, but decided it wasn’t worth pursuing.”

“I agree. At this point, it doesn’t matter.” Stark coughed into a handkerchief. “Mr. Ciccone was here before I’d had my breakfast. He asked a few questions, I gave him answers, and he was gone. He must have spent a lot longer talking to you.”

“About half an hour.” Nell fidgeted with the straps of her handbag. “I made him some coffee, then after he left, I went up to Harlem and talked to Dubie’s aunt and uncle. I thought they ought to know how it all came out. Not that it made them feel much better.”

“I’d forgotten—that was good of you, Nell.” Stark reached to the bedside table for a glass of water, took a drink. “The doctor came by a little while ago, checked me over, and said I’m doing fine. He thinks it’s just a concussion, no real damage, and he’ll probably let me go tomorrow.”

Nell’s face brightened. “Dad, that’s wonderful. My hearing’s the day after tomorrow…and I’ll admit, I feel much better, knowing you’ll be there. Then I want to go back to St. Louis with you. It’s been a while since I’ve been home, and to tell the truth, I wouldn’t mind a little time to catch my breath.”

On the verge of telling her he did not need a nursemaid, Stark caught himself. “Yes, of course. But what about Lottie? Who’s going to help her with Joplin, if there’s a problem?”

“It’s all settled. While I’m away, Martin will stay in a room at Lottie’s, and Joe will be available if things get out of hand. I’ll be back in less than a week.”

Stark smiled. “You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you? I shouldn’t be surprised.”

***

As the
St. Louisan
pulled out of Pennsylvania Station, Stark stared relentlessly out the window. He’s closing the book, Nell thought, and sat in silence until the train had cleared the Hudson River and started to roll across New Jersey. At that point, Stark turned to her and said, “Nell, not a word to the family. Nothing about my dream or my injury.”

She managed a crooked smile. “Don’t worry, Dad. As far as anyone else is concerned, it took a little while, but in the end you recovered the music from Berlin, as only you could have done.”

Stark’s eyes were sad. “And nothing about any murders.”

“We’re co-conspirators. But what are you going to tell Isaac about his gun?”

“Exactly what happened. He deserves to know that his concern saved our lives. I’ll get him another pistol to replace his loss. Truth be told, my dear, I’m glad to see the last of that particular gun.”

“Not to mention Irving Berlin.”

Stark chuckled, then sighed. “I can’t help but feel sorry for Berlin.”

“I find that difficult to believe.”

“No, really. He thinks the castle he’s worked so hard to construct will stand forever, but everything on Tin Pan Alley is built on sand. One day, the public will tire of him and turn to someone else. And there he’ll be, on his bogus throne, screaming at the top of his lungs that he’s the King of Ragtime, but his court will be empty, no one to hear. He’d never admit it, but he’s going to worry his whole life long about that dustup with Joplin over ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band.’ ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,’ my dear—particularly when that crown was ill-gotten.”

Nell grinned. “‘The saddest of all kings, crowned and again discrowned.’ She fiddled with a button on the front of her dress. “I have a confession to make.”