“Nice shot,” he said.
“One must keep a steady nerve.” Davis stalked around the table, figuring out his next shot.
The club stood on the Upper East Side with Central Park in the background, in a four-story townhouse. Its façade was in the style of German vernacular architecture that harkened back to the days when Manhattan was a Dutch colony. It was made of brick and wood and there had been some recent renovations befitting the Beaux Arts style that had enthralled the modern-day customers of numerous architectural firms. It had tiered sloping roofs, and stood as a somber edifice to the desire for humans to uncover the mystery and wonder of the planet they lived on.
“Is that why you invited me, Davis? To remind me of your resolve?”
The big game hunter stroked a finger and thumb down his goatee. “What if it’s to join forces rather than work at cross purposes?” He tapped the tip of his cue stick on the table’s rail. “The nine in the side pocket.” He began lining up his shot. “The aims of your institute and mine are not diametrically opposed, you know.”
“They are in how to achieve them.”
Davis thumped the cue ball and it struck its intended target a glancing blow. The ball struck the pocket point and caromed away. Davis took a sip from his whiskey and, picking up his lit cigar next to it, he filled his mouth with smoke then pursing his lips, exhaled the fumes.
“No sense revisit our old arguments, Hugo. But you will grant me that human nature given new technologies tend to use them against each other to try and gain the upper hand.”
“That include your views of the darker races, Davis?” He pointed his cue at the bookcase. “Is that a first edition of Mitchell’s An Essay upon the Causes of the Different Colours of People in Different Climates. I see, too, Kant’s On the Different Races of Man. Preposterous supposed scientific conclusions about the negro’s primitive nervous systems, their superstitions and so on. I imagine there’s a whole shelf devoted to phrenology around her somewhere. Possibly in your office upstairs.”
Davis laughed and had another sip of whisky. “Hugo, you of all people believe in vigorous intellectual debate. Indeed, up in my office are books by Fredrick Douglass and W.E.B. DuBois. Books I’ve read cover to cover. I ultimately have the negro’s best interest in mind, along with that of all humanity.”
“Like your partnership with Dutch Schultz.”
“I can’t ride as tall a horse as you can, hobnobbing with that flying woman and so forth. Progress is messy work.”
“Meaning I might have to get out of your way?”
“I had nothing to do with that attack on your airfield.”
“But you know who did. Some other member of your little cabal, I’m guessing.”
“Not everyone is as tolerant as I am. You’re employing a woman aviator—a black woman at that—and her Loyal Order of Hibernia mechanic.” He tsk-tsked.
“One of my competitors figured to cash in on the Schultz angle. Blame him as cover for their deed.” Renwick had been doing some digging.
“As I said, Hugo, it’s messy work.”
Renwick shot, dropping one of his striped balls in a pocket.
“Sit tight, and honk twice if you notice anybody going in.” Henson and Stevenson sat in a seven year-old Chevy Four Ninety he’d borrowed from May Maynard. One of its cylinders needed a ring job. It was night, and they were parked outside the Challenger’s Club. Davis and Renwick’s pool game some hours over. Henson’s plan didn’t include having to make a quick getaway, at least he hoped not. From where the car was, they had an eye on the front of the place. More than one window was lit in its upper stories.
“There’s people in there, Matt.”
“I don’t plan to be doing any visiting.”
“You know what I mean.” She kissed him. Both hands holding his face to hers. Her fingers were surprisingly cold.
“I’ll be careful.”
Recalling her rescue, she asked, “You figuring to climb up the side and go through a window?”
He held up a ring of several skeleton keys. “Nothing that strenuous—until later.”
They kissed again briefly. “You’re just full of surprises.”
“Ain’t I?”
When Henson’s admission to the all-white club had been rejected, he’d fumed and became depressed for a time. After all he’d been through, all that he’d endured, he’d proven his competence by white standards, yet still racist whim and caprice had won out. In the letter sent to him, the message read in part: “While we acknowledge your contributions to the momentous event that is the planting of our flag at the North Pole, you were nonetheless under the command of Captain Peary. And as such, akin to the Eskimos who were his bearers, you did not initiate the fundraising and strategies of these expeditions to northern Greenland. Therefore, at this time, we must humbly decline your desire to join our august body. Should matters change in the foreseeable future, please don’t hesitate to contact us anew.” It was signed by Fremont Davis.
“Should matters change,” Henson had sneered. “When the goddamn cow jumps over the moon,” he’d railed, drunk. He’d gone on a three-day bender and it was his then-wife Eva Henson, née Flint, who’d snapped him out of his tailspin. It had started with her slapping his face as he lay on the carpet in their apartment rank in his underwear.
“Matt, you drink yourself to death, and they win. Become a hermit and lock yourself away from the world, and they win. Or you can get your head out of your behind, write the story as you know it, and go on from there with your chin up.”
Good thing he’d listened to her,
