Dark Stain (23 page)

“Yes, but something — ”

“Pardon me, Mr. Miller. Perhaps it is just as well Suzy is detained. Pardon me, but may I speak candidly?”

Good God, he thought. Where’s this going. “Mrs. Buckles — ”

“Pardon me, Mr. Miller. This is not altogether a complete surprise. Have you considered what a mixed marriage actually means?”

“This is no time. I’m sorry. But — ”

“This is the best time of all.” Her voice was steady, her two yellowish hands clasped together on her lap so that she seemed to him like a cornered mouse. “Have you considered that your faith and Suzy’s faith, Mr. Miller, will not be conducive to a happy married life? I have nothing but understanding for your people. Your people have suffered cruelly from Mr. Hitler. I may be an old woman. I am an old woman. I will be seventy years in March but I know what is happening to the Jewish people. They are not Christians who persecute the Jews — ”

“Please. You don’t understand — ”

“But I do understand. I have had my suspicions that Suzy and yourself were drifting into a serious situation. Not that she confided in me as a daughter should. She is wayward.” One hand waved towards the pile of magazines. “But in my life, I have seen many wayward young girls settling down and marrying in accordance with their faith.”

Sam got to his feet and stared down at the small woman expounding her dogmas. He didn’t resent what she was saying. He understood her, sensing there wasn’t so much difference after all between Mrs. Buckles’ genteel Protestantism and the lustier Jewishness of his own mother pleading with him not to bring home a
schicksa
; both mothers were defenders of their own traditions, both were afraid of the stranger outside the tribe. And gently he broke in. “Mrs. Buckles! Suzy has been detained!” A tremor shook him and shook his words and he was conscious of her staring at him, suddenly apprehensive, suddenly fearful of the wind of warning in his words. “She’ll be back — when, I don’t know — I’ve notified the police. Suzy — Suzy has temporarily — she’s disappeared.” He watched Mrs. Buckles’ fingers leap to the withered lips. “Please, Mrs. Buckles. Both of us love her. Both of us must — In the morning, Detective Wajek will be here to ask some questions.”

His eyes strained in his head and all that day and night flared before him, and a pity for the old woman agitated him, a pity larger than his own loss that second, for this mother was like that other mother remembered now in sparks of fire; this mother like Mrs. Randolph had lost a child. He walked over to Mrs. Buckles and touched her arm with his fingers. She was quivering; under his fingers her arm seemed thin as a leaf.

“Thank you for coming here,” Mrs. Buckles said, dry-eyed. “I am alone here.”

His heart lifted in admiration for the courage behind the polite words, the politeness a courage, a tradition of courage that blasted his eyes even clearer. He understood now where Suzy got her courage; out of the old woman, out of the abolitionist ancestors before the old woman, out of the courageous past Suzy had sprung. “Don’t you worry,” he said. “We’ll get her back. If you want, I’ll stay here tonight — You might need — If you want — ” The old woman was crying the tiny tears of the aged. Her head had turned towards the arm where his hand was, to the hand full of the sun of life. “Don’t you worry. We’ll get her back.” He was choking and he was strong and he was full of pity. “We’ll get her back, Mrs. Buckles. We will, mom.”

T
HURSDAY’S
sun rolled over the Brooklyn war plants clustering near the giant stone feet of the bridges into Manhattan. It was a sun that seemed forged and smelted out of the factories; it wheeled over the tenements near the factories, the pool parlors near the tenements, the stores of the naval outfitters on Sands Street near the pool parlors, the office buildings on Fulton Street into the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood west of the office buildings. Bill yawned half-awake in his room in the Hotel St. George. Curled on his side, close to his wife, her black hair in his eyes and tickling his nose, he felt as if deep in a cloud from which he didn’t want to wake. His brain was like a series of rooms, each room locked tight on the new morning, each room full of the black cloud that was Isabelle’s hair. He twisted over on his face, wanting to sleep, but one by one the doors of consciousness were opening.

He stared at the ceiling. He listened to Isabelle’s breathing. He fingered the burn scars on his face as if to dust them off. He traced the scar on his lip and his blue eyes shifted sideways to his wife, innocent and sweet in sleep like a child. He wondered if he looked like that in his sleep? The damn shut-eye was a fake like everything else. In her sleep, Isabelle looked as if life were a cinch, no headaches, no tears. What a fake! He was disgusted with himself. Here he was chewing the fat over his life. To hell with all this dumb crapping about life, about the future. Darton was right. The future was a kike disease. Christ alive, was he a Jew philosopher to be kiking about life, about the future? A man had to know how to live today without nagging at himself whether he was fair or unfair to his wife, or whether Big Boy’d did the job on Miller or not. Darton wouldn’t get into a lather about his work or about any woman on earth. Darton was right. What was the sense yapping at each other like every other married couple in the world? What was he, another husband who worked from nine to five every day, and went to the movies twice a week and slept with his wife every Saturday night eleven p.m. sharp? No, he was above that. He was no shoeclerk; he was above the rules. Damn all these rules and laws, all this religious yapping about the sanctity of marriage. Shades of Theresa! Darton had the right ideas about women; you had fun with women. What were women for, anyway? To hold holy mass with their souls? Damn, but the Church had spoiled a lot of God damn good screwing women with this soul racket. Worrying about Isabelle and the child she wanted! Holy Christ, another little stinking soul and where did it all lead but back into the past? To the church, to socialism, to communism; the idea of all men having souls and being brothers in Christ was just communism; it was the same racket as all the kikes and niggers and jackal breeds being in one herd. Damn the shoeclerk rules! To be a master meant acting like a master.

Now, he knew why he had gotten up so early. The newspapers! The newspapers were outside the door of his room; he had put in an order for them yesterday. Suddenly, he was sour on the whole damn business. Here he was jerking around in bed as to what a great guy he was. His mind filled with Big Boy’s face, Hayden’s, Heney’s. He screwed his eyelids tight but the faces stayed. Like a prison warden, he was locked in his own prison, locked by his own thoughts; he slapped at the faces as if with iron keys and blackjack; relentlessly, he tried to drive them out and at last he succeeded. Deep into the dungeon he had driven them, deep into the pit; there let them lie. I better get the papers, he thought.

He got out of the double bed, a strong tall man in blue and white pyjamas and, barefooted, crossed the rug to the door. The newspapers were stacked in a neat pile. He picked them up and then dropped into a chair. WHITE GIRL kidnapped, he read, and underneath this headline:
Harlem Vice Ring Suspected
. The two headlines registered but he dismissed them. They weren’t his business. He consulted the newspaper index and found what he was after:
Stench Bombs In Harlem Page 24
. But he didn’t turn to page 24. What about Miller? Why wasn’t he front page news? But, no, there was only:
Stench Bombs In Harlem Page 24
. He frowned. That meant the Jew’d been wiped too late to make the morning papers. That meant the body was dumped somewheres, hidden. Bill cracked the newspaper in two on page 24 and read:

“Numerous Harlem bars and grills were the victims of a stench bomb attack late last night….” He skipped through paragraphs of details to: “Mr. Louis Lombardo, owner of the Four Flags Bar and Grill, stated that his bar had been attacked at eleven-thirty. His statement follows. ‘The door was shoved open and before I knew what was happening, I saw a Negro wind up like a pitcher and throw something down hard on the floor. I hollered at him but he ran out …’ ” Bill leaped into the next paragraph: “The stench drove about thirty customers, three bartenders and the owner out on Lenox Avenue. The Emergency Police Squad on arriving decontaminated the premises. Electric fans were placed on the floor to drive out the heavier than air fumes. Oil of wintergreen and ammonia were used in other bars as counteracting agents. In all cases, business ceased for the night.” Bill smiled, reading: “Bar owners of Italian descent in Harlem and in adjacent areas are open in their belief that the stench bomb attack, following the boycott begun on Monday night is only the beginning of a campaign to bankrupt them….”

Bill picked up a tabloid. There was nothing about Miller. There was another story about Darton’s valerian bombs and a big spread on the kidnapping: HARLEM MUGGERS LURE BEAUTIFUL WHITE GIRL. SUZY BUCKLES FEARED SEIZED BY MUGGERS SPECIALIZING IN SEX CRIMES. MOTHER PROSTRATED AT FATE OF ONLY DAUGHTER. He thumbed past the story, past a double spread of pictures to his headline, to his story: “Negro Stukas again raided Harlem’s Italian-owned bars last night, depositing lethal loads of stink bombs. The raid was timed as perfectly as any military operation. None of the raiders were apprehended. All returned, as far as is known, safely to their bases deep in the heart of Harlem … The city is waiting with bated breath for the next flight of ‘brown bombers’ … Authorities claim,” the concluding editorialized paragraph went on: “that this recent blitz stems from the mass meeting called by leading Negroes last Sunday to protest the fatal shooting of Fred Randolph, Negro, by Policeman Sam Miller, white. This meeting held in defiance of the Mayor’s warning that it would be inciting to riot, has apparently served as an open declaration of war against the white citizenry of Harlem. Since the Randolph shooting, Harlem has been as seething and unruly as any occupied country. A volunteer army of ‘brown bombers,’ a disgrace to America’s one and only Brown Bomber, has decided, authorities claim, to drive all whites out of Harlem. This army of stukas, panzers and roving guerillas calls itself the United Negro Committee. Impartial, public opinion is asking what next? Will police reinforcements be sufficient to stop this wave of anarchy? Is the kidnapping of Suzy Buckles, white, a portent of things to come?”

Bill lit a-before-breakfast cigarette. One thing was sure. Heney’d have no cause to complain when he pulled into town. Bill flipped the pages to the kidnapping story. HARLEM MUGGERS LURE BEAUTIFUL WHITE GIRL. SUZY BUCKLES FEARED SEIZED BY MUGGERS SPECIALIZING IN SEX CRIMES. MOTHER PROSTRATED AT FATE OF ONLY DAUGHTER. He didn’t read the story, his eyes focusing on the adjoining page: AN EDITORIAL TO EVERY DECENT NEW YORKER.

“
Where is Suzy Buckles today?
With one voice, the entire city is asking this question, law abiding Negroes as well as law abiding whites. Where is this beautiful young girl of twenty-four? Where is
Suzy Buckles
, grand-daughter of Captain Lemuel Steadmore, the famous abolitionist and devoted friend of the Negro people of ninety years ago. Like her grandfather,
Suzy Buckles
believed earnestly in freedom and justice for all men. Where is
Suzy Buckles
who left her lucrative position in a downtown office to volunteer her services free to the Harlem Equality League in the middle of black Harlem? Every decent New Yorker, black or white, Catholic, Jew or Protestant, has a right to ask this question?

“
Where is Suzy Buckles?

“Where is this fair-skinned blond young girl? The entire city is asking this question in all soberness. These are the facts:
Suzy Buckles
was lured out of the offices of the Harlem Equality League by a mugger, a Negro who is a disgrace to every decent Negro man, woman and child. Today, we know nothing more of what happened after that fateful encounter. We know that
Suzy
volunteered her services to Mr. Hal Clair, Negro Harvard Phi Beta Kappa, in order to do her share in restoring racial peace in the greatest city in the world.

“
Where is Suzy Buckles?
We must know! Yes, with pity for her prostrated mother, we must know! Is she alive today? Has she suffered a fate horrible beyond words? Have sex degenerates mutilated this beautiful girl? We must know! Is the case of
Suzy Buckles
another proof of anarchy in Harlem, of lawlessness, of radical and flagrant disregard of justice, of civil war instigated by powerful Negro politicians swollen with their new-found power?

“Of these powerful Negro politicians we ask: Have the days of the white venal carpetbaggers and the black venal politicians returned to our nation? We ask what could Captain Lemuel Steadmore, the grandfather of
Suzy Buckles
, have to say if he were alive today? We are positive that Captain Steadmore did not fight for the abolition of slavery only to set up a regime of lawlessness, anarchy and sexual depravity. We ask these powerful Negro politicians: Is the kidnapping of this innocent and lovely white girl a warning to white New Yorkers to stay out of Harlem?

“We, the people, demand an answer! This is a time of war! Our nation is fighting for its life! Soberly, we demand to know whether Harlem considers itself an American community within the city and the nation or a hotbed of anarchy and revolutionary violence? Soberly, we declare that the blame resides not only among the degenerates, the muggers, the gangsters of the Big Boy Bose ilk but also among those who consider themselves responsible leaders. To these leaders we say: Do you want the present war of liberation to be followed by a second so-called Reconstruction Period of robbery, rapine and ruin? History often repeats itself. Is there not a parallel between recent events in Harlem and the events that transpired after the Civil War? To these Negro leaders we say: Did not your All Harlem Negro Committee, chaired by Councilman Louis Vincent, Negro, and whose exclusive membership includes Negro Republicans, Negro Democrats, Negro American Laborites, and, for all we know, Negro Communists, summon a meeting in Harlem in competition with the huge I Am A Free Man celebration in Central Park held on that very same day? Have not violent leaflets and manifestoes appeared inciting to riot since this defiant meeting? Have not violent and unbridled crimes reminiscent of the so-called Reconstruction Period taken place since that ominous meeting? Stench bombs have been smashed inside white establishments! White storekeepers have been assaulted! White property has been destroyed! A white house of worship has been desecrated! A white girl has been lured to God alone knows where! We ask in all soberness: Is a second Reconstruction Period about to begin in Harlem with every white man a legitimate target for knives? With every white establishment and place of worship a legitimate target for stink bombs and other foul acts? With every white girl an object of bestial lust? These are the large sober issues that confront all decent citizens, Negro Americans as well as white Americans.

“But let us not forget the small in the large. Let us not forget the question we propounded concerning
Suzy Buckles
, this misguided but earnest believer in justice for all men. Let us not forget the mother of
Suzy Buckles
, a widow supported by her only daughter. Every mother in this city and in the nation must grieve for Mrs. Buckles.

“No, let us not forget the small in the large! We demand that the Police Department search every Negro house of prostitution in the city! We demand an end to Harlem’s vice, Harlem’s lawlessness! We demand the right of innocent white girls to be protected from muggers! We demand an end to this present-day Reconstruction Period in Harlem! An end to rebellion! An end to venal Negro politicians and their white venal allies! As God is our witness, we pray that this present-day Reconstruction Period in Harlem not be followed by a retribution that will punish the innocent with the guilty.”

The newspaper dropped out of Bill’s fingers. Why, this was terrific! This wasn’t muggers. This was Hayden’s work. The Harlem Equality League was the same place where Miller had gone to work. This Buckles girl had been kidnapped out of the Harlem Equality League! Almost, Bill visualized the white naked shape of a woman; the shape was huge of breast and hip like the statue of a goddess but unlike a statue it wasn’t made of stone; it was made of flesh, the flesh of a white woman and the newspapers had erected it on the market-place where all the city would come and see. Hayden was clever, Hayden with his strict business, his strict cold turkey business. This kidnapping! There would be promotions in the organization as sure as fate. Smearing that nigger bellyaching bunch! Smearing all the niggers! Who was this Suzy Buckles? Her name was an American name; her grandfather had an American name but she must be a Red to be working for niggers. Serves her right if she was raped!

He tore off his pyjamas and glided, naked, to the closet. He took a blue suit off its hanger, put it on the dresser, pulled open the dresser drawer, fished out a pair of shorts, grabbed and discarded a white shirt with a red pencil line for a light blue shirt. He got into the shorts, whipped the trousers on, zipped up the fly, slid into the shirt. He glanced over at Isabelle. She was sleeping, her face pallid, the soft round hill of her hip under sheet and blanket, the blanket snug under her chin. A blanket, he reflected ironically; New York in May was too cold for the Carreau blue blood. He smiled at her in her sleep. She was like a river flower, he felt, a woman like a river flower, beautiful and perfect and full of river heat. He stared at her, softening inside; a son of hers would be something; the baby might be as blond as his own kid brother, Joe, or dark like Isabelle or a combination. But who the hell wanted a child to tie him down? She was tied to family and to church tight enough as it was. Her family name was still Carreau and not Johnson. Or rather Johnson-Trent. He didn’t even have his own name.