ON FRIDAY noon, the fourth day after the shooting of Fred Randolph by Officer Sam Miller, the Baton Rouge operative selected by ex-Governor Heney to handle “that Harlem nigger situation” (the ex-Governor’s phrase) was walking to the New York City address of the organization to which both of them belonged. On the preceding Tuesday, the operative had received a long distance call in Baton Rouge from the ex-Governor in Washington, D. C. With his wife, he had flown to the Capitol, stayed overnight, consulted with the ex-Governor and the next morning had again hurled through the great blue skies to New York.
He was a young man, this choice of the ex-Governor’s. In his thirties, he was built like a light-heavyweight who has just begun to take on weight. His shoulders were broad but his stomach bulged too tightly against the cloth of his double-breasted grey suit. His name was Bill Trent but as an operative he’d rechristened himself Bill Johnson. Even his wife believed her name was Johnson.
He was walking rapidly to the address, aware of trifles that would have skipped his notice in Baton Rouge: a loitering Western Union boy with four toothpicks between his lips, a man in a brown felt shaking his head over the newspaper in his hands, the sidewalk girls of lower Broadway, stenographers, typists, secretaries. These New York women, he judged contemptuously; five and ten cent store dolls, a dozen of them weren’t worth one Isabelle. Isabelle was his wife; he had left her in their room at the Hotel Commodore but now her slim body darted across his consciousness. And here they were on the Big Stem. Holy Christ, it was unbelievable.
In New York City! The sales line that worked so well down in the South, in Baton Rouge, in Savannah, in Houston wouldn’t go up here, he knew. Selling Southerners the idea that the South belonged to the white man and that the Negro was only fit for field and mine labor was like representing a staple like Coca Cola. But this was New York City! Hadn’t the ex-Governor warned him that the Harlem assignment was going to demand smart figuring. “This here New York, Jew York,” the ex-Governor had said, “is a union town, a Red town, a nigger-spoiling town.” The ex-Governor had wrapped his ponderous arm around Bill’s neck and his whiskey breath had rolled into Bill’s nostrils. Heney, Bill recalled, had a florid face and a black string tie and looked and behaved like a tintype caricature of what a Southern politician should be. But in the organization Heney was supposed to be as clever as the late Huey Long. The one thing Heney couldn’t fake, Bill thought; were his eyes. Chill and blue, they had appraised him in Washington as a tobacco buyer appraises the bright leaf at an auction. The hell with Heney! Why worry about Heney? He had been the operative picked to come to New York, not Fisher, or Murdock, or any of the others.
Bill’s eyes shone almost drunkenly but the face was impassive. It was a handsome face or rather it had been a handsome face, the nose straight, the chin rugged, the eyes finely balanced. But now a webbing of burn scars laced across the features, jagged as lightning, white and precise in their outlines; a ribbony scar traversed the corner of Bill’s upper lip; the delicate eyelids were crisscrossed with marks of fire. Only the eyes were untouched.
He entered a marble lobby with walls thirty feet high and a vaulted cathedral ceiling. There was a sense of both completion and beginning in him, this address a crossroads. Behind him lay his work in the South. Ahead, was a directory. He focussed on the list of firms that began with A:
| A.B.C. Finance Corporation | 12th |
| Abingdon, Fitch, Warren, Inc. | 49th |
| Altoona Products, Inc. | 60th |
| American Freighters | 21st |
| American Can Goods, Inc. | 29th |
| American Research Association | 43rd |
There! The American Research Association! The New York organization itself! Upstairs, in the middle of the skyscraper they would be waiting for him. Bill hurried by the cigar counter and stepped into the express elevator. About him were the pink powerful faces — so they seemed to him — of the men who transacted big affairs, the inner office men, the money men. He felt himself one of them as the express plunged up into space. At the forty-third floor he got off and walked to the door lettered: American Research Association. He wiped his damp cheeks with a monogrammed linen handkerchief and stepped into an anteroom.
A girl behind a glistening glass wall slid a glass panel open with a red-nailed hand and said. “Good afternoon, sir.”
“I have an appointment with Mr. Norris Hayden.”
“Your name, please?”
“William Johnson.”
“Will you please be seated.”
But he was too nervous to sit down in one of the cream-leather chairs. He glanced at the covers of a score of technical magazines displayed on the table. They dealt with aviation, steel, utilities, railroads. Five minutes passed and an office boy appeared to usher him out of the anteroom. Behind the glass wall, three stenographers clicked away at their machines; six men worked at flat desks. Bill was reminded of the A.R.A. office in Washington. The office boy led him past this common office to a cream-colored door in the rear. “Mr. Hayden’s assistant, Colonel Bretherton, will see you sir.”
Bill seized the chrome door knob and went inside. He saw skyscraper spires and blue sky in a window. The Colonel was sitting at a desk to the left of the window. He was lank and lean, his temples iron grey and he wore rimless glasses. His grey hair was combed back from a narrow forehead. “Mr. Hayden will see you in a few minutes, Johnson. Sit down, won’t you?”
“Thanks.”
“Pull that chair over, Johnson.”
Bill smiled at the Colonel. He was thinking that Hayden was one hell of a big-shot to rate a Colonel as his assistant. “Now,” the Colonel was saying. “We know that you are William Johnson but we have to be positive. I want you to write me something on this pad of paper. Anything will do. A few lines. Here’s a pencil.” Bill sat down at the desk, accepted the pencil and wrote:
“I’ve come north from Baton Rouge. I’ve come on business. I hope that that’s all I have to write. A few lines.”
“Here you are,” Bill said. The Colonel was opening a drawer in his desk. He took out a photograph which he showed to Bill.
“This is you, Johnson,” he explained. He compared the black and white image with the living face in front of him. He dropped the photograph and, holding what Bill had written to one side, he compared it with a small white card he fished out of the drawer. Bill guessed that his handwriting was on that card, his spine stiffened as if he had been dragged into a police station. “You’re Johnson, all right,” the Colonel announced, sweeping sheet, card and photograph into the drawer. He took a cigar out of the humidor on his desk, lit it importantly, saying between puffs, “They’re my own brand. Made for me. Try one if you wish.”
“No, thanks.” He lit a cigarette, feeling a little better. He hadn’t expected to be identified by an elderly man who looked like a banker. But this was the New York City organization. They must be hell on wheels up here. He recalled a remark of Heney’s: “Hayden runs the show up there and he’s smart even if he’s the son of a millionaire. He’s no rich man’s son made a big stick out of just because he was born rich. Hayden started from the bottom in the organization and he’s got where he is because he’s smart. Maybe his old man’s money helped a little but it wasn’t everything.”
“When do I meet Mr. Hayden, Colonel?”
“Right away. Johnson, do you recall the Sojourner Truth Housing project?”
“Not very clearly.”
“I think it might be instructive if I sketched it to you.”
Bill stared. “Has it any connection with my job up here?”
The Colonel blew out a streamer of white smoke. “Every connection. The Sojourner Truth project was built for the Detroit blacks by the Government. As they began to move in, the organization in Detroit promoted a series of incidents. We formed a united white front, comprising Klan and Black Legion elements, real estate interests, politicians and union men. The U.A.W. fought us but we gained the support of many union men. Not as many as we wanted with the U.A.W. preaching against Jim Crow.”
Bill listened impatiently. Had he come all the way to New York to have this stuffed shirt blow cigar smoke into his face? To hell with Colonel Bretherton. The sooner he met Hayden the better. He watched the Colonel remove his eyeglasses and polish them with a white silk handkerchief.
“We’re hoping for equal success in Harlem,” the Colonel said. “You’re a northerner, Johnson, born and educated in Pennsylvania and that’s important to us. At the same time, you have had considerable experience in the South. I want to impress upon you that you have a difficult task ahead of you. It won’t be as simple as arranging for the shooting of some black soldier. Our methods in Harlem, in addition, are going to be different. Mr. Hayden has other ideas than the usual strategy of pitting whites against blacks. Mr. Hayden proposes to use the blacks themselves to dig their own graves.”
“I don’t quite understand.”
“I didn’t expect you to. There are certain confusions, certain trends in Harlem that Mr. Hayden intends to exploit.” He left his chair and stalked to the window. “Come here, young man.” As Bill joined him the Colonel said, “Look out there, young man.”
Down below Bill saw a city of water, piers and ships on the Hudson, grey-blue and glinting with sun, and faraway, the smokestacks of the New Jersey shore.
“Young man, our country possesses the greatest industrial plant in the world. Some day, our organization will control it all. We’ve failed to date. This damnable war’s set us back years. There’s a democratic ferment working all over the country. It has even gotten legislation forbidding racial discrimination on the books. That’s why this Harlem incident is so important. We must checkmate all these rabble rousers with their yapping about a bucket of milk for every nigger kid.” His lips trembled and he added, “Now you have a grand opportunity, young man, to show the mettle you’re made of. An old man wishes you good luck.”
The office boy summoned by the Colonel led Bill to the office of Mr. Norris Hayden. Bill entered a spacious room whose prevailing color was brown, the wood mahogany. He was still amazed at the Colonel and his farewell speech. He thought that the Colonel was senile, a decorative fixture that the organization had installed, something like the flesh and blood equivalent of the stars and stripes; in the South he had met men like the Colonel, useful to the organization because of their connections with the oldest and wealthiest families. Bill glanced across the room. At the desk, Hayden, head down was writing a memorandum. Bill saw thin blond hair and said tentatively, “I beg your pardon, Mr. Hayden.”
A blond face looked up at him, one of those blond faces that always seem years younger than they are. “Hello, Bill, how are you?” Hayden said.
“You here!” Bill exclaimed. “You!”
Hayden smiled. He was a man of forty, sitting erect in his chair. His nose was small with waxy white nostrils. His chin receded slightly and he had a fresh almost juvenile appearance. He kept on smiling and his eyes between their long straw-yellow lashes twinkled. Bill stared, unbelieving. This was Hayden, head of the New York organization! It was impossible! He had last known Hayden under the name of Walter Tynant and they had attended the organization’s training school back in Chicago. A dozen questions hummed in him. How had Tynant-Hayden advanced so fast? Why had the Colonel checked on his handwriting and photograph? What was the sense of it? Or wasn’t the Colonel aware that Hayden had been his class-mate?
“Walter!” Bill cried. “You can knock me down. Congratulations.”
“Thanks, Bill. In the future, you are never to refer to me by any name but Hayden, Norris Hayden.”
Bill nodded, sitting down at the desk, near a silver-framed photograph of a tall woman and two teen-age children. It looked as if Hayden was married, too, something he hadn’t known in Chicago.
“We’re going to work together,” Hayden said smoothly. “This is the picture. This Monday a Negro called Randolph was killed in Harlem by a Jewish policeman. Feeling is at white heat. The Jewish policeman is a bit of luck. Our Harlem contact, a man called Dent, phoned the news to me two hours after the killing. As I viewed it, we had been presented with a splendid agitational opportunity.” He stretched one small hand to a folder on his desk, opened it and took out a leaflet printed on green paper. “I wrote this item the same night. By Tuesday morning, it was being distributed throughout Harlem. Look it over, Bill.”
Bill read:
STICK TOGETHER HARLEM
NEGROES MUST STICK TOGETHER AGAINST
THEIR ENEMIES
OUR ENEMY ISN’T ONLY THE JEW COP MILLER
HARLEM IS FULL OF OUR ENEMIES
WOP BAR OWNERS WHO WON’T HIRE NEGROES!
JEWBOY LANDLORDS AND BANKERS!
MICK COPS WHO THINK. K. K. THEY’RE THE
OLD MASSA DOWN SOUTH
WOPS MICKS JEWBOYS — ALL ENEMIES!
WITH THEIR RED UNCLE TOM (BOGUS) NEGROES!
WE REAL NEGROES MUST STICK TOGETHER!!
AGAINST THIS SO CALLED WHITE MAN’S
(BOGUS) DEMOCRACY
“It’s good,” Bill said.
“You like it?”
“Yes. I understand now what the Colonel meant when he said you were going to use the niggers to dig their own graves. If I have any criticism at all, it’s — You don’t mind my saying so?”
“I can anticipate it. You object to that derogatory line about the Irish, don’t you?”
“Yes. Swinging the niggers against the Jews and wops is a fine idea. Agitation against the Jews is paramount as our instructors were always saying in Chicago.” Right away, he sensed it was a mistake reminding Norris Hayden of their common training period. He wouldn’t do it again. “As for the wops, that comes under the heading of anti-foreign agitation.” Hastily, belatedly, he realized that Hayden wasn’t interested in his criticisms or opinions. “I wish you would explain further what the Colonel hinted at. As I understand it, you’ve discovered a new propaganda technique.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Hayden disclaimed. “But none of us can escape certain facts. For example, the majority of the world’s peoples are colored. That should be a fundamental factor in all our Negro agitation, a paramount factor as our instructors did not instruct us in Chicago.” He smiled at Bill as if his choice of words were accidental. “Unfortunately, too many people in the organization are still thinking along Civil War lines. In the South, with the exception of Governor Heney and a few other far-sighted leaders, the organization is simply a streamlined Klan. That’s one reason I wanted you. You’re going back South after your work here. You’re going to carry the torch as it were.” He raised one oratorical hand but his eyes were hard cold balls. “Our motives in Harlem are two-fold. A riot? Of course. But we also are going to demonstrate the successful use of new tactics.”
Bill was listening with the concentration of a waiter hovering around the table of a big tipper. He was thinking: This lousy desk genius, this high-toned bastard!
“Harlem is the Negro capital of the country,” Hayden continued. “A riot in Harlem would interest every black belt in the country. It would interest the colored races of the whole world. We are going to organize a riot that will enlist the support of various Negro groups who would oppose us if they knew who we were. This Sunday, the All-Negro Harlem Committee is holding a mass meeting to protest the killing of Randolph. We are going to enlist their support — ”
“How?”
“By using their meeting as a mask for our own activities. I’ll explain this later. But right now I want to give you a general picture of the average Harlemite’s thinking. He resents the newspaper stories of ‘Harlem, the crime capital of the world.’ Some of the press have been sending reporters into Harlem’s brothels, marihuana dens and so on. Their circulation-building yarns have infuriated the average Harlemite. Then again, the Police Department has been very active; the Police Division of National Defense was formed to safeguard the morals of the men in the armed forces, especially the morals of soldiers touring Harlem’s hot spots. Recently, hundreds of Negro mobsters, gamblers, pimps and so on were arrested by the police. The press printed more columns about the Negro underworld and Big Boy Bose, its king. You are going to meet Big Boy Bose. But to resume: the white population of this city is pretty generally scared by Negro depravity and our average Harlemite resents the general public’s opinion. He resents the discrimination against Negroes in war industry, the bad housing and so on. Such recent concessions as Negro air units and the pious exaltation of Joe Louis have not diminished the average Harlemite’s resentment. We are going to fan this resentment. The mass meeting on Sunday stems indirectly out of all this resentment. The Randolph killing has only crystallized what already exists. Our activities will begin as of Monday.”
Suddenly Bill understood. The long rambling speech with its pompous excursions into sociology and its learned global allusions had suddenly made good hard sense. Public opinion would be led to think that Monday’s events were the result of Sunday’s meeting. Hayden was more than a theorist in a skyscraper office, Bill admitted to himself; more than a snob inflated with a sense of his own superior world outlook as compared to the outlook of other men in the organization. There was another Hayden, the penman who’d knocked out the leaflet.
“Before you leave,” Hayden said. “Remind me to give you the keys to the apartment. There’s an apartment in Brooklyn Heights that we are going to use as a meeting place. I live in Brooklyn Heights myself. You understand? We’re not using this office as a clearing house.”
“The F.B.I.?”
Hayden laughed. “No.”
“You frightened me for a minute.”
“You can live out in Brooklyn Heights if you want. The apartment’s furnished. Are you alone or is your wife with you?”
“She’s with me.”
“I’ll meet her one of these days, I hope. No, you better not use the apartment. You will meet me there every morning at half past nine to report on progress. You are not to call or phone either the office or my home except for an emergency. I suggest you engage a room in some hotel in Brooklyn Heights. There is the Towers and the St. George. Both nearby.” He unlocked a drawer in his desk and took out a white sealed envelope. “Here is expense money. Two thousand dollars. You’ll need some of it immediately. All our preparations must be completed by the week-end.”
“I’m ready to begin now.”
“You will first contact Frank R. Dent, our Harlem contact.”
“Negro or white?”
“An Irishman, a fixer. You will pay him five hundred dollars.”
“How do I reach him?”
“At his office. He’s in the insurance business. He expects you to phone him. You will say you’re interested in Harlem insurance.”
“I see.”
“Dent will not ask you any questions. He may mention a Judge Nuhnen. Judge Nuhnen has phoned Dent about you. You understand?”
“Yes. The organization has no direct contact with Dent on this job.”
“Right. Nuhnen is our go-between. If Dent mentions Nuhnen, answer in some noncommittal way. Dent will connect you with Big Boy Bose.” He opened the folder from which he had taken the leaflet and picked up several typewritten sheets. “This is our information about Big Boy Bose. I want you to listen.”
“Has Bose any connection with the mass meeting?”
“None.” Hayden lowered his eyes and began to read: “Big Boy Bose or James Bose, Negro. Born August 24th, 1909 in New York City. Educated in public school. Left school without graduating to go to work. Was a delivery boy, grocer’s clerk, and held other jobs over a period of four years. At the age of sixteen, he was arrested for the first time for petty larceny. He served a sentence. On his release, he went to work for Martin Handley, British West Indies Negro and an operator at that time in the numbers racket. Big Boy Bose received his nickname at this period. He was the leader of Negro mobsters in their battles with the Italian and Spanish mobs of East Harlem. At the age of twenty-two, Big Boy Bose had become one of Martin Handley’s lieutenants. He served Handley as chief muscle man in the continuing strife between the Negro and the white elements over control of the Harlem numbers racket. Big Boy Bose led this fight. The white elements were dominated by Joseph Fuzzello, who also ran one of the biggest chains of brothels in Harlem. Joseph Fuzzello was found murdered in 1931. Martin Handley was murdered in 1932. Big Boy Bose assumed control of the Martin Handley organization. He acquired an interest in night clubs, in houses of prostitution and gambling. In the next five years, Big Boy Bose solidified his control. He contributed heavily to both political parties and formed alliances with influential whites. Characteristics: He drinks but not to excess. He has never been known to use drugs. His most important characteristic is a hatred for the white man. This dates back to the time when he was the leader in the fight against the East Harlem mobs. Investigations show that he has helped Negroes, porters, laborers, housemaids, etc., who have had trouble with whites. He has been heard to make anti-white remarks in night clubs and other public places. He has contributed sums of money to various Negro anti-white groups. He has been heard to speak favorably of such anti-white leaders as Ralph Judson now imprisoned for pro-Japanese activities, Ahmed Aden, Royal Gibney, etc. This anti-white phobia has handicapped him in his relations with the police and the politicians.”
Hayden slid the report back inside the folder. “You’ve got the idea.”
“I’ll have to blackface when I meet the nigger.”
“You’ll have to be diplomatic. If possible, you will try to see Bose this afternoon or tonight. Bose is very important. We are using him to start our activity. In fact, he is our motor. There are three jobs we want him to do for us. These jobs are to begin this Monday — ”
“Using a white hater like that nigger,” Bill said. “It’s brilliant.”
Hayden smiled. “That remains to be tested.” He glanced at his gold watch that he lifted out of its vest pocket. “I have another appointment in five minutes. That’s unfortunate. I had intended to discuss your future in the organization. Let’s see. How about dinner tonight?”
“I’d be glad to.”
“It’s necessary for me to enter into details of a personal nature, Bill. However, we’ll save it for dinner. I can definitely promise you promotion after your Harlem assignment. I am confident you will be successful. I can definitely promise you an assistant executive position in some one of our branch offices in the South.”
“Thank you,” Bill cried. “Thank you.”
“We’ll save that for dinner, too, if you don’t mind. I have this appointment and I still have to discuss the three jobs our Mr. Bose is going to do for us. They are as follows. On Monday …”