Once done, he returned the smoke bombs to his closet, nestled in a shoebox lined with cotton swabbing and crumpled newspapers. He didn’t keep any incendiary grenades as they were volatile, and he certainly didn’t want to burn up his apartment or harm anyone else. Though his were not the old-fashioned kind, filled with kerosene and oil, it was the casing itself, made of magnesium and alloy, that burned when ignited by a thermite charge. It was illegal to possess them, and for that reason and safety, Henson kept those grenades secured elsewhere.
He left his building on 130th and walked toward St. Nicholas Park, intending to cut diagonally through it toward his destination. He needed some dope on St. Clair and Daddy Paradise and had a person in mind as he checked the time on his wrist watch, a gift from Booker T. Washington who’d written the introduction to his A Negro Explorer at the North Pole. It was early, and the working men and women of Harlem were out on their way to their jobs be it nanny, cook, brick layer or soda jerk. Passing behind him as he crossed the street was a hearse from the Palmetto Ambulance and Funeral Service, a company owned by Queenie St. Clair. Entering the park, there was a serious-eyed young woman on the edge handing out informational handbills about the Laundry Workers Union of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
Crossing into the shadow of a large oak tree, Henson was certain he was being followed. The man had come out of an Helmbold drugstore doorway three blocks back and though keeping a distance between them, his presence was more evident as they went through the expanse of the park. The man was black, in plain clothes but his hat was expensive, Henson noted. This suggested to him the clothes had been put on to blend in, but the hat no doubt went with the suits this fella normally wore. Walking on, Henson quickly ascended a set of terraced steps. The Grange, Alexander Hamilton’s house which was on the grounds, was visible through the foliage in the distance
The man on his tail had to speed up or risk losing Henson who’d already crested the top of the steps and was now out of view on the other side of the rise. He breathed through his open mouth, looking around. Off to the side in a semi-isolated section of shrubbery and trees, an old man with a full mane of grey hair like the abolitionist Fredrick Douglass sat on a bench in baggy pants and wrinkled shirt. He threw pieces of bread on the ground for the pigeons gathered about him. There was a book about mathematics beside him on the bench
“Hey, old timer,” the man said as he approached the elderly resident, “you seen a guy in grey pants and dark shirt?” He flashed a fifty-cent piece. “I can make it worth your time.”
“The gentleman you’re looking for is right behind you,” the old man said in a surprisingly clear voice.
“The hell,” the man said, turning to see Henson there with his hands on his hips.
“Who sent you?” Henson said.
“Back off,” his shadower said.
Henson came toward him, stirring some of the cooing pigeons into the air. “Maybe you didn’t hear me.”
The man who’d tailed Henson produced a folding knife from his back pocket that opened with a practiced flick of his wrist. “Let me make another hole in your head so you can hear me better, chump.”
“There’s no need for violence, young man. Merely an inquiry as to your employer.”
He turned his head slightly to say, “Stay out of this, grey head, go back to feeding them flying rats.”
“Would that I could,” the older man said, bowing his head slightly. “But you’re having a profound negative effect on them.” He shook his head, sighing. “He indeed proves to be an obstreperous sort, Mathew, as befits one of his rung in our society.”
“Hey, what gives, you two know each other?”
“Most assuredly,” said the older man.
The man with the knife took a step back and turned in such a way to keep the two of them in sight. He jiggled the blade at the sitting older man. “On your feet.”
“Where do you intend to take us?” the older man said.
“Never you mind. Up,” he signaled with the knife.
As the older man rose he hesitated, pausing in a hunched over position. He breathed raggedly, his face was sweating, and he looked paler. “Oh my,” he gasped, rocking backward and forward.
“What’s going on with him?” The knife man said, panic coloring his voice.
“He’s having one of his attacks. He’s got a bum ticker,” Henson said
“Help me,” the older gent said hoarsely. “I, I…” he tottered on his feet and his collapse seemed imminent.
“Dammit, get this sonofabitch up,” he barked at Henson. “And if you have to carry him, you better.”
Henson came over his friend. “Yes, sir.” He got an arm around the older man’s chest and in this way held him upright on shaky legs.
“This way.” He gestured in a direction with the tip of the knife and the three began walking. He fell in behind the two along a pathway through the park. But as they were now entering a more populated area, he put the knife back in his coat pocket, holding it there.
“Where you taking us?” Henson asked over his shoulder. “I should get him to a sawbones.”
“Keep walking,” the man said.
A woman pushing a baby stroller approached from the opposite direction. She smiled at the trio.
The three men moved to one side as the woman and baby passed. The older man abruptly stopped, and the knife man came up short behind him.
“Watch
