Harlem Redux (65 page)

“For a while there, it was touch and go. I didn’t eat or drink nothing without my taster.”

“How terrible,” I said, with appropriate horror and sympathy.

At the next break, he talked about his further adventures in Europe. When he was nineteen, he said, the sultan sent him off to an elite finishing school near Lake Geneva, in Switzerland.

“Honey, I couldn’t take that place. I made tracks the minute they weren’t looking. Went to Paris. Got me a nice hookup. Performed at the Moulin Rouge. Would’ve stayed there, too, but a rich uncle came and found me.”

“A rich uncle?”

“Hm-hmmm,” he said, with a perfectly straight face. “He’s dead now. But that’s okay, ‘cause now I’ve got lots of rich uncles.” He gave a wicked wink. “A girl can’t have too many, you know.”

I just had to shake my head. At my expression, Queenie threw his head back and laughed. His shoulders rocked with deep, raunchy amusement. He laughed so hard, tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Oh, shit,” he said, trying to regain control of himself. “I’m ruining my makeup.”

I’ve seen and heard enough to be well beyond what shocks most people. So, it wasn’t Queenie’s stories that got me. It was the obvious pride and conviction with which he told them. People talk about being larger than life, but it usually doesn’t mean a thing. When applied to Queenie, it did. And his tales were as tall as tales can get. Sure, they were hokum. That was obvious, but it was okay. It was more than okay because it would make rip-roaringly good copy.

Back out on in the clubroom, watching him onstage, I mused about his real history. No doubt it was like hundreds of others. He’d been a touring vaudevillian, or had grown up singing gospel in some church down South, then either run away from home or been kicked out. He was a young boy with a pretty face, the kind that would attract certain types of men. Boys like that, out on their own, they get their innocence lost fast. Queenie was no exception.

No doubt, he’d spent years on the circuit, in smaller clubs, dark and dirty. Underworld characters had smoothed his path and a wealthy man or two had taught him to love the finer things in life, men who lived double lives, with women during the day and men at night. Now, Queenie was here, in New York, the big time. It was his chance, and he was going to run with it, milk it for all it was worth. I certainly couldn’t blame him.

Queenie liked to flash a big diamond ring. When he sang, the ring caught the light. It was a lovely yellow diamond, set in yellow gold, surrounded by small white diamonds. I had a good eye for jewelry, but at that distance I couldn’t say whether it was fake. If it
was
real, then it was worth ten times a poor man’s salary. If it wasn’t, then it was a darn good imitation and even imitations like that cost a pretty penny.

“That got a history?” I indicated it when he rejoined me.

He glanced at it, smiled. “Honey, everything about me has a history.”

“Care to tell me this one?”

He fluttered his large hand daintily and held up the ring for a long, loving look. Then he smiled. His golden eyes were very feline. His husky voice just about purred. “Not this time, sugar. But I will, if you do a good piece on me. If you do it right, then I’ll give you exclusive access to Queenie Lovetree. You’ll be my one and only and I won’t share my shit with anyone but y—”

Gunfire exploded behind us. I jumped and Queenie’s eyes widened. Heads swiveled and the music shredded to a discordant halt. Then someone gasped, another screamed and people nearby us started diving under tables.

At first, I wondered why.

But as people scrambled to get out of the way, I could see the club’s bouncer, a man named Charlie Spooner and the coat check girl, Sissy Ralston, unsteadily emerge from the area of the entrance. They wound their way past the tables, coming toward us, their hands held high. Directly behind them, a man emerged from the shadows. He wore a big Stetson, a big black one, pulled down low to cover his eyes, and a long, black trench coat, with a turned-up collar.

It was a very sexy look, but the real eye-catcher was the Tommy gun he held on his hip, his black gloved hands firmly grasping the two pistol grips. It looked real; it looked deadly; and he had the business end of it pressed against Spooner’s spine.

The bouncer was a good guy, a war veteran of the 19th Infantry. He had war medals and was married, with a kid on the way. He’d been on the job six months, had taken it, he told me, because he could find nothing else. Now his olive-toned skin had turned ashen gray; his usually jovial face was tight with fear. He had survived bombs and missiles and landmines overseas. Had he gone through all that to die in a stupid nightclub robbery at home?

I knew the Ralston girl, too. That child couldn’t have been more than sixteen. She was just a kid trying to earn money for her family. Her father had died the year before and her mother was a drinker. Sissy was the sole support for her seven-year-old brother and six-year-old sister.

There they were, the bouncer and the coat check girl, so terrified they could barely put one foot in front of the other.
 

Death march. I flashed on stories my deceased husband had told me about the war, stories of both soldiers and civilians being marched to their execution, of whole villages being lined up against a wall and shot. A chill went through me. I tried to think, tried to get hold of the fear and think.

A million questions shot through my mind.

Was this the result of some bootleggers’ war? Or was it supposed to be a robbery? If so, would he take the money and run? Or was he the type to kill us all just for the fun of it?

He was covered. That meant he wanted to make sure no one saw him. Did that mean that if no one did anything stupid, just gave up the jewels and the wallets and fancy time pieces, he’d let us all live to tell the story?

I looked out over the crowded room, at the white faces peering out of the smoky gloom, and didn’t see a hero among them, thank god.

The gunman shoved Spooner and Ralston to the small open space just before the stage and had them stand side-by-side.

“Everybody, wake up!” he yelled. “Take your seats and show your hands.”

But we were all too scared to move.

“I will count to three and then start shooting — for real. One … two …”

My heartbeat was pounding a hot ninety miles a minute, but my hands and feet felt cold. From the corner of my eye, I saw Queenie slip his right hand under the table. The gunman saw it too. He swung around and leveled his gun on us.

“Bring it out,” he said. “Nice and slow.”

Queenie gave him an insolent look and mouthed the word, “No.”

I was stunned. I’d talked to Queenie long enough to know he thought he could handle anyone and anything, but what the hell was he thinking of? Okay, so he had pride. He didn’t want people to see that he was scared. But this was not the time to act all biggity and try to impress people. He could get us killed.

“Queenie,” I hissed, “do as he says.”

“No.”

The gunman’s lips twitched, but he said nothing. He looked Queenie in the eye, made a slight adjustment in his aim, and squeezed the trigger.

Copper-jacketed pistol rounds erupted from the muzzle in a sheet of flame; a shower of shiny brass cases rained down from the breech. The firepower released with the slightest pressure of the gunman’s finger would’ve been enough to kill five men, much less one.

The stream of bullets ripped a trench in Spooner’s chest. Blood splattered everywhere. The Ralston kid crumpled in a dead faint. People shrieked. Some ducked down again, but others raced for the door. They were screaming, tearing at each other.

“Shut up and get back here!” the gunman swung around and yelled. “Shut up or I’ll mow you down.”

The bouncer looked down at himself, at his ravaged chest. He plastered his big hands over his gaping wounds, as if he could hold in the blood. Then he looked up at me, in mute sadness. He stumbled forward a step and his heart gave out. He sagged to his knees and fell, face down.

The gunman looked up from the dead man and pointed an accusing finger at Queenie. “You!” he said. “You made me do that!”

Queenie had gone gray under his elaborate makeup, gray and speechless. He had finally gotten it. This was not one of his tall tales, where he could play the star. This was real.

“Back to your seats everybody!” the gunman yelled. “Get back in your seats and show your hands. Do it, or I’ll start shooting. And I won’t stop till the job’s done.”

This time, folks moved. They scrambled to get back in place.

The killer turned back to Queenie and me. “Come over here, the both of you, where I can see you.”

We stood up and edged out from around the table, but kept our distance from him.

The gunman was taller than me, but not by much, which made him short for a man. The coat seemed to have padded shoulders, but I had the feeling that he would’ve appeared broad even without them, that he was built like a quarterback, muscular and stocky.

For the most part, he’d successfully masked his face, but part of it showed above the mask. His eyes had a distinctive almond shape and they were light-colored: blue or gray, I couldn’t be sure. The band of skin showing over the bridge of his nose, it was light, too. In other words, this was a white guy. Last, but not least, I detected an accent. European, northern European, perhaps. So, not just any white guy, but a
European
white guy. He’d sure traveled a long way to cause trouble.

“Now, you,” he told Queenie, “take the heater out or she’s next.” He pointed the gun at me.

I half-turned to Queenie to see what he’d do.
Please, don’t do anything stupid.

Queenie slipped his hand through the slit of his dress. And lingered there.

He was going to try something dumb, like shoot from down there. I could see it in his eyes.

Don’t do it. Don’t do it.

Queenie looked at me and I looked at him. If he pulled a dumb stunt like that and I managed to survive, then I was going to kill him myself. That’s what I was thinking and that’s what I put in my eyes.

I guess he got the message.

He eased out with a small black handgun and aimed it downward. My lungs expanded and I inhaled big gobs of sweet relief.

“Put it on the floor and kick it over here,” the gunman said.

Queenie did as told. He kept his eye on the submachine gun the whole time. I still didn’t trust Queenie not to try something and I guess Mr. Tommy Gun didn’t either, so I understood why he was keeping his weapon trained, but I was beginning to wonder why he was training it on me.

“Get over here.” The gunman indicated the space right before him.

Queenie glanced at me. His eyes held doubt, fear and resentment.

“Do what he says,” I whispered. “Please. Just do it.”

“Come on,” the gunman growled.

Queenie’s gaze returned to the gunman. Stone-faced, he held up his gown, then stepped delicately and ladylike over Spooner’s body. He stood before the gunman, chest heaving, eyes narrowed and said with tremulous bravado, “Well?”

The gunman slapped him. He was half a head shorter than Queenie, but wide and solid. Queenie swayed under the blow but didn’t stumble. He seemed more stunned than anything. His hand went to his lip and came back bloodied. His jaw dropped in alarm.

 
“My face! You piece of shit! You hurt my face!”

The gunman slapped him again. This time Queenie went down. He tripped backward over Spooner and landed on the floor in a pool of blood. He screeched at the blood, scrambled away from the body, and got to his feet. Blood smeared his hands and dress. From the look on his face, he had finally gotten the message.