{"product_id":"harlem-shuffle-isbn-9780525567271","title":"Harlem Shuffle","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e BESTSELLER \u003c\/b\u003e• \u003cb\u003eFrom the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of \u003ci\u003eThe Underground Railroad\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Nickel Boys\u003c\/i\u003e, this gloriously entertaining novel is “fast-paced, keen-eyed and very funny ... about race, power and the history of Harlem all disguised as a thrill-ride crime novel\" (\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked...\" To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFew people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn't ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn't ask questions, either. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa—the \"Waldorf of Harlem\"—and volunteers Ray's services as the fence. The heist doesn't go as planned; they rarely do. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers, and other assorted Harlem lowlifes. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eHarlem Shuffle'\u003c\/i\u003es ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It's a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut mostly, it's a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR\u003ci\u003e \u003cb\u003e•\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eNATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE NOMINEE \u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e•\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books of the Year • One of \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Posts\u003c\/i\u003e 50 Notable Works of Fiction of the Year • \u003ci\u003eTIME Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e 100 Must Read Books of the Year • One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, \u003ci\u003eSlate, Boston Globe, Town \u0026amp; Country, Vulture,\u003c\/i\u003e and more \u003cb\u003e•\u003c\/b\u003e One of President Obama's Favorite Books of the Year \u003cb\u003e• One of \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Critics' Best Books of the Year\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A rich, wild book that could pass for genre fiction. It’s much more, but the entertainment value alone should ensure it the same kind of popular success that greeted his last two novels, \u003ci\u003eThe Underground Railroad\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Nickel Boys\u003c\/i\u003e.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Janet      Maslin, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of the Ten Best Books of 2021 \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Laura Miller,\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e Slate\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Colson Whitehead has a couple of Pulitzers under his belt, along with several other awards celebrating his outstanding novels. \u003ci\u003eHarlem Shuffle\u003c\/i\u003e is a suspenseful crime thriller that's sure to add to the tally — it's a fabulous novel you must read.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—NPR.org\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A warm, involving novel” \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—The      Wall Street Journal\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“A a fiendishly clever romp, a heist novel that’s also a morality play about respectability politics, a family comedy disguised as a noir…Harlem Shuffle reads like a book whose author had enormous fun writing it. The dialogue crackles and sparks; the zippy heist plot twists itself in one showy misdirection after another. Most impressive of all is lovable family-man Ray, whose relentless ambition drives the plot forward while his glib salesman’s patter keeps you guessing about his true intentions. This book is a blast that will make you think, and what could be better than that?” \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Vox\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Another triumph from Pulitzer winner Whitehead” \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—People      Magazine\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Fast-paced, keen-eyed and very funny, “Harlem Shuffle” is a novel about race, power and the history of Harlem all disguised as a thrill-ride crime novel.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—San      Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Enthralling, cinematic…Whitehead's evocation of early 1960s Harlem — strewn with double-crosses and double standards, broken glass and broken dreams — is irresistible…a valentine to a time and place.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Minneapolis      Star-Tribune\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Dazzling…exciting and wise.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Walton Muyumba, The      Boston Globe\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A spectacularly pleasurable read, and while it is, of course, literary, it’s also a pure, unapologetic crime-fiction page-turner.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Los      Angeles Times\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “\u003ci\u003eHarlem Shuffle \u003c\/i\u003eis a wildly entertaining romp. But as you might expect with this two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and MacArthur genius, Whitehead also delivers a devastating, historically grounded indictment of the separate and unequal lives of Blacks and whites in mid-20th century New York.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Associated      Press\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An American master”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—New      York Times Book Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Two-time Pulitzer winner Whitehead (\u003ci\u003eThe Nickel Boys\u003c\/i\u003e) returns with a sizzling heist novel set in civil rights–era Harlem. It’s 1959 and Ray Carney has built an ‘unlikely kingdom’ selling used furniture. A husband, a father, and the son of a man who once worked as muscle for a local crime boss, Carney is ‘only slightly bent when it [comes] to being crooked.’ But when his cousin Freddie—whose stolen goods Carney occasionally fences through his furniture store—decides to rob the historic Hotel Theresa, a lethal cast of underworld figures enter Carney’s life, among them the mobster Chink Montague, “known for his facility with a straight razor”; WWII veteran Pepper; and the murderous, purple-suited Miami Joe, Whitehead’s answer to \u003ci\u003eNo Country for Old Men\u003c\/i\u003e’s Anton Chigurh. These and other characters force Carney to decide just how bent he wants to be. It’s a superlative story, but the most impressive achievement is Whitehead’s loving depiction of a Harlem 60 years gone—‘that rustling, keening thing of people and concrete’—which lands as detailed and vivid as Joyce’s Dublin. Don’t be surprised if this one wins Whitehead another major award.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Publishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, Starred Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Whitehead adds another genre to an ever-diversifying portfolio with his first crime novel, and it's a corker. Ray Carney owns a furniture store in Harlem. When the novel begins in 1959, he's selling mostly used furniture, struggling to escape the legacy of his criminal father. ‘Living taught you,’ Ray believes, ‘that you didn't have to live the way you'd been taught.’ Almost. Ray's ne'erdo-well cousin, Freddie, who's been luring Ray into hot water since childhood (‘I didn't mean to get you in trouble,’ is Freddie's constant refrain) regularly brings Ray the odd piece of jewelry, provenance unknown, which Ray peddles to a dealer downtown, building a stake to invest in his business. ‘There was a natural flow of goods in and out and through people's lives . . . a churn of property, and Ray facilitated that churn.’ It works until Freddie suggests Ray as a fence for a jewel heist at the Hotel Theresa (‘the Waldorf of Harlem’), and suddenly the churn produces a potentially disastrous backwash. Following Ray as his business grows and he delicately balances the crooked and straight sides of his life, Whitehead delivers a portrait of Harlem in the early ’60s, culminating with the Harlem Riot of 1964, that is brushed with lovingly etched detail and features a wonderful panoply of characters who spring to full-bodied life, blending joy, humor, and tragedy. A triumph on every level.”\u003cb\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Booklist\u003c\/i\u003e, Starred Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eCOLSON WHITEHEAD is the #1 \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of eleven works of fiction and nonfiction, and is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, for \u003ci\u003eThe Nickel Boys\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Underground Railroad, \u003c\/i\u003ewhich also won the National Book Award. A recipient of MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, he lives in New York City.CHAPTER ONE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis cousin Freddie brought him on the heist one hot night in early June. Ray Carney was having one of his run-around days—uptown, downtown, zipping across the city. Keeping the machine humming. First up was Radio Row, to unload the final three consoles, two RCAs and a Magnavox, and pick up the TV he left. He’d given up on the radios, hadn’t sold one in a year and a half no matter how much he marked them down and begged. Now they took up space in the basement that he needed for the new recliners coming in from Argent next week and whatever he picked up from the dead lady’s apartment that afternoon. The radios were top-of-the-line three years ago; now padded blankets hid their slick mahogany cabinets, fastened by leather straps to the truck bed. The pickup bounced in the unholy rut of the West Side Highway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJust that morning there was another article in the Tribune about the city tearing down the elevated highway. Narrow and indifferently cobblestoned, the road was a botch from the start. On the best days it was bumper-to-bumper, a bitter argument of honks and curses, and on rainy days the potholes were treacherous lagoons, one grim slosh. Last week a customer wandered into the store with his head wrapped like a mummy—beaned by a chunk of falling balustrade while walking under the damn thing. Said he was going to sue. Carney said, “You’re in your rights.” Around Twenty-Third Street the pickup’s wheels bit into a crater and he thought one of the RCAs was going to launch from the bed into the Hudson River. He was relieved when he was able to sneak off at Duane Street without incident.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCarney’s man on Radio Row was halfway down Cortlandt, off Greenwich, right in the thick. He got a space outside Samuel’s Amazing Radio—repair all makes—and went to check that Aronowitz was in. Twice in the last year he’d come all the way down to find the shop shut in the middle of the day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA few years ago, walking past the crammed storefronts was like twirling a radio dial—this store blared jazz into the street out of horn loudspeakers, the next store German symphonies, then ragtime, and so on. S \u0026amp; S Electronics, Landy’s Top Notch, Steinway the Radio King. Now he was more likely to hear rock and roll, in a desperate lure of the teenage scene, and to find the windows crammed with television sets, the latest wonders from DuMont and Motorola and the rest. Consoles in blond hardwood, the sleek new portable lines, and three-in-one hi-fi combos with picture tube, tuner, and turntable in the same cabinet, smart. What hadn’t changed was Carney’s meandering sidewalk route around the massive bins and buckets of vacuum tubes, audio transformers, and condensers that drew in tinkerers from all over the tri-state. Any part you need, all makes, all models, reasonable prices.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was a hole in the air where the Ninth Avenue el used to run. That disappeared thing. His father had taken him here once or twice on one of his mysterious errands, when he was little. Carney still thought he heard the train sometimes, rumbling behind the music and haggling of the street.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAronowitz hunched over the glass counter, with a loupe screwed into his eye socket, poking one of his gizmos. “Mr. Carney.” He coughed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere weren’t many white men who called him mister. Downtown, anyway. The first time Carney came to the Row on business, the white clerks pretended not to see him, attending to hobbyists who came in after him. He cleared his throat, he gestured, and remained a black ghost, store after store, accumulating the standard humiliations, until he climbed the black iron steps to Aronowitz \u0026amp; Sons and the proprietor asked, “Can I help you, sir?” Can I help you as in Can I help you? As opposed to What are you doing here? Ray Carney, in his years, had a handle on the variations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat first day, Carney told him he had a radio in need of repair; he had just picked up his sideline in gently used appliances. Aronowitz cut him off when he tried to explain the problem and got to work unscrewing the case. Carney didn’t waste his breath on subsequent visits, merely set the radios before the maestro and let him have his way with it. The routine went: weary sighs and grunts as he surveyed the problem, with a jab and flash of silver implements. His Diagnometer tested fuses, resistors; he calibrated voltage, rummaged through unlabeled trays in the steel filing cabinets along the walls of the gloomy shop. If something big was afoot, Aronowitz twirled in his chair and scurried into the workshop in the back, to more grunts. He reminded Carney of a squirrel in the park, darting helter-skelter after lost nuts. Maybe the other squirrels of Radio Row understood this behavior, but it was animal madness to this civilian.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOften Carney went down the street for a ham and cheese to let the man work in peace.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAronowitz never failed to make the fix, find the part. The new technology vexed the old man, however, and he usually had Carney return the next day for TV sets, or the next week once the new picture tube or valve arrived. Refusing to shame himself by walking down the block to hit up a competitor. That’s how Carney ended up there that morning. He’d dropped off the twenty-one-inch Philco last week. If he was lucky, the old man would take the radios off his hands.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCarney carried one of the big RCAs into the shop and went back for the next. “I’d have the boy help you,” Aronowitz said, “but I had to cut back on his hours.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe boy Jacob, a surly, pockmarked teenager from a Ludlow Street rookery, hadn’t worked there for more than a year as far as Carney could tell. The “\u0026amp; Sons” on the sign had ever been aspirational—Aronowitz’s wife had moved back to Jersey to live with her sister long ago—but bluster and bravado were a motif for Radio Row establishments. Top of the City, House of Values, Cannot Be Beaten. Decades before, the electronics boom made the neighborhood into a theater for immigrant ambition. Hang a shingle, deliver your pitch, and climb out of the tenement stew. If things go well, you open a second location, expand into the failed shop next door. Pass the business on to your sons and retire to one of the new Long Island suburbs. If things go well.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCarney thought Aronowitz should drop the Sons thing and go for something more hip: Atomic TV \u0026amp; Radio, Jet Age Electronics. But that’d be a reversal of their relationship, as it was Aronowitz who delivered the advice at this address, one entrepreneur to another, generally of the “physician, heal thyself” variety. Carney didn’t need the old man’s tips on accounting practices and merchandise placement. His business degree from Queens College hung in his office next to a signed photograph of Lena Horne.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCarney got the three radios inside. Sidewalk traffic on the Row wasn’t what it used to be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No, they’re not broken,” Carney said as Aronowitz unfurled his roll of instruments. The roll was green felt, with slots. “I thought you’d want them, maybe.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Nothing wrong with them?” Like something that worked okay was an alien proposition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I figured I was coming down to pick up the TV, I’d see if you were interested.” On the one hand, why would a radio man need a radio, but on the other, every businessman had a sideline. He knew this to be true of Aronowitz. “Strip them for parts or something?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAronowitz’s shoulders dropped. “Parts. I sure don’t have customers, Mr. Carney, but I have parts.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You have me, Aronowitz.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I have you, Mr. Carney. And you are very reliable.” He asked after Carney’s wife and daughter. A baby on the way? Mazel tov. He ran a thumb down his black suspenders and considered. Dust squirmed in the light. “I know a guy in Camden,” Aronowitz said, “he specializes. Likes RCAs. Maybe he’s interested. Or he isn’t. You leave them, next time you come in, I’ll tell you how it went.” There was the matter of the Magnavox. Walnut cabinet, eighteen-inch woofer, Collaro changer. And top-of-the-line three years ago. “Leave that, too, we’ll see.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe old man had always been droopy in the face, a jowl overall with saggy lobes and eyelids, and droopy in his wretched posture. As if when he bent over the machines all those hours they were sucking him into themselves. The downward pull had accelerated recently, his submission to the facts of his life. The merchandise had changed, the clientele transformed into new beings, and aspiration wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. But he had a few diversions to keep him busy, these twilight days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I have your TV,” he said. He coughed into a faded yellow handkerchief. Carney followed him into the back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe name of the store—stark letters in gold paint on the shop window—promised one thing, the shabby front office another, and this room delivered a third thing that was entirely spiritual. The atmosphere was different, murky yet reverential, the Radio Row hubbub hushed. Disassembled receivers, picture tubes in various sizes, guts of machines lay on cluttered metal shelves. In the center of the room, the worktable was spotlit where a blank space in the scarred wood waited for the next patient, tools and boxy measuring instruments arranged neatly around it. Fifty years ago, most of the stuff in the room hadn’t existed, was half a notion scurrying at the edge of an inventor’s imagination—and suddenly there were rooms like this, where men maintained its secrets.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUntil the next thing came along.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was a collapsible army cot where the boy’s desk used to be, a plaid wool blanket curled in an S on top. Had he been sleeping there? As the radio man led him, Carney saw that he’d lost still more weight. He thought about asking after his health, but didn’t.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAronowitz kept a dusty display of transistor radios by the front door, but in the back items moved in more constant exchange. Carney’s Philco 4242 sat on the floor. Freddie had steered it into Carney’s store on a creaky dolly, swore it was in “A-1 condition.” Some days Carney felt the need to press his cousin on a lie until it broke and some days his love was such that the slightest quiver of mistrust made him ashamed. When he’d plugged in the TV and turned it on, his reward was a white dot in the middle of the tube and a petulant hum. He didn’t ask where Freddie got it. He never asked. The TVs moved quickly out of the gently used section when Carney priced them right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Still in the box,” Carney said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What? Oh, those.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was a stack of four Silvertone TVs by the bathroom door, blond-wood Lowboy Consoles, all-channel. Sears manufactured them, and Carney’s customers revered Sears from childhood, when their parents ordered from catalogs because the white men in their Southern towns wouldn’t sell to them, or jacked up the prices.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A man brought those by yesterday,” Aronowitz said. “I was told they fell off a truck.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Boxes look fine.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A very short fall, then.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA hundred and eighty-nine retail, let’s say another twenty with the Harlem tax from a white store; overcharging was not limited to south of the Mason-Dixon. Carney said, “I could probably sell one to a customer in the market.” A hundred fifty on installments, they’d sprout feet and march out the door singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I can part with two. I’ll throw in the work on the Philco. It was just a loose lead.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey did a deal for the TVs. On his way out the door, Aronowitz asked, “Can you help me bring your radios into the back? I like to keep the front presentable.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUptown Carney took Ninth Avenue, not trusting the highway with his new TVs. Down three radios, up three sets—not a bad start to the day. He had Rusty unload the TVs into the store and drove up to the dead lady’s house, 141st Street. Lunch was two hot dogs and a coffee at Chock Full o’Nuts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e***\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e3461 Broadway had a busted elevator. The sign had been up for a while. Carney counted the steps to the fourth floor. If he bought something and lugged it out to the truck, he liked to know how many steps to curse on the way down. On the second floor, someone was boiling pigs’ feet and on the third, old socks from the smell of it. This had the feel of a wasted trip.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe daughter, Ruby Brown, let him in. The tenement had settled, and as she opened the door to 4G, it scraped the floor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Raymond,” she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe couldn’t place her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“We were at Carver together, I was a few years behind you.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe nodded as if he remembered. “I’m sorry about your loss.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe thanked him and glanced down for a moment. “I came up to take care of things and Timmy James told me to call you.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDidn’t know who he was, either. When he first got the pickup and started lending it out, and then buying furniture, he knew everyone. Now he’d been in business long enough that word had spread outside his old circle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRuby flicked on the hall light. They passed the galley kitchen and the two bedrooms off the hall. The walls were scuffed, gouged to plaster in spots—the Browns had lived there a long time. A wasted trip. In general when he got a furniture call, people had strange ideas about what he was looking for. Like he’d take any old thing, the saggy couch with springs poking out nappily, the recliner with sweated-into arms. He wasn’t the junkman. The good finds were worth it, but he wasted too much time on false leads. If Rusty’d had any sense or taste, Carney could send his assistant on these missions, but he didn’t have sense or taste. Come back with something that looked like raccoons nested in the horsehair stuffing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCarney was wrong this time. The bright front room overlooked Broadway and the sound of an ambulance snuck in through the window. The dinette set in the corner was from the ’30s, chipped and discolored, and the faded oval rug revealed traffic patterns, but the sofa and armchair were in factory condition. Heywood-Wakefield with that champagne finish everybody liked now. And sheathed in transparent vinyl slipcovers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I live in D.C. now,” Ruby said. “I work in a hospital. But I’d been telling my mother to get rid of the couch for years, it was so old. Two months ago I bought these for her.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“D.C.?” he said. He unzipped the plastic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I like it there. There’s less of that, you know?” She gestured toward the Broadway chaos below.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sure.” He ran his hand over the green velvet upholstery: pristine. “It’s from Mr. Harold’s?” She hadn’t bought the sofa from him, and Blumstein’s didn’t carry the line, so it had to be Mr. Harold’s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Yes.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Took good care of them,” Carney said.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301941694693,"sku":"NP9780525567271","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780525567271.jpg?v=1767728725","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/harlem-shuffle-isbn-9780525567271","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}