Chapter 24 #2
“Documents,” I replied, not looking up from my work. “Everything Buchanan’s used to ruin lives.”
I rifled through them quickly, scanning the contents. Contracts, deeds, and a letter signed by Buchanan detailing a payout
to that rich politician trying to kick migrants out of the city.
Dear Mr. Buchanan,
I’m grateful for your soon-to-be-deposited donation of $15,000 into my campaign fund in exchange for my continued efforts
to restrict migration to New York and hasten the rezoning of Harlem properties. This money will ensure the swift removal of
Negroes and other undesirables from our schools and neighborhoods and pave the way for white-only redevelopment.
Thank you for your donation, critical to the success of our shared vision for the city! Rest assured, all business will be
handled discreetly.
Sincerely,
A. Mitchell Palmer
“This is it,” I whispered. Here, on paper, was what Buchanan’s half of the Blue House payout was funding. “This is the proof
we need. It’ll ruin his reputation in the city.”
Zihan leaned in, reading over my shoulder.
“Take this. There’s sure to be more inside the rest of the papers.” I handed Zihan the letter and the other documents, along with the loot from the first safe. “Head back to Gatsby’s now and make sure it gets to Daisy or Jay. I’ll finish clearing the last safe.”
“And leave you here?” Zihan asked, frowning. “What if Cannon—”
“I’ll be right behind you. Go, Zihan. We can’t risk both of us getting caught.”
He hesitated but nodded, clutching the papers tightly before slipping out of the room. I turned back to the safe, taking a
steadying breath. There was still work to do.
The final safe had to hold the promised $15,000 donation. That was the payoff, the jackpot. Taking it would make sure that
Buchanan couldn’t use it to cause any more trouble.
I went to Buchanan’s bedroom, and I found the main vent just under a leg of his king-size bed. I opened the vent and climbed
inside, sliding myself along the ice-cold metal.
I moved down the tunnel, and turned, and turned again. I found myself in the same place. I passed the same room three separate
times, but I couldn’t find anything. I started to feel claustrophobic, with all this changing direction horizontally in a
tight space.
So, finally, I gave up, and when I came out, it was to Buchanan’s study. There was a large red carpet, a big wooden desk,
and three walls that opened to a larger drawing room.
A person appeared from around the corner, and I almost had a heart attack before I noticed it was Jay.
“Jay? What are you doing here? You were supposed to be watching Buchanan,” I said, surprised.
Jay watched me as I gathered my bearings. I was waiting for my vision to readjust itself from being sequestered in the vents,
but he was growing impatient. “You were taking so long I got worried. But never mind that, are you ready to go?” he said,
grabbing my arm and pulling me toward the doors. “We have to stop now.”
“I couldn’t find the third safe. There wasn’t one in the bedroom, where Daisy had said to look. I turned four different directions
in that vent and I saw no safe!”
“We don’t need it. We just need to go.” He seemed all fidgety, like he had to make sure the timing was right for some other
reason than to save ourselves.
And the nervousness was not lost on me.
I had to get a question off my chest before we left. “Why did Artie say you had something to do with the fire?”
“Now, Nick? Not now.”
“Well, did you?” What if it was all true? What if I had to fight my lover, at the end of all of this? What if he was setting
me up and his agreement to all of this was a trap?
“I did not start it myself,” he said, and the ambiguous answer sucked all noise from the air.
“But . . . you knew about it?”
“Of course he knew about it,” a voice said.
Jay and I turned to find Charlie and Tom Buchanan standing in the drawing room just outside the study. They were still as statues and seemed completely unsurprised to see us.
“Oh, Lying Nick, the letter was from you,” Charlie said, laughing.
“Bravo,” Buchanan said with a chuckle. “I laud your bravery. But you’re a lot stupider than I thought, getting caught like
this.” He looked at Jay. “And you. You are a traitor to your father’s good name.”
“Why don’t you finish telling him about what happened at West Egg?” Charlie said.
Jay looked at me, and his expression was embarrassed and out of place. You’d think he was in an entirely different room from
the rest of us—a room all on his own. “I should’ve warned you it would be dangerous for you, with your writings,” he said
softly.
“Oh, stop bulling him!” Charlie screamed. “Tell him the truth!”
“You let them try to kill me?” I asked.
“I watched closely to make sure you’d escape—that everyone escaped,” he explained frantically. “I would never let them do that.”
“All those boys that had to go back home after losing their place at the academy . . .”
“West Egg was never a good home for them anyway,” Jay said, his voice still meek. “You saw what they did to the Colored boys
there. And it was inevitable—my father was new money. He didn’t have enough for what we set out to achieve, setting everybody
up for society and giving them a place to live. We were going to lose everything!”
“So, you and your father hired Cannon and the others to burn it down?” I could feel myself starting to shake.
“To cut the student body in half, collect the insurance money, and use your half of it to rebuild the Gatsby name and fortune while Buchanan used his share to destroy Harlem? That’s what you did? ”
“That isn’t the whole—”
“Don’t lie to me!” I shouted, the words tearing from my throat. I barely recognized my own voice. “You were the missing link? All this time . . .
I blamed the Buchanans. They were the bad guys. The Gatsbys were good. I made excuses for you, your father. I told myself
you were different, you cared . . . and oh my goodness, I did it to myself, for what? For you?”
All those doubts and questions—I had been a fool not to listen to them! Now my heart was a deflating balloon.
“I didn’t want them to do it,” Jay said softly, eyes welling with tears. “I tried to stop it, but he never listens to me.
He said we’d lose everything! I . . . I should’ve done more. I regretted it right away after it happened.”
“You’re gonna regret a lot more than just that,” Buchanan said.
Before I could even process his reentry into the conversation, he pulled a gun from his jacket pocket and aimed it at me.
He pulled down the hammer. I couldn’t prepare for what was coming next before Jay jumped in front of me. And Buchanan pulled
the trigger.
Jay hit the floor, and all I could hear was a ringing, blurring everything around me. But I couldn’t yet look down because
Buchanan was preparing for another shot.
I pulled out Cannon’s gun. Buchanan ducked behind a corner while Charlie stood still.
For a moment Charlie and I stared at each other. What’s it gonna be? Both of us were stranded in indecision. And then Charlie ran off to be with his father.
And I fell like a dying rose petal to the side of the boy I loved.
“Sorry,” Jay choked out, with a laugh. “You have no reason to believe me, but I really wanted to stop them. I didn’t . . .
mean to get shot.” He was bleeding from his beautiful stomach and laughing about it.
I held his face in my hands, my heart opening like a crater. “It’s not your fault . . . I . . .”
I didn’t care what he’d done anymore. To hell with it. Couldn’t we just start over? Like we always did?
His wound was deep, bringing thick, dark stains to his shirt, and every moment I hesitated felt like watching as the life
was drained out of him, but the life was being drained out of me, just from looking at his face, pale and strained, its color
contrasting the dark red blood against his beautiful stomach, now crumpled beneath the weight of a deadly bullet.
I tried to force myself to think—make a decision—do something. But all I could do was hold him, trying to keep him tethered
to this world, trying to keep him here with me, even as his pulse slowed beneath my fingertips and my chest caved in.
There had to be something to save him here. I stood up to call after Charlie and ask him for help—forgetting for a moment
we were in the middle of a shoot-out.
Buchanan was sneaking up again. He shot at me once more and missed. The man really wanted to kill me, even if I didn’t want to kill him.
I pulled the trigger of Cannon’s revolver, shooting back. The smell of wildfire filled the space in front of me, a cloud of
smoke blocking my view of the Buchanans.
I waved away the smoke and saw them fleeing the room like the cowardly rats they were. I took the chance to open Buchanan’s
drawer and loaded more bullets into the revolver.
Jay’s words rang in my mind. Would you kill the people after us?
The question was simple but heavy. And it needed no answer when rage consumed you.
All I could feel was rage as I stormed into the other room, my footsteps loud in the silence. Buchanan and Charlie were deliberating
in the shadows. I raised my gun at them again, but this time, instead of shooting, they fled, branching off in separate directions.
I almost chased Charlie and then I stopped myself. He was like a dummy for Buchanan, raised to be part of a legacy he barely
cared about, out of duty. The true enemy had always been his father.
So I thrashed after Buchanan.
I turned the corner out of the sitting room and nearly slid on the rug, as the house opened up to me. Buchanan ducked around
the corner and returned with a shotgun. I took cover as he fired, his bullet shattering a mirror behind me.
A ringing in my ears, like a church bell dinging.
I ran back into Buchanan’s study, almost falling over, and knelt to Jay’s side again. He was bleeding but still awake. “I’m sorry,” I whined, cradling his face in my hands.
“You didn’t do anything,” he sputtered. “But you have to go—fast. Before the cops come.”
“You have to come too.”
“I’m dying, Nick.”
I lost. It was over.
Pa was dead.
Jay was dying. And I was crying, once again, as life turned its darkness on me.
What would I do now? Who would I depend on? Buchanan could take me out. I was vulnerable, an open target, but he didn’t come.
He abandoned the fight.
The house fell silent. I had this feeling that someone else was still inside, but they were hiding now. They were probably
waiting for backup.
I stood up and picked up the phone to dial the telephone operator. I told them I needed an ambulance. They said someone would
be on the way.
Eons went by and I sat stranded on my knees with my lover in my arms. There was so much to say, but I couldn’t say anything
at all, so I just rocked with him. I’d spend as long as I could with him, at the very least. I wouldn’t let him have his final
moments alone.
“Change your name,” Jay whispered.
“To what, Jay?”
“Nick Gatsby,” he said, laughing.
And then he laughed his way to sleep.
And I closed my eyes with him and rested on his chest, until the men came through the room, screaming, “Freeze!” They ripped
me away from his body.