The Strivers' Row Spy (9 page)

“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.”

F
OURTEEN DAYS HAD PASSED
. I
SAT IN SNAPPY'S READING THE
N
EW
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.”

“I concur completely,” he said, eyes still on my résumé. “Now if I can just get you to convince Captain Cockburn of that. The
Yarmouth
will never be fit to chug off if he has his way. But he has his boys working hard. Whether or not they're making any progress is another thing altogether. They certainly don't have your education.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“I myself was schooled in London—Birkbeck College. I never received a degree, but what I learned on my own surpassed anything any college could have ever taught me. Some of these Negroes walking around with their fancy university degrees nailed to their foreheads for everyone to see make me sick. Attending a college does not make a man educated. So tell me, what do you know of me?”

“I know that you own a ship and that it needs work,” I said. “I also know that you're head of this UNIA, and I've read an article or two about your association. But in short, I know little. I'm not a political man.”

“Sometimes,” he said, “the less a man knows about you, the more useful he can be to you.”

Garvey hadn't made much eye contact with me. He kept his head down, reading my résumé. There was a vanity to the man that was overwhelming, plus an obvious insecurity about his education.

“I have been in this country for three years,” he said. “I watched those colored soldiers march up Fifth Avenue as people lined the streets to welcome them home from that white man's war, and I can honestly say, American Negroes need a different kind of education, a street one. They had no business bleeding in that white man's war. The street education I received in Jamaica was enough to teach me that.”

I now knew it was going to require a Herculean effort to convince him that I didn't hold any strong political beliefs that opposed him. The only way I could curry favor with him was to become a piece of clay he could mold. It would be similar to the buffoonish role I'd played with Hoover.

“Is there a Mrs. Temple?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I intend to wed the little lady who just left this office. She helped me start the UNIA. And now, it's beginning to thrive. As soon as we can get the
Yarmouth
in mint condition, it will set sail—first to the West Indies, and later, to the Motherland. We will ship and trade goods and provide leisure travel for our people. They won't have to travel as second-class citizens anymore, and if they so choose, can see the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa.”

He sat there with such pride. His intentions to sail to Africa were obviously sincere.

“Please don't think I've forgotten why you're here, Sidney. I want you to come visit the ship and survey the work that's being done. We will then sit down and you can tell me if you feel it's sufficient or whether there need to be changes made—changes I would hire you to make, assuming I agree with your recommendations. Reverend Eason likes you. That's enough for me right now. He's a smart man—smart enough to part ways with the NAACP and join me. He's provided great counsel to me regarding that idiot assistant district attorney—Edwin Kilroe.

“Kilroe has done everything possible to derail my business ventures. He's an evil, Irish-Catholic S.O.B. You'd think he'd be more kind to me considering my own Catholic faith. And I certainly know who brought me to his attention. Ever since I met W. E. B. Du Bois when he came to Jamaica four years back, he's felt threatened by me, and I know he's in cahoots with Kilroe.”

He was still looking down and seemed unaware that he was saying more than he should. As far as he knew I could have been from the NAACP. I could have been from Kilroe's office. And, of course, I could have been a government spy. But then again, maybe he didn't care—was comfortable with me going right back to these people and sharing what he had said. Perhaps he was revealing so much of his inner thinking because he wanted to gauge my reaction. But I showed none. What I really believed was that he couldn't help himself—had so much pent-up frustration that it just poured out of him, regardless of his company. He had gotten my attention with this Kilroe individual. I would need to find out more about him.

“The fact that you are not from New York is a good thing,” he said. “You've spent all of your adult life in Vermont of all places—hardly a hotbed for black politics. You could call that place ‘Whiteville.' But you're not tainted by all of these ambitious, unethical New York coloreds. You're at the perfect age to begin learning—forming your political philosophy.”