Dark Stain (21 page)

“She isn’t freckled.”

“Don’t tell me what she isn’t. Tell me what she is. What makes her distinctive? What makes her different from a hundred other girls her age and height?”

What made Suzy different, he pondered; oh, God … “She has no out-of-the-ordinary marks,” he said finally.

“When you got your leave of absence, Miller, you said Buckles quit her job? Correct?”

“No. She didn’t quit. She took a week’s vacation.”

“To go to work for that League, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Why exactly did she do that?”

“She wanted to help me. She knew I was trying to find out who wrote those leaflets. She knew there was feeling against me up in Harlem. She was worried and she thought she could kind of keep an eye on me.” His eyes filled with tears and he took out his handkerchief and wiped them.

“I don’t want to crab at a time like this but if you hadn’t messed around with the black babies up there you wouldn’t be here now. I know what happened to her but we’ll come to it later. Now, did she have any peculiarities you can think of? Did she walk fast or slow? Did she wear eyeglasses? Did she stutter?”

“What do you think happened to her?”

“Let’s wind this up first, Miller. What about that last question?”

“What was it again?”

“Any peculiarities?”

“None.”

“What clothes was she wearing when you saw her last?”

“A white blouse and a black tailored skirt.”

“What kind of shoes?”

“Black shoes with open toes. Summer style shoes.”

“Hat?”

“A dark blue hat.”

“Jewelry?”

“A silver ring I gave her.”

“Was it an engagement ring?”

“No. Just a ring. A silver ring with a green stone. Jade.”

“What other jewelry?”

“That’s all.”

“Now, did she have any serious sickness in the time you knew her? T.B. or anything like that? Diabetes?”

“No.”

Wajek heaved up from his desk. “I’ll be right back. I want to put this through the mill. We want it circulated coast-to-coast.”

Sam glared at the closing door, wondering what Wajek figured had happened to Suzy. Please God, he prayed; let them find her. They would find her. They must, they had to. This was Police Headquarters. He was sitting in the middle of all the related departments and bureaus. They knew all about locating missing persons here, all about fingerprinting, all about firearms, all about criminal methods. Wajek returned and Sam said, “What do you think happened?”

The detective seated himself. “Miller, this is what I think. I think here’s a white girl, an attractive young white girl who comes into a colored neighborhood, into an office on a busy street. One Hundred Twenty-Fifth is Broadway and Fifth Avenue all in one. She goes into a colored office which is one floor above the street, correct? Hundreds of colored people, thousands of them, all kinds, walk up and down that street all day long and they see her up there. You described that office as being divided into two parts by a partition with windows overlooking the street. Anybody down in the street can look up and what do they see. A colored girl and a white girl in the same office. Correct?”

“The shades’re down most of the time.”

“Most of the time. But lots of times they’re up. Those girls need light to type by.”

“She was only there two days.”

“Long enough for a white girl to be noticed. Miller, you’re a good cop. You proved it when you saved O’Riordan’s life and your own life last week. But it’s no secret in the Department, between you and me, that you’ve been behaving like a screw. Some rookies it takes a long time to learn the fundamentals. You’ve been in Harlem since you were a rookie but you haven’t learned. Don’t you think neither that I’m down on the black babies up there. I’m down on nobody. I’m no Christian Fronter and I never was one. I’m not down on you for being a Jew. I’m Polish descent myself and I’m down on nobody. But I ain’t a screw either. Facts are facts to me. This Harlem’s no kindergarten playground. It’s a place full of eyes looking over every white what comes in there. That white can be Sam Miller, the cop on ambulance duty. It can be an Italian beer peddler. It can be the Jew who runs the grocery. It can be the rich white sport from Park Avenue coming there to meet his mulatto queen. It can be a white woman out for fun. I’m a detective and in this line, you get nowheres unless you kid yourself strictly never. Lots of the black babies up there don’t respect a white woman. And we got to admit that lots of white women, themselves, have to be blamed for that. It isn’t only the low-class spicks and Porto Ricans, or the Irish and Italian whores. It’s high-class white women, some of them from the best families. Now what’s the pic? A Harlem full of pimps, muggers, rapists, junk sellers, all kinds of criminals with no respect for a white woman and always sizing up every white woman who goes into Harlem. Buckles goes in. I don’t like to say it but you’re a cop and we can take it. I think she was sized up by some nigger white-slaver mob. I think she isn’t even in the city now.”

“No!”

“Maybe I’m wrong. We haven’t investigated yet but we will. We’re going to investigate Hal Clair, that colored secretary of his, Burrow, that friend of yours, Ellis.”

“They’ve got nothing to do with it.”

“Maybe they haven’t. But come morning I’ll put the powder on them. I’m not touching them tonight, in case you’re interested, because we don’t want them suspicious. We don’t want them to think that the Department’s hounding them because they’re colored. But tomorrow, the papers’ll carry the story and they’ll expect to be questioned.”

“The papers, God! No, keep it out!”

“I would if I thought it’d help.”

“Suzy’s mother — ”

“Her mother will have to take it.”

“God!”

“It’s tough. Why don’t you see her mother after we finish up?”

“See her?”

“Prepare her. The mother’s all alone from what you’ve said. You’re her only relative practically. To get back to the press. The papers will carry a straight story. No sensation. All we want are the facts.”

“Clair and Ellis’ve got nothing to do with it. Nor has Marian Burrow.”

“How do you know for a fact they haven’t? If they got nothing to do with it, that’s fine with me. Miller, you recollect that story about that young pair, a brother and a sister, whites like you they were, friendly to the black babies? They were coming home from a mixed party one night in Harlem and they’d been spotted by muggers. A mugger snatched the girl’s pocketbook and ran into a hallway. The brother, he was one of those A-1 fools, he chased the mugger into the hallway and up to the roof. The muggers ganged up on that A-1. They knocked him down and some of them were committing a sodomy when the sister came up on the roof, she having chased after her brother. So all them niggers raped her. I’m telling you this story for one reason, Miller. You haven’t learned fundamentals in Harlem. Anything goes in Harlem. The trial proved it to the hilt. One of them muggers was asked if he had committed a rape before on a white girl. He admitted he had raped dozens. Dozens!”

“The man who came to the office said — ”

“Sure he said. He had a smart story or he wouldn’t have fooled Buckles. How he got that story and where he got that story, we don’t know, but he got it. The only witness who heard him was that colored steno up there.” Wajek nodded. “How do we know her story is on the level?”

“It is.”

“Miller,” Wajek said thoughtfully. “How much does she make a week?”

“I don’t know.”

“If she gets twenty bucks a week she’s lucky? That Harlem League isn’t in the bucks. They keep going from the colored churches, from rich whites. Let’s say she gets twenty-five. That’s a fortune. Does she dress well? What I’m getting at is: There’s your smart story.”

“You’re wrong, Wajek.”

Wajek was scratching at one ear. “Maybe. I haven’t put her through the mill. It’s going to be ticklish interrogating Clair and that colored girl at a time like this. Maybe you can give me some pointers? Harlem’s red hot and we don’t want that Harlem League crying to high heaven that the Police’re knocking them around. Councilman Vincent’s seen the Commissioner twice on your case. Red-hot, they are! Maybe we’ll keep the sweetheart angle out of the papers?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Maybe we won’t tell the press that you and Buckles are sweethearts. Too sensational.” He shook his head at Sam as if he were his father. “You go see the girl’s mother. It’s the only decent thing to do. Then go home and get a sleep. If you can’t sleep, get drunk. We’ll do our best for you. The Department never lets one of its own down.” He offered Sam another cigarette. “Now, maybe you can give me some pointers? I don’t want to rub those black babies the wrong way tomorrow. After all we white men have to stick together, Miller. Correct? Correct.”

A
S
S
AM
entered the Y.M.C.A. at One Hundred and Thirty-Fifth Street, he saw Johnny inside the doorway. “What’s up, Sam?” Johnny said.

“What’s up?” Sam echoed.

“I have to ask dumb questions. What’s wrong?” Johnny placed his brown hand on Sam’s shoulder. Sam felt the pressure of Johnny’s fingers. The fingers spoke to him in a language that pierced his despair.

“I have to see her mother.”

“Whose mother?”

“Suzy’s.” He gazed beseechingly at his friend.

“Why?”

“She’s gone, Suzy. She’s missing.”

“Missing?”

Sam gasped and rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. “I got to pull myself together.” He watched Johnny suck in his lips, the red edges pulling in under the teeth.

“Missing!” Johnny said.

Sam was trembling from head to foot. He tried to speak but his tongue choked him.

“I’ll wait for you,” Johnny said. “I knew something — On the phone — Clair said — I’ll wait for you, Sammy.”

Sam rushed into the lobby like a charging beast with a bullet in its vitals. One final flicker of resolution was burning his brain alive, pushing his legs forward, opening his eyes on a giddy world like a photograph on paper; young Negroes made of paper were reading magazines in the lobby; there were paper chairs, a paper desk clerk. To the desk clerk he said. “They expect me at ten thirty. My name’s Miller.” He was aware of the clerk staring at him.

“Yes,” said the brown paper. “They’re expecting you. Go right in. Turn to your right. You can’t miss it.”

Sam charged forward, his head on his chest. He felt as if there were a compass inside of him, his resolution the pointing needle. Glazed of eye, blinded, he found his path to the room on the right, knocked on the door, and the door opened and another paper face, a white paper face, this time, with a paper smile said. “I’m glad to see you, Miller.” It was Hal Clair. Sam nodded and Clair conducted him into a square room full of people on chairs arranged in rows, and in front of the first row there was a table at which more people were sitting, and one of the people at the table stood up and announced “Mr. Sam Miller.” And the heads of the people in the room turned on their necks and Sam felt as if he had returned to the Silver Trumpet Ballroom on Lenox Avenue and it was Sunday again. No, it wasn’t Sunday he thought; it wasn’t Sunday. His head cleared and he knew where he was and what he had to do. He recognized the man who had announced him.

“Come forward, Mr. Miller,” Councilman Vincent was saying. The Councilman’s lips were parted in a smile, the well-known smile Sam had seen in photographs. The Councilman’s roving eyes were leaping from committee member to committee member. Sam walked around the side of the room to the table, the room suddenly full of light, white intense light like the exploding light by which a cameraman takes an indoor picture. Against dazzling light, he noticed the Councilman’s smile, the pursed lips of a woman Committee member next to the Councilman, the blue necktie and pearl stickpin of an elderly Negro next to the woman. So had it been before, so had it happened in another lifetime, in another place, somewheres before he had come forward as he was doing now, somewheres, at the hearing in the station house the night of Randolph’s death when he had approached the mother, there and yet again, and again since that Monday night, he had come forward through the vast halls of consciousness and experience, searching for an answer, groping towards a self that was not himself, Sam Miller, policeman, but a self mightier than all the earth-born, earth-twisted suspicions and prejudices, a self like the son all men hope to have, a son to the future, newer, cleaner, better than the parent. He sensed now that this in him, this glimpse, this hope, was of Suzy.

He heard the Councilman saying that Mr. Miller had come here on his own request, to tell them all what had happened in the fatal shooting of Fred Randolph. The Councilman introduced Hal Clair. Sam heard Clair explain to the committee members how Miller had first come to the H.E.L. office to volunteer his help in tracking down the people distributing the leaflets they all deplored. He heard their voices and he heard their silence as they waited for him to speak. It was a silence deeper than any silence he had ever known, the silence that comes to a man when he searches his heart for words to reach the hearts of other men.

“I’ve just come from Police Headquarters,” he began. “I went there because my girl, the girl I want to marry, has disappeared. You must know that Suzy Buckles volunteered to work for Mr. Clair the day after I did. Today, she is missing. She was lured out of the office by a Negro who claimed to be sent by my friend, Johnny Ellis. Johnny Ellis is a Negro. I got in touch with Ellis. He had sent nobody. I went to Police Headquarters to report her missing.” And he heard their voices and he said, “I have to see her mother tonight. Tomorrow morning, the newspapers’ll carry the story.” And he heard their voices. “I came here tonight because that’s what she would want me to do. I am not a killer although I killed Randolph. He was a victim of circumstances. So was I. I tried not to kill him. The crowd that day, the Negro crowd, wanted him to get me. I was a white cop and Harlem has suffered from white cops. They hated me. I tried to save him. You see I believed in equality before all this happened. I did nothing to get equality but I believed in it. I meant well. I didn’t understand Negroes but I meant well. You must know I’m not blaming the crowd. They didn’t know what I thought. Then O’Riordan came to help me. O’Riordan attacked Randolph with his baton. I joined in. And then it was over and Randolph was dead. I honestly felt that there was nothing more I could’ve done. But when I spoke to Johnny, he told me Randolph might’ve been alive if O’Riordan hadn’t used his baton, swinging me along with him. I’m not trying to shift the blame to O’Riordan. I admit my own blame. I asked myself if O’Riordan would’ve used his baton right away if Randolph had been a white? Maybe. Maybe not. The mad Esposito brothers killed a number of people, including a cop, and they weren’t killed. They were captured alive — ”

“Mr. Chairman,” a Negro in the front row shouted.

“You’re out of order,” the Councilman said. “Please continue, Mr. Miller.”

“I know this. Randolph is dead because Negroes are hated and feared by whites. I was a part of this hate and fear. Believe me, I’m not your enemy. All I ask is for you to try and understand me. We must understand each other. My way still isn’t clear to me. Should I have resigned instead of taking a leave of absence? I don’t know. I know I won’t be used to stir up hate by anybody. The whole city’s full of hate. My girl is missing. Tomorrow, the newspapers’ll carry the story. I saw Detective Wajek of the Identification Bureau. He promised that the story won’t be sensational. He seemed sincere to me but he’s prejudiced. Every white man is, no matter how liberal. I’m prejudiced. All whites are. We’ve grown up in too much prejudice to free ourselves overnight even if we want to. I’m a Jew. We’re all prejudiced and suffer from prejudice. Wajek, now, Wajek believes Suzy is kidnapped by a Negro white slave mob.” He heard their voices and grimly added, “I’ve taken up a lot of time here. I’m upset. I’ve left out things I should’ve mentioned. But I know one thing. Let’s uncover the mob trying to promote a riot in Harlem.” His lips closed and he stood in a long profound silence. Then the room hummed with whispers and the Councilman said.

“On behalf of our Committee, I wish to thank you for your sincere talk. Are there any questions?”

“Mr. Councilman Chairman.” The Negro who had broken in before stood up. “I have a question. I have listened to this policeman’s story and I don’t think you have any right to thank him on behalf of the Committee until you ascertain the sentiments of the Committee. To me, all his talk is completely nonsensical. His girl kidnapped out of the Harlem Equality League offices! If it is in order, I would ask the Committee to reprimand Mr. Clair for being so gullible as to enroll this policeman as a worker in the cause of better racial relations, God help us! I admit being prejudiced against this policeman and all policemen. If he was shooting in self-defense, why did he not shoot Randolph at the time he claimed Randolph slashed him? That was the moment when his life was presumably in danger. Everyone knows that cops do not take chances with armed men, and especially with mental cases armed with knives. This killing smells of murder. Don’t wave at me to sit down, Mr. Councilman Chairman. I am not out of order. You asked the Committee if there were any questions. I am a member of this Committee. How do we know this cop isn’t a stooge of the Police Department? Did he or did he not kill Randolph? Do all the eyewitnesses testify that he did or did not? Does he not admit being swung along by the other cop? Swung along to murder! A pretty phrase! Hasn’t he admitted, after apologizing for the Identification Bureau and the Police Department, in general, that tomorrow the metropolitan press will have another sensation, another anti-Negro story to splash across their front pages? Can’t you smell the headlines, my fellow committee members and Mr. Councilman Chairman? ‘White Girl kidnapped By Negro Rapists.’ Won’t those headlines strike a familiar chord in our memories? Many of us are from the South, and good God, have we forgotten the white women and the white girls who have perjured themselves to frame some unfortunate Negro and the Negro people? How many white women have claimed to have been raped and kidnapped by Negroes only to make a smiling appearance, months later, not raped, not kidnapped. Let us not be steamrollered by this emotional story we have heard. Let us remember the facts so easily misused and misquoted by our enemies. Let us remember that last Sunday we packed the Silver Trumpet Ballroom with six thousand Negroes, a demonstration never seen in all Harlem’s history. A demonstration that has caused the echo of fear to resound in City Hall and in the City Halls of this entire nation. Let us remember that we Negroes have heard other pathetic kidnapping stories before. Let us remember that such stories have served as acts of provocation before. How do we know this kidnapping isn’t such a frenzied attempt by our enemies to split our newfound unity which our enemies fear, a unity that has not appeared among us Negroes since the stirring days of the Civil War, when the immortal Douglass cried out those immortal words that will forever inspire us: ‘Men of color, to arms!’ Let me repeat those words. ‘Men of color, to arms!’ Let us not be split into a dozen squabbling groups. I beg of you, I implore of you, let us not be divided in this critical hour.”

Sam closed the door of the meeting room after him, walked out. The desk clerk was reading a newspaper; the letters to the men who lived in the “Y” slanted like knives in their cubbyholes. Johnny was outside on the street, smoking a cigarette. Johnny looked at him and Sam shrugged his shoulders. The intense resolution he had felt before was as if it had never been. The only light in the world were the lights manufactured by man; the dim beams of the headlights in the passing cars, the windows yellowed by Mazda bulbs, the red end of Johnny’s cigarette. The intense silence he had felt before was shattered by the street noises: roller skates on the sidewalks, voices laughing, joking. “Status quo,” said Sam.

“What do you mean, status quo?”

“Let’s beat it out of here.” Side by side they cut up to the avenue. “I did it because Suzy — For her. Waste of breath! What a waste of breath!”

“What happened?”

“What I might’ve expected. Talk your heart out!” he laughed. “Talk your heart out and the cops sent me. That’s what that Negro lawyer or whoever he was figured. I’m a cop stool pigeon. Suzy isn’t gone. Suzy’s at the Waldorf, safe and sound with her mother.”

“Gee, Sam. Did you say Suzy was missing?”

“What didn’t I tell them? How I felt. The whole works. It’s no use.” The night was a shouting in his ears, kids yelling in the gutters, men and women gossiping outside their houses. Disjointedly, he told Johnny of how the Councilman had thanked him but that no decision could be arrived at right away. “What do I care as long as I get her back. Let them figure me for a Gestapo stool pigeon trying to frame them.” The black faces he saw in the night seemed to be in retreat from him, forever hostile and curious. “What do I care if I never square myself. All I want is Suzy. It’s my fault!” he sobbed.

“Sam,” Johnny said gently. “Maybe I better go home with you?”

“Got to call her mother before Wajek gets there in the morning. With his distinctive marks!” He bit down on his lower lip. His temple and forehead were burning. “Distinctive marks!” he exclaimed loud and crazy-voiced. “Everybody’s got distinctive marks. Mine’s a white skin.”

“Get hold of yourself, kid.”

“Easy to say. Everything’s easy to say. Ask Wajek.”

“Who’s Wajek?”

“Detective I saw tonight. Read all about it, read all about it.”

“Here’s a drugstore, Sam, if you want to make your call.”

“Where?”

“Right here, Sam.”

Sam lurched towards the neons, seeing them as a fish sees the light in the depth. Johnny guided him past the counters of syringes, soaps, tooth powders, all blazing in the cut-rate’s glitter, to the booths in the rear. “Give me a nickel, Johnny,” he asked hoarsely. He was sweating, his hair plastered to his forehead, his lips like two pieces of meat, not a mouth. He took the nickel, dropped it in the slot, dialed Suzy’s number and was stunned by what his dialing finger was doing. He remembered that Suzy had intended to call her mother about the two of them coming up early tonight. Tonight! The two of them! “Hello,” Mrs. Buckles voice said to him.

“Hello,” Sam replied. “This is Sam Miller.”

“How are you, Sam?”

“All right, thanks. I want to — ”

“Where are you and Suzy, Sam?”

“Downtown.”

“I realize that I am an old woman and it isn’t too exciting for young people …” As she rambled on, he was thinking that he might say Suzy’d been hit by a car; an accident, he could say; she’d gone away to another city; and not to believe the papers in the morning; he might say: “Brace yourself for a shock!” and suppose Mrs. Buckles fainted at the other end of the wire, an old lady alone in an apartment. The hair stood up on the nape of his neck. He glared at the mouthpiece, hypnotized by its round enameled eye and he heard her voice. “Sam, are you there? Are we disconnected? Operator!”