The King of Ragtime Read online

  He sounded so like the Scott Joplin she’d taken up with, she couldn’t help but feel hope. Never mind how many times that hope had been dashed when the disease got back in control of his mind.

  Nell spoke. “Scott, what happened to you?”

  He looked her a question.

  She pointed. “Your head. Your shirt.”

  He touched his forehead, breathed, “Whew,” then took hold of his shirt, and stared at Nell like a man trying to make sense out of some abstruse text. He shook his head slowly, back and forth, back and forth.

  Lottie took his hand. “Scott, now, you remember. You went downtown to talk to Irving Berlin about your play, but you come back without your music. And your face and shirt—”

  Joplin was off the sofa in a bound. Panic ran rampant across his face. “He took my music,” a howl, then he made for the door. Nell blocked his path, grabbed his arm, led him toward the kitchen. Lottie followed, arms at the ready in case he pulled away and tried to run off. “Scott, I’m going to help you,” Nell said. “Just leave this business to me. You’ve had nothing to eat all day, so Lottie’s going to get you dinner while I go upstairs and make a phone call.”

  Lottie marveled at the grit that woman could get into her voice. The door to the hall opened, then slammed shut.

  When Nell came back, the living room was positively fragrant with the aroma of bacon. Porcelain shards cracked with every step she took. Lottie must have heard; she walked out of the kitchen, and softly asked, “Did you learn something?”

  Nell caught sight of Joplin at the kitchen table, doing heavy demolition work on what she guessed was a plate of bacon and eggs. She cupped a hand to her mouth. “What I learned is that no one at Waterson, Berlin, and Snyder would let me talk to the Big Man. Same thing at Irving Berlin, Incorporated. And no one at either place could—or would—tell me anything about Scott and his play.”

  Lottie sighed. “If that Berlin steals Scott’s music again, it’d just kill Scott.”

  Nell nodded. “I thought about going down there and raising a fuss, but I really don’t think I’d get any further than I did on the phone. Another couple of hours, my father will be home from work, and I’ll call him.” She almost smiled. “I suspect if he goes marching into that office, they just might listen.”

  Lottie put a hand to her mouth. “You think he really would come out? I mean, with all’s gone on between him and Scott?”

  Nell’s smile crept outward from the left corner of her mouth. “He’ll come if I have to drag him by his shirt collar all the way from St. Louis.” She dropped to her knees, smoothed her skirt. “Go back and sit with Scott. I’ll get these pieces picked up before I leave.”

  ***

  Pistol in John Stark’s right hand, old Colt 44, weighs a ton. Stark stares at his target, a fifteen-year-old colored boy, frozen in a half-crouch, ready to skedaddle if only he could get his muscles to moving. In the boy’s eyes, Stark sees a reflection of his own fear and horror. The boy gasps, as if trying to store up air against the time when his lungs will no longer be able to bring it in. Stark hears his own tortured breathing.

  From his left, a harsh growl. “Gol’ damn your eyes, you rabbit-hearted bugler. Shoot him! Else, I’ll do it myself.”

  Stark turns slowly, looks at the lieutenant, then at the colored boy. He puts every ounce of energy at his disposal into lifting the gun. The colored boy lets out a strangled scream.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sarah, standing off to the side, reproach all over her lovely young face. What in the name of anything holy is she doing here?

  Stark tenses his arm. He pulls the trigger.

  Three harsh rings of a buzzer-bell, two long and one short, brought Stark up straight and stiff. A teenaged girl, waist-length braids flying out behind her, dashed past the old man in the rocking chair and across the living room. Stark blinked, shook his head, tried to free himself of the vision. How many times had he lived through that dream; how many more times would he be compelled to endure it? He blew out a mouthful of air, then straightened his spectacles. As the girl reached for the telephone, he smiled. What he wouldn’t give to still have that energy.

  The girl snatched the receiver from the wall. “Stark family residence, Maplewood, Missouri, Margaret Eleanor speaking.” A pause, then, “Aunt Nell! How are you and Uncle Jim?…Oh yes, we’re all fine. You want to talk to Daddy?” A moment, then Margaret Eleanor turned to hold the receiver out toward Stark, using both hands. “Grandpa, it’s Aunt Nell, from New York. Long distance.”

  Stark nodded. “New York would be long distance, Meggy.”

  The old man wiped his forehead on his sleeve. Four days in a row, now, over a hundred in the shade. Slowly, he pulled himself to his feet, but once up, he stood soldier-straight, no weakness in his stride as he crossed the living room. He patted the girl’s shoulder as he took the receiver from her. “Hello, Nell. What is it that requires a long-distance call?”

  A woman shouted from the kitchen, “Margaret Eleanor! Meggy! Come back in here.” But the girl seemed not to hear. She leaned forward from the waist, focused on her grandfather to the exclusion of all else.

  “You might take a lesson in manners from your granddaughter,” Nell snapped. “She had the courtesy to ask after Jim and me.”

  Stark closed his eyes, counted to five. “Nell, I am not in need of reprimands or didactic narratives on deportment from my daughter. Long-distance calls are not cheap, and I believe my question covered any possible concern, whether personal or otherwise.”

  Stark waited through several seconds of silence. Apples don’t fall far from their trees, he thought, and once they send out their own roots, they struggle against the shade older plants cast over them. Finally, Nell spoke. “All right, Dad. Jim and I are fine, thank you. But an old friend needs your help. He’s in serious trouble.”

  Stark’s daughter-in-law, a properly-stout woman in her forties, with a flushed face and patches of flour in her dark hair, sailed through the doorway from the kitchen. She strode over to Meggy, put a hand on the girl’s neck, and began guiding her back toward the kitchen. Meggy pulled away, stamped a foot, ran ahead. Her mother looked at Stark, rolled her eyes. Stark smiled, then spoke into the phone. “If I can help, you know I will. Who’s the friend and what’s the trouble?”

  “It’s Scott Joplin. He’s—”

  “Nell, I haven’t talked to Joplin for a great many years, and I don’t see why I should start now.”

  “If you’d be so good as to just listen…”

  Stark began to calculate in his head how much money he might be able to send.

  “…I need you to come to New York.”

  “Come to New York? Nell! Did I hear you right?”

  “Yes, you heard right. It looks as if Irving Berlin is trying to steal another piece of music from Scott. We can’t let that happen.”

  Stark rubbed at the right side of his forehead, where a water-hammer seemed suddenly to have taken up residence. Nell talked on. “This sounds even worse than what happened with ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band.’ Scott’s written a musical play, and one of his piano students, who just happens to be a bookkeeper at Waterson, Berlin, and Snyder, persuaded him to try to get Berlin to buy it and put it on stage. The bookkeeper was going to go down with Scott to make sure there was no funny business, but Scott took it into his head to go by himself… Dad, he’s sicker than you know. The disease has changed his whole personality. He’s suspicious, moody, forgets things. He flies into rages over nothing. You remember how careful he was of his appearance? Now, most of the time, he looks like a Bowery drunk. He’ll compose for two days and nights running, then he might not get out of bed for a week. And he’s lost all his good judgment. As well as I can make the matter out, he went down to see Berlin, and when he came back, there was a gash on his head, blood all over his shirt, and he didn’t have the manuscript. He says Berlin ‘took his music.’ I’ve tried to look into it, but no one there w
ould listen to me.”

  Stark took in a breath of air, then blew it out in a puff. His daughter’s message came through all too clearly. ‘No one there is going to listen to me, because businessmen don’t listen to women. Including my own father, who refused to publish Scott Joplin’s two operas, no matter how much pressure I put on him. Who told me that as good as those operas might be, no publisher in his right mind would put a pile of money into an opera by a colored man. Might as well just donate every cent in his business to the county poor farm, then go live there.’

  Stark cleared his throat. “Nell, you know as well as I do how badly Joplin and I fell out eight years ago. Even if I come to New York, I don’t think he’d listen to a word I’d say.”

  “That doesn’t matter. I can talk to Scott, and most of the time he listens. It’s Berlin I need you to talk to.” Stark heard a cough, or maybe a choked sob, then, when Nell began to talk again, her voice was hushed, uneven. “Dad, I don’t think Scott can last a lot longer, and it’s not just the syphilis. He spent five years trying to get Treemonisha put on stage, and I think all by itself that affected his mind.”

  Stark closed his eyes. He wanted to take Nell by the shoulders and give her a good shake, then give the same to Scott Joplin. The man had a gift from Nature, a towering genius for composing music the equal and then some of anything Chopin, Lizst, or Brahms ever wrote. But that wasn’t good enough. To get himself the respect he thought he deserved, he had to compose operas and symphonies—serious music. He’d put years into writing Treemonisha, and because no music publisher would touch it, Joplin published it himself. Then he spent more years and every cent he had, trying to mount a stage production. Not surprising his mind might have given out.

  “Now Scott’s written a musical play called If. I can’t let him lose it, Dad, certainly not to Irving Berlin, but I need your help. You know Scott, you know your way around the music-publishing business, and you’ve always been proud of your sense of honor. How many times have I heard you say you’ve always been equal to all requirements? If you don’t at least try to help Scott, you can never say that again, not to me, anyway.”

  Meggy poked her head around the corner from the kitchen. “Dinner’s ready,” she whispered, mouthing the words theatrically.

  Stark held up an index finger, then looked longingly across the room at his rocker. “Nell, I’m seventy-five years old,” he said, almost a groan.

  For answer, he got a sharp, “Some men are better at seventy than others are at twenty. Isn’t that what you told my brothers when they wanted you to retire after Mother died, and let them run the business?”

  How many platefuls of his own words was she going to serve him up, and insist he eat every bite? Stark sighed “What about this musical of his? Is it any good?”

  “I’ve got no idea. He kept it under lock and key, wouldn’t let anyone see it. But he’s convinced it’s not only going to establish his reputation for all time, it’s also going to bring in money to support Lottie after he’s gone. We’ve all been trying to encourage him. What else could we—”

  “Nell, I’m sorry to interrupt, but what on earth possessed Scott to take his music to Berlin? After all that fuss over ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band?’”

  “I know. But Berlin’s bookkeeper convinced Scott to put the past aside, and said he’d keep an eye on the music and Berlin.”

  “Do you think the bookkeeper’s in on some funny business?”

  “That, I don’t know. Lottie seems to think he’s no worse than naive, and just wanted to help Scott. But there’s no point in my trying to talk to him—if he is involved, he’ll go right back to Berlin, and that will only give them more time to cover up. Dad, you’ve got to come out here. If Berlin steals this music and Scott goes to his grave knowing you sat in your rocking chair in St. Louis and didn’t even lift a finger, you won’t be able to look in a mirror the rest of your life.”

  Apples and trees. He had to hand it to her. “All right, Nell. Give me a little while to consider the situation, and I’ll get back to you. I promise.”

  “Today?”

  “Don’t push me. You know my word is good. I’ll call you just as soon as I can. And I’ll give your love to Till and Margaret.”

  He replaced the receiver slowly, as if too vigorous a hang-up might trigger an explosion. Then he shook his head, strolled out of the living room, into the dining room, and took his seat at the dinner table. Through the barrage of silent questions, he said, “Nell sends you all her love.”

  At the head of the table, his son, Etilmon, cocked his head and studied his father. “That’s why she called?”

  “No. It’s Scott Joplin.”

  “She still keeps up with Scott, doesn’t she?”

  “Always has. Now she wants me to get on a train to New York, and help Scott out of some music-publishing pickle.”

  “Just like that? Get on a train and go to New York?”

  Stark thought Margaret looked like a cow shocked with a prod. “I believe I said that was her wish.”

  “Nell should have more sense than to ask that of a man your age,” said Etilmon. “After what Joplin said about you back in oh-eight, you don’t owe him a thing. Now, let’s say grace. Meggy?”

  The girl folded her hands, lowered her eyes. “Though I have all faith, so it could move mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” The girl looked up, glanced from her father to her grandfather. “Amen.”

  Stark thought he might split a gut. But later, as he sat over his cup of coffee, a thought came into his mind and sent him bolt upright. Could his granddaughter’s impertinence have been directed not at his son, but at him?

  He excused himself, jumped to his feet, strode out-of-doors into one of those heady summer evenings that quicken the blood of the young and revive memories in the old. The scent of the little white Autumn Clematis blossoms in the beds in front of the house made his head spin. Evenings like this, back on the farm in Maysville, he’d sit on the front porch and play his guitar, Sarah at his side, accompanying him in that beautiful clear voice, while the children, Etilmon, Will, Eleanor, kept up as best they could. As he remembered the duet Sarah and Nell sang on “Aura Lee,” his eyes filled. “Our boys will shine tonight,” he murmured, “Our boys will shine…” The farmhouse faded from his mind’s eye, and in its place, Stark saw endless files of men in blue uniforms, marching and singing in chorus. “John Brown’s body lies a-mold’ring in the grave. John Brown’s body lies a-mold’ring in the grave. John Brown’s body lies a mold’ring in the grave. But his soul goes marching on.”

  The old man did an abrupt about-face, hurried back up the concrete walkway to the house and inside, slammed the door shut. He marched to the phone, double-time, barked a number to the operator, then shifted from one foot to the other as he waited. Finally, he heard his daughter’s hello. “Nell,” he said. “I’ll be taking the New Yorker out of Union Station tomorrow, so I’ll see you the day after. I hope that will do.”

  A pause, then he heard a quiet, “I’ll meet you at Pennsylvania Station…thank you, Dad.”

  As Stark walked away from the telephone, a thousand miles away, his daughter slowly replaced the receiver and swallowed hard, trying to keep the tears that filled her eyes from streaming down her face. She did not succeed.

  Chapter Three

  Manhattan

  Tuesday, August 22

  Early afternoon

  Bartlett Tabor, office manager for Waterson, Berlin, and Snyder, walked slowly through Reception on his way back from the can. All collars in the office were open, ties askew, sleeves rolled up. Fannie Solomon, the receptionist, flashed him a big smile as he came within range of her desk. “Five days in a row over ninety. Mr. Snyder was smart to take his vacation now, huh?”

  Tabor grunted a vague acknowledgment. He didn’t give a fiddler’s fart for Ted Snyder or the weather; right then, all he could think of were those numbers he’d left for Martin Niederhoffer to check out
. He needed those figures, and he wanted them now.

  He dodged a schmegeggi who was waving sheets of music manuscript at Harvey Jacobs, one of the arrangers. Music publishing, Christ, what a business. The manager hustled out of Reception and down the hallway, past the secretaries’ space, past his own office, past Ted Snyder’s. In the next room, he saw Henry Waterson, feet up on his desk, pawing through a racing form. Tabor checked his pocket watch, just past one-thirty. He leaned through the doorway. “Henry, what the hell’re you still doing here? Those poor ponies’re going to think you don’t love them any more.”

  “Ach.” Waterson swung around, lowered his feet. His thick lips curled, jaw set, ready to broadcast a piece of his customary derisive humor. “Berlin again. Every time I think we’ve got things settled, him and that lawyer of his come up with another angle on copyrights or royalties or whatever. We had a meeting today that was supposed to be be done by one o’clock, but it lasted till fifteen minutes ago. Every word outa my mouth or my lawyer’s, that shyster Max Josephson jumped on it, turned it all around and fed it right back to me. Son of a bitch jewed me out of God knows how much money. Now, Irvy’s back in his hole there, door shut like always, doing God knows what. I can’t trust the little bastard an inch out of my sight.” Waterson waved the racing paper at Tabor, then worked himself out of his chair and to his feet. “Well, there’s still some good horses running. I guess better late than never, huh?”