The Ragtime Fool (22 page)

Luella put an arm around her. “Neither do we. Now, I’m going to ask you to help by not saying anything to anyone about our little talk.”

Eileen looked relieved. “Thank you, Mrs. Rohrbaugh. I won’t say a word, I promise.”

Brun looked across the street, at the large colored man lounging against a lamp-post, smoking a cigarette. Gave him the willies. He was starting to imagine things.

***

As Luella and Brun watched Eileen walk off down Broadway, Brun asked, “You think she was telling the truth?”

Luella gave him the fish eye. “I suppose I should be asking you that. Set a thief to catch a thief.”

“Okay, you want it that way, yeah, I think I do believe her. I just hope she ain’t gonna go home and start blabbing to her parents. Girls that age…you know.”

“Yes, I’m afraid I do. But I think her concern for the boy will keep her quiet. Considering what we know now, perhaps we ought to go back to the machine shop, and have another talk with Otto Klein.”

He fell into step beside her.

“Br…Brun?” she stammered.

“What’s that?”

“I need to apologize to you. For that nasty remark about setting a thief. It was uncalled for.”

His laugh came through just a little hollow. “Naw, don’t worry about it. If a shoe fits, you gotta put it on and pay the piper.”

***

As the door to his shop opened, sounding the bell, Otto Klein glanced up, then set down his calipers and gawked. Barton looked like he’d been through a war. Blood all down the right side of his shirt, a mouse just below his hairline on the right, face scratched and bruised. “Jesus, Jerry. What in hell happened to you?”

“I got on the wrong end of a nigger’s stick,” Barton growled.

Klein hustled to the other side of the counter, pulled Barton into a chair. “Sit down, sit down. You’re tellin’ me some nigger did this to you? He ain’t gonna see the light tomorrow, the black bastard.”

Barton looked up at Klein, then winced as he absent-mindedly rubbed the knot on his head. “Otto, shut the fuck up for just a minute, would you? I don’t know who it was. Remember when you came tear-assin’ out back of Armstrong’s? Well, right after you left, I was getting set to persuade the kid to spill where he hid the book, but then all of a sudden, the lights went out. I got just this quick look, a great big nigger. I think the son of a bitch hit me twice.”

“And the kid got away?”

Barton sneered. “No, Otto. He hung around till I woke up, then he brought me a drink and helped me get up so I could start working him over again.”

Klein backed off a step. “Hey, Jerry, no call to be snotty.”

Barton sighed. “When I came to, I was face-down in sticker-bushes. My truck was gone, so I started hikin’ out. About half a mile down the Georgetown road, there’s my truck, off on the side with a flat. And no key.” Barton patted his right pants pocket. “Good thing I always carry an extry. I jacked up the truck, fixed the flat, and here I am. Oh yeah. I stopped home just long enough to pick up another gun.”

Klein opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Barton shouted, “Yeah, Otto. The nigger took my gun, too.”

Klein pounded the counter-top. “Hey, now, it ain’t my fault you screwed up an’ let the kid get away and all.” He pointed toward the back of the shop. “You want to yell at somebody, I got a mirror back in the crapper there.”

Both men froze as the door bell tinkled, and Brun and Luella marched up to the counter. For a moment, everyone just stared. Then, Luella said, “Mr. Barton, you look as if you’ve had an accident.”

Barton grimaced, swallowed hard, then did a half-way job on a smile. “You should see the other guy.”

Klein leaned forward, across the counter. “Can I do something for the both of you? You find that kid all right?”

“No, we didn’t, Mr. Klein, and that’s why we’re here. No one answered the door at your house. I’m quite concerned for the boy.”

Klein shrugged. “Maybe he was sleepin’. Or he didn’t feel like answerin’ the bell. Could be he just took it in his head to run off, who knows? He was a funny kind of kid.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Luella said. “He couldn’t wait to find Mr. Campbell and give him that journal.”

Ice water spread across Klein’s palms. He tried to keep his face calm, his voice level. “Maybe he was just sayin’ he had it. We don’t really know anything about that kid.”

“I can’t help wondering how he happened to be staying at your house, Mr. Klein.”

Barton reacted to the silence. “How he ‘happened to be stayin’ there’ is I took him there. Yesterday. When I came out from havin’ Sunday dinner at the Pacific Café, there was this great big colored guy, got hold of the kid and yellin’ how he better hand over all of his money. So I pulled my gun and ran the coon off. The kid told me he was in town for some kind of celebration or other, and now he was afraid the colored guy might catch him again. If I lived in town, I’d’a taken him home myself, but since I don’t, I stopped by Otto’s, and Otto said sure, the kid could stay there for a couple of days. Okay?”

Klein jabbed a finger toward Luella. “Mrs. Rohrbaugh, that boy ran off from his own home. Jerry and me tried our best to look out for him, but if he took it in his head to run off from here too, we couldn’t help that. It ain’t right, you should talk to us like you’re doin’.”

Butter would melt in his mouth, Luella thought. “Very well, Mr. Klein. If you happen to see the boy, please tell him Mr. Campbell is staying at the Milner. Or, he can come see me.”

“I’ll do that, Mrs. Rohrbaugh. I surely will.”

***

The door had barely closed behind Brun and Luella when Barton said, “Okay, Otto. The room the kid was staying in? That’s where he must’ve hidden the book. When you get home, tear that room apart. We find the book, it’s still gonna be money in our pocket.”

“But how about the kid? If he opens his mouth—”

“We’re dead, that’s what. So we’ve got to make sure he’s dead first. I’ll go on back to where I had him, an’ check in the woods all around. I’ll look all along the Georgetown Road. We gotta get our hands on him before he shows up at the ceremony, that’s for damn sure.”

***

Barton had barely stepped outside when he stopped in his tracks. Old Lady Rohrbaugh and the geezer from California were most of the way to the corner, and there behind them, walking close-in to the buildings, was that giant coon he’d chased off the kid the day before. Barton took off like a flash, ran up behind the big man, spun him around. “You the gutless nigger, snuck up behind me with a stick?” he shouted.

Brun and Luella turned, watched.

Slim gave Barton a steady up-and-down. “Mister, I don’t know what you talkin’ about,” he said. “But if somebody done laid into you with a stick, I sure wouldn’t mind shakin’ his hand.”

Barton’s hand drifted toward his pocket. Slim tensed, clenched a fist.

“Fight! Fight!”

Six schoolboys charged across the street, then stood at the curb, laughing as they waited for the show. Barton glared at them, then lowered his hands. Slim uncocked his fist. “Next time you see me, you better pray there’s people around then, too,” Barton snarled.

Slim did an abrupt about-face. All the way down the street, he felt the white man’s eyes on his back. Casual as he could manage, he nodded at Brun, tipped his hat to Luella. Guess that’s the end of me following after them, he thought. I’ll get me a drink, then go back to Mr. Ireland’s and wait for Alonzo.

Brun squinched his eyes. “I swear I saw that guy out by the school, while we were talking to the girl. He was across the street, smoking a cigarette.”

Luella shook her head. “There’s some very funny business going on here, and I am going to get to the bottom of it.” She set her jaw. “That boy will not get hurt, not if I can help it.”

Brun wondered why she was so concerned about some kid she hardly knew, but he was not about to ask questions.

***

Alan followed Samson Curd out of the little kitchen, into the living room. Almost six o’clock, early-spring sunlight fading. Curd struck a match, lit the coal-oil lamp, settled into a chair, then motioned Alan to sit beside him. Mrs. Curd and Susie, the daughter, stayed in the kitchen to clean up. Alan suspected they knew when the head of the family required privacy, and behaved accordingly.

Curd patted his belly. “Hope you got your fill. I don’t like nobody leavin’ my table hungry.”

“I’m stuffed, thank you,” Alan said. “I couldn’t eat another bite.” Or drink another mouthful of sassafras tea, he thought.

“You ever have possum before?”

Alan shook his head. “No. But I like trying new things. It was good.”

Curd rolled a cigarette, offered it to Alan, who declined politely. Curd smiled, lit up, blew out smoke. “You a clean-living boy, ain’t gonna get no Tee-Bee in you’ lungs. You smarter’n me.”

“I wasn’t so smart I could’ve gotten away from Mr. Barton. On my own, I’d have been dead a long time before you.”

Curd laughed. “You got a pretty good mouth on you.”

“People tell me that.”

“So you come all the way out here ‘cause of Scott Joplin? How you know about Scott Joplin? Not many in Sedalia even do. But a white boy from New York? How you come to be playin’ nigger music?”

“I heard Mr. Campbell play it on a radio program, but that’s not what he called it. I never heard anyone call it that.”

Curd laughed, a real ho-ho-ho. “Must be real different back there. Out here, we got nigger crapper-cans, nigger drinking fountains, nigger movie seats, nigger restaurants, nigger music, nigger everything. You sayin’ that ain’t the way in New York?”

Alan shook his head. “I thought it was only like that in the South.”

“Better have yourself another think. There ain’t worse crackers in Mis’sippi an’ Alabam’ put together than Mr. Barton and Mr. Klein an’ their pals. They’d shoot down a colored man in the woods, then tell the cops they thought he was a deer. Like colored men got these big horns on toppa they heads.” Curd tapped ash into a metal tray. “So, tell me now. That book you carried out here? It’s in Mr. Joplin’s own hand?”

“I guess. It came straight from his widow. It’s got a lot of stuff in it that’s not in
They All Played Ragtime
, which is supposed to be the last word.”

Curd grinned. “There ain’t never no last word, boy, not about anything. Your Mr. Campbell must think that book’s pretty important.”

“He said if he had it, he might be able to get a statue put up in the middle of downtown for Mr. Joplin.”

Curd took a long draw at his cigarette. “Well, maybe he know something I don’t. Put a plaque up in Hubbard High School, nobody gonna complain. But I can’t see no statue for any colored man goin’ up south of Main Street.” Curd paused as he saw the puzzled expression on Alan’s face. “Main Street, that be the dividin’ line in Sedalia. North of Main, they calls Lincolnville. But south of Main, that be for the white. See what I be sayin’?”

Alan felt his face go red. “Yes.”

Curd looked off into the distance. “Not sayin’ Scott Joplin don’t deserve a statue. My daddy used to hear him play, down by the Maple Leaf Club, an’ he told us no matter how much was goin’ on in a room, when Scott Joplin sat down on the piana bench, you could hear a pin drop. Everybody used to say, he one day gonna be King of Ragtime.”

“Did you ever hear him play?”

Curd stubbed his cigarette in the metal tray. “No, to my eternal regret. I was born in oh-one, and by then, Mr. Joplin had moved off to St. Louie. But we all played his music.” Curd nodded in the direction of a battered mahogany upright piano in the far corner of the room. “Daddy never did learn how to play, but he made sure us kids did, not that any one of us was ever any good. We didn’t have much money, but Daddy bought all of Scott Joplin’s tunes, and Arthur Marshall’s and Scott Hayden’s, too, they was Mr. Joplin’s students here.” A sly smile came across Curd’s face; he waggled a finger toward the piano. “It’s all there, in that piana bench. Every piece of ragtime music Scott Joplin ever wrote.”

Alan was halfway to the bench before he remembered his manners. “Could I look?”

“Sure, go right ahead. Why you think I tol’ you? You can even play it if you wants, that is if you can stand for the piana bein’ bad outa tune. We just gotta leave us some time to get a li’l shuteye before we goes out to Mr. Ireland’s. Won’t do to start off tuckered.”

The boy threw back the piano bench lid, and began to leaf, open-mouthed, through the four-inch-thick pile of sheet music. Curd laughed out loud. “Careful, now. Play too much of that nigger music, you just might find you own skin turnin’ black.”

“I wouldn’t care,” Alan shot back.

Curd’s face went grim. “Better watch, boy. Boots that don’t fit right ain’t gonna pinch when you first puts ’em on, but walk a couple miles in ’em and you’re gonna have you some serious pain.”

Chapter Eighteen

Monday, April 16
Early evening

Eileen couldn’t concentrate on her homework. Across the living room, her mother knitted away at a sweater, but not in her usual calm way. Tonight, she jabbed the needles as if the wool had said something to rile her. Her face was a mask, deep grooves between her nose and the corners of her mouth. Eileen had learned long ago to step softly when those tight furrows appeared.

The girl heard a noise on the stairs, turned to see her father coming down. He’d been up there for almost an hour. When Eileen had asked her mother why he was making the guest room a shambles, Mrs. Klein had snapped, “Don’t go looking into other peoples’ business. Nosy Parkers get into trouble.” Eileen was sure it had something to do with Alan and that book of his.

As Klein stomped across the living room, Eileen saw her mother shoot him a silent question. He answered it with a barely-perceptible shake of his head, then walked on, into the kitchen.

As Eileen started to speak, and her mother raised a warning finger, the front door flew open, and Jerry Barton burst into the room, firing wild glances in every direction. “Otto?” Barton bellowed, then even louder, “Otto!”

Eileen screamed. Mrs. Klein dropped her knitting, and jumped from the couch.

Klein tore back in from the kitchen with a bottle of Moerschel’s beer in a death grip. Four people stared at each other. Eileen thought Mr. Barton looked fit to bust. Finally, her father cleared his throat. “Jerry? What the hell’s goin’ on?”

Barton seemed to draw himself together. He nodded toward Mrs. Klein. “Sorry to run in like this, Rowena, but I need to talk to Otto.”

The woman picked up her knitting, then, without a word, started to the kitchen. Partway there, she looked over her shoulder. “Eileen!”

The girl gathered up her book and papers, and followed her mother out. They’d barely gotten into the kitchen when Eileen hissed, “I’m surprised they don’t just snap their fingers and expect we’ll go out like whipped dogs.”

Mrs. Klein set her knitting onto the table. “Hush up, Eileen.” Drawstrings seemed to pull her mouth tight. “Some goings-on, it’s better not to know about.”

***

Klein watched his women disappear into the kitchen, then turned to Barton. “Something go wrong about tomorrow night?”

Barton waved off Klein’s guess. “I was down by Andy’s Tavern, having myself a beer, and who comes in and walks right past me but Alton Whitaker.”

Klein wondered if his friend had gone over the edge. “Yeah? So?”

“Alton Whitaker,” Barton repeated. “With that big, floppy hat he’s always wearing. And then I remembered. I only got a real quick look before I went down, but that nigger who nailed me out by Melvin Armstrong’s had on the exact same kinda hat. All them sassafras trees out there? Hell, Otto, that was Samson Curd, hit me.”

Klein slowly, carefully, set his bottle onto the top of the television set, next to the rabbit ears. “Well, okay, then. So maybe after tomorrow night we could—”

“After tomorrow night, horseshit!” Barton brought a fist down on the TV, setting Klein’s beer into a little dance. “I’m bettin’ you didn’t find that book in the room where the kid was sleepin’, am I right?”

“Well, no, but—”

“I’m also bettin’ Curd’s got the kid out by his place, and probably the journal, too. Maybe the kid has it hid under his shirt. I’m going over there and get it, and while I’m there, I’ll teach both of them a lesson about what happens to a nigger that cold-cocks a white man.”

Klein grabbed at Barton’s sleeve. “Jerry, hold on a minute, huh? I don’t blame you for bein’ sore, but we’re meetin’ the boys in just a few hours. We gotta make damn sure Johnny gets the charge set okay, and we’re square on the alibis. You don’t want to screw up the plans.”

Barton pulled roughly away. “Christ, Otto, you’re such a goddamn old woman. We’re talking about a five-thousand-dollar book, and all you can do is snivel about ‘the plans.’ I’ll be back by eleven, easy, and I’ll have me a pair of nigger ears in my pocket. And if I don’t have that book in my other pocket, I’ll have two ears from offa a white kid instead. Shoot! I was gonna ask if you wanted to come along, but I don’t need you crappin’ your pants and stinkin’ up my truck. I can handle it myself.”

As the door slammed behind Barton, Eileen started to her feet, but her mother reached across the table to restrain the girl. “Just wait a bit,” Mrs. Klein said. “Give him a chance to cool off before we go out there.”

“Mo-ther,” Eileen whispered. “Do you know what they’re up to.”

“No,” said Mrs. Klein. “And furthermore I don’t want to.” She picked up her knitting, then added, “And if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Oh!” Eileen balled both hands into fists, brought them down hard against her thighs. Then she threw the kitchen door open and rushed past her father, up the stairs, into her room.

Mrs. Klein heard the bedroom door slam. She braced herself.

Klein stormed into the kitchen. “What’s going on with that girl? She gives me a look like I just hit her, then runs on up to her room and bangs the door shut so hard they could hear it all the way to Lone Jack. I got a good mind to give her what-for.”

“Don’t, Otto.” Mrs. Klein’s voice was like a violin string. “Teenage girls are flighty sometimes. They can’t help it.”

Klein’s face worked itself into a statement of disgust. “Women. Huh!”

Mrs. Klein tightened her grip on her knitting needles.

***

Eileen threw herself onto her bed and launched a two-fisted attack on her pillow. Eventually, she ran out of steam, then rolled over onto her back, which put her in mind of that boy, Alan. He was so sweet last night, so embarrassed. She smiled. He stood there by the side of the bed for the longest time, just talking, till she finally sat up, took him by the hand, and pulled him into the bed. He said he’d never done anything like that before, and she practically had to tell him how to do it. He wasn’t like any of the other boys. When she was making out with Tim Baker in the back of his car, all he did was take off her brassiere, and then he made a big mess on her skirt, lucky she was wearing dark blue. And that night last summer in the corn-rows with Mark Nelson, she had to keep telling him to be careful, if he ripped her clothes, she was going to have a hell of a time explaining to her parents what happened. Then there was the night she’d left her window open so Lew Gardiner could shinny up the drainpipe to the roof to come into her bedroom. She giggled, remembering how he was in such a hurry, he almost fell, but then he was so rough with her, and he got done almost as soon as he’d started, then laid there like a big lump till she couldn’t breathe and had to push him off. But Alan just fooled around for the longest time, and when she finally told him to go all the way, he said, “You’re sure? You’re sure you want to?” “Yes,” she said. “Please.” But she had to help him get ready, and even when he was inside of her, he took almost forever. She’d never felt anything like that in her life, thought she might go crazy. If he were in the room right now, she’d make him do it again…whoa. Make him?

She sat up. What boy sneaks into a girl’s bedroom in the middle of the night just to say he’s sorry for being rude? She thought it was obvious what he’d really come for, so why did he just stand by her bed, apologizing, till she pulled him in? Oh, she was as stupid as her father, her stupid, stupid father, tearing the guest room apart. But he didn’t find what he was looking for, did he?

The girl jumped to the floor, peered underneath the bed, but aside from a few dust bunnies, nothing. She took a moment to gauge just where Alan had stood, then lifted the edge of the mattress, reached beneath it, came out with a leather-bound book. “Oh, damn you, Alan Chandler,” she muttered, and slammed the journal down onto the bed. “All you came in here for was to hide this stupid journal. Well, all right for you, then.”

The girl took a deep breath, climbed back onto the bed, picked up the book, and started to read.

***

By the unsteady light of the coal-oil lamp in the living room, Alan told Samson and Irma Curd and their daughter Susie about New York City. “Ain’t none of us ever been outa Pettis County in our lives,” Curd said. “I seen pictures of New York, and I can’t believe there really do be places like that on this earth. Them skyscraper buildings…” He shook his head.

“And all them people,” Irma said. “I’d be scared outa my wits.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be scared.” More than a trace of mockery for the old folks in Susie’s voice. “I want to go and see it all for myself. See if I don’t one day.”

Curd laughed gently. “When you be fifteen, you got all kinds of big plans for yourself.”

“Sure, I got big plans. You think I want to live out my days, never settin’ foot outside of Pettis County, Missoura? Times is changed from when you and Mama was young. Now, Mr. Alan, I want to hear about the Empire State Building. Ain’t that supposed to be the biggest building in the world?”

Before Alan could launch into his story about taking an elevator to the observation deck of the Empire State Building, a hundred and two stories up in the air, and looking out over the whole city, Curd put a finger to his lips. “Shh. Listen.”

The room went still. A faint sound caught Alan’s ear. “A motor.”

Curd nodded.

“How did you ever hear that?”

“Be black as me, you keeps your eyes and ears wide open, even when you be sleepin’.” Curd motioned Alan out of the chair. “Come on.”

“Where’re we going?”

“Out to the woodshed. You gonna sit in there for a bit, till we sees what’s what. We don’t usually hear no motorcars out this way, this time of night.”

Alan followed his host out the front door, off the porch, and around the corner. By the light of the lamp, he saw a ramshackle little building next to the house. Curd pulled the door open, then motioned Alan toward a six-foot woodpile to the left. “Get yourself down back there, nobody gonna see you, not ‘less they lookin’ awful hard. Don’t move till I comes for you, hear?”

“Yeah.” Alan started back, tripped over an ax, stumbled behind the woodpile. Curd chuckled, then closed the door.

The boy worked himself into a sitting position, then stared into the darkness. He thought about the music he’d played earlier, out of Curd’s piano bench. “The Cascades,” it was called, and it said on the cover that it had been composed for the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. Alan imagined a piano keyboard before him, and began to move his fingers.

In the back of his mind, he heard the motor draw closer and closer. Then, a car door slammed. A moment later, he heard a shout. “Hey, Curd.” A banging noise. “Open up the door or I’m comin’ in shooting.”

Alan stopped playing, listened hard. No sound. He tried to go back to his keyboard, but it had vanished. He worked saliva around his dry mouth.

***

In the living room, Curd, his wife, and his daughter stood respectfully. Barton ignored the women, zeroed in on Curd. “You was out diggin’ sassafras today, huh?”

“No, sir,” Curd said. “It ain’t quite the right time yet.”

“Oh.” Barton’s face twisted into a sneer. “So I guess you been workin’ somebody’s farm, then. Whose farm you work today? You tell me that, then you and me is gonna go talk to whoever it is.”

Curd shook his head slowly. “Mr. Barton, sir, I wasn’t workin’ on no farm today.” He pointed to the door, still open from Barton’s entry. “I been fixin’ things around the house. Like the door, it done broke itself offa the hinge las’ week. And the roof, lot of the shingles came off in the big storm back in January. You can see, they’s new ones on the back, to the wind side.”

Barton sneered again. “Smart nigger. I bet there’s new shingles back there, but you didn’t just put them on today. ‘Cause today, you was out diggin’ in the woods behind Mr. Armstrong’s, and you found me with a boy there and gave me a good knock on my head. That boy had him a book, and I want it, and I want the boy with it. And I don’t got a lot of time to be foolin’ with you.”

Curd shook his head again. “Mister Barton, please. I ain’t got the littlest idea about no boy and no book. I be sorry for what happened to you, but I don’t know nothin’ about it.”

“You don’t? You’re real sure about that, huh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh. Well, okay, then.” Barton’s tone denied the casual nature of the words. “Maybe I can help you remember.”

He glanced across the room, to where Curd’s hat hung on a nail, just inside the door, then turned a smile on the colored man that congealed the blood in his heart. “Yeah,” Barton said. “That’s the hat you were wearin’.” He grabbed Susie’s arm, pulled her half-off her feet. “Get your dress off, pickaninny. Quick.”

Susie screamed, tried to pull away, but got nowhere. Curd stepped toward Barton, but stopped when the white man pointed a large handgun at him. “Come one step closer, you’re gonna be a nigger with no knees,” Barton growled. He pulled at Susie’s dress once, twice. The third time, the fabric came away in his hand. Susie screamed again, then bent low and crossed her arms in front of her body. Barton turned the gun onto her. “Outa that filthy underwear,” he said. “I don’t want to touch my hands to it, but I will if you make me. Now, Samson, any time you want, you can give me that book and tell me where the kid is. Otherwise, I’m gonna go right on with what I’m doin’.”

***

Susie’s first scream sent Alan scrambling to his feet; the second one mobilized him to the doorway of the shed. Carefully, he worked the door open, then made his way toward the house as if he were crossing a freshly-waxed floor. A small branch cracked under his foot; he stopped, listened. Nothing.

The boy drew a deep breath, then edged around the corner of the house and up to the porch. Crouching low at the foot of the rough wooden stairs, he peered through the open doorway, saw Susie pull a long undergarment up over her head as Barton waved a gun in her direction.

Alan turned away, fury and embarrassment raging through his mind. Back he ran to the shed, grabbed the ax from the floor, hefted it. Bigger than the ones he’d used on camping trips, heavier, a longer handle. Probably a good thing. He hurried back to the porch stairs. Susie was on her knees now, in front of Barton, who held his gun to the side of her head. Barton’s back was to the door. Alan felt dizzy, took a moment to slow his breathing. Then he tiptoed up the three stairs, to the doorway, and into the room.