The King of Ragtime Read online

  She thought her father was going to launch a debate, but he just swallowed, then muttered, “I suppose that does make sense.”

  Nell walked to the piano. Joplin played a musical fragment, scratched notes on paper. “Scott…Scott. Time to quit for the day.”

  He looked up, annoyed, but before he could speak, Nell said, “Joe’s got to get some sleep, and you ought to do the same. A little rest, and then you’ll both be ready to go to work in the morning.” She pulled at his arm. “Come on, now. I’ll get you comfortable before I leave.”

  As they disappeared into the guest room, Stark turned back to Martin. “As for you, young fellow, you will stay here and behave yourself until one of us tells you to do otherwise. You will not leave, not for anything, not for a minute. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, sir. I really am sorry. I just wanted to do something for Mr. Joplin”

  “I understand, and that is commendable. But we can’t all be going off on our own, chasing whims without thinking through the consequences. You and your strong-arm man have made matters considerably more complicated.” A smile blasted through the old man’s defenses, spread across his face. “Though I do confess, I would have given a fair sum of money to have witnessed that scene. But nonetheless, you will not go off on your own again.”

  “I won’t, sir.”

  ***

  “God damn it.” Berlin threw his pencil across the room. “After something like that, how the hell am I supposed to concentrate on writing music?”

  Cliff Hess, sitting next to his boss on the piano bench, knew no answer was required or even desired. He gave Berlin a sympathetic nod.

  Berlin ran fingers savagely through his hair. “Damn Joplin, that soft-headed fool. He must be telling everyone in New York that he gave me his music and I’m trying to make off with it. Sure, the man is sick, but when somebody puts an enforcer on you, you don’t feel real charitable. I’m supposed to hand Joplin a contract and print up his music and sell it, very funny. I’m surprised they didn’t say they wanted a provision for ten full-time pluggers. Jesus Christ, if Ziegfeld sees what I’ve got written so far, he’ll probably fire me, and I’ll be yesterday’s news. What in hell am I supposed to do?”

  Now, Hess knew an answer was in order. “You don’t want to call the police?”

  “Cliff, Cliff…”

  The sight of his twenty-eight-year-old boss playing the jaded man of the world amused Hess no end, but he kept a solemn expression firmly in place.

  “Get on the wrong side of these people, there’s only one way you get out, and that’s in a body bag. For those guys, it’s just business. Let somebody off a hook, it makes it tougher to enforce the next one. And how about that kid who got himself killed in my office? Maybe he got in their way somehow, maybe he wanted a piece of the action, who knows, and Niederhoffer’s muscle took care of him. No, Cliff, I’m stuck. I’ve got to figure some way around this. What I can’t figure is who’s really behind it. Joplin doesn’t have the money to hire a hit man.”

  Hess held up a finger, Eureka. “He might have told them he had money. Maybe he even believes it himself.”

  Berlin looked far from convinced. “The goon said somebody else is behind all this, somebody I really don’t want to get sore at me…Cliff, wait. I bet I know.”

  Hess waited.

  “That old man from St. Louis, Stark. He blows into town and all hell breaks loose. People come out of the woodwork about this musical of Joplin’s. Stark’s got a bug up his ass when it comes to ragtime. His ads read like something he copied out of the Bible. I can just hear him, preaching to that gorilla how he’s on some kind of a holy mission. I told you about the way he talked to me earlier tonight.”

  Hess nodded, glanced at the clean sheet of music paper on the piano rack. “Yeah…he does sound pretty straight-backed.”

  “So I guess what I got to do is have a talk with Stark, and find out what it’d take to get him off my back and on his way to St. Lou.” Berlin jumped from the piano bench like he’d been goosed, ran out of the room, came back a few minutes later, holding a small white card out to Hess. “He said I should call him if I came up with any information, which was probably his way of telling me what was gonna go down if I didn’t come across. You call him for me in the morning, Cliff, okay? Tell him I want to talk to him, maybe about one o’clock…no, wait. I got that woman from Dramatic Mirror coming at one, damn it. I’ll make it fast with her. Tell Stark to come, say, a quarter till two.”

  Hess nodded. “Sure.”

  Izzy’s harsh, clipped words broke through into Berlin’s consciousness. “You better be ready to talk turkey to him. Try and sweet-talk a guy like that, he’ll eat you for breakfast.”

  Berlin’s rising tide of hopeful enthusiasm washed away Izzy’s rant. “I’ll talk to him straight, all right,” the composer murmured, then marched across the room, grabbed up his pencil, and ran back to the piano. “Okay, Cliff. Just look over this ‘Chicken Walk’ with me. I don’t know how in hell you’re going to make it work, I just know you will. Then you can go get some shut-eye, and I’ll put in some more time by myself on ‘Alice in Wonderland.’”

  Chapter Eight

  Manhattan

  Thursday, August 24

  Morning

  John Stark struggles to keep the pistol in his right hand from pulling him over and down to the ground. He stares at the fifteen-year-old colored boy, half-crouched across the clearing. “I ain’t gonna tell no one.” The boy’s voice is strangled, pitched high as a woman’s. “Honest. I won’t be sayin’ nothin’. Please Mr. Yank, don’t shoot me.”

  From Stark’s left, a harsh growl. “Gol’ damn your eyes, you rabbit-hearted bugler. I’m your commanding officer, and I gave you an order to shoot him. Now, shoot.”

  Stark turns his gaze toward the voice. “But he saved our whole regiment, sir. We’d have been ambushed, every one of us killed, if he hadn’t told us there were rebs hiding behind that knoll.”

  The solidly-built man in the uniform of a Union Army lieutenant leers at him, dark eyes heavy with contempt, thin lips twisted in scorn. “This is war, Stark. We can’t go marching back into Mobile Bay with a colored boy in our ranks. We’d have riots. And you can bet your sorry life there are more of those renegades around. If they get their hands on this kid, they’ll give him treatment that even a white man’d have trouble keeping shut through. Now, either you shoot him or I will, and then you can go before a court-martial for insubordination and refusing an officer’s command.”

  Stark raises the pistol. The colored boy chokes back a scream as the bugler tightens a finger on the trigger. “Sarah,” he pleads to the scowling girl beside him. “I’ve got to do it.” Her glower only deepens. Stark closes his eyes a moment, takes aim. Then he pulls the trigger.

  The explosion blended with an unearthly shriek to bring Stark up sitting in bed, clutching at his chest, his breath coming in gasps. The bedroom door swung open, banged against the wall. Nell, in her nightgown and flannel bathrobe, hair flying around her face, tore into the room. “Dad, are you all right?”

  The image of Sarah. Stark fought to calm himself, nodded. “Yes.”

  “You had that dream again.”

  “Again?”

  “Yes, again. You’ve been having it as long as I can remember. What on earth is it about?”

  “Nell, for heaven’s sake, I had a bad dream, that’s all. I’m sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep.”

  She turned and left the room, slamming the door behind her. Stark took a couple of deep breaths, then looked around. Early daylight. The little round alarm clock on the bedside table read a few minutes before six. The old man worked his legs over the side of the bed, got to his feet and into slippers, then shuffled out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom, where he stood over the toilet and relieved himself in his usual slow, intermittent manner, damn that stupid prostate gland. Then he walked back to the bedroom and lay sleepless until the
alarm bell went off at seven-thirty.

  ***

  The morning sun through the window bathed Stark and Nell in a golden glow. The old man sat at the table and sipped coffee; his daughter stood at the stove, stirring a pot of gravy. Neither spoke. He knew what was coming, and as they sat down to eat, it came. “Dad, whatever is that dream about? That it should bother you so much for all these years?”

  Stark shook his head. “Not worth discussing. It’s a dream, that’s all, just a bit of foolishness.”

  Nell passed him a plate heaped with sausage, biscuits and gravy. “But to have the same one, over and over, for years—”

  “I never said it was the same one.”

  “But it is. Please don’t lie to me.”

  Stark paused, fork halfway to his mouth. His throat closed; he couldn’t possibly swallow food. “Let’s talk about the business at hand, why you called me out here. There’s no point wasting time talking about a bad dream.”

  “But—”

  Stark slammed down his fork. “Sarah, I’ve told you. It’s not worth discussing.”

  He didn’t hear it until he saw his daughter’s face, and replayed his speech in his head. He forced a small laugh. “You’ve got my mind tied up in a knot, Nell—you so resemble your mother. Your looks, your speech…” He pointed at the plate of food, grabbed for the fork. “And your biscuits and gravy are every bit as good as your mother’s…and though I’d never say it publicly, of course, they put Margaret’s utterly to shame. I don’t imagine there are better biscuits and gravy to be had in New York, or even in Missouri.” He shoveled in a mouthful, took a few seconds to chew. “Why, if you were so inclined, you could open a restaurant and have customers in a line all the way down the block.”

  Nell gritted her teeth. He’d done it again, gotten right around her, and the dream was now a dead issue. Her mother would’ve put her hands on her hips, set her eyes to glaring at her husband, but at the same time flashed a smile subtly yet unmistakably warm, and told him to cut out the blarney and get down to cases. And that was where Nell knew she came off short. No trouble with the glare, but the amiable smile remained beyond her capacity. “I’m not the least inclined to open a restaurant, Dad, but I’m glad to make them for you when you’re here.”

  They both smiled. Two skilled boxers at the end of a bout, both winner and loser knowing there would be more matches.

  They ate in silence until the telephone in the living room rang. Nell pushed away from the table. “Maybe that’s Jim.” She hurried out, but was back in less than a minute. “For you, Dad, a man named Hess. I’ve heard of him—he’s a sort of musical secretary for Irving Berlin. He says he needs to give you a message from Berlin.”

  Stark’s brows rose. “That ought to be interesting.” He walked past Nell into the living room.

  When he returned, his face was as puzzled as hers had been. “He says Berlin wants me to come by at a quarter to two this afternoon, to talk about Joplin’s music.”

  Nell seated herself. “Well, that is interesting.”

  “Maybe what I said yesterday had an effect on him after all.”

  “Maybe.” Nell filled her mouth with biscuit to make certain she wouldn’t tell him about her one o’clock interview with Berlin. Let her say a word about that appointment, and her father probably would tell her to just leave Berlin to him. And that, she was not going to do.

  Stark wiped his napkin over his mouth and beard. “I think I’ll go up to Joplin’s house, and see what I can learn from Lottie. Would you like to come?”

  Nell’s conscience went off like the telephone bell, but she said, “I can’t.” I’ve got to do some grocery shopping this morning, then I have an appointment to meet Birdie—Martin’s girlfriend—for lunch.”

  Stark nodded. He wanted to ask why she was going to have lunch with Martin’s girlfriend, but knew what kind of reaction that question would bring. He’d wait till later, then ask her how her lunch date had gone. “All right, my dear. I’ll meet you back at Joe’s this afternoon. Can you give me Joplin’s address?”

  ***

  The motion of the subway threatened to put Birdie to sleep, no great feat. Her parents had subjected her to a longer and far more heated grilling than the police had. ‘If you know where that boyfriend of yours is, you’d better tell. When the police find him—and they will, mark my word—they’ll get you for trying to hide him, and off you’ll go to jail. You’ll spend your best years there, and by the time they let you go, no decent man will want you. You’ll be an old maid the rest of your life, living in a crummy little room with a toilet down the hall and a hot plate to cook your food on. You think that’s what we want for you?’

  By the time they finally gave up, she was so angry and so anxious for Martin, sleep was impossible. She threw her arms one way, tossed her legs the other. She must have dozed a dozen times, only to find herself suddenly wide awake again. She forced down breakfast, if only to keep her mother quiet, then all the way to the subway, and as she sat on the train, questions coursed through her mind. Martin was so loyal, he probably would have hidden Mr. Joplin away even if he thought his piano teacher did kill Sid. And now Martin was involved up to his neck. Maybe her parents were right—the police would catch up with the runaways, Martin would go to jail for a long time, and they’d never get married.

  “What’s the matter, dearie? Man trouble, I bet.”

  Birdie blinked into the round, red face of the passenger in the seat next to her, a woman trying to deny her fifty years by means of the most flamboyant bleach job Birdie had ever seen. The girl wiped at her face. She hadn’t realized she was crying. “I guess so. Kind of, anyway.”

  “Bah!” With one syllable, Curlylocks dismissed Birdie’s distress. “It ain’t worth it, sweetie, take it from me. Most men are bums, you don’t want to take them too serious. The good thing is, whenever you’re in the mood, there’s always another one around the corner, know what I mean?” The woman grinned, and delivered Birdie a sharp elbow to the ribs. “Always leave ‘em laughin’, dearie. That’s my philosophy.”

  Birdie nodded. “Thanks.”

  The woman’s face went soft. “Aw, I know how it is. I was young once myself.” The grin made a comeback. “But I got over it, and you will too.”

  The train crawled into the Fiftieth Street station. Birdie nodded to the woman, then practically leaped from her seat into the crowd and out the doorway onto the platform. Stupid old bag! Birdie was never going to get over Martin. Never. Not now, not ever.

  She pushed her way down Broadway to Forty-seventh, and into the lobby of the Strand Building, then ran past the elevator, to the stairwell. That’d be quicker. She was already five minutes late. Mr. Tabor was going to have a fit.

  As her heels clicked onto the second-floor landing, and she started up the third flight of stairs, someone caught her from behind and dragged her in back of the elevator shaft. She tried to scream, but there was a cloth over her mouth and nose, smelled funny, like when they took out her tonsils in the hospital. She aimed a kick backward, but her attacker wrestled her to the concrete floor. She caught sight of a burlap sack next to her head. “Don’t you go makin’ no noise,” a whispered growl. “Just you lay there quiet, elsewise, you gonna get hurt.” That awful smell…Birdie’s arms felt heavy, eyelids heavier yet. “That be nice,” she heard the man croon. “That be the way.” His voice faded, and Birdie lay still.

  The man counted slowly, just the way he’d been told, then took the rag from Birdie’s face. Good thing the girl was late, nobody out in the hall. Otherwise, he was going to have to talk her out into the street, tell her that her boyfriend needed her help. Then he’d have had to shove her into an alley and hit her with the chloroform there. Lot easier this way.

  He wiped a sleeve across his forehead, then picked up the burlap bag, dropped the bottle into it, and with no great effort, stuffed the girl into the sack. He hoisted the load to his shoulder, then trotted down the stairs, throu
gh the lobby and out onto Broadway. A man loitering in front of the building called out, “Hey, there, Rastus, wha’cha got in the bag? Been sneakin’ round the chicken coop?” A couple of people laughed, but the colored man didn’t break stride, just kept moving as fast as his feet would go.

  ***

  John Stark walked up to the attractive row house at 133 West 138th, across Seventh Avenue from Strivers Row. He glanced at the skinny cop holding up a streetlight post in front of the building, then marched up the red stone stairs and knocked. A slight woman in a brown summer dress with white polka dots, her hair gathered up under a red bandanna, opened the door. The woman’s face said, ‘What’s this ol’ white man want with me?’

  Stark removed his boater. “You must be Lottie Joplin—how do you do? I’m John Stark, from St. Louis.”

  Lottie’s suspicion melted away. “Well, for goodness sake, don’t just be standin’ there, come on in.” She practically hauled him through the doorway, then slammed the door behind him. “No reason that cop has to see or hear.”

  Stark smiled. “No reason at all. In fact, better that he doesn’t. I’m sorry for just dropping by like this, but I thought a phone call might frighten you.”

  Lottie burst into an immense laugh. “Frighten me? Oh, Mr. Stark, it take a whole lot more’n that to frighten me. But I gotta tell you, I am just so grateful you would come here and help us out.” She pumped his hand as if he were a well from which she expected to draw water.

  Stark inclined his head in a polite bow. “I’ll be glad to do what I can, Mrs. Joplin—”

  “Oh, pshaw, ‘Mrs. Joplin.’ It’s Lottie. I don’t want to hear no more ‘Mrs. Joplin’.”

  The woman put Stark in mind of a crow, chattering and sassy, head cocked to the left, constantly hopping about. “But my goodness, what we standin’ out here in the hall for? Come on inside. With a grand gesture, she ushered her guest through the spacious receiving hall. To the left, Stark saw a door; to the right, an open passage led into what looked like a living room. Straight ahead, a stairway ran up to the second floor. Stark heard voices, a baritone rumble, a soprano giggle. A moment of concern drifted over Lottie’s face. “Got my sister stayin’ for a time, she’s got her a friend up there. Don’t pay them no mind. Come on in the parlor here, make yourself right at home, and I will be back directly with some coffee and a piece a my good cake.”