Hold Tight (26 page)

“Here we are. Do pay the nice man, Erich. That’s a dear.”

Erich paid and stepped out after them. They stood at the foot of a short open pier flanked by enormous green warehouses. A gate in the chain link fence was wide open and a row of empty boxcars was parked on the track that ran out to the end of the pier. There was a smell of creosote and dead fish. The sun was an orange disk hovering in the murky air across the river.

Juke opened his purse and brought out a pair of white gloves, which he wiggled over his hands. “Valeska’s,” he explained. “You can’t wear gloves in taxis, though. Door handles just aren’t as clean as they used to be.” He noticed Erich and Fayette looking around in bewilderment. “Don’t be frightened, darlings. We’re exactly where we should be.”

He led them through the gate and down the pier. More of the river came into view, plumed with columns of black smoke from the tugboats, ferries and lighters swarming over the wide, smokey-orange water. Up ahead walked the silhouette of a couple in evening clothes. Then, just beyond the last boxcar, was a double-deckered gazebo, docked to the side of the pier. It was actually a boat, turned into some kind of restaurant or night club. Chinese paper lanterns swung in the breeze beneath the canopy over the upper deck—innocent paper lanterns. The deck below was dark with murmuring people. As they came closer, Erich heard a piano against the noise of cranes and boat whistles outside. People like Juke could not afford to congregate in more conspicuous places, he decided.

“Hank, dear.” Juke took hold of Fayette’s arm as they approached the party. “You’re forgetting I’m a lady.”

Beneath the awning over the red-carpeted entrance stood a handsome young man in a cut-away and a roundly plump figure in a tiara and strapless red dress. The slant of sunlight showed the blue shadow of a shave beneath the hostess’s face powder. He had just finished welcoming the couple in evening clothes. The handsome boy stood beside him like a mannequin chewing gum.

“Alpheus! Lena, I mean.” The hostess embraced Juke and made kissing sounds on either side of his snood. “What ever happened to you? We never see you at Chick’s.”

“Didn’t you hear, Kate? I moved downtown. Uptown life had simply grown too, too.”

“Frederick’s here,” the hostess said meaningfully.

“Oh?” Juke hesitated. “Oh, Kate, dear. I’d like you to meet Hank. Hank is in the service.”

“So I see,” said the hostess, his eyes eating Fayette. “Where did you ever find such a delectable piece of seafood?” He reached out for a quick touch, his bracelets jingling.

“Pleased to meet you, ma’m, uh, sir,” Fayette said with a stiff nod, glancing at Erich, more concerned for him than with being touched by a transvestite. He was probably touched by transvestites every day.

“And this is Erich. Erich’s a bookkeeper.”

The hostess gave him a quick, disappointed look. Erich knew he should not feel judged by someone so absurd, but he was abruptly conscious of being short, pudgy and balding. He adjusted his glasses, as if that could make a difference.

“I realize, of course, that Erich’s not dressed for the occasion,” Juke said blithely. “You couldn’t make an exception just this once, could you?” He
expected
Erich to be turned away, which was why he had given in so easily to Fayette.

“Well…One can’t be as picky as one was in days of old,” said the hostess. “And since you also brought this beautiful sailor—Welcome to our little soiree, Erich.” He held out a hand for Erich to squeeze, a hand the size of a football. He waved Erich inside and stage whispered to Juke, “But I declare, Lena. What ever do you see in such a drab little Jew? I hope he’s loaded.”

“Fabulously loaded,” Juke purred. “Thank you ever so much. Ta-ta for now.” He turned to join Erich and Fayette inside, dropping his honeyed smile the instant his back was to the hostess. His ruse had failed. “Piss elegant fake,” he grumbled. “Since you’re in, go get yourself a drink and try not to embarrass me,” he told Erich. “I’m introducing my date to a few old friends. Nobody you’d want to meet.”

“This won’t take long,” said Fayette as Juke led him off.

Erich watched them go, then looked around, feeling more numbed than shocked. He noticed the evening clothes of various cuts and ages, a few uniforms—all enlisted men—and many elaborate dresses and hairdos. The different aromas of perfume were so strong you couldn’t smell the river anymore. He was so accustomed to the presence of women at such gatherings that he assumed there were real women here, until he looked for them. A blonde with puffed shoulders had an adam’s apple like a rock. A pale Negress with a hat like a saucer did not quite know what to do with her purse. And someone who looked like Rita Hayworth—too much like her—had startlingly big feet. But everyone seemed well-behaved and civilized, despite an occasionally loud, uncivilized laugh. A baby grand piano at the end of the deck scattered lazy chords over the scene. The sunset behind the piano looked like a wall mural. They might all be in a midtown night club, except for the presence of enlisted men and Negroes. Erich decided he could live with this until Fayette was able to get away.

He found the bar beside the bulkhead of the stairs, asked the long-haired bartender for wine and had to take brandy instead. Looking around for Fayette, he took a deep sip of the drink. The floor suddenly seemed to sway. He lowered his glass and stared at it. Bottles and glasses behind the bar were ringing together.

There were delighted shrieks from people along the rail. Erich looked up and saw the mural of the warehouse sliding by. When he turned to look for the pier, it was ten feet away, getting further away as he watched. The floor was trembling.

“We’re free! We’re free!” someone screamed, and the piano broke into a bangy boogie-woogie. Men began to dance, some with men, some with men dressed as women. Others rushed to the stern and hooted at the golden skyline pulling away behind them. “Screw you, cops! Screw you, Mob!” screamed Rita Hayworth, then pulled up her dress, pulled off her BVDs and waved them like a big hanky at the city before she tossed them into the boat’s wake.

People rushed the bar and Erich was surrounded by crackling crinoline. He pushed his way through the surprisingly hard bodies to the railing, although it was too late now to jump. A hand on his shoulder suddenly turned him around. It was Fayette, red-faced and grimacing.

“Damn that Juke! He never told me this boat was going anywhere!”

“Did he say when we’d get back?” Hearing himself, Erich realized he wasn’t nearly as upset as Fayette. There was nothing either of them could do.

“No. Damn little so-and-so. I could wring his scrawny black neck. Shit. We’re stuck here until it’s over. I got you into this shitty mess, Erich, and I’m sorry.”

“No harm done. No. Nothing we can do but enjoy the ride,” Erich offered, wondering why he wasn’t more upset. The disguises and noises around them made him think of Carnival in Vienna and Zurich. Maybe it would be no worse than that. “Maybe we can find a quiet corner and talk, Fayette. This is as good a place as any to have that drink.” Trapped with Fayette for several hours, Erich could force himself to say everything that had to be said.

“Yeah,” Fayette answered, without enthusiasm. “If I can get five minutes peace from that pesky picaninny.” He looked out over the crowd. “Where is he? I better find the fool or he’s gonna be riled I gave him the brush.” And Fayette shouldered his way through the party, looking for the person he said he wanted to avoid.

There was such screaming they left the pier that one hoped the boat was capsizing. So many deaths by drowning would be splendid, cleansing the city of degenerates, ridding Blair of the fairy who had brought him misery.

He stood in the shadow of a boxcar, making fists with his black gloves while he watched the boat carry his enemy out toward the channel. The gloves made him feel capable, ruthless. He had leased a car that morning and driven out to Flushing and back to shake anyone who might be following him—it couldn’t be as difficult as Anna claimed to lose a tail. He had watched the house behind the docks all afternoon, parked in an alley, waiting to catch the sailor alone. He had followed the sailor, who was with a man with glasses and a colored girl, to this place. He had seen enough of the other people arriving—trash mocking good society through imitation—to understand what kind of party it was. Blair had invested too much time and cleverness in following the sailor this far to give up now.

The sun sank rapidly on the other side of the river. Blair waited until the boat was a distant shadow in the blue haze. He came out from behind the boxcar and approached the dockworker returning to his shed. He asked the man when the boat was expected back.

“Sometime after one, thweetie. Your boyfriend leave you behind?”

Blair did not deign to answer. He turned and walked back toward the gate, where his car was parked. He had a pint in the glove compartment and his first gun, purchased only a few hours ago.

K
ATE SMITH’S PRE-FOURTH OF
July Aquacades and Garden Party, which was what the hostess called his floating ball, made its way up the Hudson, music and giggles pealing over the water. The lights on the lower deck and in the paper lanterns were turned on: the boat became a vision of fairyland floating through a world at war. The Narrows to the south was fretted with ships massing for a convoy to Britain; a black blimp rode the smoke-streaked sky above them. Liberty ships in war paint lined the waterfront, loading up with munitions, tanks and folded airplanes. Behind the spotlit piers, the browned-out city unrolled as a handful of lamps, like a dim, earthbound constellation. There was only the bubble of light of the Hotel Astor’s rooftop dance floor to suggest that people on shore still enjoyed themselves.

The boat passed beneath the stern of a troopship moored in the old berth of the French Line, coasting into a smell of fresh laundry that blew down from the ship’s fantail. Soldiers in underwear and dog tags began to appear along the railings overhead, whistling and hooting. “Look at those babes, will ya?” “How’s about a kiss, sister!” “I love ya, ladies!”

Guests packed the starboard side, hooting back and throwing kisses. “Yoo hoo!” “Oh boooys!” “Jump down and join us if ya ain’t got nothin’ better to do!”

One soldier climbed on the railing and pretended he was going to dive overboard. Then someone shouted, “Those aren’t dames! That’s a boatload of fairies!”

“Like we can be choosey?” cried someone else. The soldiers continued their hollering and pleas for love until the vision vanished behind the next pier.

Juke looked for Hank, then decided to use his time to prepare Lena for their moment of truth. He lightly stepped over to the bar and ordered a cold rum daisy. The white bartender asked if he were Lady Day, and a bitch from Chick’s said he looked like Bessie Smith, but Juke was Lena, sleek and beautiful and resiliently vulnerable. Wearing Lena’s cool sexiness, Juke felt freed from his usual need to be tough and knowing. He turned himself inside out with drag, so that his toughness was hidden and his softness public. He would not have to hold his cards so close to his heart when he was feeling so feminine and elegant.

Hold tight, hold tight.

I bite all night

An’ ’jaculate my jack

Into some seafood mama.

I browned him twice.

Was very nice.

They sang camp versions of popular songs around the piano while couples shook shirtfronts and earrings out on the dance floor. Juke recognized sisters and customers from Chick’s, the Harlem fancy house where he had lived and worked for a year, before Freddie. He recognized Sash, the snob from Valeska’s who thought he could fuck his way up in the world if he listened to the right music. Sash was in drag tonight, preposterous and tacky: dotted swiss, too little makeup, a goldilocks wig and men’s black tie shoes. His sugardaddy was a long, cadaverous man with tailored evening clothes and banana-yellow hair. Juke looked forward to humiliating Sash back at the house for being a woman, and a tasteless one to boot.

There was Freddie, just as Kate had warned. Juke noticed him standing off to the side, sternly watching everything like some deacon from an important uptown church, which was what Freddie was. Short and black and built like a child’s coffin, Freddie escorted a timid colored boy wearing a flat little hat. Juke recognized the boy’s blue Sunday dress and pearl necklace. Freddie kept a wardrobe for his “wives” and chose partners based on whether they could wear what he already owned. Only Juke’s shoes had been new the three months he lived with Freddie. Juke wasn’t cut out to be a deacon’s wife, but at least it had gotten him out of Chick’s.

Freddie saw Juke, and coldly turned his square black back to him. The snub meant nothing to Juke. Insisting Juke be a woman and nothing but a woman, Freddie had used a strap on him if he so much as peed standing up. There had been no love left when Juke finally got his black and blue butt out of there. And Juke, or Lena rather, was in love with somebody else tonight.

He had finished his daisy and ordered another when he spotted Hank again. The sailor must have been on the other side of the stairway bulkhead before. Taller than the others, blond and fresh, he stood out like a stiff pecker. He glanced around as he wandered through the crowd, as if looking for Juke.

“So sorry, darling. But I won’t be needing that second daisy,” Juke told the bartender. Faintly goofy with alcohol and fear, he adjusted his gay deceivers and reshaped his snood, then drew a deep breath and walked his coolest, most killing walk toward Hank. He was making a fool of himself, but it was Lena’s doing, and Lena was hopeless. The slight tilt of the deck almost pitched her off her high heels. “Darling! Wherever have you been?”

“Oh, there you are,” said Hank, halting. “Wondered where you’d gone to.” But he stood there looking like a dog who had chased a car and caught it.

“You’ve been neglecting me, you naughty boy.” She took Hank’s arm but the arm remained stiff, held away from Hank’s side. The reluctance hurt. Juke wanted to kick Hank in the seat of his pants, but Lena remained a lady. “Shall we take a little night air on the upper deck?”