The Strivers' Row Spy Read online

  “You know what I need, Sid? A bicycle. You can have the car. And you won’t have to pick me up all the time if I get one. I either want to ride out in the open and feel the Harlem wind on my face or walk wherever I go. If I see something that interests me—a particular painting or a group of artists gathering—I want to be able to stop and take a look. I want to ride all the way down to Central Park—explore this whole damn city.”

  “What kind of bicycle?”

  “I want one of those new sleek-looking ones that I saw some of the girls riding back at Middlebury. I think they’re made by Worksman Cycles. Will you get me one?”

  “That’s the least I can do. You deserve it. We’ll go look tomorrow.”

  “How do you like your new office?”

  “Well, remember the man from D.C. who I said I’m working for? He owns a firm here in New York City.”

  “Of course, silly. That’s the entire reason we came to New York.”

  “Sorry—I didn’t mean to insult your intelligence. I’ve just got too much on my mind. Anyway, as you already know, his intention was to have me open up this office here in Harlem for the purpose of doing consulting on the planning and building of several major Harlem building projects.”

  “Let me guess. They’re now minor building projects.”

  “No, the projects are just being put on hold for a bit. But it’s nothing to worry about. He’s paying me a salary, and any contract I secure is bonus money. Right now he wants me to secure a job that involves, in essence, coming up with a detailed plan for refurbishing a large cruise ship that’s docked here in Harlem. Based on my recommendations, the owner would then hire the contractors and mechanics to do the job.”

  “Think you’ll get it?”

  “Yes. There are very few engineering consultants in Harlem. I have to submit my portfolio to the owner and hope that he likes it; the owner happens to be Marcus Garvey.”

  “Marcus Garvey? I keep hearing more and more about him. New president of the NAACP, right?”

  “No, he started a different organization—not the NAACP.”

  “Why does he own a ship of all things?” she asked.

  “Beats me.”

  At least I’d managed to bring Garvey’s name up to her. Now, my being seen with him as his engineer wouldn’t draw her suspicion. Besides that, Loretta’s head was a bit in the clouds when it came to the political world. She was a voracious reader, unless it had to do with current politics. Luckily for me, the art world and fiction were the beginning and end with her.

  We finished breakfast and parted, Loretta still insisting on spending her day walking. As I made my way over to 135th and approached the Universal Negro Improvement Association headquarters, I noticed about ten young colored men lining the sidewalk, rehearsing some type of march.

  I passed them, parked, exited the car, and stood at the front steps of the UNIA office, watching the rehearsal take place from about fifty feet away. The longer I watched, the more I began to realize that these men were being put through a military-style training session by a man who looked to have a background in the Army.

  They were holding wooden rifle stocks and learning how to maneuver them while marching. Most looked as if they’d never handled guns. They were all wearing jeans, white T-shirts, and black boots.

  Out of the UNIA office walked a tall, stoic-looking man—mid thirties—pristinely dressed in a black suit and tie. His skin was lighter than mine. “God bless them young men,” he said to himself, shaking his head in disbelief, as he watched them train.

  He was saying it half jokingly as the men struggled to grasp the rifle manipulation that their instructor was demonstrating. Several of the youngsters were dropping their rifles.

  “Enough to tickle you, ain’t it?” he said, smiling at me. “Them men right there are the first recruits of Brother Garvey’s African Legion. Got a lot of work to do. Don’t you think?”

  I smiled and didn’t answer him. I was fascinated with the idea that Garvey was literally starting his own army. This would certainly raise Hoover’s antenna.

  “I’m Reverend James Eason.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I responded, shaking his hand. “Sidney Temple.”

  “Those boys training over yonder ain’t the only ones. Brother Garvey has hundreds of ex-fighting men from the war who are fixin’ to start training soon.”

  “I see.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, young brother. You must be here for the assistant editor position.”

  “No.”

  “Not here for the Negro World? There are about five young men in suits sitting inside waiting to be interviewed.”

  “I’m actually here to talk to someone about the Yarmouth.”

  “Regarding?”

  “I want to offer my services. I own an engineering and land-use planning firm here in Harlem. But I have a particular expertise in rebuilding engines.”

  “How do you know Brother Garvey?”

  “I don’t. I’m just looking for contracts and simply need work. I was told at the Carnegie meeting that the Yarmouth could use some engine refurbishing.”

  “And you think you can fix it? Several men have already tried—white men at that.”

  “For the right price, yes,” I said with confidence. “I’ll fix it.”

  He began laughing. “Oh, the young brother says he can for the right price. All right—all right. Brother says he ain’t gonna be doing nothing for free. I hear you. Amen!”

  I laughed with him, realizing that he took my money demands as a sign of self-confidence. I figured the money demands would help throw off any suspicion.

  “Brother Garvey still hasn’t purchased the ship yet. Still negotiating. But the sale should go through any day now. I tell you what, young brother, I’ll talk to him this evening. You have any credentials? Marcus will want to see your résumé.”

  “I do. Here’s my portfolio.”

  I handed him a folder that included copies of my two degrees, letters of recommendation, and several jobs that had been fabricated by the Bureau. Let’s just say my résumé looked outstanding, replete with contracts I’d supposedly filled while in graduate school. I did do some impressive work while in Vermont during the summers—mainly reassembling auto engines and assisting with the design and construction of several roads and bridges—proving my engineering prowess, but not to the extent that my résumé suggested.

  “How long have you been a pastor?”

  “Oh, about fifteen years. I am currently the UNIA Chaplain General. Before joining Garvey, I was pastor of the AME Zion Church in Philadelphia.”

  “Get out of here!” I said. “My wife’s late father, Reverend Barry Cunningham, was the pastor of the Westside Baptist Church in Philadelphia.”

  “Hold on now!” he enthusiastically said. “Just hold on, youngster. Brother Cunningham was my people! I knew B. C. well. We prayed together and attended many a meeting with one another. Had heard of his passing. May he rest in peace . . . and it is certainly a pleasure to meet you, brother.”

  We stood there shaking hands. I liked him immediately. And though I used the word brother occasionally, I’d never heard anyone use it this much, not even a pastor.

  There seemed to be a genuine goodness emanating from him. But I could say for a fact that Loretta’s father would never have joined Garvey. He’d been a staunch NAACP supporter.

  “Look here,” he said, “I would love to meet your wife and personally offer her my condolences. Can the three of us meet for coffee? That will also give me a chance to get back to you about Garvey and the Yarmouth; he actually intends to call it the Frederick Douglass.”

  “I would love that. I’ll talk to Loretta. And here is my card. It has my office number on it. You can reach me there during the day.”

  “I’ll call you and we’ll set up a time and place. You like apple pie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good to hear. Know a great spot.”

  * * *

  Two days
later, my office was fully operational and I was quite comfortable. I had heard from Reverend Eason earlier that day and was told that he had to leave town for two weeks. He apologized and said we’d have to meet for coffee later. When we did eventually meet, I wasn’t going to take Loretta because I wanted to avoid discussing the potential Yarmouth hire in front of her. Plus, any discussion of my bloated résumé or lies I might have to tell about pledging allegiances to Garvey’s radical ideas would only raise her suspicions.

  I dialed the BOI and readied myself to use clear diction and speak slowly. The telegraph operator answered.

  “Code and location please,” she said.

  “Code name . . . Q3Z . . . stop. Harlem, New York . . . stop.”

  “Cleared. Proceed for input.”

  “Initial contact, Garvey official . . . stop. Name: Reverend James Eason . . . stop. Spelled: E-A-S-O-N . . . stop. Previous pastor AME Zion Church, Philadelphia . . . stop. Current UNIA pastor . . . stop. Submitted portfolio . . . stop. Eason, Garvey to discuss my portfolio. . . stop. Eason and I to discuss my potential employment . . . stop. Seeking work on Black Star Line’s Yarmouth . . . stop. Garvey training own army . . . stop. Name: African Legion. End.”

  9

  FOURTEEN DAYS HAD PASSED. I SAT IN SNAPPY’S READING THE NEW York Times, sipping my morning coffee, and waiting for Loretta to meet me for our usual nine o’clock breakfast. Two days earlier I had been sitting in this same booth during lunch while Agent Mann had eaten at the booth behind me.

  “How are things at the Crisis?” I’d asked, our backs to each other.

  “Normal business,” he’d replied. “However, Du Bois seems to correspond quite a bit with some of New York’s more influential Jews. I’m trying to see if a Jerry Silverman is funding him. Silverman may be a member of the Communist Party.”

  “Good,” I’d said, laughing on the inside. “I may have something for you next month. I think I may get a job with Garvey’s Black Star Line. Perhaps I can find out who’s funding him. Maybe the two have common donors.”

  “Yes. Communist Party donors.”

  “By the way, what’s your code?”

  “6W6,” he’d said. “Yours?”

  “Q3Z.”

  Mann had left shortly thereafter and I’d informed Du Bois in an anonymous letter about the Bureau’s tracking of Silverman. The Bureau sure was hell-bent on linking them to communism.

  Loretta still hadn’t arrived for breakfast so I continued reading the paper. I came across an editorial that examined how Attorney General Palmer was beefing up security in an attempt to deal with the growing threat of Bolshevism. He was arresting even more folks.

  According to the editorial, yes, the Communist Party was beating the drum for an overthrow of the U.S. government, but it wasn’t a crime to be a member, thus it wasn’t grounds for deportation under the Constitution.

  The waitress came by and refilled my coffee. Through the window I could see Loretta riding up on her yellow bicycle, lugging her backpack. She parked it and walked in with a bright smile on her face.

  We sat and had breakfast for an hour before I headed over to Cookie’s Coffee to meet Eason. It was a spot near the UNIA.

  He was there, waiting for me at the front door when I pulled up, standing with another gentlemen. He approached with a bit of urgency and we shook hands.

  “Nice to see you again, Brother Temple. This here is Brother William Ferris.”

  “Good to meet you,” I said, shaking the studious-looking, cocoa brown fellow’s hand.

  “Look here,” said Eason. “Marcus can meet with you right now. He’ll be in the office for another hour. The condition of the Yarmouth is number one on his mind right now. The purchase became official four days ago. We have some insurance matters to settle, but things look good. Come on, we can walk.”

  We made our way toward headquarters and I braced myself for the much-anticipated encounter.

  “Listen,” he said, “if you’re not busy tomorrow, you wouldn’t mind driving Brother Ferris and me down to Greenwich Village, would you? A friend of ours has invited us to lunch. He wants us to meet Claude McKay, a poet friend of his who’s about to embark on a sojourn abroad. It’s short notice and I apologize, but that lovely ride you just pulled up in certainly has room for the three of us.”

  He laughed, watching my reaction. I knew he was asking because he wanted to feel me out a little more. What better way than to take a drive into the Village?

  “I’m free,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

  “Amen!”

  We entered headquarters and stepped into what seemed to be nothing more than a very large, high-ceilinged, wooden-floored living room with desks occupying almost every inch of it. In fact, the entire building was most likely a converted three-story town house. But a very busy one. Colored office clerks, male and female, were sitting at desks typing and answering phones, probably selling Black Star Line stock.

  We made our way through a hallway and passed a room that housed a large Linotype machine, used for producing and printing newspapers. We then headed up a set of stairs toward the second floor. One word best described the entire UNIA scene: busy.

  “Brother Garvey’s office is on the third floor,” said Eason.

  The air in the building looked smoky, which was odd because no one was smoking. Perhaps it was simply the window light illuminating the floating dust being kicked up by all of the scrambling, hard-at-work feet.

  When we reached the third floor, the powerful presence of Garvey seemed to be coming through the closed office door. Eason knocked and a young woman answered.

  “Oh, Brother Eason,” she said, with a thick Jamaican accent. “Come on in.”

  She pulled the door open for us. Sitting there behind a desk, talking on the phone, was a hefty, thick-mustached, ebony-skinned man. His clothes hugged his squatty torso tightly. He wore a thickish-looking dress coat—perhaps corduroy or velvet. I couldn’t tell if it was deep purple, dark blue, or black. He had a striped tie on, and I could see that the golden vest he sported was indeed velvet. As he engaged in the phone conversation, his powerful voice filled the room.

  Reverend Eason reached his hand out to the secretary. “How are you, Sister Ashwood?”

  “Very good, Reverend. He’ll be off the phone in just a minute.”

  “This here is Brother Sidney Temple, and you know Brother Ferris. Sidney, this is Miss Amy Ashwood.”

  “Pleasure,” I said.

  “Reverend Eason!” said Garvey, hanging up the phone. “Come. Introduce. Please.”

  “Marcus,” said Eason, “this is Mr. Sidney Temple. Sidney, Mr. Marcus Garvey.”

  “A fit, finely dressed young man,” said Garvey. “And so well educated. Or so I’ve read. Please, sit. Sister Amy, can you go see to it that I receive the first copy of the World as soon as they print it in a few hours?”

  “Yes, right away,” she said.

  “All right then, Sidney,” said Eason, “Brother Ferris and I will see you tomorrow at Cookie’s Coffee around noon.”

  “Okay.”

  The three of them exited as Garvey and I sat alone in his office. There were stacks of old Negro World newspapers along all four walls. Two wooden desks helped fill the large room, Miss Ashwood’s to the left, Mr. Garvey’s right in front of me.

  It was evident that he was a printer by trade, as his desk was covered with articles that he was situating on large, blank sheets of paper, arranging them appropriately, giving each a headline. He was, in effect, designing the final look of the paper before it went to print. Once he was finished, I assumed that an operator would take Garvey’s blueprint, retype the articles into the Linotype, and make sure the finished product was designed accordingly.

  A large typewriter sat on Garvey’s desk along with copies of the New York Times, the Times of London, and various other national and international papers. Carbon paper and typewriter ribbons were scattered all over Miss Ashwood’s desk, which was just as cluttered and also
equipped with a beautiful, black Underwood typewriter.

  “Ahh, Mr. Vermont!” he bellowed, as he continued arranging the articles. “A gorgeous portion of New England. But not a lot of Negroes running around the Green Mountain State.”

  He still had his attention on the articles. I was busy staring at the man, marveling at his dynamic voice and heavy Jamaican accent. I was also still studying his office. One item in particular caught my attention. Resting on his desk was a large, shiny machete. It was intimidating, to say the least, and looked old.

  “This is next week’s paper,” he said, thumbing through some pages. “Producing a newspaper is never-ending labor. I’ve been working in the printing business my whole life. I got my first apprenticeship at my godfather’s printing business in St. Ann’s Bay when I was thirteen. So while the other boys were hacking away in the sugar cane fields, I was learning a trade. That’s why that sharp symbol is sitting on my desk—to remind me to push ahead, never go backward toward the sugar cane fields where the white man worked the Negro like a dog. Cotton was to America as sugar cane was to Jamaica. Both are reprehensible productions.”

  Garvey held up what looked like my résumé. “Let me be very clear up front. I don’t make a habit of doing one-on-one sit-downs with people I don’t know. My time is precious. If I weren’t truly concerned about the condition of my ship, I wouldn’t be meeting with you. It’s safe to say that your timing is impeccable. So, let me take a look here. You run an engineering consulting firm. Impressive, but how does that qualify you to work specifically on ship engines?”

  “If you look further,” I said, “you’ll see that one of my areas of expertise is mechanical engineering.”

  “An extensive background for such a young man. What service does your business offer?”

  “Clients hire me to assess and then advise.”

  “I must tell you that I have several mechanics working on my ship as we speak. They claim it has leaky boilers.”

  “Perhaps, but it’s important to find out if anything else is malfunctioning. Besides, if it’s only leaky boilers, fixing those shouldn’t be a problem. Something as simple as that shouldn’t be taking this long.”