Black Orchid Blues Page 5

  It might’ve been true. It might’ve been a lie too. Queenie could have been trying to boost his worth by claiming he had options. I wouldn’t have put it past him.

  Outside, in the clubroom, Morgana finished with a flourish. The crowd responded with tepid applause.

  “Was Queenie interested?” I asked.

  Lucien shook his head. “He said he’d never work in a place like that, one that put colored people on display, like in a zoo. His words, not mine. He would not work for people who would not let Negroes come in, sit down, and enjoy themselves. And when he said it, he was angry. That is why I believed him. He was furious and I think he meant it.”

  Hmm. Social awareness: Queenie had many good qualities, I was sure. But social awareness? The Queenie I’d interviewed had shown no interest in civil rights or a willingness toward self-sacrifice. More like an overweening sense of self-absorption.

  Would someone like that really give up a chance to perform at the Cotton Club? Being on stage there told the world that you were top-drawer. It meant performing before some of the richest, most influential people in all of New York City.

  And let’s not forget the financial aspects of such a gig. Queenie’s pay at the Cinnamon Club probably wasn’t bad but, despite what Fawkes said, it couldn’t have been the best, either. It was certainly a far cry from what he would’ve been getting at the Cotton Club.

  Prestige. Money. I couldn’t imagine Queenie turning down either. Nor could I imagine DeMange being so desperate for performers that he’d resort to kidnapping one.

  “You really think DeMange is behind this?”

  “Maybe not. But it could be someone who wants to get in good with him. And there are others, some who don’t just want Queenie, they want this place. But mostly, it’s Queenie. One of them told me—only last week he said it—that if Queenie wouldn’t work for him, he would make sure he didn’t work for anybo—”

  The dressing room door opened and Morgana strutted in. He stopped at the sight of the chaos. “What the hell?” His gaze moved between Lucien and me. “Did she do this?” he asked Lucien.

  “Of course not,” Lucien snapped.

  “Well, whoever did, they better not have stolen nothing.”

  “This is not your place anymore,” Lucien said. “There is nothing of yours in here to steal. You’re only using the place while … until Queenie comes back.”

  Fuck you, Morgana said with his eyes.

  “Have time to talk?” I asked.

  “Not really.”

  “You can talk to her after your next set,” Lucien told Morgana.

  “Fine,” Morgana said. “Until then, you can get the hell out.”

  “Tell you what,” I said. “You’re on break now, right?”

  Morgana nodded.

  “Why don’t you rest while I straighten up?” I suggested.

  “You mean, act like you’re my maid or something?”

  “That’s right. What d’you say?”

  Morgana threw a glance at Lucien, who said nothing. The singer gave me a cold smile. “All right, sister. Start working.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Lucien left us alone. Morgana sat at the vanity, retouching his makeup before the mirror. I tried to make quick order out of the mélange of tossed dresses, hats, playbills, and knickknacks. Morgana kept a wary eye on my reflected image, while patting his face with powder. He was indignant that I would even imply that he had a hand in the kidnapping.

  “I didn’t have nothing to do with that shit. I can’t stand that bitch and yes, I would’ve been happy to get rid of her, but I saw pretty early on that I wasn’t going to have to do nothing.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, I could see that somebody else was gonna do her.”

  “Which somebody?” I paused in the housekeeping, my arms full of feather boas.

  Morgana arched one overplucked eyebrow. “Why should I tell you?”

  I put down the boas, came up behind Morgana, and whispered in his ear: “Because if you don’t, I might drop a dime that you wanted to see Queenie disappear.”

  He nearly let go of his powder puff. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Oh, but I would.”

  It was a weak threat, and I didn’t think Morgana would go for it. I was wrong.

  “Damn.” He sucked his teeth and rolled his eyes. “I knew this maid act of yours was too damn good to be true.”

  “Come on. Spill.”

  He blew out a big irritated sigh. “All right, but … you won’t tell anyone where you got this, will you?”

  “Not if my life depended on it.”

  “Well, sister, mine does. You dig?”

  I nodded.

  He pressed his lips together, reluctance oozing from every pore. “I seen her with this goon. Don’t know his name. Just heard that he knocks heads for a living.”

  “For who?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

  “Morgana—”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “Not too well.”

  At my clearly cynical expression, he twisted round to face me. “Look, I’ve only been here once in the past six months, only once since that bitch had me thrown out, and that’s when I saw him.” He held up a large index finger. “That one time. All I remember is that he’s a big guy, built short and wide, like a bulldog. Had real broad shoulders.”

  I tensed. “White? Black?”

  “White. Had light-colored eyes too. Can’t say what color exactly, but they were light all right.”

  I kept my voice even. “When was this?”

  “’Bout a month ago. He slammed Queenie up against a wall and it wasn’t pretty. I just happened to be walking by. I thought he was going to break her neck, right then and there.”

  “What did you do?”

  “What do you think? I kept on walking.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Things would change a few years later, but back then, if you were gay and into the scene, you had a lot of Harlem nightspots to choose from. The crowd that danced at one place partied later at another. There was 267, for example, over on West 136th Street, and Edmond’s Cellar on West 132nd and Fifth Avenue. There was the Yeahman and the Garden of Joy. There was Lulu Bell’s on Lenox near 127th and buffet flats like Hazel Valentine’s Daisy Chain on 140th.

  The Daisy Chain was also known as the 101 Ranch. It had a chorus of men who would come out and dance, dressed in the best of women’s finery. It was at the 101 that they came up with the Shim Sham Shimmy. That dance just took off. At one point, everybody was doing it.

  People knew about these places mostly by word of mouth. If you were gay, then Greenwich Village or Harlem were it, baby. The churches in Harlem weren’t too tolerant, but the community as a whole mostly looked the other way. Of course, gays were discreet. Like Richard Bruce Nugent used to say, people didn’t shout their business from the rooftops. They just did what they wanted to do. Nobody was in the closet.

  If they had been, then that closet would have been mighty crowded, cause a whole lot of Harlem’s best and brightest were gay or bisexual. There was Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Alain Locke, and Wallace Thurman. There was the aforementioned Richard. Some would’ve put Langston Hughes on the list. Both men and women were in love with him. He just never let himself be seen with anybody and kept them all guessing. He was a beautiful, talented enigma.

  The women were loving each other too. Bessie Smith, Alberta Hunter, Jackie “Moms” Mabley, Mabel Hampton, Ma Rainey, and Ethel Waters: they all enjoyed female loving. I remember when Ma Rainey kept getting into trouble for making it with women. Back in ’25, police cuffed her. Said she’d been having an orgy at home with women from her own chorus. Bessie had to bail her out.

  You can’t mention the scene without mentioning Gladys Bentley. That sister was two hundred and fifty pounds of gutsy talent. She used to get dressed up in a white tuxedo and top hat. Bentley was the heart and soul of
the Clambake, a popular place for people “in the life.” Like Queenie, Bentley was known for belting out double-entendre lyrics. She counted Tallulah Bankhead, Beatrice Lillie, Jeanne Eagels, Marilyn Miller, Princess Murat, Libby Holman, and Louisa Carpenter du Pont Jenney among her most fer-vent admirers.

  You could say I had a little black book in my head of people who were in the life. I went through it now, trying to think of who else I could talk to.

  There was Casca Bonds and Alexander Gumby. Casca ran house parties and Gumby did too, Gumby’s being more like a literary salon that drew a certain crowd. Either one might’ve had the information I needed, but I was short on time and preferred a safer bet.

  And that was Jack-a-Lee’s.

  Jack-a-Lee’s party palace was in a class all by itself. It was essentially a brownstone on West 125th. The place was so infamous that Fats Waller and Count Basie wrote about it. Jack-a-Lee had a private party going on in every room, gangbangs and wife swapping, women pleasing each other and men working each other’s pump. Anyone who wanted to could join in. As for drinking, Prohibition be damned, the liquor flowed. The folks poured gin out of milk pitchers, crystal milk pitchers, and smoked reefer like there was no tomorrow.

  I got there just after midnight. From the outside, if your nose was sensitive, you could catch the whiff of something forbidden in the air, but all you could see were shadows moving behind heavily curtained windows. Once up the front steps and inside the door, you passed through a little vestibule and paid your fee. Then you were in a hallway. Turn right for the crowd; go straight up the stairs for private action. I turned right.

  The party was in full swing. The air was hot and sticky. It reeked of sex, smoke, and booze. A piano player was pounding the ivories. Rouged men in flapper wigs and fringed dresses shimmied and shook. They were grinding each other, tonguing each other, and doing standing up what most folks do lying down.

  No hypocrisy here. Violence, drugs, and liquor? Yes. But hypocrisy? No. And that was a relief after some of the stuffy society gatherings I often attended. I felt absolutely at ease with this crowd. Here, among all the costumes and flamboyant fakery, I still felt a greater sense of honesty than I did at a lot of the buttoned-up gatherings I wrote about.

  I pushed my way into the packed parlor room. Eyes on every side gave me the once-over. Many in that thick, sweaty crowd knew me. They recognized me from mainstream parties, rent parties, social soirees, or the photo that accompanied my column.

  Most also knew that I’d been interviewing the Black Orchid when he was kidnapped. What was I doing here now? Just having fun? Or was there another reason?

  Jack-a-Lee saw me at the same time I saw him. He raised a chubby hand and waved. His full name was Jack-a-Lee Talbot and he was, as he himself put it, the transvestite du jour, the flavor of the day. Jack-a-Lee was arrogant and egotistic, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew that fame is fleeting. So, while he had it, he meant to enjoy it to the hilt.

  He was as broad as a barn and well past sixty, but his face was amazingly unlined and he had the verve of a man of twenty. He was wearing a bejeweled silver satin turban, a red satin robe, and gold-strapped sandals. His fingernails and toenails were painted fire-engine red. He knew everybody and everybody wanted to know him.

  I cut through the crowd and, on his end, he pushed through to get to me. People were knocking into their neighbors to get out of his way. Jack-a-Lee had the bulk of an elephant and the energy to go with it.

  He greeted me with two enthusiastic and très chic air kisses. Then he gave me the once-over with heavily kohled and mascaraed eyes.

  “I’d love to say you look simply marvelous, dahling, but I can’t. Not that I’d expect you to. Not after last night.” He wrapped a fleshy arm around my shoulders, bringing me close and dropping his voice. Lights of greedy curiosity danced in his dark eyes. “I hope you’re here to share all the delicious details. Come. Let’s find someplace très privé and you can tell Jack-a-Lee everything.” We went up to the second floor. There were four doors along the corridor: three bedrooms—one in the front and two in the back—and a shared bathroom in between.

  Jack-a-Lee started toward the door to the front, then hesitated. He put a finger to his pouty lips, shook his head. “No, I think Aimee’s in there doing …” The rest got lost in a mutter, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t want to know.

  He headed back to the two rear bedrooms. He opened the door on the right and stuck his head in. From inside came groans and grunts. Jack-a-Lee raised an eyebrow and pulled the door shut. He went to the next door. Same story. He put his hands on his ample hips, pursed his lips, and reflected.

  “We could go upstairs, but I know it’s busy up there too. Real busy, if you know what I mean. So there’s only one alternative.” He flipped a hand toward the middle door.

  I sighed. Goodness knows what that bathroom would look like—and smell like—in the middle of a house party like this.

  “Après-vous,” I said.

  “No, m’dear. After you.”

  I took out a handkerchief and used it to turn the knob, or tried to. The door was locked.

  This was too much.

  Now that we were standing right outside the door, I could hear the sounds of intimate contact. I gave Jack-a-Lee a look. What do we do now?

  Jack-a-Lee was a true diva. He had a notion he could get some of the most delicious gossip in the world out of me and he was being blocked from getting it. He was frustrated and embarrassed. This was his own house and he couldn’t find a place to talk. He raised a fist and banged on the door.

  “Whoever’s in there, get out! Pull out right now, do you hear? I don’t care where else you do it, but you can’t do it in there. Get out of there fast. No screwing in the bathroom. Those are the house rules. I will not have someone pee on themselves while they’re waiting for you to have your fun. You can do it downstairs in the middle of the dance floor for all I care, but not in my bathroom.” Bang! Bang! Bang! He made the door shake in its frame. “And I mean now!”

  There were squeals of terror, the sound of hurried dressing, and the shot of a little bolt being thrown back. The door was flung open and two half-dressed men, one with his pirate pants still open, the other trying to arrange his dirndl, stepped out.

  “Well, I never—” began the one with the skirt.

  “Yes, you did, but you’ll never do it again, not in my place, if you take that attitude with me,” Jack-a-Lee said.

  He dismissed the two men with a wave of his hand, then grabbed my wrist and dragged me into the bathroom. Inside he looked around and wrinkled his nose with distaste.

  “I guess I should be grateful they were just stirring chocolate. Sometimes, people leave such a funk in here.” He looked at me and smiled. “Then again, I like it earthy, don’t you?”

  His wit was contagious. My lips twitched with a smile. I repressed it. It seemed wrong, under the circumstances, to be merry. So, I rolled my eyes and gave him a look that said loud and clear, Be serious.

  He pouted. “Come on, honey. Where’s your sense of humor?” When I didn’t respond, he said, “All right, then. Be that way. Here,” he flipped down the toilet lid. “Take a seat on my gracious commode and tell Mama all about it.”

  I perched on the lid and he squeezed his bulk right next to me. It was tight, but not unpleasant. It was like sitting next to a rather large, warm marshmallow.

  I told him everything he could’ve read in the papers and not an iota more, but made it sound as though I had. He was thrilled.

  “And you were right there? You actually saw the whole thing?”

  “Sure did.”

  He put two plump fingers to a dimpled cheek and shook his head with feminine delicacy. “I’m so jealous. Nothing that exciting ever happens to me.”

  “The thing is, somebody saw Queenie being roughed up by an ofay like the one who took him last night. Broad, got light eyes. Said to be an en-forcer. I need his name or who he works for.”

  “And you think I
can tell you?”

  “I’m sure you can.”

  Jack-a-Lee mulled it over. “Let’s say I could. Why should I? Lay my life on the line and for what?”

  I was prepared for the question. “You’re going to the Faggots’ Ball?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  The Faggots’ Ball was the largest drag ball of the year. That wasn’t the official name for it, of course, but it’s what everybody called it. A fraternal society, the Hamilton Lodge of the Odd Fellows, hosted it every February at the Rockland Palace Casino on Eighth Avenue and 155th Street. The event was set in Harlem, but folks came from all over and they weren’t only colored. Thousands flocked to it. It was one of the largest, maybe even the largest, gathering of lesbians and fairies in New York City.

  “I’ll be there too, with picture-snappers,” I said. “Suppose I promise to put your mug on the front page of the Chronicle’s society pages?”

  “Moi?” He put a hand to his chest and fluttered his long false eyelashes. “Little old me?”

  “Jack-a-Lee, there is nothing little or old about you.”

  His face broke out into a smile, but then his eyes got serious. “Look, sweetie, that’s a nice offer, but the ball’s not until next Friday. A lot could happen in a week. And as nice as it is, a picture’s not everything.”

  “What do you want?”

  “The reward money, but it can’t be seen coming to me.”

  I thought about it. “Okay.”

  “You can fix that?”

  “If you give me the skinny and it works out.”

  “No ifs, ands, or buts. I want a guarantee. If I give you the information and you screw it up, I still get my money.”

  “You’ll get it.”

  “All right, then. It sounds like a guy named Olmo, and he’s not white. That motherfucker’s one of us.”

  I thought about the accent, the bright pale eyes. “I never would’ve—”

  “America’s one-drop rule, baby. And he’s got more than a drop. Mama’s ivory, but daddy’s ebony. He grew up in Stockholm. They call him the Velvet Swede.”

  “And who does he work for?”