Matthew Henson and the Ice Temple of Harlem Read online

  At the 28th Precinct, the sergeant addressed Rodgers as they took Henson toward an interrogation room.

  “Write out your report, Patrolman,” he said.

  “What about Mr. Henson?”

  “You on the detectives’ squad now, Rodgers?” he huffed.

  “I just meant, don’t you want me to corroborate his statement?”

  “Get that report done,” the sergeant repeated icily. “Then go the hell home. You’re not clocking overtime babysitting this egg.”

  “I’ll be okay, Cole,” Henson told his friend.

  “See?” the other officer said, “Henson here is going to do his duty as a citizen and convince us why he shouldn’t have a one-way ticket to the electric chair for putting knives in our other citizens.”

  “Plenty of witnesses saw the dead man shooting at him,” Rodgers said. “I’ve got a few names. I’ll make sure they’re in my report.”

  “You do that, Frank Merriwell. Come on,” he pushed Henson toward a hallway. At a door inset with a rectangular window, the sergeant unclipped a ring of keys from his belt and unlocked it.

  “In you go.”

  Henson walked in, hands still cuffed behind his back. There was a small desk, two chairs, and an overhead bulb with a cowl. There was also a door on one side of the room and Henson figured it was from there detectives would come and go. He sat on one of the chairs and the sergeant left, locking the door to the hallway again.

  At the funeral parlor St. Clair and Melenaux were brought in a lunch of oxtails, rice with gravy and green beans. A little after 1:30, Tommy Riordan arrived at the facility. He came upstairs and shook both their offered hands. In a side room that was laid out like a lounge, they sat and had wine.

  “Looking fit, Tommy,” Melenaux said.

  “And you, yourself, Venus…Miss Queenie.”

  Riordan was one of the captains of The Forty Thieves gang. They were an old Irish outfit originating in Five Points during the last century. The fiftyish Riordan was dressed in a grey suit and his flat-brimmed hat lay on a table near them. While the gang had been used to crack down on black shopkeepers as negroes settled into Harlem in 1919 and 1920, times had necessitated a different outlook. The Thieves and St. Clair were allied in their efforts to keep the hands of the Dutchman and his Italian mobster friends off their respective territories. Also, arrests of numbers runners had gone way up, some of the pressure coming from the straight-laced black press to crack down on crime. Having a pipeline into Irish-dominated Tammany Hall was good for St. Clair’s interests as well. To that end, a stuffed envelope was also placed on the table. With a flourish, Riordan lifted his hat and plunked it down over the envelope.

  The two discussed various topics of mutual interest, including St. Clair’s investment in the liquor The Forty Thieves controlled in other parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. In this way, unlike typical numbers’ barons or baronesses who might have twenty-five or so square blocks of Harlem as their purview, St. Clair’s reach was wide-spread.

  Adjusting his tie as he prepared to leave, Riordan said, “I understand that Mr. Holstein has gone missing.”

  Melenaux and St. Clair exchanged a look. “That’s news to us,” Melenaux said. “This Schultz’s doing?”

  “He left his club last night and had his man drive him to see a lady friend around midnight. He did not make it upstairs. Now, I’ve heard the name of a certain fellow associated with moving Dutch’s beer come up.”

  “A crony of the Dutchman,” St. Clair noted.

  “Well, you might look into it. I’d hate to see that bastard get a leg up.” He stood, slipped the envelope inside his jacket, and, touching the brim of his hat, walked out of the offices of the Palmetto Ambulance and Funeral Services.

  At one point as Henson sat and waited in the precinct, a beefy, florid face appeared at the rectangular window. This man regarded him with dispassionate disdain. The face went away. About an hour later, the side door opened and the face from the hallway came in. The detective was burly, and his sleeves were rolled up exposing hairy forearms. He had big ears and a paunch, but there was muscle across his chest and into his arms. He smelled of cigarettes and hooch, though this was mixed with a coffee overlay. He no doubt had an eye opener in the mornings. After years of having to be quick-witted in the wild, Henson had developed a keen sense of smell. The detective had a file folder with him.

  For several moments he stood, regarding his prisoner, tapping the folder against a thick hand. He then undid the cuffs, dragged the chair by its back legs across the linoleum, and sat on opposite Henson.

  “You’re something of a figure here in Harlem, aren’t you?” he said.

  “I suppose.”

  “Who were those men you had a run in with?”

  “I don’t know.” He was going to add that there were after Professor Ellsmere, but no sense volunteering information he wasn’t directly asked. “I’m pretty sure they were known criminal types.”

  The detective showed no emotion. “You normally consort with those types, do you, Henson?”

  “As it happens, I seem to encounter members of the underworld from time to time. But no, I don’t pal around with them, if that’s what you mean.”

  “And what is it you do for a living?”

  “I give talks about my explorations and travels. I also have a weekly radio show on WGJZ.”

  “If that’s so, why would these underworld types— to use your words—be involved?”

  He shrugged a shoulder. “I can’t say.”

  “Or won’t.” He resumed, “Isn’t it the case you help some of the residents of our fine city now and then for money? You see yourself as some kind of colored Nick Carter, Henson?”

  “You got that in your file there or from Dr. Ellsmere?”

  “I ask the questions, Henson.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The plainclothesman let a silence settle between them. He leaned back, opening the file folder and leafed through the papers in there. His mouth was set in a line as he scanned. He closed the folder. “You’re looking at murder charges, Henson. You better come clean with me or I won’t be able to help you.”

  “I was defending myself.”

  “That’s what they all say.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “We know how to get to the truth around here.”

  Henson regarded him unblinking. “I can take it. Rubber hoses and all.”

  The detective was about to say something but there came a soft knock on the side door and a uniformed cop stuck his head inside. “Detective Hoffman, Captain said to fetch you.”

  Kevin Hoffman rose and left, taking his file folder with him.

  In civilian attire, a tired Cole Rodgers walked up the steps to his apartment in the San Juan Hill neighborhood. The widow Mrs. Stokes nodded at him from her first-floor window seat overlooking the avenue. He had a copy of the New York Age newspaper folded over in his hand.

  “That daughter of yours is growing like a weed,” she said as he reached the outer door.

  “Yeah, she’s something all right,” he grinned, entering the building.

  Three flights up, he found his wife, Cora Rodgers, doing their daughter’s hair. The pungently sweet odor of pomade permeated the room. He set the newspaper down on a table near the door. On the table was a pewter vase he’d brought back from France after the war.

  “Daddy,” his daughter Irene said.

  “How’s my girls?” He kissed his daughter on the forehead and his wife on the lips quickly, their daughter smiling up at them.

  “There’s some food for you on the stove,” his wife said. Her husband had been on duty twelve hours.

  “Thanks, honey.” He stepped into the kitchen area. A plate rested on a cold burner, a piece of re-used butcher’s paper wrapped over it.

  “Ow, Mama,” Irene said as a tangle of hair was brushed upward from her scalp.

  “Hold still, okay?” Cor
a Rodgers replied in a soothing voice. She was sitting on a chair, the four-year-old on a stepstool in front of her, her back to her mother.

  “Yeah, be thankful your mother’s hair ain’t got as much kink as us homegrown negroes,” her father joked, forking in a piece of meatloaf. There was also fried okra and corn, his favorite.

  “What’s Daddy talking about, Mama?”

  His wife shot him a look. “Your daddy thinks he’s funny is all.” Cora Rodgers, whose family hailed from Jamaica, was of mixed heritage, including a white grandmother.

  Rodgers laughed, enjoying the sight of the busy mother and daughter. A domestic contrast to the craziness of the shoot out earlier. An incident he wasn’t going to mention to his wife, unless she happened to see it in the newspaper.

  “Have you thought more about Battle’s offer?” his wife asked, hairpin between clenched teeth.

  “A little,” he said.

  She titled her head up at him but didn’t go on.

  Sam Battle, the only black sergeant on the police force had been asking him to come around to his Monarch Lodge of Elks. Not only did such an association offer comradery, as there were a few other vets who belonged, but other associations as well—the kind that might come in handy when dealing with the ofays in the department. But nobody did nothing for nothing, and one way or the other, he’d have to be beholden to some preacher or political type. But then again….

  “I’m not dismissing it,” he said. Rodgers turned his attention to a cold pot of leftover coffee on the stove and, lighting a wooden match, he got the burner going to reheat the brew.

  Hand in his pocket, he looked out the kitchen window at a brick wall. But Rodgers could see through that as he tried to envision what kind of world he was going to leave for his daughter and the other black children of this city. He’d been a Harlem Hellfighter in World War I, a Black Rattler, member of the 15th New York Colored National Guard unit, and had seen war far too up close and horrific at the battle of Belleau Woods under the banner of the French army.

  In the couple’s bedroom the Tribune’s coverage that day of the veterans was framed, some in wheelchairs, some on crutches, as they marched from Fifth Avenue winding up on 145th and Lenox Avenue.

  The section read: “Up the wide avenue they swung. Their smiles outshone the golden sunlight. In every line, proud chests expanded beneath the medals valor had won. The impassioned cheering of the crowds massed along the way drowned the blaring cadence of their former jazz band. The old 15th was on parade and New York turned out to tender its dark-skinned heroes a New York welcome.”

  But how soon the cheering soon became taunts when angry whites reacted to these negro doughboys who dared to dream that giving their bodies and blood for freedom overseas meant they could demand rights as American citizens back home. He remembered vividly that red summer of 1919, less than a decade ago, when colored veterans and other black folk were murdered by rope and gun and knife in white riots across this nation—often at the hands of fellow doughboys. Yet those events are what propelled him to join the force, to be in a position to not let that kind of slaughter happen again, if he could help it. To make sure as much as possible that negroes, be they Matthew Henson or not so famous, didn’t get brutalized when in custody, that they received fair treatment like anyone else. And yes, he’d also signed up to show those crackers blacks would work to keep their communities safe just like the white ones did. The boiling pot whistling on the stove dissolved his reverie and he turned the fire off.

  Later, back at the precinct, Hoffman returned, standing in the open side doorway. “I don’t know what your game is, Henson, what it is you think you’re doing. But let me tell you so I’m clear, you grandstanding coloreds always get your comeuppance, hear me? That struttin’ white pussy lovin’ Jack Johnson, the red spouting A. Philip Randolph…you think you’re a symbol, don’t you? The New Negro who done come to show the way to his people by his shining example.”

  “I’m just me, Detective Hoffman.”

  “Got white folks you call by their first names, having cocktails and finger sandwiches with them when you give one of your lectures, huh?”

  “You find that objectionable?”

  Hoffman came further into the room. “Get the fuck out of here.”

  “What about Henrik?” He purposefully used Ellsmere’s first name just to dig at him.

  “Get,” Hoffman said, showing cigarette-stained teeth.

  The lock on the hallway door clicked and Henson exited. Out in the main lobby area, his lawyer, Ira Kunsler, was waiting for him. He was a rangy individual in a box coat and loose tie, dark eyebrows and hair going grey. He started at his client, frowning and touching Henson’s cheek.

  “They didn’t work you over, did they, Matt?” They shook hands.

  “Handled me with kid gloves. How’d you know I was here?” Henson asked.

  “May called me. She’d seen the shooting and you and Ellsmere getting trotted off. I remembered you telling me about him once.”

  “Remind me to tip bigger there.”

  “Let’s get out of here, Matt.”

  “They tell you anything about Ellsmere?”

  “Let’s get out of here first,” he urged.

  Outside the two stood on the lower steps, police and civilians, some willingly and others unwillingly, going past them. Kunsler bent down pretending to tie his shoe. He got back up. “Don’t look, but I think that mug in that sedan up the other side of the street is bird-dogging us.”

  “A fella like those in the masks?”

  “No, G-man, I’m thinking.” He put his hand on Henson’s arm and they two set off down the street. “In answer to your question, I don’t know exactly what’s happened to your professor friend. I am of the opinion the authorities have put the grab on him. I’d noticed that fella up the street when I got to the precinct. There’s a certain look those boys have,” he said, solemnly. “Anyway, Ellsmere wasn’t in there nor was he listed on the bail sheet. This I found out after I demanded to see you.” They walked along.

  “And, loath that I am to admit this, it seems your release had little to do with my formidable skills as your mouthpiece. There’s a reason the cops haven’t charged you with anything—at least for now.”

  “Despite me planting a knife into a white man in broad daylight.”

  Kunsler inclined his head slightly. “Yeah, bigger wheels are turning.”

  Henson weighed his next words. “Ira, I’m not exactly sure what’s going on, myself. I’ll say this, if it’s what I suspect, it’s dynamite. Do some digging and find out what you can, starting with those gunnies in the masks. But be, you know, discreet.”

  “My middle name.”

  “I’ve got some papers of the prof I need to retrieve, but going to have to shake that tail first.”

  “That sedan isn’t following us.”

  “No, but there’s a gent in a brown fedora who’s been keeping tabs on us for about a block.” Henson jutted his jaw at a stationary store. “Come on, let’s go in there and make sure we’re seen through the window.” There was a large model of a fountain pen hanging at an angle over the front door. The two entered the shop. Back to a wall, Henson talked with Kunsler in one of the aisles, and seemed to slip the lawyer something he put in his attaché case.

  Back on the street, the two split up and the man in the brown fedora followed Kunsler. Henson took a circuitous route back to the newsstand, stopping here and there and doubling back to make sure he wasn’t being followed. It was closed-up, but no police presence. A padlock secured the awning, and another the plywood door to get behind the counter. While bullets had torn through the stand, the damage wasn’t too bad. The destroyed newspapers and magazines had been thrown out. Workmen were already repairing shot-out shop windows nearby. It wasn’t much for Henson to get the lock undone, retrieve Ellsmere’s equations and leave.

  He took a bus, but didn’t head back to his apartment. Arriving at Columbia
University, he went to the anthropology department and, descending the stairs, passed by one of the janitor’s quarters. Several of the janitors here knew him, just as Henson knew the newsstand owner, bellhops, maids—the invisibles as far as the white world was concerned. Given the time of year, the boilers weren’t in use. Here in the basement it was cool and cloying, like where you’d grow mushrooms. Standing in a specific spot on the floor, he counted down from the ceiling and over then walked over to one of the soot-covered bricks in the wall. Henson removed the loose brick and tucked the folded papers into the space behind. He then re-inserted the brick and departed.

  His next stop was Destiny Stevenson’s music shop on Amsterdam near 122nd. She sold sheet music and musical instruments from horns to violins. He entered, a buzzer sounding when he did so. In the corner was an upright piano decorated with fresh flowers. He hadn’t asked, but Henson was pretty sure the put-up money for the tidy shop had come from her father.

  “Here’s those reeds you ordered, Jay.”

  “Thanks, Destiny.” The musician, a saxophone player Henson recognized from clubs around town, handed over a dollar for his purchase. He nodded at Henson on his way out. There was a copy of Eric Walrond’s Tropic Death on the end of the glass display counter she stood behind. A bookmark was wedged halfway through.

  “I tried reading that book twice,” Henson said, pointing at the title. “But he’s heavy on that West Indian dialect.”

  “Among the arty types in Harlem and Greenwich Village, the short stories in it are seen as a kind of counterpoint of sorts to Nigger Heaven.”

  Henson’s eyebrows raised. The latter book was written by the white Carl Van Vechten. As its sensationalistic title suggested, the novel portrayed negroes in ways that made many critics knock Van Vechten as a literary voyeur perpetuating and profiting from numerous stereotypes. That his soirées included whites and blacks of all stripes was really just a way for him to play street-level archeologist—observing negroes in their abandon and playing that up in his novel. The book had become a runaway bestseller.