Black Orchid Blues (3 page)

I could refuse or cooperate. If I refused, then he’d probably shoot me and cuff Queenie himself—or worse, shoot someone else. If I went along and bided my time, there was some hope I’d survive and that everyone else would too.

Everyone, but maybe not Queenie.

“Well,” the gunman said, “who should I shoot next?” He glanced down at the Ralston girl, still unconscious on the floor. “How about her?” He turned his gun, took aim.

“No!” I pulled Queenie’s hands behind his back and slipped on the handcuffs.

He flinched at the touch of cold metal. “Please, no, Slim. You—”

“It’ll be all right,” I said, trying hard to sound calm.

I snapped the cuffs shut, and when the gunman ordered me to step back, I did.

He made Queenie stand next to him and checked the cuffs. “Good.” Then he grabbed Queenie and started backing out. He slinked to the rear exit, backstage left, and kept the singer in front as a shield.

Queenie panicked. “Oh come on now, people! Y’all ain’t gonna let him take me like this, are you? Somebody do something. Please!”

People stayed frozen to their seats. No one was willing to play the hero. Not in the face of that weapon.

Queenie’s eyes met mine. “You! Slim, you—!”

The whine of police sirens rang through the air. The cops were probably headed to another emergency, but the killer assumed the worst. He pushed Queenie aside and sprayed the room with gunfire. All hell broke loose. People stampeded toward the door. Wall sconces exploded. The room fell dark. Plaster and dust showered down.

I heard screams. I heard cries. I dove under a table and covered my head. Bullets ripped up the floor two inches from my face. I couldn’t believe they didn’t touch me.

“Motherfucker! Get your hands off me!” Queenie cried.

I heard the back door bang open. I heard a scuffle and a scream. Then the door slammed shut and all I heard was the heavy thumping of my terrified heart.

C
HAPTER
2

F
ive seconds went by. Five eternal seconds. I counted them down.
One one-hundred. Two one-hundred. Three one-hundred. Four …
I was still trembling from head to toe, but my breathing was approaching normal. The police sirens were getting louder and I finally crawled out from under the table.

Despite the shadows, I could detail the destruction. The bullets had torn open bodies as well as furniture. Four people lay sprawled over their tables or slumped in their booths. Blood and shattered glass covered everything. The air was thick with gun smoke.

Now others emerged from their hiding places. Stunned patrons staggered to their feet. The musicians, who had flattened themselves on the floor, slowly straightened up. The sirens drew nearer.

I couldn’t risk being found here. If I were spotted, I’d end up at the police station instead of the newsroom, where I needed to be, writing my story.

It was colder than a mother-in-law’s kiss outside. I was wearing a thin black cocktail dress with lace at the shoulders and hemline. Sexy as all get-out, but no protection against the cold. I needed my hat and coat, but they were at the check-in. I couldn’t risk going back over there.

I felt around for my purse, found it on the seat, and made for the back exit. I pushed open the door and gasped at the sudden rush of frosty air. I stumbled outside, shivering, and took a moment to get my bearings. It was well after midnight and the only light came from the stars above. The city landscape seemed foreign, filled with shadows I could barely identify. Garbage, milk crates.

If Queenie’s body had been at my feet, I would’ve stumbled over it before I saw it.

Pressing myself against the side of the building, I moved swiftly toward the street. Snow and ice blanketed the ground. The wind pierced me to the bone and I shivered from head to toe. I could hear the rumble of curious and confused voices. I could see the flashing beams of a patrol car. I made it to the corner, ducked down, and peeped around the edge.

The first cop car screeched to a halt in front of the buildings. So those sirens
had
been for us. Who called the coppers? Maybe one of the waiters.

A crowd had gathered and the folks who’d been on the inside were starting to stumble out. The bulls pushed their way through and seconds later ran back out. Soon, there would be more cops and then detectives and they would have questions.

My car was parked half a block away. Earlier, I had been annoyed at not finding a space closer to the club. Now I was grateful. I had a better chance of reaching it on foot and driving away unnoticed than of trying to start it up right there.

So I hustled off, teeth chattering, and remained well behind the crowd. My luck held. No one noticed and no one called out my name.

I paused at a pay phone and rang Sam Delaney, my editor. He answered on the first ring. I could imagine his face, his dark eyes, his strong hands, as he gripped the phone.

“Lanie? Where are you? I just heard over the police band. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Sam. Fine.” I told him the details and dictated the setup for the story.

“You coming in?” he asked.

“I’m on my way.”

I hung up, shivered and rubbed my upper arms, then hopped into my car. Sam would phone downstairs and tell the guys to hold the presses. Then he would start writing the story. By the time I got there, he would have all the basic stuff down.

I made myself focus on the story. Set all emotions aside. There was no time for them. No time to feel anything. That would came later, but right then and there, I didn’t want to feel anything, anyway. I wanted the comfort of detachment and reason.

Sam was the only one in the newsroom when I arrived. The place was as silent as a tomb. During the day, it was a human beehive. You heard typewriters clacking, phones jangling, and radios blaring. You heard the wire service printers thumping out endless reams of print and the
whomp
of the pneumatic tubes shooting final edits down to the typesetters. In short, it was so loud the noise hit you like a wall when you walked in.

But in the evenings, the newsroom was deserted and the heavy silence had a tangibility of its own. Normally, you would’ve at least heard the rumble of the printers downstairs. But that night they were paused and waiting for the story of the Black Orchid kidnapping and the Cinnamon Club massacre.

Sam waved me into his office, the man-sized fish tank that sat at the far side of the newsroom. He was as handsome as always, and impeccably dressed. He wore a blue-gray shirt and a finely printed dark blue silk tie under a gray vest. He was at his typewriter, pounding the keys with a viciously accurate two-fingered hunt and peck. I tossed my purse into a chair and started reading over his shoulder.

I double-checked what he’d written, suggesting where to add color and detail. Then we switched seats and it was he who edited over my shoulder, smoothing phrases, rounding out sentences, making the copy strong, the telling swift and neat.

I couldn’t have worked this way with everyone. Sam was a wonderful editor, one of the best. He wasn’t just your advocate, but the advocate for your story. He helped untangle complicated ideas and pushed you to think of new angles. He saw potential, both in you and your piece. He was patient; he was funny. He was smart and he was kind. He was also the first man I’d dared to care about in the three years since my husband died.

Hamp had collapsed on a Seventh Avenue street corner, not ten blocks from our home. At thirty-seven years of age, he’d died of a heart attack. It came without warning, just one day out of the blue, like a hammer from the heavens, and he was gone.

Hamp’s passing had not only broken my heart, but left me terrified to love again. I hadn’t realized how much until Sam took over the newsroom. Now I was learning bit by precious bit to stop using grief as a wall against future pain and disappointment.

As Sam leaned over my shoulder, his clean male smell filling my nostrils, I felt a surge of joy, a terrified joy. I could’ve been one of the unlucky ones. It could’ve been me who caught a bullet and was on my way to the morgue. It could’ve been me who was stretched out with a tag on one toe. Instead, I was alive and here in my newsroom with Sam.

“He was jumpy,” I said of the killer. “Shot up the place for no reason.”

“Sounds like an amateur.”

His office phone rang and he snatched up the receiver. From his side of the conversation, I gathered that it was the typesetter wanting to know how much longer we’d be. I glanced at the wall clock. We had another five minutes, tops, to get the story done. The whole paper was on hold. An entire crew was waiting.

But that’s not what worried me.

Sam hung up. Over the next four minutes, we checked the copy once more, and I took comfort in his nearness as he read along with me.

“That last paragraph,” he said, “it—”

Outside Sam’s office, the main newsroom door banged open. I looked up and saw the source of my worry stride in. Detective John Blackie. I knew him from when I covered crime for the
Harlem Age.
Now I worked for the
Chronicle
, but our paths still crossed, because every now and then my writing about highbrow Harlem meant writing about highbrow crime.

“Sam, you might have to finish this without me.”

He didn’t answer.

Blackie rapped sharply on Sam’s office door, but didn’t wait for an invite. He stepped inside, saw what we were up to, and said, “I hope you’re done with that, Lanie, cause I’m gonna need you to come with me.”

“Give me just a minute.”

He shook his head. “Sorry, it can’t wait. I got a boatload of witnesses who say you were there tonight, at the Cinnamon Club. You saw the whole thing.”

“Sure I did, but what about the witnesses? They weren’t just looking at me.”

“None of them got as close to the shooter as you did.”

“What about the Ralston girl? She stood right next to him.”

“Are you kidding? The poor kid’s scared witless. She can barely remember her own name.”

There was no use in arguing. I glanced at Sam.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll finish up here, then I’ll join you.”

“No need for that,” Blackie said. Then he saw the look in Sam’s eyes. “All right, but don’t expect me to wait till you get there.”

I picked up my purse and went to Blackie, my reluctance obvious.

“Where’s your coat?” Sam asked.

“You ran out and left it, didn’t you?” Blackie said.

Sam took his coat down from the rack and draped it around my shoulders. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of your baby here.” He nodded at the type-written pages. “Then I’ll come to the station, make sure everything’s going all right.”

C
HAPTER
3

T
he precinct house was one block east of the newspaper office, a brisk five-minute walk in the freezing cold. The station was usually quiet at that hour—it was around two—but on that night, it was abuzz. Reporters, photographers, the curious, and the worried crowded the front entrance, held back by stressed uniforms.

Blackie kept a firm grip on my upper arm. He pushed and shoved and barked orders, cutting his way through. “Move, people! Move!”

Those forced aside regarded me with interest, bewilderment, and envy. “Hey, why does she get to go in?” one reporter yelled out. I knew most of these fellows and was on good terms with many of them. But professional friendliness can evaporate in the heat of competition. Some of them looked about ready to throttle me.

Then I was through the crowd, up the steps, and into the clubhouse.

Inside was more nervous, agitated, fearful humanity. There were a number of people who’d been at the Cinnamon Club. Their faces were scraped, their clothes dusty and bloodied. They sat on benches, some in shock, some alone, some comforted by others who argued with officers about needing to get their loved ones home. And there were cops, cops everywhere. I’d never seen so many outside the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

Blackie guided me through it all. He took me down an ugly corridor to an even uglier back room. He left me there, “just for a minute,” and hustled off.

The closing of the door left a sudden quiet. It was a small room with three chairs and a desk. There were no windows, just walls, and they were bare and dirty. A bare bulb hung from the ceiling. The place was a closet, tight and claustrophobic. It made me feel like a crook, as though I’d done something wrong.

I took a deep shuddering breath. I wrung my hands, folded them over one another, and then wrung them again. I fumbled in my bag for a cigarette, but remembered that I hadn’t brought any. Sometimes I carried them for social events, when smoking was expected. It was one of those things that sophisticated people were supposed to do: smoke. But I’d never liked cigarettes, never enjoyed their bitter aftertaste, and they’d certainly never calmed me.

The “minute” passed and Blackie wasn’t back.

It was chilly inside the room. I was grateful for Sam’s coat and hoped he wouldn’t catch cold, running down to the station without it. Hugging myself and rubbing my upper arms, I paced back and forth. What a miserable night, and it was far from over.

The door opened and Blackie walked in, followed by a young woman. She was in her mid-twenties, had dark blond hair parted to one side, dark brown eyes, and wire-frame spectacles. She wore a dark blue shift and carried a thin pad and pencil. A stenographer.

Blackie introduced us, then we all sat down. When he offered me a cigarette, I shook my head and said, “Let’s get on with it.”

So began a grueling hour and a half. Under questioning, I gave a statement, repeated it, and repeated it again.

“A caper like this,” Blackie said, “it must’ve taken two people. One in the club, another with the getaway car. Did you see anybody else?”

I shook my head. “No.”

After Blackie was done, another detective came in—I didn’t catch his name—and he had questions too. Some Blackie had asked; others were brand new. Most I didn’t have answers to.

Eventually, I was taken to another room. There I sat with a police artist and tried my best to supply details I didn’t have but they desperately needed.