Dark Stain (28 page)

All about him were the readers of the newspapers. To them, Suzy was another headline. He, himself, had read many such headlines in his lifetime; always there was the name of the woman or the girl or the girl child; always the facts of the rape, the mutilation, the murder. But Suzy was his girl…. His fingers clutched the subway support. The subway’s speed was swifter than the speed of bombers in the sky. He was on the speed and the speed was roaring him to her.

The revolving fans blew a blast of warm air into his face. He told himself that he musn’t give up so easy. Weren’t the police working to find Suzy? The police had worked to find other Suzys….

After awhile, he found himself looking at a small woman near him. The woman had on a black dress, adorned by a gaudy pin shaped like a spider. He focused on the woman and her pin. The woman was the outer world. He wanted to stay in the outer world. The outer world was a madhouse world but it was saner than the wax museums that had suddenly opened up in his brain. God, he could have done more today. He hadn’t done enough. It would never be enough.
They
were too efficient, too strong, too secret to ever be exposed. Like an army
they
suffered their casualties, leaders arrested, interned; some of their companies wiped out, but the army remained. Sam’s shoulders slumped and his tired face was doughy in the dim subway light. What next? What tomorrow? Who would be in tomorrow’s madhouse? Marian? Hal Clair, who only had faith while reading the writings of good men? Johnny, the unionist who had failed to convince his wife? Cashman, who was more like a fist and a slogan become a man than a man? Vine who treasured his words? Detective Wajek, the police machine? Matty Rosenberg, whose meals were what books were to Clair? Who would be in tomorrow’s madhouse? The white man with the scarred face? And don’t forget Sam Miller, again fooling himself into functioning like a Wajek. God Almighty, they were all mad. God Almighty, why hadn’t
they
left Suzy alone? He pivoted in the subway as if
they
had trailed him here in the shaking car on the shaking train.

He got off at his station, walked home as usual, rode up in the elevator as usual, unlocked the door as usual. “Here he is,” he heard his mother saying to somebody. As he entered, his mother charged on him from the kitchen.

“Sam, Sam, where are you the whole time? Again with her mother? How is she, the poor woman? They’re here, Sam. In the living room. It’s terrible. And you don’t even call me up, a call’s a nickel.”

He nodded at his mother. She was dressed as if for Friday night, for the Sabbath. Her dress was new, her grey hair tidy, but her eyes weren’t Sabbath eyes. They were bloodshot in the corners, bright and hysterical. “Who’s here, mom?”

“The detectives. In the living room.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” He rushed from her, hope in him that there was news. He saw his family at the radio, his father leaner and greyer in his grey suit, his sister Rose, his kid brother. On the couch, in a camp of their own, the detectives sat, a white detective in a double-breasted, pencil-stripe blue suit and a Negro detective built like a dock walloper. They smiled at him as he entered. The white detective’s long face cracked into large yellowish teeth. “I’m Detective Maddigan, Miller. This is Detective Blaine.” Blaine bobbed his closely cropped head.

There was no news then, Sam thought. There was only Maddigan. His family moved closer to the couch now that Sam was present; they seemed like different people because of the two detectives; home wasn’t home but a place invaded. “Miller,” Maddigan said. “I hope you’ve had your dinner.” His politeness was as formal as the carnation in his buttonhole. His eyes were blue in his closely shaven face. His smells were talcum powder, witch hazel and tobacco.

“I’ve had my dinner.”

“Could we have a little private chat?”

“Of course.” Sam glanced at his family. His mother had joined the others. He felt as if they were on some shore, watching him climb some gangway. His mother was nodding at him to be careful. He knew that nod. He remembered it from childhood. He led the two detectives into his bedroom, shut the door. He cleared the chair of some novels and newspapers and Maddigan waved Blaine into it. Maddigan, himself, sat down at the foot of the bed, twisting around to face Sam. Sam dropped down on the bed below the pillows. Maddigan pulled up his knife-edged trousers and inch or two. His ankles were shod in black hose, arrowed in red.

“Miller,” Maddigan began. “We didn’t wait for you over two hours to slap around. There’s no time for slapping around. So stick your chin out. You’re going to take it.” He smiled. “After Rosenberg left you this afternoon, he told his desk sergeant about that request of yours. That same request was passed on to me. I’m in full charge of the ring-around-the-rosie up in Harlem.”

“Well,” Sam said.

“For shit’s sake, Miller, we’re all in the Department together. Blaine and you and me.”

Blaine grinned.

“That’s right,” said Sam. He felt cornered in his own home. His lips dried. He looked at Blaine and then at Maddigan.

“Detective Wajek gave you a break,” Maddigan was reminding him. “He let you take Mrs. Buckles out to Queens. And did you see any sheet in this town connecting Buckles up to you? Did you?”

“No.”

“That’s because the Department went to bat for you. Now, Miller, I’m not going to ask what you’ve been up to today. That’s in the can. It’s flushed out and gone. It wouldn’t surprise us anyway. We’re hep to you, Miller. You’re young and you got a goose up your ass. You’ve been taken in by Reds like Hal Clair.”

“I haven’t been taken in by anybody.”

“I’ll prove it you have. That’s why I’ve got Detective Blaine here. We know you mean well up in Harlem. You just don’t know how. I want you to give Blaine your theory of who’s behind the ring-around-the-rosie.”

“My theory?” Sam stalled for time.

“Like you told Rosenberg and Detective Wajek. By the way, Rosenberg’s going to investigate the property damage in that synagogue.”

Sam rubbed his chin. Rosenberg had turned in a blow-by-blow account. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said, still stalling.

“We’re all in the Department together,” Maddigan expounded. “We’ve all got our religion. I’m a Catholic. You and Rosenberg are Jews. Blaine’s a colored Protestant. But when it comes to protecting our religion from the Reds we’re all together.”

“You think Reds did it?” Sam asked.

The talcum-powdered face crinkled at the eye corners. “What I mean is that we’ve all got something in common in the Department whatever our religion or color. Isn’t that right, Blaine?”

“Yes, sir,” Blaine affirmed.

“Are we for the Department first and last or are we for something else?” Maddigan continued. “That something else can be white troublemakers or black ones or red ones. Take Rosenberg. He’s a good cop and a good Jew. But how about you?”

“I’m trying to be a good American.”

“So you say,
landsmann
.” And Maddigan smiled.

“So I say.”

They looked at each other while Blaine glanced at Sam’s books. “Let’s eliminate the debate,” Maddigan said. “Tell Blaine who’s operating in Harlem.”

Sam turned to the Negro detective. “When I shot Randolph, a gang — ”

Maddigan interrupted, sneering. “What do you mean by gang,
landsmann?”

“My name’s Miller.”

“Okay, Miller. I’m getting tired of your doubletalk. By gang you mean fascists. Say so.”

“That’s true. I mean fascists.”

“Go on. To Blaine. Not to me, Mr. Miller.”

“After Randolph was shot,” Sam said, his pulse pounding, “feeling was hot. Harlem was sore at whites. So the fascists stepped in. They printed their program in their two leaflets and now they’ve started in on the Jews. I’m a Jew and also because Harlem’s sore at Jewish landlords and storekeepers. Harlem’s mixed up about Jews with the anti-Semitism there.”

“What about the Italians?” Maddigan prompted. “Don’t forget the Ethiopian War in your theory, Miller. What about Suzy Buckles? She isn’t Jewish or Italian. Are your fascists behind that too? Hold on, Miller. I’ve heard enough about you to make me vomit. The guy who went up to Clair’s office, was he a white man, a fascist, or a Negro?”

“A Negro, according to Marian Burrow.”

“Can fascists be colored?” Maddigan persisted.

“Yes.”

“Can Jews be fascists?”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean by fascists, Miller? That theory of yours has to have a definition.”

“Any man who thinks his nation or blood or color is better than anybody else’s is a fascist.”

“You make me vomit,” Maddigan cried. “Now, you put your chin out, rookie. Go on Blaine. Tell the rookie.”

“I’m not a rookie.”

“Blaine, go on.”

Blaine said, “Miller, you’re wrong. Like Detective Maddigan said, there are good and bad in all races. Harlem’s got its share of no-good colored people and some of the worst got the best reputations. I went to that mass meeting Sunday. Six thousand people heard that no-good talk. They went home and told it to their families. Multiply that six thousand by ten and you’d be safe in estimating sixty thousand people were discussing that meeting. That meeting was an incitement to riot as the Mayor said. And that’s what we’ve been getting. Riot in Harlem. That meeting lit the fuse.”

“Go on,” Maddigan urged as Sam made no comment.

“Harlem’s got its pool-room kids,” Blaine continued. “It’s got its muggers and low-class Negroes. That mass meeting mobilized all these elements. That mass meeting made you and all Jews the fall guy.”

“That’s common sense,” Maddigan approved.

“You’re going to ask me what about the Italians,” Blaine said. “And I’ll admit the motives are mixed-up motives with the Italians. There are Negro bars that’d like nothing better than to take over the Italian liquor business. There’s a big-shot like Big Boy Bose who owns a half dozen bars and Bose’d like nothing better than to put the Italians against the wall.”

“Who printed the leaflets?” Sam said. “Bose?”

Blaine held up a round big hand. “The A.H.N.C. printed them.”

“That’s what I thought. Once,” Sam said.

“Who changed your mind? Clair?” Maddigan questioned.

Sam shrugged. So this is why they had come, the white detective and the Negro detective who spoke as the white man wanted him to do.

Blaine said, “The first leaflet was printed and it was signed by the A.H.N.C. It fussed up City Hall. It worried the Mayor and the Police Commissioner. It worried the politicians.”

“Well?” Sam said.

“There he pops,” Maddigan said. “What do you know about Harlem? The A.H.N.C.’s loaded with politicians. They come up for election, don’t they? When the pressure got hot on top they stopped signing their leaflets.”

“Why didn’t they stop the meeting?” Sam said. “The pressure was hot enough.”

“Votes,” said Maddigan.

“Right,” Blaine seconded. “Negro officeholders, Miller, are no different from white ones. They were in a spot, that Committee. They saw Harlem wanted action. A mass meeting’d give them the chance to get up before the votes and pound their chests.” Blaine laughed. “If you want to know Harlem, you got to know that the Negro is afraid of one thing more than anything else in the world. The Negro’s always afraid his leaders’ll let him down. That’s why the leaders hopped the bandwagon. They knew all Harlem was sore about Randolph. Something had to be done. The leaders had to ride along. At the same time they had to keep their political fences up. The big-shot Republican and Democrat leaders, the whites, they didn’t like the A.H.N.C. leaflet. That’s why the second one was signed United Negro Committee and the third one wasn’t signed at all.”

“No,” Sam said.

“They need their white backing,” Blaine said. “That’s why the meeting was toned down. That’s why the eyewitnesses didn’t speak even though they were announced. If they’d’ve spoken, you’d have had your riot Sunday. But a riot’d ruin the A.H.N.C. with the white big-shots. That’s what it all is. An undercover fight between the white big-shots and the A.H.N.C. The A.N.H.C. doesn’t want a riot but they want to show the whites how strong they are. They’re smart. They see the time’s coming when colored candidates are going to run for all kinds of offices. For Congress, too. And not only up in the North. But in the South, too. The poll tax is going to be licked soon.”

Maddigan punched his fist into the bed. “That’s straight gospel. Miller. Let me add something to what Blaine’s said. There were Irish cracks in the second leaflet. Those Irish cracks were cut out of the third leaflet because the word was passed on to these colored big-shots that they were going too far dragging in the Irish. Jews was okay. Italian was okay. But the Irish were too strong to fool around with.”

“Who passed the word?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know. But it was passed on.”

Sam considered. There was some truth in what they had told him. It was possible that the Jewish outbreaks were sporadic. And weren’t the Negro bar owners business men first? Wouldn’t they stand to profit if the Italian bars lost their Negro customers? Weren’t there Negro politicians only loyal to their positions and salaries? Hadn’t the two Negro newspapers featured the Randolph killing and underplayed the follow-up crimes? Hadn’t one of the A.H.N.C. members at the “Y” called him a police agent? Maybe he had spun himself a fascist fairy tale; maybe Suzy and Johnny and Cashman had made him see fascists in thin air?

“What do you know of the Harlem Equality League?” Blaine asked Sam.

“It stands for equality between the races — ”

“Where do they get their dough?” Blaine said quietly.

“From contributions I suppose.”

“They collect from Negroes,” Blaine said. “And from rich white people. They got to show the people putting up the cash they’re earning their keep. They got to keep in the limelight or the collection falls off. They got to have publicity all the time. That’s why whenever some no-good black rapes a white woman and gets lynched, the H.E.L. hollers frameup. They’re always looking for Scottsboro cases. If they don’t find them, they make them. They’re the worst enemies of the Negro you can find, these H.E.L.’s, N.A.A.C.P.’s and Negro Congresses!” Blaine nodded emphatically. “That’s why Clair took you and the girl into his office. For the publicity. So he could say to the rich whites: ‘See what I’m doing? I believe in white folks.’ ” Blaine shoved his palm out. He rubbed his thumb up and down on the lifeline like someone asking for money. “He’s got his publicity now. The town’s gone to his hole in the wall. He’s in all the papers and take it from me, Miller, that Harvard no-good who says he’s a Negro but who’s no more a Negro than I’m a white man, just loves it.”