Downtown Strut: An Edna Ferber Mystery (Edna Ferber Mysteries) (14 page)

“It’s all right,” I prodded.

“So I stopped in one afternoon, bold as can be. He was in, but irritated, snapping at me. I sat in his office, and he pushed the play back at me. ‘It’s real good. It needs work but you got a story here. I can see this working on Broadway.’ So I got a little intoxicated, but then he stood up and said, ‘But I have no interest in helping you.’ I didn’t know if I heard him right, so I sat there, dumb. Then he said, ‘Why would I help Bella’s pretty Negro boy?’ Just like that.”

“Jed,” I sighed, almost to myself.

“So I stood up, flustered, nuts, and yelled, ‘Maybe you should stay away from Bella! She’s mine, not your plaything. You rich white guys come to Harlem and take our jazz and women and…’ I went on and on, everything spewing out of me, and Mr. Harris got real still. Then he said, ‘You arrogant buck. Get the hell out of my office.’”

“My God,” I breathed in.

“But I couldn’t move. I realized I’d made a stupid mistake—and then made it worse by yelling at him. He came around to the front of his desk and flicked his finger against my chest. It stung. And I swear he whispered in my ear, ‘No Broadway, no acting, no writing, no career. Your career is over. You just lost your chance for success. You’ll be a…what did you say you were? A janitor? You’ll be a janitor for the rest of your life. No one will ever touch your stuff.’ I stumbled to the door. He followed me into the anteroom. He was sputtering, livid.”

“Then what happened?” Waters was stunned.

Lawson stopped. “Roddy was waiting for me. I just remembered that. He came with me. And he’d heard the exchange between us. I must have been pale and barely moving because he rushed over to me.”

“What did Jed do?”

I was flabbergasted by Lawson’s story, though not surprised. I’d witnessed other episodes of Jed’s irrational and random cruelty to those he deemed inferior—easy fodder for his venom.

“Mr. Harris looked from me to Roddy. ‘And who is this boy? Another failed playwright?’ He
sneered
at him. Roddy was always so quiet, but the guy had flashes of rage in him. So he said to Mr. Harris, ‘You don’t deserve your success.’ ‘Who are you?’ Mr. Harris asked. ‘I’m Lawson’s cousin, Roddy Parsons. Remember that name. In a year you’ll be hearing about me.’ Mr. Harris laughed. ‘Christ, more stupid vanity at work. From the looks of you, I’d say you’d do fine as a busboy in a Harlem eatery. Now get out, the two of you.’ But Roddy wasn’t ready to leave, and I had to push him out. The last thing Mr. Harris yelled at me was, ‘Your career is over!’”

“Then?”

Lawson shrugged his shoulders. “Then nothing. I walked out of the building.”

“What did you think?” I asked.

“I believed him. I had an enemy now in Jed Harris. And that, I knew, wasn’t good.”

Chapter Twelve

Jed Harris glared back at me with those cold eyes, the pupils pinpoints of cut diamond, and as hard. We’d been sitting across from each other at Sardi’s, a lunch he’d requested; but as the minutes passed, Jed simply stared at me with those icy eyes, and he said perhaps ten coherent words, whispering in that annoying, purring voice. Dressed in a splashy pinstripe suit, with his signature fedora with the red feather, and the cigarette glued to the side of his thin lips, he struck me as some stage door Johnny with too much money and too few marbles, an unrepentant
yeshiva
boy drunk with Broadway chorus girls and blazing footlights. The staff at Sardi’s, used to Broadway royalty, bowed and scraped—and generally irked me.

“Well,” I said for the fifth or sixth time, “you demanded lunch, and yet you avoid my questions. Am I missing something, Jed?”

Again, the silence. He turned to the waitress and complained about the tepid coffee. She scurried away, tripping over herself.

“Last night,” I snarled, “you woke me at midnight and babbled nonsense about your yacht in the Hudson. Not, as I assumed when I answered the phone, some crisis with
The Royal Family
that couldn’t wait, but a yacht I never was on, nor intend ever to be on.”

“Nor will you ever be invited, Edna.”

The waitress, her fingers trembling, refilled his cup.

I smarted. “A yacht moored in the Hudson is like a canoe drifting down the Nile. Or an elephant squatting in an English garden. Something is wrong with the picture.”

He studied me long and hard. Then, blowing a circle of blue smoke in my direction, he sputtered, “Boys like to play with boats.”

“About
The Royal Family…
” I began.

I’d had a busy morning at the Selwyn Theater where George Kaufman and I watched the director Burton doing a run-through. Around noon, still rattled by that mercurial phone call at midnight, I watched Jed Harris stroll jauntily into the theater just as the cast was taking a break, and he frowned and stomped his feet as he approached the stage. Beside me, George rose, grunted, and walked out of the theater. I sat there, third row center, and caught Jed’s eye as he shambled by. This was not going to be good. I felt bile rise in my throat, a boulder thrust into my gut. Nothing pleased him, and the director stormed off, leaving Jed standing there, upstage, cool, nonplused. No one looked at him. His quixotic personality and the volcanic bursts made me believe the success of the play was iffy. Maybe
doomed
was the word I really meant.

Now, sitting opposite him at the lunch he demanded, he leaned in. “It’s all wrong.” He inhaled his cigarette.

“No,” I insisted, “it isn’t.” A pause. “I suppose we’re talking about the play?”

He ignored me. “I’m firing the whole cast. This isn’t worth it.”

“No, you’re not.” I tapped a spoon on the table. “No.”

He smiled. “Edna, Edna, you’ll never understand the machinations of New York theater.”

I bit my lip. “And you’ll never understand the workings of the human heart.”

He snickered. “Low blow, Edna dear.”

“I figured I’d descend to your level for the moment.”

He looked away toward the entrance, annoyed by the sudden ripple of laughter coming from two young women. “Enough talk of this play. We’ve exhausted the topic.” He leaned into me, his eyes dancing. “Helen Hayes is trying to seduce me.”

“Good Lord, Jed!” I roared. “Do I really need to know this?”

“Though she failed, she’s been more effective at the attempt than you’ve been…” He was enjoying himself, watching me squirm.

“Stop…” I interrupted.

He went on. “But then you’ve had so little practice in the art of love.”

I half-rose. “So you invite me for lunch with the goal of spouting nonsense about stuff you know nothing about.”

“Sit down, Edna. People are staring.”

He smirked and took a sip of coffee, seemed not to relish it, and replaced the cup in the saucer. “Women love me.”

I sneered as I settled back into my seat. “For some women, money is the only aphrodisiac.”

He grinned. “We weren’t allowed to use that word at Yale.”

“What? Money?”

He laughed. “Edna, Edna.”

“Jed, are we going somewhere with this conversation?”

He ignored me. “Do you know why I call myself ‘Jed’? I made up the name, you know. God told the prophet Nathan…anyway, it’s from Jedidiah. Beloved of God. My family still doesn’t know. They’re hidden on the Lower East Side wondering where smart little Jacob Horowitz has gone off to.” He burst out laughing. “I invented myself, Edna.”

I’d had enough.

“That’s all very nice, Jedidiah, but…tell me about Bella.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You’ve been waiting to ask me that.”

“I think…”

“Don’t think, dear Edna.” He rolled his eyeballs. “Nosiness is the first word a child learns in the great, unwashed Midwest, the place of your nineteenth century birth, right?”

“Perhaps. But I prefer the word…curious.”

“Edna, Edna. Dear, sweet Edna. My non-involvement with that voluptuous Negress seems to keep you awake nights.”

“No, but murder gives me insomnia.”

That stopped him. He sat up. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Edna, what?”

“Another question, Jedidiah. Why are you so hostile to Lawson Hicks, her boyfriend…or former boyfriend? Whatever he is.”

He stared at me, his lips drawn into a thin, bloodless line. Finally, glaring, he spat out the words. “If you must know, and clearly you must, Bella was a fling, Edna. A diversion from my wonderful marriage. People seem to forget I’m married…with a wife living…somewhere in this vast metropolis. I forget where exactly. Keep that in mind, dear Edna, whenever you choose to beguile me with your charms. But Bella was a…lark. A lark who willingly and gladly lighted on my bough, Edna. If you know what I mean. Sadly, she believes there’s always a reward for licentious acts. She’s already a chapter in my history.”

“So you used her.”

“I use everyone. We all do. That’s the way the world spins.” He sat back against the chair, folded his arms around his chest, and rocked his body. “She’s an incredibly beautiful girl who is taboo. Cleopatra on the Harlem Nile.”

“Folderol,” I said, though I regretted the word.

He burst out laughing. “You’re showing your age, Edna. You sometimes sound like a villainess in a Victorian revival of
The Drunkard
.”

“Yet the word somehow works with you.”

His voice became a dangerous whisper. “Edna, this is none of your business…what I do. All over town there are chorus girls. I share them with your randy, homely buddy, Georgie Kaufman. You know that. And, frankly, I’m finding your chatter a tad annoying because you, though a captivating woman in your oh-you-kid dress, you insist on posing as a prudish frump, a starved old maid…”

I slammed down my coffee cup. “Enough.” But I wasn’t through. “I was told about the way you treated Lawson in your office. Praise, then outright rejection of his play. Such a cruel dismissal, Jed. Why?”

His voice was clipped. “Ah, a simple answer. If you must know, I enjoy fooling with him. Because he’s Bella’s beau. Here you have this handsome young buck, all swagger and bravado, cocksure, sitting there waiting for me to make him the first major Negro playwright. A talented lad, truly reminding me of myself, though I’m barely a whiter version, and a lot shorter, of course.”

“But you enjoyed being cruel to him. You told him he’d have no career in New York.”

“Yes, I did.”

“But why torture him?”

He shrugged. “Because I can.”

“He’s done nothing to you.”

“Oh, but he has. He made demands on me.” A pause. “I just don’t like him.”

“Because he’s with Bella.” A statement.

“That, and he’s too tall.”

“No, he’s too black.”

“Maybe he’s not black enough.” Another pause. “This is not worth talking about, Edna. He’s…nothing.” Suddenly he stressed the word, loud, high. “
Nothing!
”

The waitress, approaching our table, instantly swiveled and walked away. I noticed other irritated diners glancing at us.

“Jed,” I began, “your voice.”

He didn’t care. “Edna, let me tell you a story. You like stories, I know. You steal them from others and then publish them in the
Saturday Evening Post
. What did F. Scott Fitzgerald call you in
This Side of Paradise
? The Yiddish descendant of O. Henry? He lumped you with Zane Grey, no? How that must have got under your skin.” Grinning, Jed made a clownish face, exaggerated, grotesque. “Anyway, one afternoon I was sitting in on auditions for
The Chocolate Dandies
. It’s an inept plagiarism of
Shuffle Along
, a cast of hoofers and singers. Bored, I sat there as the performers went through their paces….”

“What are we talking about?” I broke in, annoyed.

“Well, Bella’s beau actually showed up to audition. He was completely right for the part, of course. A young, good-looking Negro, good to look at from the orchestra. Good rich voice. So Lawson read for the part—which takes place, if I remember correctly, in a Harlem jazz club. Or am I thinking of another travesty? The author and the director, I could see, were taken with him. My God, Lawson could have written the scene about himself, so perfect he seemed to us. And they made it clear to Lawson that they liked what he had done. God, the way he beamed.”

I pulled in my cheeks. “But you sabotaged it.”

“Very easy to do, in fact. After he left the room I whispered that I
knew
his work. I’d seen him act at the Lafayette, a minor role. I told them that he was a shirker, a shuffling and lazy sort, all teeth and brio and no energy to show up on time.”

I was shaking my head. “And Lawson probably knew you did this.”

“Well, he saw me sitting there. Actually he stared directly at me at one point.”

“This was right after you rejected his play?”

“Yes.”

“So he probably suspected.”

“I hope so.” A wolfish smile.

“You blackballed him.”

“Exactly.”

“Jed, this is maniacal…and…”

“Oh, who cares, Edna dear? The life span of a Negro actor in New York is calculated in seconds. A role here, a role there, and next year they’re back to hauling ashes in a basement on St. Nicholas Avenue.”

I gathered my scarf and gloves. “Iago had nothing on you, Jed Harris.”

“Ah, another Negro-and-white melodrama.”

“That one ends in murder, too.”

“Are you expecting a murder, Edna. Perhaps of me?”

“Jed, you’ve forgotten that Roddy Parsons was murdered in his bed.”

“Yes, I know all about it. And your excursions into darkest Harlem, as chronicled in the papers.”

I’d been reaching for my overcoat, but I slipped back into my seat. “You do remember Roddy, don’t you? I don’t mean in my apartment or uptown at the chop suey place. I’ve heard stories already, Jed. You met him before.”

“Why is this important?”

“It’s considered impolite to answer a question with another question, Jed.”

He chuckled. “My, my, Edna, the schoolmarm with verbal stick and lace-collar oxbow.”

“An innocent question.”

“I rather doubt that, Edna. But yes, in fact, I do recall encountering that offensive, brash boy.”

“So you do remember him?”

“I don’t forget things, Edna. That’s why I’m rich.”

“Tell me.”

He snickered. “But I’ll come across as a hero in this little anecdote.”

“I’ll be the judge of your heroism.”

He rattled his coffee cup, and the waitress, hovering, rushed to refill it. He poured so much cream into the brew that it turned murky white, cloying, sickening. “Actually two other times. The first time was when I kicked Lawson out of my office. I suspect you’ve been told about that encounter. He was there, introduced himself, and was snotty. But that’s not the most interesting encounter with the dead lad. One night in Harlem not so long ago.” A pause. “No. Once upon a time in Harlem…”

“Get on with it, Jed.”

“Story telling is the art of selection of detail.”

“Jed!”

“All right. I doubt you’ll hear this version from Bella or Lawson. One night in Harlem I was with Bella at one of those black-and-white clubs and we’d just left and were strolling on the sidewalk. Lawson spotted us. I guess he was coming home from his job because he was wearing that dumb janitor’s uniform. At first I didn’t even recognize him. Christ, he was one more Negro traveling the midnight sidewalks up there—but Bella stared, seemed embarrassed and confused. Like she wanted to be elsewhere. Lawson, of course, was not in a good mood. Well, neither was I. Once before I’d met him uptown, and the three of us actually drank the night away in a club. At least Bella tells me it was Lawson there—I don’t remember. Bella had been pleading for something—some introduction or connection. Lord, the girl is cutthroat. Well, just days before, I’d told this Lawson his career was over—and there he was, pouting, as I strolled by with his girlfriend. He yelled at me, which, I gather, Negroes don’t do to white men down South, so be it. I pushed him.”

“Jed, should you be jostling on the streets?”

“Jostling. Edna, Edna.” Suddenly Jed’s eyes got that steely, cold look, the diamond pinpoints. “You know what he did? He hit me, Edna. He swung and hit me here.” He placed his hand on his left bicep. “Here.”

“Jed, what?”

“That was it, that one moment. But ugly. He hit me. Bella was screaming, crying. And she seemed ready to go to
him
. Him! There she was, dressed in a sequined flapper outfit I bought. So I stood there, massaging my shoulder, and said, calmly, ‘Bella, choose him or me.’ She got quiet but I repeated my demands. Lawson, mean-eyed, watched. Finally, looking apologetically at Lawson, as though sending him a secret message, she took a step. She came to stand at my side. Lawson fumed.”

“Now I see,” I told him.

Peevish: “No, you don’t.”

“Jed, Lawson never told me this. He just told me about the scene in your office.”

He chuckled. “Would you tell anybody such a story? The black boy losing his girl on a Harlem street corner.”