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VIII. THE RAID OF THE BALTIMORE

THE RAID OF THE BALTIMORE VIII 1 HE blazing lights of the Baltimore were put out and the entrance was padlocked. Fifth Avenue and Lenox talked about nothing else. Buddy meeting buddy and chippie greeting chippie, asked: "Did you hear the news?" . . . "Well, what do you know about that?" Yet nothing sensational had happened in the Baltimore. The police had not, on a certain night, swept into it and closed it up because of indecent doings. No. It was an indirect raid. Oh, and that made the gossip toothierl For the Baltimore was not just an ordinary cabaret. It had mortgages and policies in the best of the speakeasy places of the Belt. And the mass of Harlem held the Baltimore in high respect because (it was rumored and believed) it was protected by Tammany Hall. [102] The Raid of the Baltimore Jake, since he had given up hoping about his lost brown, had stopped haunting the Baltimore , yet he had happened to be very much in on the affair that cost the Baltimore its license. Jake's living with Rose had, in spite of himself, projected him into a more elegant atmosphere of worldliness. Through Rose and her associates he had gained access to buffet flats and private rendezvous apartments that were called "nifty." And Jake was a high favorite wherever he went There was something so naturally beautiful about his presence that everybody liked and desired him. Buddies, on the slightest provocation, were ready to fight for him, and the girls liked to make an argument around him. Jake had gained admission to Madame Adeline Suarez's buffet flat, which was indeed a great feat. He was the first longshoreman, colored or white, to tread that magnificent red carpet. Madame Suarez catered to sporty colored persons of consequence only and certain groups of downtown whites that used to [103] Home to Harlem frequent Harlem in the good old pre-prohibition days. "Ain't got no time for cheap- no-'count niggers ," Madame Suarez often said. "Gimme their room to their company any time, even if they've got money to spend," Madame Suarez came from Florida and she claimed Cuban descent through her father. By her claim to that exotic blood she moved like a queen among the blue-veins of the colored sporting world. But Jake's rough charm could conquer anything . "Ofay's mixing in I" he exclaimed to himself the first night he penetrated into Madame Suarez's. "But ofay or ofay not, this here is the real stuff," he reflected. And so many nights he absented himself from the Congo (he had no interest in Rose's art of flirting money out of hypnotized newcomers) to luxuriate with charmingly painted pansies among the colored cushions and under the soft, shaded lights of Madame Suarez's speakeasy. It was a new world for Jake and he took it easily. [104] The Raid of the Baltimore That was his natural way, wherever he went, whatever new people he met It had helped him over many a bad crossing at Brest at Havre and in London. . . . Take it easy • . . take life easy. Sometimes he was disgusted with life, but he was never frightened of it. Jake had never seen colored women so carefully elegant as these rich-browns and yellowcreams at Madame Suarez's. They were fascinating in soft bright draperies and pretty pumps and they drank liquor with a fetching graceful abandon. Gin and whisky seemed to lose their barbaric punch in that atmosphere and take on a romantic color. The women's coiffure was arranged in different striking styles and their arms and necks and breasts tinted to emphasize the peculiar richness of each skin. One girl, who was the favorite of Madame Suarez, and the darkest in the group, looked like a breathing statue of burnished bronze. With their arresting poses and gestures, their deep shining painted eyes, they resembled the wonderfully beautiful pictures of women of ancient Egypt [105] Home to Harlem Here Jake brushed against big men of the colored sporting world and their white friends. That strange un-American world where colored meets and mingles freely and naturally with white in amusement basements, buffet flats, poker establishments. Sometimes there were two or three white women, who attracted attention because they were white and strange to Harlem, but...