“Don’t you dare look at me like that,” she said, a light sheen of grease on her shapely lips. “I haven’t dirtied a plate all day.”
“Ain’t nothing wrong with satisfying your hunger.”
Her tongue licked at her bottom lip. “Is that so?’ Her gaze lingered on him.
From the other room just beyond the archway to the kitchen, a raised voice said, “Look, what them Bolsheviks did over there can’t be repeated over here, Langston. They all Europeans and whatnot. And actually, there’s plenty of oriental types over there too, but surprise, surprise, they don’t seem to be the ones in power now, do they?”
“Nobody’s saying it’s perfect, Florence,” Langston Hughes said to Florence Emery. From Harlem originally, the cabaret singer had moved to Paris and was a fixture at Eugene Bullard’s Le Grand Duc nightclub.
She continued, “Look at the trials and tribulations that go down trying to bring together whites and blacks on the labor front. More than half the damn time it’s the whites inside the unions who are the worse ones. They like to keep their precious little boilermakers and brick layer clubs white and all, right. ‘Course they don’t mind you New Negroes take some lumps for them on the picket line,”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Hughes said, I’m not saying they’ve created a workers’ utopia, but there are key lessons we can learn from them in our march toward equality here at home. All of us can’t move to Paree you know.”
“I sure as hell hope not,” she said, head back, laughing, her hands on her hips.
In another apartment, the trumpet player was joined by a saxophonist and a clarinetist. After a false start, they jammed a rendition of “Black Bottom Stomp,” then riffed into “San,” and from that, a round of improvising solos. By then a guitar player had joined in, and the beat became more melodic as several couples began slow dancing. The couples included women with women, and nobody raised an eyebrow.
“Not bad for a man who’s been out in nowhere living with the seals and the mudlarks,” Stevenson said, the side of her face on his chest as they danced.
“I do try.”
“Yes, you do.” She looked up at him and they kissed.
The man and woman didn’t rush away to satiate their growing passion but stayed at the party long enough to let it further blossom. Long enough that Willie “The Lion” Smith showed up after playing a gig at a local club. An upright piano was wheeled out of one of the apartments and he banged out several rousing numbers in his masterful stride stylings. A long cigar dangled from his mouth, and Florence Emery was cajoled into singing a couple of numbers with him.
The cheer and the music filed the building and spilled out onto the streets as Henson and Stevenson finally left the party. It was past one in the morning.
“I’ll see you to your door,” Henson said.
“That would be just lovely,” she answered, warm from liquor and lust.
Her studio apartment was in a building with a butcher’s shop on the ground floor that had a speakeasy behind a wall that could swing open. But the two didn’t stop in for another drink. Soon, they were at the door to her fifth-floor walk-up, Henson’s hand under her skirt, her leg around his waist. The two managed to get inside and tumbled into her bed. She had hold of him by a hand and stroked him as she nibbled on his neck and ear.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
While Henson and Stevenson kept house, Vin O’Hara tossed three kings onto the table. “I believe that beats your two pair.”
“Shit,” groused another more adept at safecracking than cards. He sat back and lit a cigarette while O’Hara gathered up several loose dollar bills that constituted the poker pot.
“Always a pleasure doing business with you gents,” O’Hara said, rising and stretching. “But I gotta go see a man about a horse.”
“You gonna ride that nag all night?” another player leered.
O’Hara showed even teeth. “Modesty forbids.” He polished off his whisky, folded his winnings into his pocket and after putting his coat on and placing his straw hat on his head, touched the brim. “See ya.”
Somebody grunted, and O’Hara was out the door and walking along the quiet hallway, the hour was just past midnight. He took the stairs two flights down and out onto the sidewalk, looked around and walked up the street to his car—the company vehicle, as it were. It was a Ford Model A and was among several that belonged to Dutch Schultz that his men used in making their rounds. This included collecting his monies from various illegal endeavors or making a call to break a guy’s arm or stick a recalcitrant so-and-sos head in the wheel well and put a foot on his neck to make him see matters the Dutchman’s way.
Inside the car, O’Hara had set the spark lever up when he’d parked. He keyed the ignition on, and engaged the gas by pushing its lever to the right of the stick shift toward the dashboard. He gave a couple of squirts of fuel into the carburetor barrels, working the choke and cranked the engine. The car came to life and putting the spark lever down, he pushed the accelerator and gave the car gas. He let the brake off, put on the lights, and pulled away from the curb. Very little traffic was out this time of the morning in Hell’s Kitchen or elsewhere.
He headed east, enjoying the neon glare of edifices like the Roadway, the Knickerbocker and the Winter Garden. The shows were over, but there were
