Henson was already in motion. Down below, people reacted to a ball of light suddenly lighting the dark up there on the building under construction. Jagged tendrils of electricity boiled the air, their twisted columns of energy surging in various directors. Some of the bolts hitting the hall, causing damage to the brick work but not the intended large-scale murders envisioned by Dutch Schultz. Two of the hoods were instantly incinerated. Eddie had thrown the weapon away from him but was caught in the resulting fireball. He was blown off the floor under construction and his electrocuted body landed on the ground to gasps.
“What was that?” several people said. The wood planking began to burn.
“Fire, fire!” several yelled.
Using his grapple and line, Henson hurriedly descended the far side of the building as the police arrived, flashlights and guns out. Henson’s form was obscured by black smoke as flames consumed the framing, some of the beams so new they still smelled piney. The whole thing was burning now, and one of the cops, a track runner in high school, was dispatched to a call box to get the fire pumpers to the site. They had to make sure the conflagration didn’t spread.
“Okay, everybody, we’re getting this under control,” one of the officers yelled in front of the hall.
On the ground, a sweating Henson got his grapple loose. He hid his gear in the cab of a pick-up truck and wiped off and left the .45 underneath it. He then jogged away in the semi-light of flickering fire.
There was barely contained milling of the crowd in front of Liberty Hall.
“What the hell’s happening?”
“Is it the end of the world?”
“Where’s my car? I gotta get out of here.”
“Everybody, please” a policeman said, “let’s remain calm. We’ve got the situation under control.”
Peoples’ restlessness increased for several slow minutes as various police cars roared into view and disgorged their personnel. The Klieg lights were put back on, casting bright lights on anxious and fearful faces. Daddy Paradise appeared, surrounded by OD, his large associate and other members of the security detail.
“Please, brethren, let’s allow the police to do their job,” Paradise stressed. He stood atop one of the police cars addressing the crowd. “It doesn’t appear anyone was hurt, and it seems a great catastrophe has been averted.” As he spoke, two horse drawn water pumpers raced around a near corner and arrived at the burning structure.
“You see,” Paradise said, “there’s no reason to panic.”
One of the cops tried to pull him down, and was stopped by a sergeant who’d come on scene. He was the one who’d arrested Henson after the shoot out from several days ago. He tossed aside a dead cigar stump and muttered, “Let him talk. We don’t want a fire and a riot on our hands.”
There was a lot of murmuring and jangled nerves, but at the urging of Daddy Paradise along with Langston Hughes and several of the pastors, an edgy calm settled on the crowd. It helped that water was being sprayed of the flames.
While many watched, unbeknownst to them, the police had begun a sweep of the neighborhood looking for Matthew Henson. He soon emerged from Liberty Hall. He’d changed clothes, having stashed them in the janitor’s closet the day before.
“Arrest him,” the sergeant shouted.
“On what charge?” Ira Kunsler said, having been in attendance, and appearing at his client’s side.
“Suspicion of murder,” replied the sergeant.
“Who?’
He pointed at the smoldering corpse being carried to an ambulance. Photographers’ flashbulbs popped, momentarily illuminated parts of the corpse’s form as he was stowed away. One of the sergeant’s officers who’d tried to get up on the building had briefly seen the outline of a fourth man. A black man, he knew. And who else around here could have probably used a rope to climb the hell down from there so fast?
“I’ve been inside all night seeing to the safety of the event,” Henson said.
“Bullshit,” a cop said as he and two others had their hands on him, their nightsticks at the ready. A palpable jolt of indignation went through the crowd.
“They’re trying to scapegoat, Matt,” someone yelled.
The edgy calm was fast dissipating.
“What evidence do you have?” Kunsler said beside Henson as the law tried to get him into a prowl car. But the crowd wouldn’t part.
“We know he was up on the building,” the sergeant said.
“Yeah, who’s your eyewitness? A night owl?”
“I have good cause.”
“You have a witness to identify him?” Purposefully, Kunsler raised his voice. “You mean you’re going to take the word of one of the hoodlums had tried to assassinate Daddy Paradise at face value? Because there’s a whole bunch of people who will attest to him being inside this whole time,” he bluffed, though knew Henson could get a few on security to lie for him.
“I saw him throughout the night inside the hall,” a new voice announced.
Head turned to gaze at an elderly woman in her best Sunday-go-the-meeting clothes complete with an ostentatious hat with a rainbow plumage. Mrs. Celow stared defiantly at the sergeant. She was the person who’d let Henson use her apartment to drop down on Edie and the other thug holding Destiny Stevenson. She was a righteous woman, but she figured the Lord would forgive her for lying on behalf of Mr. Henson. He was Harlem’s own.
The cops looked around nervously. A captain with a lantern jaw muscled his way over to Henson and Kunsler. There were at least twenty police cars occupying the street. “All right, mouthpiece. You make sure your client comes down to the precinct tomorrow to answer questions. Understand?” He’d already recognized the dead man as one of Dutch Schultz’s underlings. There was also that Two Laces gee they had
