The Strivers' Row Spy (7 page)

“I'd certainly appreciate it.”

I spent the next few minutes filling out papers. All of the day's sights and sounds had put me in the mood to wash up and go hear some live music. With the town house secured, I'd notify Loretta and she'd soon be on her way.

* * *

I approached the jazz club at 132nd and Fifth Avenue, a place called Edmond's Cellar. The sign out front listed Ethel Waters as the night's headliner. I had never heard of her. I walked down a set of creaky, gummy, wooden steps toward the sound of a powerful female voice.

It was dark but not pitch black inside the stairway, the walls sticky-looking, like someone had painted them with syrup. Funky smoke and spills of alcohol had stained them as well.

The place got muggier and hotter as I reached the bottom step and prepared to enter the basement. My skin was becoming damp and my clothes clingy, but the music was clutching my chest and yanking me forward.
Damn the vexatious elements
! I thought.
This magnetic, avant-garde sound trumps everything
.

I made my way to the bluish light and entered a room that was filled to a capacity of about one hundred fifty, each patron seeming to hang on every word that flowed from the mouth of the powerful Ethel Waters. The tables were tiny, and there were several folks crammed onto a small dance floor. I felt like I was entering a closet, as the roof was quite low.

Squeezing through the sweaty crowd—some sitting, others standing—I grabbed a chair near the stage. A cocktail waitress immediately asked me if I wanted a whiskey or beer. I rarely drank the heavy stuff, as Loretta and I liked our wine with dinner on the weekends. But with the Prohibition amendment having been ratified back in January, I figured it was now or never. The amendment would take effect within months, so I ordered a dry whiskey.

I scanned the room. There appeared to be an alarming number of gorgeous, stunningly dressed colored women in attendance. Most of the men were middle-aged; quite a few were white. I wondered if any might be an agent whom Hoover had tasked to follow me during these first days.

Still scanning, I could see one sister off in the corner groping a much older white man. I couldn't help but imagine his wife at home waiting up late for him in their upscale Manhattan apartment.

I downed the whiskey and absorbed the sound of Miss Waters's soft and sultry voice. I felt the whiskey racing through my blood, that tantalizing tingle in my body. For the first time in months I felt a release from all things toilsome.

But I still thought of Garvey. How could I get in? How much time was this young man Hoover going to give me? And had he yet assigned an agent to infiltrate Du Bois's world? Maybe my training buddy, Ellington, could be my go-to guy on all things Du Bois. I'd have to reconnect with him as soon as possible.

I ordered another whiskey. Ethel Waters began making her way through the crowd, and the two of us locked eyes. She was a tall, light-skinned woman and, based on her features, likely mixed. Her large, white-hooped earrings sparkled in the backlight.

She stopped and sang to me for a good minute as the crowd cheered and whistled. I couldn't help but accept the flirtatious gestures of the pretty woman in her twenties. Her band of four was providing a rhythm and beat that only enhanced her raw talent. The saxophone, bass guitar, piano, and drums were working the audience into a frenzy. I sat back and enjoyed several songs, letting the time pass while sipping my drink.

About two hours later I headed outside, walking briskly through a crowd of folks still waiting to get in. In the distance about fifty feet away and heading toward me, I saw the two men from the pool hall the night before. I put my head down and tried to keep them from spotting me, but to no avail. Just as I was about ten feet from them I heard my former opponent's voice. He walked directly in front of me, impeding my forward motion.

“Yo, hold up there, pretty boy.”

I stopped and looked him in his face.

“Don't you know you always give a nigga a second game?” he asked. “This is Harlem, motherfucker, not Kansas.”

This was a man who couldn't be reasoned with so I treated him as such, responding with, “I see. Well, shit, you must really need it.” I reached in my pants pocket, digging for some cash. I attempted to hand him back his ten dollars, but he slapped it out of my hand.

“Nigga if I want my money I'll take it from yo ass.”

I glared at him and then put it back in my pocket. “What the hell you wastin' my time for then?” I said. “Take it from me.”

He sat on those words a second. Then he revved back and swung, but I ducked it, kneeing him instead between the legs and punching him in his Adam's apple. He fell to the ground, clutching his groin and gasping for air. No doubt I'd damaged his larynx. Eyes bulging, he began to convulse.

His friend kicked me in the ribcage with his wing tips. I felt a break. While dropping to my knees, I used the force of the fall to sweep my right leg through both of his, knocking him off his feet.

Before he could react, I rolled over on top of him, grabbing his neck with my left hand. I used my right to deliver two violent punches—one to an eye, the other to his nose. As the second one connected, I could hear the distinct sound of breaking nose cartilage. Blood spewed from his nostrils.

I stood up, clutching my ribs. Both men lay there moaning and immobile. Several onlookers had witnessed the event. I hobbled down the street, trying to catch my breath.

When I entered the Sweet Tree, the female attendant noticed blood on my shirt and how I was gingerly holding my ribcage.

“My heavens, what happened?” She approached and tried to help by lifting my arm and putting it over her shoulder.

“No,” I said with a painful whisper. “That makes it worse. Do you have any aspirin?”

“Let me check. I'll bring you what I have.”

I managed to climb the steps and enter my room. I slowly lay on the bed and tried to find a position that would best allow me to breathe. The attendant entered with a first aid kit. “I have aspirin, ointment, and an ace bandage. Can you sit up to take these pills?”

I took a deep, excruciating breath and sat up. I downed four pills, realizing they were barely going to minimize the pain.

“I need you to help me wrap the bandage around my ribcage,” I said. “The break is on the left side.”

“If it's broken, maybe we shouldn't wrap it.”

“No, I have to,” I said, knowing it would restrict my breathing but help limit the natural ribcage movement.

I stood and walked over to the mirror above the sink. She helped me remove my shirt and tie and began wrapping the bandage around the area. I was thankful that she was so patient, caring, and good with her hands. She finished wrapping and helped me back to the bed.

“I'll come by early in the morning to check on you. I'm leaving you a few cups of water and the bottle of aspirin. I hope you'll be okay.”

“I'll be fine. Thank you for your help.”

The night was endless. I didn't sleep a wink, barely sipping the night air as if sucking it through a straw. The only cure for a fractured rib was time and aspirin. I had plenty of aspirin but not a lot of time.

I
TOOK A TAXI TO CARNEGIE
H
ALL IN HOPES OF HEARING
G
ARVEY
speak at a mass meeting. It was nice to be out and about taking in the scenery along Madison Avenue after days of lying in bed and living on little white pills.

I had already headed over to 145th and Seventh where Paul Smith had showed me an available office space. It was perfect, so I'd signed the papers on the spot and contacted the Bureau, informing them of its location.

I had spent the past days tipping and sending a hotel janitor on daily errands, mainly to get me soup and any colored newspapers he could find. The more I read, the more I got a sense of why so many Negroes had been moving north.

The war had depleted cities of their industrial manpower, as millions of men went off to fight. Also, fewer folks from overseas had moved to America during the war, opening up good-paying industrial jobs in the North. And Northern life had to seem much more peaceful than the Jim Crow South.

Because of the race riots that were taking place all over the country, the summer of 1919 was being called Red Summer. Editorials about coloreds demanding their equality were cropping up all over the place. The anger over so many shootings and lynchings was on the rise.

As I had achingly rested in bed, I clipped a poem called “If We Must Die” from a Jamaican-born poet named Claude McKay that summed up this new, pervasive defiance amongst many coloreds. It began with, “If we must die, let it not be like hogs
—
hunted and penned in an inglorious spot.” I was moved by his words.

I had never heard of this McKay, but he was obviously talented. I found his poem gripping and wondered who he aligned himself with politically—Garvey, Du Bois, or someone else. There were other bold remarks being made. One of the New York papers had reprinted an editorial that was originally written in a Kansas City paper—the
Call.
It read, “The New Negro, unlike the old time Negro, does not fear the face of day. The time for cringing is over.”

As the driver continued down Madison and made a right on East Fifty-ninth Street, I thought about how Harlem was quickly becoming the epicenter for colored politics—perhaps throughout the world. Many American Negroes were expressing a willingness to embrace militancy in order to secure their rights. But that approach had been tried before.

Even back when John Brown led a group of slaves in an attempt to take back their freedom violently, it ended with his being hanged. Most of the slaves had no intentions of rising up and using violence as a means to break the chains of slavery. They knew they'd meet certain death. Most coloreds in the summer of 1919 probably felt the same way. They wanted to stay alive first, and if that meant continuing to make progress slowly, so be it.

We turned left on Seventh Avenue and approached Carnegie Hall. Brothers and sisters were lining the street. I wasn't sure whether I could even get in, but I at least wanted to soak up the mood. I opened the taxi door and stepped into a parade of energy. A teenager bumped up against me and shoved a leaflet into my chest, aggravating the muscles around my wounded rib.

“Take it, brother—take it!” he yelled. “Marcus Garvey is putting the fear of God in the white man! He's our new king!”

Taking the leaflet, I was bumped again from behind, then again from the side, jostled around in the thick, loud crowd, unable to step a foot in any direction. I did manage to hold the leaflet very close to my face as I let the movement of the mob carry me forward like an ocean wave.

The headline of the leaflet read,
GRAND REUNION OF THE NEGRO PEOPLES OF THE WORLD OF AMERICA, AFRICA, WEST INDIES, CANADA, CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA AT THE FAMOUS CARNEGIE HALL—A RALLY FOR THE BLACK STAR LINE STEAMSHIP CORPORATION
. The subtitle read, “Stocks will be on sale at this big meeting. The stocks in the Black Star Line are sold at $5.00 each and you can buy as many as you want and make money. Admission Free.”

I found it interesting that Garvey was selling stock for a steamship corporation but still didn't officially own a ship. Luckily for him, he hadn't yet technically advertised the
Yarmouth
, hadn't specifically solicited money for that particular boat. It seemed unethical because the only money he actually had was likely coming from these investors. They were the ones doing all the buying. He was simply selling an idea.

As the mob came within ten feet of the Carnegie Hall entrance, we were told no one else would be allowed inside. They couldn't squeeze another body in.

“I'm not 'bout to buy any more of them damn stocks nohow!” yelled a man directly in front of me. “I'm here to get my money back for the damn stocks I done already bought!”

I tapped him on his shoulder, curious to hear why he was so angry.

“What?” he yelled above the ruckus.

“Why do you want your money back?” I hollered back.

“Because the ship that nigga Garvey's still tryin' to buy is sittin' over in the water and it's broke down! Damn sure ain't 'bout to make it to no Africa! Shit! This brotha's stealin' brothas' money! Like I said, he still ain't bought the ship nohow! I know niggas that been workin' on that cheap-ass boat for months, tryin' to get it ready to sell to some fool. But it ain't worth nothin'. And that's why them white folks is willing to sell it to him. Don't know why I let my old lady talk me into puttin' money in them damn stocks. I thought the fool already owned a bunch of ships and that I was just investing in a real company. You know, like puttin' money in Ford automobiles
.
”

Suddenly, the idea hit me. If the ship Garvey was still trying to purchase was a lemon, what he would soon be in need of was an engineering consultant. I would sell myself as the man he could hire to oversee his ship's refurbishing and maintenance—someone he could trust to diagnose the problem, come up with a cost estimate, and make sure the mechanics he hired were qualified.

It was worth a try. For now, getting out of this angry crowd—angry at having been duped into parting with their precious cash or at being denied access to the speech of their newfound god—was my mission.

The next day I headed to Manhattan to hear Du Bois speak, arriving an hour early. Professor Gold's friend had left my name on a list, so I was able to go right in. It was a massive town house on the Upper East Side—probably twenty thousand square feet. I made my way to the gigantic main room where I found several people mingling. It was a mixed crowd. There were nine round tables set up for the guests. I counted eight chairs at each.

Walking past three serving tables covered with delicious-looking fare, I started to ask the heavyset chef hovering over the tables with a knife to slice me off a piece of the beef but figured I'd wait a few minutes. I found the table with my name card on it and took a seat, waiting for everyone to arrive.

A waiter came by with a tray of wine-filled glasses. I took a red and made myself comfortable. People were filling their plates and sitting wherever they chose, some on sofas, a few in the adjacent huge dining room, others at their respective tables.

It was an elegant setting with fine china and beautiful linen. I didn't know whether to eat or take photographs. The host—whoever that was—had extremely deep pockets. Wow! Du Bois and a fancy meal. What a treat. I could hear Garvey's voice ridiculing the setting and accusing us all of being uppity brothers.

I felt a tap on my right shoulder. I turned and saw a short, brown-suited old white man. He couldn't have been taller than five feet.

“Could you be Sidney Temple, the young engineer?” he said, with a thick New York accent—his teeth corn yellow. “The card in front of you says you are.”

“I am,” I said, standing to shake his hand. “You're Phil Daley?”

“Yes,” he said.

“It's a pleasure to meet you. I can't thank you enough for this.”

“You're worth it—at least according to that communist Gold. He says you love engineering and adore Dr. Du Bois. Please, let's sit. Where's the waiter?”

“He was just here.”

He put his hand in the air, snapping his fingers to draw a waiter's attention. The man was a ball of energy. A waiter came running over.

“Coffee, please,” he said. “Black. And I'd like some cubed sugar. Thank you, lad.”

We watched the waiter scurry off and almost immediately return with a tray of coffee and sugar. Daley reached his stubby little fingers into the crystal dish, grabbing what seemed like twenty cubes of sugar before the waiter headed back to the kitchen again.

“Take a look around the room, kid. A bunch of folks not sure who to pledge their loyalties to—the NAACP, UNIA, or ABB. I say that jokingly, as I assume these men support Du Bois. But you wonder these days, with West Indians flooding New York and recruiting every Tom, Dick, and Harry in Harlem to join with them in their quest to lead your people to . . . to I don't know, heaven up high.”

“I can't wait to hear him speak.”

“Should be great, kid. I said all that because Du Bois
isn't
promising coloreds some golden stairway to a fantasyland. He isn't propping himself up as some savior or messiah. He's doing what he's always done—steadying the ship, chipping away at this race problem, preaching education, ensuring that all breakthroughs will be long-lasting.”

He gulped down his entire cup before the waiter popped by again and refilled it. He was conversing with me, but I need not have been there, for he seemed just as willing to share his inner thoughts with a random busboy. He just had to get it out. Luckily for him, I was transfixed.

I recalled Hoover's initial request of me—to find out who was giving money to the NAACP. The Bureau would certainly want to know of Daley and his power. Telling Hoover about him would be a feather in my cap, but I wasn't about to offer him up.

I thought about how I could maintain a relationship with the wealthy little New Yorker. His knowledge of the key political players could be invaluable. As people began to take their seats around us, Daley ignored them and continued yapping.

Chatter now filled the entire house. We made our way toward the buffet, and he continued talking as we stood in line.

“You know what I like most about the honorable Du Bois? He's about my height. You know most smart people are short, don't you?”

“I'm beginning to realize that.”

“Ooh, they've got liver and onions,” he said, licking his lips.

“You see the distinguished-looking man in the corner with the aides around him?” he asked, grabbing a plate and filling it with liver and onions.

“Yes.”

“That is James Weldon Johnson—quite possibly the greatest living colored writer in America and soon to be executive secretary of the NAACP
.
He is growing the organization expeditiously—recruiting new members left and right.”

I studied Johnson carefully while pouring some gravy on my rice. He was relatively tall and bronze-skinned—looked to be in his late forties. He had the presence of a senator or diplomat. He didn't look like the type I could easily get close to.

“You don't mind sitting with your plate in your lap do you, Sidney?”

“No.”

“Good. Our table is filling up quickly and I don't want anyone to interrupt our conversation.”

We walked into an adjacent room that was filled with antique furniture and old European art. Daley took a seat on a black sofa, and I joined him. I guess he felt comfortable talking to me because of his previous conversations with Gold.

“Back to James Weldon Johnson,” he said, trying to keep his plate from sliding off his lap. “His political influence in Washington is going to be pivotal in helping the NAACP have a voice. He will be lobbying Congress to help pass the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill.”

“That'll be one hell of a task,” I said.

“Yeah. His presence in the South, speaking in favor of the bill, has already made him quite unpopular with the Ku Klux Klan. In fact, there are little Klan cells popping up in the North more and more, spawned, no doubt, by the growth of the NAACP. The more Johnson pushes for the bill, the more I fear for his safety.”

“How far does the bill go?” I asked, taking a bite of rice.

“It seeks to make lynching a federal felony.”

I watched him dig into his food and wanted to ask about Max Eastman but thought better of it. I didn't want to come off as some investigative journalist, and I figured if I was patient enough, he might just bring Eastman up on his own.

“I'm still thinking about your comment regarding Mr. Weldon Johnson's safety,” I said.

“The current secretary of the NAACP—guy named Shillady—got himself beaten to a bloody pulp in Austin just a few days ago. By whom? A judge, for Chrissakes! Can you believe that?”

“Doesn't shock me,” I said. “How could it?”

“Shillady was white.”

“Oh.”

“Now you can see why I fear for Johnson's very life if he becomes secretary.”

“Some things are worth dying for,” I said. “Maybe Johnson feels that this cause is.”

“I'm sure he does. Let's get back to our table.”

Plates in hand, we made our way back into the main room, which was full now, and took our seats. I looked around and couldn't believe what I saw. A young man sitting to our left, two tables over, was none other than Paul Mann, one of the agents I'd been in training with.
What the hell is he doing here?

“Mr. Daley,” I said, “you wouldn't happen to know who the gentleman in the blue suit is—the one with his legs crossed?”