Harlem Shuffle(11)

    Whenever Aunt Millie interrogated Freddie over some story the neighbors told her, Carney stepped up with an alibi. No one would ever suspect Carney of telling a lie, of not being on the up-and-up. He liked it that way. For Freddie to give his name to Miami Joe and whatever crew he’d thrown in with, it was unforgivable. Carney’s Furniture was in the damn phone book, in the Amsterdam News when he could afford to place an ad, and anyone could track him down.

Carney agreed to sleep on it. The next morning he remained unswayed by the ceiling and now he had to figure out what to do about his cousin. It didn’t make sense, a hood like Miami Joe bringing small-time Freddie in on the job. And Freddie saying yes, that was bad news.

This wasn’t stealing candy, and it wasn’t like when they were kids, standing on a cliff a hundred feet over the Hudson River, tip of the island, Freddie daring him to jump into the black water. Did Carney leap? He leapt, hollering all the way down. Now Freddie wanted him to jump into a bunch of concrete.

He paid Sandra. She winked a practiced wink. When Freddie called the office that afternoon, Carney told him it was no-go and cussed him out for his poor judgment. That was that, for two weeks, until the heist went down and Chink Montague’s goons came to the store looking for Freddie.



* * *



*

The robbery was in all the news. He had to ask Rusty what Juneteenth was, and he was right, it was some country thing.

“Juneteenth is when those slaves in Texas found out slavery was over,” Rusty said. “My cousins used to throw a party to celebrate.”

Finding out you were free six months after the fact didn’t seem like something to celebrate. More like it was telling you to read the morning paper. Carney read the Times, the Tribune, and the Post every day to stay informed, bought them from the stand on the corner.

hotel theresa heist

black harlem stunned by daring

early morning robbery



The cops blocked off the traffic outside the hotel ’til past noon. A different sort of sidewalk performance unfurled outside the hotel—detectives and insurance men running in and out, newspaper men and their shutterbug buddies trying to get the scoop. Carney had to get his morning coffee at the scruffy diner down the street.

Customers carried rumors and theories into the furniture store. They busted in with machine guns and I heard they shot five people and The Italian Mafia did it to put us in our place. This last tidbit put forth by the black nationalists on Lenox Ave, hectoring from their soapboxes. That’s why they picked Juneteenth, to mess with us.

No one got killed, according to the papers. Scared shitless, sure. Carney called his aunt to make sure his cousin wasn’t involved—he’d heard Freddie was back home—but the phone just rang.

    The robbery was early Wednesday morning. Chink’s men came into his store the next day around noon. Rusty said, “Hey!” when one of them bucked him out of the way. The two men moved in a lumbering prowl, like escapees from the wrestling league who’d strapped themselves into suits. Brown jackets hung over their forearms, ties loose, big sweat circles under their pits. I don’t owe any money, was Carney’s first thought. The second was, Maybe I do.

He waved Rusty off and closed the door to the office. The man with the handlebar mustache had a scar that dug from his lip to the middle of his cheek, as if he’d wriggled free from a fisherman’s hook. He eyed the sofa but didn’t sit, as if to do so was to breach protocol, it might get back to a higher-up. The other man had a shaved bullet head beaded with perspiration, and a woman’s made-up eyebrows. He did most of the talking.

“You Ray Carney?”

“Welcome to the store. You thinking of a new living-room set? A dinette?”

“Dinette,” the bald man repeated. He squinted through the office window, only now registering what kind of store it was. “No.” He swabbed his brow with a blue handkerchief. “We work for a man you know. Heard of. Name of Montague?”

“Chink Montague,” the man with the scar offered.

“What can I do for you?” Carney asked. Something to do with Freddie, then—his cousin owed money? Was he supposed to pay it or they’d start beating him? He thought of Elizabeth and May, that these men knew where he lived.

“We know you handle stuff sometimes—jewelry, stones?”

Too shaken to play dumb. He checked—Rusty lingered by the front door with his arms crossed, nervous. Carney nodded at the men.

    “The robbery yesterday at the Theresa,” Baldy said. “Mr. Montague wants the word out that there’s something he wants back. A necklace with a big ruby—big. He wants it back so much, that’s why we’re going around all over talking to people who know about that kind of thing. He says anyone comes across it, he’d like to hear about it, keep him appraised.”

It was the wrong word, but here it fit. “I sell furniture, Mr….?”

The man shook his head. His partner followed suit.

“But if I come across it, I’ll tell you,” Carney said. “That you can be certain of.”

“Certain of,” Baldy said.

Carney asked for a phone number. Like he was asking a customer for home information. Baldy said, “You live around here, you know how to get in touch. And I’d recommend you do that.”