Harlem Shuffle(37)
She had more to share when Carney returned from the mixer and told her that he was going for one of those rings.
“Why in the world would you do that? Those men are terrible.”
“You said raise my profile.” He tugged his tie loose. “This is raising.”
“Not like that. There are some real SOBs in that club, I’ve been around them my whole life.”
“Like Uncle Willie?”
“He’s the worst of those shitheels,” she said.
Elizabeth’s vocabulary was saltier these days. She’d returned to Black Star Travel six months after John was born and the work had changed in her absence. They still served their old client pool, but now the company handled bookings for civil rights groups, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Congress of Racial Equality, navigating safe travel and lodging for their excursions into the most hostile and backward places. The stakes were different. One of their mainstay hotels in Mississippi had been firebombed. It was a warning—nobody got hurt. But they could have been. Just last month, the Klan stopped a bus of Freedom Riders in Anniston, Alabama, and tried to burn them alive inside. An undercover cop on board waved his gun around and scared the mob off before the gas tanks exploded. The pictures were in the papers, testimony to the pure white madness she’d sent people into. Black Star hadn’t set up that Anniston trip, but they’d organized plenty others like it. Yes, she was saltier now. It suited her.
“It’ll be good to have some of them in my corner,” Carney said.
“Hmm,” Elizabeth said. “Should I ask my father to put in a good word? Have you told him?”
“Said he was glad to see me there.” He told her she didn’t need to bother him with it. Then one of the kids started wailing, and that was that.
At their next Chock Full o’Nuts lunch, Pierce said he hadn’t heard of anyone handing over an envelope before. “I’d say it was a test of whether or not you’d do it, but I know that nigger likes money too much.” He shrugged. “We’ve been to the circus enough times to know how people do—even ‘Mr. Community’ Dukes.” Pierce didn’t say pay it. And he didn’t say not to. They hailed Sandra for another cup of joe.
Carney scraped the money together. Put a dent in the apartment fund, on top of the recent expansion costs, but he’d replenish it. The savings account devoted to the new apartment—no more hiding cash in boots under his bed—waxed and waned. Knocking out the wall between his store and the bakery cost more than the estimate. Every extra dollar extracted by Gray he experienced as a pain. Plus Marie’s salary every other Friday. Elizabeth wasn’t up to a move when she was pregnant, then John’s arrival made it complicated, and things kept coming up. Maybe wait until Elizabeth gets settled back at work. Maybe best to hold off until construction is done. Whenever the fund shrank, so did their apartment: The hallway pressed on him, the living room squeezed. Elizabeth thought the kids’ room was plenty big, but Carney could barely fit between May’s and John’s twin beds, stepping over those damn toys. And the bathroom, he felt like a crowbar every time he went take a piss.
The money from the fencing side kicked in when he needed it, though. Business was doing nicely there, with his new contact. More crooked in one direction and more legit in the other—careful you don’t split yourself in half, Carney. He tucked the five bills into a manila envelope, wrapped the string around the button, and folded it over three times.
* * *
*
Carney visited the Mill Building twice that month. The first time was to drop off the envelope, and the second was to get it back.
The Mill, on the corner of Madison and 125th, was where respectable Negro gentlemen hung their shingle these days. Names in gold paint on frosted glass. Doctors had their floor, dentists another, and Duke installed himself in a corridor of lawyers, corner office. Carney had to imagine the view, as he only made it as far as the small reception room. The secretary Candace was a perky young gal in a red-and-white-checked dress, bouffant hairdo like an extra Supreme. Duke was married—his wife was a bigwig in Negro society, summoning the usual crowd for charity events that got written up in gossip pages—but he had a reputation as a ladies’ man. Carney made an assumption.
Candace poked her head into her boss’s office. Carney didn’t catch the exchange.
“Mr. Duke says you can leave it with me,” she said, closing the door as if sneaking out after putting a baby to sleep.
“He did?”
She nodded. Carney understood a predilection for middlemen, being one himself. He gave her the envelope.
A week later, a messenger appeared at the door of Carney’s office. Carney recognized him from the mixer, one of the young bartenders, paying dues. He took the envelope and tipped the kid a dollar for his trouble.
Sometimes you order something from a Sears catalog and when it arrives, it’s not what you paid for. He had not paid for what he held in his hands: a letter from the Dumas Club expressing regret that they could not extend an offer of admission.
Carney spent the next hour in his office. When the phone rang, Rusty answered it and told him Pierce was on the line. He waved his hand in dismissal.
He walked to the Mill. Candace answered his knock with a “Come on in.” They’d finished lunch, sandwiches, empty wax-paper squares open like sunflowers. Duke sat on the corner of Candace’s desk, eating jelly candies from a glass jar she kept next to a small brass lamp. He gestured to his mouth—can’t talk—and brought Carney along into his office.