Matthew Henson and the Ice Temple of Harlem Read online

  They dreamed about them, they used the numbers of streetcars that stopped in front of their church, or the day of month of their grandma’s birthday minus the date of the Emancipation Proclamation. And plenty in and around Harlem bet the numbers—particularly those who insisted they didn’t. Holstein was reputed to own three apartment buildings in Harlem, he for sure owned the Turf Club, and was said to have a fine home out on Long Island. He’d also funded the literary prizes awarded by Opportunity Magazine.

  “Correct. Two Laces was originally part of Casper’s outfit, but they had a falling out over the usual story, a frail.”

  “I’m guessing the Dutchman is using Two Laces to help him move in on the Harlem numbers game.”

  “That’s right. Like everything else that hothead covets, once he sets his sights on it, he’ll stop at nothing to quench his thirst. At some point you have to figure it’s going to be all-out war between him and the likes of Queenie and Casper. Let colored folk control that kind of money? Sheet. What self-respecting white man would let that go on?”

  They both chuckled dryly.

  “Any idea who on the force or in Tammany Hall he has in his pocket?” Henson said. As he’d predicted, there had been no report of the dustup at the apartment building where’d he rescued Destiny Stevenson.

  “No, but he’s been known to have meets over at the Cayuga Democratic Club”

  The Club was a white-run organization that courted black votes in Harlem where the Club’s building was located. An enterprising young man named J. Raymond Jones had started the Carver Democratic Club as a way to build up black voter empowerment.

  Henson rolled a few ideas around in his head. “This has been very helpful, Slip.”

  “You want me to keep nosing around?”

  “No, this is good, thanks.”

  “Thanks for the fifty.”

  The line disconnected.

  As Henson locked up, he considered it made sense from the point of view of Dutch Schultz to kidnap Destiny Stevenson, as her father was tied in financially to St. Clair’s loan operation. Maybe to force Daddy Paradise to sever those ties. Yet, except for sending Two Laces to brace him, the Dutchman had shown a restrained hand. That was not like him—this was a man who would bury an icepick in your head, then turn around and order a shrimp cocktail.

  Walking toward his home, Henson wondered who had Schultz’s ear and if this was about money and/or power. The attack on the airfield didn’t seem to be his handiwork. He wouldn’t use out-of-town muscle.

  Back in his apartment, laying on his back in bed, not truly asleep or awake, he relived an incident that happened during that last push to reach the North Pole. He and the others were crossing a rivulet of moving ice floes. He was pushing a sledge loaded with provisions, no dogs. Just then the floating hunk of ice he was on tipped upward due to the shift of weight, and he was plunged into the bone-freezing water. His hood was torn off, and he let go of the sledge least it drag him down for good. But he was wearing fur gloves, and couldn’t get a good grip on the ice. It was tantalizingly close, but might as well have been yards away. He was a goner and his only thought then was he was close, so close, to his goal.

  Cold numbed his extremities, and try as he might, he couldn’t swim well enough to remain aloft. His legs refused to kick, and he was having a hard time keeping air in his lungs. Ready to meet the Grim Destroyer, it was then an ungloved hand grasped him by the nape of his neck and, struggling together, he was hauled onto the floe. It was Ootah, who had not only saved his life, but managed got the rest of the supplies across as well.

  They nodded stoically at each other.

  His kamiks—sealskin boots—were removed and replaced, the water beaten out of his bearskin pants, and then they hurried to catch up with the rest. That was just how it went out there, all in a day’s work. Peary, too, it turned out had also fallen into the water and had been saved by the other Eskimos.

  Henson came fully awake. He hadn’t recalled that near-death occurrence in a long time. Was it an omen of things to come?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ` “It does seem after solidifying matters in Chicago, Los Angeles is the city to expand in, Queenie.” Charles Toliver and Queenie St. Clair walked along Amsterdam Avenue a little after breakfast. Each wore stylish clothes and hats. One of her crew trailed not to far behind doing bodyguarding duties.

  Toliver continued. “Negroes in Los Angeles have been enterprising. They’ve started an insurance company, a film outfit, not to mention the two newspapers, The Eagle and The Sentinel.

  “A legit bank, huh?” she said.

  “Homefolks from Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma are finding their way there. Escaping onerous racism for the more sunbaked variety,” he said, grinning. “Jim Crow might be applied with a more subtle hand….”

  “But it’s applied nonetheless,” she finished.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he affirmed. “But it’s wide open out there.”

  On they went, discussing their plans. Thereafter, she returned to her office at the Palmetto Ambulance and Funeral Services. Venus Melenaux was waiting for her with a typewritten note she handed across. The numbers boss read it quickly.

  “They’re demanding fifty thousand dollars for the return of Casper.” Queenie St. Clair said, sitting behind her desk, tossing the message onto it.

  “That’s the price,” Venus Melenaux confirmed, sitting across from her. “We gotta let those bastards know it’s gonna take us a few days to raise a ransom that steep. In the meantime, we need some proof Casper is okay. To our advantage, Dutch’s men think we’re part of his gang anyway.”

  “When the drop is made, they’ll gun whoever we send down and take the money,” St. Clair determined.

  “That’s my figurin’,” Melaneaux said.

  St. Clair had followed up on the lead Tommy Riordan had provided. She calculated if she could be the one to free him, a grateful Holstein would be a useful asset down the line. Particularly if she could pull it off with Toliver and a few other bankers actually establishing a bank lending to negro businesses and would-be home owners out West.

  “Okay, eventually a meet will be set, but we come loaded for bear.”

  Meleneaux’s smiled and sipped her coffee. “Better clean off papa’s shotgun.”

  That same morning, Matthew Henson arrived ten minutes ahead of schedule at Hugo Renwick’s estate out on Sands Point in Long Island. He’d been driven there by a chauffered Pierce-Arrow Runabout. Several of his neighbors saw him being picked up in the fancy car earlier. That wasn’t as impressive as seeing the white driver holding the rear door open for him.

  “Go on now, Matt,” one said proudly.

  “Have a martini for me,” another said.

  “Way to go, Mr. Matt,” Henry the newsie had cheered, a raft of papers under his arm. He flipped the kid a fifty-cent piece, winking. “I want to see that report card, you hear?”

  “Yes, sir,” the thirteen year-old called back.

  He’d been helping the orphan with his math and history homework when he could. He made a mental note to make sure he followed up with the youngster soon on that. Sitting in the rear of the fancy car, Henson waved sheepishly at his neighbors as he rode away. The day was bright and clear, and he had to fight dozing as the car ran smoothly along the roadway. Eventually, they arrived at their destination. Henson tried to not gape at the immensity of the brick and wood structure set amid lush foliage as the car came to a stop at the front steps leading up from a circular, gravel topped driveway

  Lavish was an understatement for the mansion and grounds. It was part Tudor and part medieval castle, 12,000 square feet that fronted the Atlantic. There was a tennis court, a six-car garage, a guest house bigger than most single-family homes, a boat house, and on and on. Henson wasn’t so much envious as astounded. He shook his head and made up his mind to appear matter-of-fact in the face of all this excess.

  “Hello, Mr. Henson, come this way,” a p
retty blonde-haired maid said, after opening the front door.

  “Sure.”

  Henson was escorted out to the pool. There, lounging in chairs under an umbrella were Bessie Coleman, Shorty Duggan and another man he took to be Hugo Renwick. They had a half full glass pitcher and tall slim glasses beside them on a glass table.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” Coleman said.

  “Hey,” he said to her and the mechanic.

  “Mr. Henson, I’ve heard nothing but good things about you from Bessie.” Renwick stood, the men shook hands.

  “Thanks for having me, Mr. Renwick.”

  “Hugo, if I can call you Matt.”

  “Why not? This is some spread.”

  “It is a bit much,” Renwick admitted, sitting back down again as Henson also took a seat. “But in my defense, it is also where the Institute is housed.” He waved toward the house. “If things go as planned, this will be a citadel of the new world we’re working to usher in.” He paused. “That why we’re happy to have the talents of Miss Coleman.”

  “Us colored gals are doing big things,” Coleman said.

  “Have some lemonade and sit a spell.” Renwick poured him a glass as Henson sat.

  “What do you know about our work, Matt?”

  He told Renwick about his meeting with Nikola Tesla. “But would what you’re up to be a reason for violently attacking you?”

  “Black and white working together as equals? That’s a future some ain’t too keen on,” Duggan observed.

  “A color blind world, huh?” Henson said dubiously. “How about a world where color only matters for identification? Where what you did and who you were was what counted?” Renwick countered.

  “Amen.” Henson held his glass up, tipping it toward the other three. He sampled his refreshment, enjoying the drink’s tartness.

  “Me and Shorty are still of the mind that shoot ‘em up was about the Skhati,” Coleman said. “It’s a one of a kind aircraft any one of these greedy plutocrats would want to call their own.”

  “Would one of those plutocrats be Fremont Davis?” Henson asked.

  Renwick leaned forward. “Curious that you brought him up. Isn’t he the one who blocked you being accepted into the Challenger’s Club?”

  “I was young and foolish then,” he retorted. When Henson had returned from the North Pole he’d been feted. It wasn’t the same as what Peary received, but among black Americans in New York and elsewhere, and a smattering of white left and liberal press like The Nation and The New York Times, he did receive praise and recognition. Enough so that he had believed the all-white Challenger’s Club of big game hunters and explorers would open its doors wide to him.

  “My then-wife, encouraged me to apply,” Henson admitted.

  “Eva,” Coleman said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why do you say it’s curious, Hugo?” Coleman said.

  “I don’t know about the attack on the airfield, but I have it on good authority that Davis and Dutch Schultz are working together for the time being.”

  Henson asked, “Why and how do you know this?”

  “I don’t go around with my head in the clouds all the time like my reputation suggests, Matt. I do attend to earthly matters as I have to protect my various interests.”

  “Meaning?” Henson said, irritated by his evasiveness. Or maybe he was just showing off to impress Coleman.

  “About two or so years ago, he and I sat on the board of a petroleum enterprise. Davis, as you know, has most of his money tied up in an overseas freight business.”

  “That’s how he became a big game hunter,” Henson finished. “Using his freighters to take trips to Africa and Asia.”

  “Exactly. At that time there was a strike going on at the Brooklyn docks, tying up his and other owners’ ships from loading or unloading. One of the straw boss longshoremen eager to please was an acquaintance of Mr. Flegenheimer, already on the rise. Seems the two had grown up together in the tenements. He made a call, and subsequently heads were broken. The strike was settled. I learned this after the fact, and that it was Davis okayed this action, not the others – though they, of course, benefitted too.”

  “And they’re working together to do…what?” Coleman said. “The Dutchman supplying the muscle to make what happen?”

  Renwick fixed Henson with a look. “There are various rumors as to what Davis is after. Some say it’s about a secret cache of Alaskan gold. Others say it was to do with a hunk of precious ore unlike anything heretofore found on Earth.” Renwick hunched a shoulder. “That fueled the idea in a handful of quarters that you and Peary brought more back from the Arctic than those three meteorites. That the fallout between you two was over who would control this…whatever it is.”

  Henson was clueless as to such rumors; it wasn’t hard for him to remain blank-faced. But, eager to see what Renwick would say, he responded, “As you said, that’s just gossip. Hell, I’ve encountered people who say we brought back one of them green men of Mars that Tarzan fella wrote about in his yarns.”

  “I have heard talk of that nature as well,” Renwick said. “That whatever it is, it is in fact of an extraterrestrial character.”

  “If that means out of this world, it sure sounds like it,” Coleman noted.

  Duggan said nothing, keeping his own counsel.

  Henson had the feeling the industrialist knew about the Daughter, or at least had heard explicitly about it, and probably Davis had too. But how? He hadn’t told Eva then, and they had divorced the following year.

  He said, “Back here on Earth, I want to look into this parlay between Davis and Schultz.”

  “What’s your angle, Matt?” Coleman asked.

  “I’ve got a couple of clients to protect.”

  “Who?” Coleman said.

  “Daddy Paradise and his daughter.”

  Coleman and Duggan cocked their heads at each other.

  “I’m betting she’s out of the lollipop stage,” Duggan opined.

  “Funny,” he intoned. It had occurred to him that the grab of Destiny Stevenson wasn’t about Daddy Paradise and Queenie St. Clair and the numbers’ profit. Not for Davis, anyway, but that would be a reason he could keep Schultz involved. And he was the wild card.

  “Well,” Renwick began, “let me have the kitchen rustle us up some food,” Renwick said, rising.

  “Is he on the level?” Henson asked the others after Renwick left.

  “You mean can he be trusted?” Coleman replied.

  “I guess that’s what I mean. Or part of what I mean. Will he stand by what he professes or is he full of hokum? Go the distance like Garvey no matter who comes after him?”

  “Or do you mean like your buddy Daddy Paradise?” the aviatrix quipped.

  Henson chuckled. “You gotta get your hands dirty if you want equality, Bessie. Ain’t nobody gonna give it to you freely. We all can’t be angels.”

  “I don’t know if that’s cynical or wise,” Duggan noted.

  “He’s for real, Matt,” Coleman said. “He knows he’s a child of privilege and rather than gallivant around like a lot of dilettantes interested in the Negro Question or giving money to starving children in India, he knows he has to be about changing things for the long haul. We wouldn’t be here if we thought different,” she finished.

  “Among his concerns, he’s been big on supporting anti-lynching laws,” Coleman added. “Not just talk, but providing money and fielding investigators like what the NAACP carried out.”

  “Okay, you sold me. He’s on the level.”

  Henson tented his fingers and sat back in his seat, considering several options. Overhead a hawk came into view, circling, then going into a dive at an unseen prey beyond the hedges. Possibly he was imaging it, but the explorer had an impression of a stifled cry of a trapped animal floating to them on the wind. He sipped more lemonade. After a lunch that included more discussion about the aims of the Weldon Ins
titute, Henson said his goodbyes and was returned to town by car.

  On the drive back, he tried to think how news of the Daughter’s existence might have become known. Moving the rock was a two-man job, at least. He had suggested back then to Ootah that he not use his brother to help, and his friend had assured him he that he didn’t. He’d last seen Ootah in person when he’d been brought to New York about four years ago at the behest of the Clicquot Club Beverage Company as a reunion of sorts.

  “Mahri-Pahluk,” Ootah had shouted as Henson rushed over to him at the Brooklyn docks that day.

  “Whoop halloo,” Henson had shouted excitedly as both men hugged.

  The two had lunch in Chinatown, as Ootah had a fondness for chow mein. They caught up on a lot of things, like Henson’s son. He knew from infrequent letters transcribed by other explorers or Christian missionaries—there was no written language among his son’s people—that Anaukaq had a good life. His stepfather had long ago accepted the boy as his own, as had been related to him from the mother, Akatingwah, in a transcribed letter.

  “He’s getting to be quite the young man, Matthew,” his friend told him while putting a mass of chow mein into his mouth. He’d first wound the noodles on a fork. “Yes, I know to use this in public among the kahdonah.” He said, noting his friend’s stare. The word meant white-skinned. Most of the customers in the place were.