The Strivers' Row Spy by Jason Overstreet

I’m an engineering consultant and need a nice building to work out of.”
    â€œIndeed. More than I can count,” he said, staring at the money. “Be happy to show ’em to you. Real happy!”
    â€œI’d certainly appreciate it.”
    I spent the next few minutes filling out papers. All of the day’s sights and sounds had put me in the mood to wash up and go hear some live music. With the town house secured, I’d notify Loretta and she’d soon be on her way.
    * * *
    I approached the jazz club at 132nd and Fifth Avenue, a place called Edmond’s Cellar. The sign out front listed Ethel Waters as the night’s headliner. I had never heard of her. I walked down a set of creaky, gummy, wooden steps toward the sound of a powerful female voice.
    It was dark but not pitch black inside the stairway, the walls sticky-looking, like someone had painted them with syrup. Funky smoke and spills of alcohol had stained them as well.
    The place got muggier and hotter as I reached the bottom step and prepared to enter the basement. My skin was becoming damp and my clothes clingy, but the music was clutching my chest and yanking me forward. Damn the vexatious elements ! I thought. This magnetic, avant-garde sound trumps everything .
    I made my way to the bluish light and entered a room that was filled to a capacity of about one hundred fifty, each patron seeming to hang on every word that flowed from the mouth of the powerful Ethel Waters. The tables were tiny, and there were several folks crammed onto a small dance floor. I felt like I was entering a closet, as the roof was quite low.
    Squeezing through the sweaty crowd—some sitting, others standing—I grabbed a chair near the stage. A cocktail waitress immediately asked me if I wanted a whiskey or beer. I rarely drank the heavy stuff, as Loretta and I liked our wine with dinner on the weekends. But with the Prohibition amendment having been ratified back in January, I figured it was now or never. The amendment would take effect within months, so I ordered a dry whiskey.
    I scanned the room. There appeared to be an alarming number of gorgeous, stunningly dressed colored women in attendance. Most of the men were middle-aged; quite a few were white. I wondered if any might be an agent whom Hoover had tasked to follow me during these first days.
    Still scanning, I could see one sister off in the corner groping a much older white man. I couldn’t help but imagine his wife at home waiting up late for him in their upscale Manhattan apartment.
    I downed the whiskey and absorbed the sound of Miss Waters’s soft and sultry voice. I felt the whiskey racing through my blood, that tantalizing tingle in my body. For the first time in months I felt a release from all things toilsome.
    But I still thought of Garvey. How could I get in? How much time was this young man Hoover going to give me? And had he yet assigned an agent to infiltrate Du Bois’s world? Maybe my training buddy, Ellington, could be my go-to guy on all things Du Bois. I’d have to reconnect with him as soon as possible.
    I ordered another whiskey. Ethel Waters began making her way through the crowd, and the two of us locked eyes. She was a tall, light-skinned woman and, based on her features, likely mixed. Her large, white-hooped earrings sparkled in the backlight.
    She stopped and sang to me for a good minute as the crowd cheered and whistled. I couldn’t help but accept the flirtatious gestures of the pretty woman in her twenties. Her band of four was providing a rhythm and beat that only enhanced her raw talent. The saxophone, bass guitar, piano, and drums were working the audience into a frenzy. I sat back and enjoyed several songs, letting the time pass while sipping my drink.
    About two hours later I headed outside, walking briskly through a crowd of folks still waiting to get in. In the distance about fifty feet away and heading toward me, I saw the two men from