Book One of the Travelers (6 page)

J
effrey Wright paced in a tight pattern, jingling the spare change in his pocket. The room was dark. Marvin Halliday's jazz club, the Blue Moon, was still being built, and the light fixtures weren't installed yet. The late afternoon sun cast dark shadows around the two men.

“We've got to do something,” Jeffrey told Marvin. “I can't take the pressure anymore. And if you won't help me, then I'll do it myself.”

“Yeah?” a voice snarled behind Jeffrey. “You and what army?”

Jeffrey froze. He knew that voice. For a moment Marvin and Jeffrey locked eyes, sharing the same terrified look. Slowly—so that the goon behind him would know that he wasn't about to try anything—Jeffrey turned.

There were three of them. All big. All smiling. Without a word, one guy took a sledgehammer and smashed a deep hole into the nearby painted pillar. Another knocked over a table, taking several chairs down with it.

Then there was the third guy, grinning.

Why is he just standing there?
Jeffrey wondered. For one second Jeffrey didn't understand what the sudden, searing pain in his arm was. Somehow he felt the bullet tearing into his flesh before he heard the gun go off.

From far away—so far away—Jeffrey heard Marvin shouting, and some crashing, and
pop! pop! pop!

Jeffrey flung himself to the floor behind the toppled table. A volley of bullets ripped through it, splintered wood and paint chips raining down on him.

Someone's got to hear this
, he thought.
Someone's got to come in and stop it!
He crawled toward the bar, desperate for cover.

There was a
crash
and glass flew everywhere.
The window. Did they just throw Marvin out his own window?

Crawling was too slow. Jeffrey pulled himself up to a low crouch, clutching his burning left arm. The kitchen door was within reach. From there he'd run out the back. They wouldn't gun him down in the street.

Of course they wouldn't. Not when they could put his lights out forever right here.

Jeffrey fell forward, his chest thrust outward from the impact of the bullets in his back. He went down, his face smashing into the rubble strewn over the floor.

He thought he could hear his breath, ragged and full of pain. It sounded like a roar in his ears, like the ocean. Or maybe that was the sound of his blood rushing out of him.

Something landed near his face. A gun, still smoking.

That was the last thing he ever saw.

N
ight, Gunny!”

Vincent “Gunny” Van Dyke waved good-bye without turning around as he walked through the bustling kitchen of the Manhattan Tower Hotel. His bellman's shift was over and he was looking forward to the weekend.

The new kid he had just hired—“Dodger” was it?—opened the back door with a flourish and a little bow. “Evening, sir,” Dodger said with a grin.

“Good night, my good man,” Gunny replied, sounding as high class as one of the big shots who often stayed at the hotel.

Dodger gave Gunny a once-over. “You look swank,” he said with his thick Brooklyn accent. “Got plans?”

“You bet I do,” Gunny replied.

Dodger snapped his fingers. “You're off to hear your friend's band up in Harlem!” Dodger clutched Gunny's wide lapels as if he were a man begging for his life. “Please, you gotta take me with you.”

“No can do, Dodger,” Gunny said. “You're on the night shift now.”

Dodger mimed stabbing himself in the chest. “Cut out my heart, why don'tcha,” he moaned.

Gunny laughed. He liked the squirt. He was rough around the edges maybe, but solid.

“Don't worry, Dodger,” Gunny promised. “Once you're back on days, I'll bring you up to Chubby Malloy's Paradise to hear Jumpin' Jed and the JiveMasters.”

“Will you get me a girl, too?” Dodger asked eagerly.

Gunny laughed again. “I'm not a miracle worker.”

“Cruel.” Dodger took a step backward and looked stricken. “So cruel.” Then he smirked and winked.

The sun was dipping low, and the chill in the air made Gunny walk briskly to the subway. He put his nickel in the slot and hurried down the stairs for the long trip uptown to Harlem.

Gunny peered out the window as the subway crawled out of the tunnel and rumbled along the elevated tracks.
We go back a long ways, ol' Jed and me
.

Jed was a bit older than Gunny and they had known each other since childhood in Virginia. After the Great War, they both moved up to New York. Now, almost twenty years later, Jumpin' Jed was the leader of his own band at the nicest nightclub in Harlem—maybe all of New York City—and Gunny was bell captain at the Manhattan Tower Hotel.
We've done well for ourselves
, Gunny thought with satisfaction.

Still, something nagged at him. Gunny didn't crave the flash of Jumpin' Jed's life as an entertainer. But sometimes he wondered if there were something more
he should be doing, something just outside view that he was meant to discover.

The clattering train pulled into Gunny's stop with a screech. This neighborhood was a lot noisier than the fancy area around the hotel. Here pushcart peddlers shouted out to customers, men and women hurried home from work, children played stickball in the street while neighbors hung out windows and yelled down to them.

When Gunny turned onto Jed's block, the roar of construction sounds added to the din. He stopped to check out the new building going up. A group of small boys huddled around the work site, watching in awe as a crane hoisted supplies to the upper stories.

“It's going to be a while yet before it's done,” a man beside Gunny commented. “Ambrose Jackson is doing mighty well for himself.”

“Hope he'll have some tenants for all those new office spaces,” Gunny said, watching in fascination as several workmen walked expertly along girders high above him. “Must be a real optimist.”

Despite the Depression still raging around them, Ambrose Jackson managed to acquire properties. Ambrose didn't live in the neighborhood, but everyone seemed to know him anyway.

How does he do it
? Gunny wondered. So many people were struggling, but Jackson kept starting new enterprises.

Gunny turned to go. Suddenly he was body-slammed so hard the breath was knocked out of him. He flung out his hands and grabbed on to the person who had
rammed into him, trying to steady himself. He looked into the very angry face of Jeffrey Wright Jr.

“Junior!” Gunny exclaimed. “Where's the fire?” Junior was the sixteen-year-old son of Jeffrey Wright Sr., the drummer in Jumpin' Jed's band. Gunny had known the boy for years. Junior was the spitting image of his father, with his short dark hair, almond-shaped eyes, and deep cocoa skin. His eleven-year-old sister, Delia, looked more like her mother.

“Let go of me, old man!” Junior wriggled out of Gunny's grip and tore down the sidewalk.

Gunny glared after Junior as he vanished into the crowd. “Flighty kid,” Gunny grumbled. “No respect.”

“Junior!” a woman called. “Junior Wright, you get back here this instant!”

Gunny turned and saw Mrs. Wright standing with Delia.

“Evening, Mrs. Wright, Delia,” Gunny said as he approached them. “I see Junior is in a lather over something.”

Mrs. Wright had a hand on her hip and a frown on her face. “I'm so sorry, Gunny,” she said, embarrassment coloring her dark cheeks. “He shouldn't behave like that.”

“It's the age,” Gunny said. “With luck, he'll outgrow it.”

Mrs. Wright laughed. “I hope Delia never grows
into
it then!”

“Mama.” Delia rolled her dark brown eyes.

“What has him so fussed?” Gunny asked.

Mrs. Wright sighed. “He and his father had a fight.”

“Again,” Delia added.

Mrs. Wright gave the girl a warning look, as if she didn't want family business to be so public. Then, changing the subject, she asked, “What brings you uptown?”

“I'm here to see Jed Sweeney, upstairs.”

“Oh, you missed him,” Mrs. Wright said.

That surprised Gunny. Jed was expecting him. “Do you know where he went?”

“Try Marvin Halliday's place,” Mrs. Wright suggested. “He was going that way.”

“I'll do that,” Gunny said.

Is Jed checking up on the competition
? Gunny wondered as he headed toward the still-under-construction nightclub. The whole neighborhood was abuzz about Halliday building a rival club just a few blocks from Chubby Malloy's Paradise.

As soon as Gunny rounded the corner he knew something was wrong.

The street was deserted. He had never seen a block so empty in Harlem—not ever.

He moved forward slowly, his eyes scanning for an explanation for the uncommon stillness. During the Great War Gunny had learned silence could be a warning sign of something deadly—a trap, a recent slaughter.

As he got closer, he saw shattered glass all over the sidewalk. The Blue Moon's front window was smashed.

Not good.

His feet made crunching sounds as he crossed to the door. Standing to one side, his back against the wall of the building, he tapped the door lightly. It swung open easily. No response from inside. He cautiously stepped into the dark bar.

Even in the dim light it was obvious the club had been wrecked.

And worst of all…

He could see the dead body on the floor.

G
unny froze. He wasn't alone.

His body reflexively crouched into a defensive stance, hands up, ready to move in any direction. When his eyes finally adjusted to the dark, his blood ran cold.

He was staring at the barrel of a gun.

Guns. He hated the things. They filled him with rage, yet he was helpless before them. He had found that out soon enough when he enlisted in the army. He had believed in that fight and wanted to put his life on the line for his country and for freedom. But then came basic training.

“Van Dyke, you're up,” the sergeant barked.

“Yes, sir!” Gunny took the proffered rifle, lifted it, placed it in exactly the right position. Then…

Nothing.

He looked through the site. Had a perfect bead on the target. He took a deep breath.

Nothing. He just couldn't pull the trigger.

The men had teased him about it for days. He knew
they were joking and meant no harm, but it still stung. One of them called him “Gunny,” in the ironic way the hulking Private McCall was nicknamed “Tiny.” Everywhere he went that week, all he heard was men calling out “Gunny! Hey, Gunny!”

“Gunny.”

Gunny roused himself. Someone was actually saying his name. Here and now. He peeled his eyes away from the gun barrel and allowed his gaze to travel up to the face above it.

“Jed!” Gunny looked back down at the body on the floor. It wasn't Marvin Halliday, as he had expected. It was Jeffrey Wright Sr.

Gunny couldn't believe what he was seeing. Jumpin' Jed holding a gun over the dead body of his own drummer.

“Jed, what happened here?” Gunny asked.

Jed seemed stunned. He stared down at Jeffrey. “I don't know—”

“Hands in the air!” a voice behind Gunny shouted. “Now!”

Jed looked past Gunny, then at the gun, as if he just realized he was holding it. He dropped it with a clatter to the floor and raised his hands.

As Gunny turned around, cops swarmed into the demolished nightclub.

A short, squat policeman roughly grabbed Jed's wrists, yanked them behind his back, and handcuffed him.

“I didn't do anything!” Jed protested.

“If you're arresting him, why aren't you arresting me too?” Gunny demanded. “I'm standing right here!”

“Don't tempt us,” the policeman said.

A thin detective with hawklike features stepped forward carefully. “We saw you walk in just a minute ago. Not enough time to do all this.” He gestured at the room, then his beady eyes returned to Jed. “Besides,
he
was holding the weapon.”

“I just found him like this,” Jed said. “Jeffrey Wright is a member of my band—and my friend! Why would I want to kill him?”

“So
that's
Jeffrey Wright,” a fresh-faced blond cop said.

“You know him?” Gunny asked, surprised.

“We hear the same rumors everyone else does,” the officer holding Jed said. “And what we've been hearing is that Jeffrey Wright wanted to strike out on his own. Start his own band.”

The hawk-faced detective bent down and, with a handkerchief, gingerly picked up the gun Jed had just dropped. “Here's my theory, fellas,” he declared loudly as he stood. “Jumpin' Jed followed Wright to a meeting with Marvin Halliday to try to persuade his drummer not to defect.” He glanced at Jed and smirked. “I guess the meeting got ugly.”

“That's crazy,” Jed protested. “I came to tell Jeffrey if he wanted to leave there'd be no hard feelings.”

“Sure you did,” the detective said.

The hawklike detective suddenly stepped right up to Jed. “What did you do with Marvin Halliday?” he bellowed inches from Jed's face.

“Nothing!” Jed said. “I never even saw him.”

The detective looked Jed up and down. “Bring
him in, boys. We'll ask him more questions at the precinct.”

“Don't worry, Jed,” Gunny shouted as the cops roughly hauled Jed away. “I'll get you out of this!”

He just had to figure out how.