“What was that you did?” Destiny Stevenson asked Henson. “I’ve been to prizefights, but I’ve never seen boxing like that.”
“It’s called wing chun.”
“What is that?’
“A kind of fighting technique, Chinese style of combat.”
“You learned it in Chinatown?”
“China,” he said tersely. He gathered up her jacket, purse, and cloche hat and handed them to her. “Like the man said, we better skedaddle.” He also retrieved his axe and throwing star.
“My father sent you?”
“Yes.”
They were at the door. More than one head poked out of an apartments in the hallway, then retreated.
Stevenson pointed at the throwing star Henson slipped back up his sleeve, securing it in place. “That part of that wing chop-chop?”
The throwing star was of Japanese origin, but it was better not to be too literal. “Yes,” he answered. He undid a gunny sack from his tool belt and put the belt, axe, his remaining firebomb and a few other items inside. He carried it as they headed toward the rear stairwell.
“You’re not part of fathers’ following, are you?’
“How can you tell?”
“You don’t have that glazed-over look they get when his name is mentioned.”
He chuckled as they descended. “He has his ways. A lot of people respect him.”
“Ain’t that something.”
He glanced at her, not sure how to interpret her remark. They reached the ground floor and Henson held up his hand. He cracked the service door open and scanned the thoroughfare. He signaled for her to exit and they did, staying close to the building. There was no way the gunshots hadn’t been heard, and there was a smattering of people loosely bunched in front of or across the street from the building.
Henson and the woman went farther along the gloomy passageway between the buildings. Even in the near dark, he deftly guided her around trash cans and discarded pallets. They stopped at the rear door of the building opposite.
“Why aren’t the police coming?” the woman wondered aloud, given the absence of a siren.
Henson pushed against the door, eaten around the edges from termites and rot. It gave in easily. “I’m guessing they were told to stay away. Mr. Flegenheimer has influence in certain circles.”
“Oh, isn’t that—”
“Yep, he’s better known as Dutch Schultz. That’s why your father hired me to fetch you back.” The two made their way through a murky storage room filled various steamer trunks, broken furniture, and several large standing radios including Atwater Kents and Crosleys.
“I see,” she said without rancor. They paused at another door and she touched his arm. “You some kind of circus strongman? But you’re all sleek and move like, I don’t know, a dancer.” She liked his thick mustache and his chiseled face but didn’t want to seem too forward.
“My ex says I got two left feet.”
“Ex, is it?”
“Mm-hum. Come on.”.
The storeroom took them into hallway next to a set of stairs leading up to other apartments. They left the building, the people gathered next door not paying them any attention as they walked away in the opposite direction. One block over, they were on 119th Street and Henson pointed toward Madison Avenue.
“That way, then we can walk or catch a hack. We got to get further uptown.”
“You taking me to him, the deliverer his glorious dang self?” She smiled sweetly.
“He wants to see you.”
She huffed but didn’t say anything else.
He said, “For somebody who’s just been kidnapped by a couple of mobsters, you don’t seem that rattled. You handled yourself pretty well back there.”
“For a girl, you mean.”
“For anybody.”
She regarded him.
They passed a restaurant where diners ate at tables next to a large plate glass window looking out on the street. A band played moodily over a radio from an open window of one of the overhead apartments in the building. A big man, six-three and chest like an anvil, in a suit, bowler hat, and a cigar perched on the side of his mouth, stepped out of the eatery into their path. An ostentations diamond on his little finger caught the light from the bulb over the doorway.
“Matthew ‘Polar Bear’ Henson, how’s the world treating you?” he said heartily. The man touched the brim of his hat nodding at Stevenson. “Ma’am.”
“I can’t call it, OD, you?”
Oscar Dulane hunched his broad shoulders. “Fortune smiled on me today. Tomorrow, who knows?” Among OD’s pursuits was that of a bouncer brought on at clubs like Smalls Paradise and Hayne’s Oriental when the staff needed beefing up for special events.
Henson gave him a half-salute and he and the woman continued on.
“Matthew who did he say?” Stevenson asked as they walked, having heard his last name. “You’re the one.”
“That’s me.”
“Well I’ll be. The one who was with them white fellas who discovered the North Pole?”
In a snow blind white haze, he saw the weathered faces of his friends, Ootah, his brothers Egingwah, and Seegloo, Ooqueah—even Peary appeared before him. As one the fur coated men gestured for him to join them as the snow storm nearly obliterated their forms. They were the six men who reached the North Pole. It would turn out only one of them would get lasting credit for the hard-earned goal.
“Uh-huh,” was all he drawled returning to the present.
They hailed a Checker cab and rode further north into the heart of Harlem to be let off at a brownstone along Striver’s Row. The cabbie, who wore a button on his lapel identifying him as a member of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, and recognizing Henson, let
