“You and Ootah covered up this Leeward’s death? Even though it was self-defense?”
“That’s right,” he drew out. “I wasn’t about to take my chances with the whims of the crew, all of them white. Hell this wasn’t our first try at the Pole and each time I was the only negro. Sure, some were okay in their dealings with me, but I also knew several saw me as no more than Peary’s uppity valet. Out there where the law was tooth and claw, who knows what they’d believe? Now, mind you, the other way around, well hell, Leeward would have said ‘That nigger went crazy, his simple mind snapping from the pressure of having to keep up with us white men.’ And Ootah, well, you ever hear his name, or the names of the other three Eskimos who were with us when we planted Old Glory at the top of the Earth, mentioned?”
“You’ve mentioned them in your talks.”
He was impressed she knew that. “The white newspapers don’t come to my talks.”
“There is that,” she agreed.
They each sipped their libations. He also didn’t tell her how Peary had planned to leave him behind at their base camp and make the last surge to the Pole with only two other Eskimos. How he’d learned this overhearing two Inuit boys talking the night before. But Peary’s estimations had been off. Henson could also reckon latitude and longitude. He could estimate a sledge’s progress within feet, let alone miles. He’d been certain that their camp was already at the Pole. As Peary couldn’t reconcile the colored Henson could be so adept, Henson wasn’t going to waste time arguing.
He had written about this publicly several years ago in the Boston American. But thereafter, didn’t mention it—he couldn’t without stewing in rancor and regret.
Finally, he said, “Peary got his pension from Congress, Bess. They’ve denied mine, more than once. Despite the facts, and me saving the commander’s life. Twice.” He said this reservedly, no more emotion behind the words than ordering a steak in a restaurant. He had long ago come to accept that fate was his to forge from life’s adversities.
Coleman nodded knowingly.
He’d told her a version of the story of the cavern. He’d left out the meteorite they’d come to call the Daughter, short for the Daughter of Seqinek. She was told it was gold, and that he and Leeward and Ootah had battled, him killing the Kentuckian with a hunting knife.
“And this Davis fella, he wants that gold?” She said. “He kidnapped your Professor Ellsmere to get you to ‘fess up?”
He’d also told her that Ootah and his brother Seegloo had hidden the gold. What had been hidden by the time he’d returned to Greenland was the meteorite with the strange power. A power he feared, then and now, would be used for evil. He also understood sooner or later he was going to have to tell her the truth. But first things first.
“Not sure. But I’m looking forward to meeting Mr. Renwick.”
“Very good,” she said, draining her glass. “See you tomorrow.”
“Good deal.” He walked her to the rear door and unlatched it. “You going to be okay? I am a gentleman, and all.”
“Negro, please,” she grinned, patting his cheek. She stepped out into the night and he watched her go, then closed the door.
He turned from the door when the phone rang. Not too many people knew the number to this back room. He put a hip on the desk and plucked free the receiver, while picking up the body of the instrument in his other hand to talk into the mouth piece.
“Hello?”
“Matt, it’s Slip. Figured I’d take a chance calling you here seeing as how you don’t keep a blower at your place.”
“What you got?” When he’d talked with Latimore that day in St. Nicholas Park, he’d engaged his services.
“That egg who came at us in the park with the knife is a fella who goes by the sobriquet of Two Laces, though I have no idea why. But he’s been known to do muscle work for Casper Holstein and Dutch Schultz.”
“Not at the same time I’m guessing, since them two ain’t exactly buddies.”
The well-off Holstein was seldom-seen, at least in daylight hours. He was originally a poor boy from the West Indies and a pioneer of the numbers racket. Poet Claude McKay, among others, posited he invented the pursuit while working as a porter in a store on Fifth Avenue. He studied the way other lotteries had operated, relaying on who knew how their winning numbers were derived. For as little as a nickel, an aspirant could bet what would be the ending three-digit number derived from the tabulation of the daily New York Clearinghouse total, arrived at as the result of trading among banks. The last two numbers from the millions column of the exchange’s total plus the last number from the balance’s total -- both published in the late afternoon newspapers. In that way, no one could dispute what the winning numbers were.
They dreamed about them, they used the numbers of streetcars that stopped in front of their church, or the day of month of their grandma’s birthday minus the date of the Emancipation Proclamation. And plenty in and around Harlem bet the numbers—particularly those who insisted they didn’t. Holstein was reputed to own three apartment buildings in Harlem, he for sure owned the Turf Club, and was said to have a fine home out on Long Island. He’d also funded the literary
