Black Orchid Blues (6 page)

Lucien bit back his impatience and took a breath. “It became very clear to me early on that he had another life, and that he wanted to keep the two of them apart.”

“Really? Maybe we should start at the beginning. Just how did you find him?”

“This is not the best place to talk.”

“Oh, I think it’s the perfect place.” I perched on the edge of the vanity, making it clear that I wasn’t going anywhere.

He wasn’t happy about it, but he apparently decided that cooperation was the fastest way of getting me out of there.

“All right,” he said. “The fact is, I did not find him. He found me. He just walked in one night. It was last August. I had never seen him before. I told him I didn’t need a new singer, that I was doing quite well with the one I had. He asked, ‘Is
quite well
good enough for you?’ I thought he was arrogant, but there was something about him.
Un certain je ne sais quoi.
Let’s say I liked his guts. Furthermore, I could not make him leave. He would not go until I agreed to audition him.”

He shrugged, made an open-palm gesture. “
Eh bien.
The rest, we know. He was dynamite. I wanted him and I did a bad job of hiding it. We haggled. He demanded a greater cut than I had ever given anyone.
Non,
I said. No way. Then he looked at me and said, ‘We will see, sugar. We will see.’ Those were his very words, and sure enough, I saw.”

“Saw what?”

“The people. The crowds he brought in. It was not just the numbers, but the
kind
of people, real spenders, night after night. I was hooked. I gave in. He was worth it.”

I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes. It was time to shake him up a bit. “Are you lovers?”

He blinked
“Quoi?”

“You heard me.”

He straightened up, indignant. “It is none of your business,
mais non
.”

I studied him for a moment, then decided to believe him. “Did the police ask you that?”

“They were too well-bred, a tendency you obviously do not share.”

“Absolutely not.” My gaze drifted back over the costumes. “Queenie replaced Morgana, right?”

“Morgana had nothing to do with this.”

“How do you know?”

“I … simply do.”

I could still hear Morgana out there performing. He was singing an up-beat number with determination. Hoping to get his gig back. Hoping that Queenie would stay gone. Or was it more than hope? Was it certainty? Had he helped make Queenie disappear?

But if Morgana were behind the kidnapping, a ransom note would have been on Lucien’s desk by now. Morgana would’ve made that a major part of his plan, even if that plan didn’t include Queenie’s return.

“Who do you think did it?” I asked Lucien. “You must have a theory.”

He started to say something, then hesitated.

“Lucien?” I said. “Do you know something?”

He shook his head. “I—” He broke off to go to the dressing room door. He cracked it open, peeped out to see if anyone was in the area, and shut it. Then he came back and spoke in a hushed voice. “What I tell you now, I did not tell the police, but it is nothing for you to print.”

I regarded him sideways, doubtful but willing to hear him out. “Okaaay.”

“He was not taken for the money.”

“No?”

“
Non
. Big Frenchy DeMange: you know of him?”

“Of course.” DeMange ran the Cotton Club for Owney Madden, a mobster who’d made a fortune in bootleg whiskey and speakeasies. The entertainment at the Cotton Club was all black, light-skinned black to be sure, but black nonetheless, and the patronage was all white. “What about him?”

“He wants my Queenie. He has been trying to talk to him.”

It was my turn to be stunned. “How do you know?”

“Queenie told me.”

“And you believed him?”

“Of course.”

It might’ve been true. It might’ve been a lie too. Queenie could have been trying to boost his worth by claiming he had options. I wouldn’t have put it past him.

Outside, in the clubroom, Morgana finished with a flourish. The crowd responded with tepid applause.

“Was Queenie interested?” I asked.

Lucien shook his head. “He said he’d never work in a place like that, one that put colored people on display, like in a zoo. His words, not mine. He would not work for people who would not let Negroes come in, sit down, and enjoy themselves. And when he said it, he was angry. That is why I believed him. He was furious and I think he meant it.”

Hmm. Social awareness: Queenie had many good qualities, I was sure. But social awareness? The Queenie I’d interviewed had shown no interest in civil rights or a willingness toward self-sacrifice. More like an overweening sense of self-absorption.

Would someone like that really give up a chance to perform at the Cotton Club? Being on stage there told the world that you were top-drawer. It meant performing before some of the richest, most influential people in all of New York City.

And let’s not forget the financial aspects of such a gig. Queenie’s pay at the Cinnamon Club probably wasn’t bad but, despite what Fawkes said, it couldn’t have been the best, either. It was certainly a far cry from what he would’ve been getting at the Cotton Club.

Prestige. Money. I couldn’t imagine Queenie turning down either. Nor could I imagine DeMange being so desperate for performers that he’d resort to kidnapping one.

“You really think DeMange is behind this?”

“Maybe not. But it could be someone who wants to get in good with him. And there are others, some who don’t just want Queenie, they want this place. But mostly, it’s Queenie. One of them told me—only last week he said it—that if Queenie wouldn’t work for him, he would make sure he didn’t work for anybo—”

The dressing room door opened and Morgana strutted in. He stopped at the sight of the chaos. “What the hell?” His gaze moved between Lucien and me. “Did she do this?” he asked Lucien.

“Of course not,” Lucien snapped.

“Well, whoever did, they better not have stolen nothing.”

“This is not your place anymore,” Lucien said. “There is nothing of yours in here to steal. You’re only using the place while … until Queenie comes back.”

Fuck you,
Morgana said with his eyes.

“Have time to talk?” I asked.

“Not really.”

“You can talk to her after your next set,” Lucien told Morgana.

“Fine,” Morgana said. “Until then, you can get the hell out.”

“Tell you what,” I said. “You’re on break now, right?”

Morgana nodded.

“Why don’t you rest while I straighten up?” I suggested.

“You mean, act like you’re my maid or something?”

“That’s right. What d’you say?”

Morgana threw a glance at Lucien, who said nothing. The singer gave me a cold smile. “All right, sister. Start working.”

C
HAPTER
9

L
ucien left us alone. Morgana sat at the vanity, retouching his makeup before the mirror. I tried to make quick order out of the mélange of tossed dresses, hats, playbills, and knickknacks. Morgana kept a wary eye on my reflected image, while patting his face with powder. He was indignant that I would even imply that he had a hand in the kidnapping.

“I didn’t have nothing to do with that shit. I can’t stand that bitch and yes, I would’ve been happy to get rid of her, but I saw pretty early on that I wasn’t going to have to do nothing.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, I could see that somebody else was gonna do her.”

“Which somebody?” I paused in the housekeeping, my arms full of feather boas.

Morgana arched one overplucked eyebrow. “Why should I tell you?”

I put down the boas, came up behind Morgana, and whispered in his ear: “Because if you don’t, I might drop a dime that you wanted to see Queenie disappear.”

He nearly let go of his powder puff. “You wouldn’t.”

“Oh, but I would.”

It was a weak threat, and I didn’t think Morgana would go for it. I was wrong.

“Damn.” He sucked his teeth and rolled his eyes. “I knew this maid act of yours was too damn good to be true.”

“Come on. Spill.”

He blew out a big irritated sigh. “All right, but … you won’t tell anyone where you got this, will you?”

“Not if my life depended on it.”

“Well, sister, mine does. You dig?”

I nodded.

He pressed his lips together, reluctance oozing from every pore. “I seen her with this goon. Don’t know his name. Just heard that he knocks heads for a living.”

“For who?”

He shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

“Morgana—”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you describe him?”

“Not too well.”

At my clearly cynical expression, he twisted round to face me. “Look, I’ve only been here once in the past six months, only once since that bitch had me thrown out, and that’s when I saw him.” He held up a large index finger. “That one time. All I remember is that he’s a big guy, built short and wide, like a bulldog. Had real broad shoulders.”

I tensed. “White? Black?”

“White. Had light-colored eyes too. Can’t say what color exactly, but they were light all right.”

I kept my voice even. “When was this?”

“’Bout a month ago. He slammed Queenie up against a wall and it wasn’t pretty. I just happened to be walking by. I thought he was going to break her neck, right then and there.”

“What did you do?”

“What do you think? I kept on walking.”

C
HAPTER
10

T
hings would change a few years later, but back then, if you were gay and into the scene, you had a lot of Harlem nightspots to choose from. The crowd that danced at one place partied later at another. There was 267, for example, over on West 136th Street, and Edmond’s Cellar on West 132nd and Fifth Avenue. There was the Yeahman and the Garden of Joy. There was Lulu Bell’s on Lenox near 127th and buffet flats like Hazel Valentine’s Daisy Chain on 140th.

The Daisy Chain was also known as the 101 Ranch. It had a chorus of men who would come out and dance, dressed in the best of women’s finery. It was at the 101 that they came up with the Shim Sham Shimmy. That dance just took off. At one point, everybody was doing it.

People knew about these places mostly by word of mouth. If you were gay, then Greenwich Village or Harlem were it, baby. The churches in Harlem weren’t too tolerant, but the community as a whole mostly looked the other way. Of course, gays were discreet. Like Richard Bruce Nugent used to say, people didn’t shout their business from the rooftops. They just did what they wanted to do. Nobody was in the closet.

If they had been, then that closet would have been mighty crowded, cause a whole lot of Harlem’s best and brightest were gay or bisexual. There was Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Alain Locke, and Wallace Thurman. There was the aforementioned Richard. Some would’ve put Langston Hughes on the list. Both men and women were in love with him. He just never let himself be seen with anybody and kept them all guessing. He was a beautiful, talented enigma.

The women were loving each other too. Bessie Smith, Alberta Hunter, Jackie “Moms” Mabley, Mabel Hampton, Ma Rainey, and Ethel Waters: they all enjoyed female loving. I remember when Ma Rainey kept getting into trouble for making it with women. Back in ’25, police cuffed her. Said she’d been having an orgy at home with women from her own chorus. Bessie had to bail her out.

You can’t mention the scene without mentioning Gladys Bentley. That sister was two hundred and fifty pounds of gutsy talent. She used to get dressed up in a white tuxedo and top hat. Bentley was the heart and soul of the Clambake, a popular place for people “in the life.” Like Queenie, Bentley was known for belting out double-entendre lyrics. She counted Tallulah Bankhead, Beatrice Lillie, Jeanne Eagels, Marilyn Miller, Princess Murat, Libby Holman, and Louisa Carpenter du Pont Jenney among her most fer-vent admirers.

You could say I had a little black book in my head of people who were in the life. I went through it now, trying to think of who else I could talk to.

There was Casca Bonds and Alexander Gumby. Casca ran house parties and Gumby did too, Gumby’s being more like a literary salon that drew a certain crowd. Either one might’ve had the information I needed, but I was short on time and preferred a safer bet.

And that was Jack-a-Lee’s.

Jack-a-Lee’s party palace was in a class all by itself. It was essentially a brownstone on West 125th. The place was so infamous that Fats Waller and Count Basie wrote about it. Jack-a-Lee had a private party going on in every room, gangbangs and wife swapping, women pleasing each other and men working each other’s pump. Anyone who wanted to could join in. As for drinking, Prohibition be damned, the liquor flowed. The folks poured gin out of milk pitchers,
crystal
milk pitchers, and smoked reefer like there was no tomorrow.

I got there just after midnight. From the outside, if your nose was sensitive, you could catch the whiff of something forbidden in the air, but all you could see were shadows moving behind heavily curtained windows. Once up the front steps and inside the door, you passed through a little vestibule and paid your fee. Then you were in a hallway. Turn right for the crowd; go straight up the stairs for private action. I turned right.

The party was in full swing. The air was hot and sticky. It reeked of sex, smoke, and booze. A piano player was pounding the ivories. Rouged men in flapper wigs and fringed dresses shimmied and shook. They were grinding each other, tonguing each other, and doing standing up what most folks do lying down.

No hypocrisy here. Violence, drugs, and liquor? Yes. But hypocrisy? No. And that was a relief after some of the stuffy society gatherings I often attended. I felt absolutely at ease with this crowd. Here, among all the costumes and flamboyant fakery, I still felt a greater sense of honesty than I did at a lot of the buttoned-up gatherings I wrote about.

I pushed my way into the packed parlor room. Eyes on every side gave me the once-over. Many in that thick, sweaty crowd knew me. They recognized me from mainstream parties, rent parties, social soirees, or the photo that accompanied my column.