The Ragtime Kid Read Free Page A

hitchhiker’s thumb toward the doorway, across the room.
    Joplin turned and saw two white men standing just inside the door. His headache mounted a comeback. Beethoven didn’t have to put up with anything like this. When he wanted to write music, he locked himself away in a room with a keyboard for hours at a time. And when Beethoven played his music of an evening, it was for audiences who appreciated his art, not for a roomful of men who liked a little lively background to get drunk to, or a bunch of prostitutes and johns who wanted a bit of musical foreplay. Why couldn’t Scott Joplin find a patron with money? The last time he’d seen Mr. Weiss, Joplin had complained to that effect, which had set the old German to waving a finger under his pupil’s nose. “Scott, you got more talent in your little finger than any other student I ever taught got in his whole body. What you
don’t
got is time to waste feeling sorry for yourself. Least you got a chance, which your mama and daddy never did.”
    The two white men began to walk across the room toward the piano. Walker Williams glanced under the bar, where his pistol lay on a shelf within easy reach. Ireland shifted on his stool so as to keep the white men in sight without giving the appearance of looking or listening.
    As the men approached them, Joplin and Saunders swung their legs over the bench, then stood. “Trouble?” Saunders whispered from the corner of his mouth.
    Joplin answered with an almost imperceptible shrug. His face was a poker master’s dream. He stared at the younger of the white men, a slicker not much over twenty, with wide-set brown eyes above a friendly enough smile, snappy in a dark tailored suit and rakish derby. “Good afternoon, Mr. Daniels,” Joplin said.
    “Good afternoon to you, Scott.”
    Joplin extended a hand; Daniels gave it a brief pump. “Mr. Daniels, my friend Otis Saunders. A fine pianist and musician. Otis, this is Mr. Charles Daniels. From Carl Hoffman Music Company in Kansas City.”
    Saunders’ eyes went wide. He nodded to Daniels, who returned the slight bow.
    Joplin turned his attention to Daniels’ companion, a heavy-set man of forty-some years, with light skin and blue eyes. Some kind of Swede or Norwegian, Joplin thought. White suit, wide blue tie with a fake-diamond stickpin, boater set a little cockeyed on his head. He sweated freely, but his smile dazzled, lots of teeth, and he leaned forward from the waist to bring that smile right up to Joplin’s face. Joplin thought of alligators. “Scott, this is Mr. Elmo Freitag, my associate,” Daniels said.
    Right there, Joplin knew something was out of whack. A man with a boss half his age is like a man with a wife half his age. Joplin looked directly at Daniels. “What can I do for you?”
    Daniels’ smile extended. “Why, I’ve come to see
you
, Scott. I hear you’re working on a full-score ragtime ballet—
The Ragtime Dance
? You’ll be needing a publisher, won’t you?”
    Anger bubbled up from Joplin’s chest; the skin of his face felt like it might catch on fire. But that emotionless mask didn’t change, not a trace. “I guess that’s true,” he said, mild as you please.
    “We’ve done well with ‘Original Rags,’” said Daniels. “And we can do just as well with this music, maybe better. How many tunes are there in your ballet?”
    “It’s not yet finished, Mr. Daniels.”
    Daniels’ smile gave him the look of an appealing little boy. “Oh, now, Scott, why do you want to play games with me? I’m interested in your work. You can tell me more than ‘It’s not yet finished.’”
    Joplin swallowed hard. “All right. I’m trying to work it out with an introductory section, then a preparation for the dance, and after that, thirteen dances with a caller, over maybe five to ten strains—”
    “Well, that sounds just wonderful. Fifteen pieces altogether. I’ll arrange them for separate publication. And then if they catch on, we can put out a