Before anyone could respond, Anson Masters proclaimed the beginning of the work day. The crew all rose, none with enthusiasm, and filed out the press room door to their various beats. I was just getting up to follow them when my phone rang.
"Hey, Snap, got a minute?" It was Pickles.
"For you, I always have a minute," I said as the last of the press corps left the room. "What, pray tell, have you learned?"
"I hadn't been on the campus in a good long time, and things have really changed, Snap," he said. "Whole buildings have been boarded up, and they're off limits. They've got uniformed guards, soldiers that is, keeping people out. In fact, there are uniforms all over the school, and by that I don't mean cops."
"Army?"
"Army, Navy, the works. Place looks like a damn military base."
"Not so surprising," I said. "I've been reading that colleges across the country are filling up with military recruits taking courses that will help them get a commission–something called V-12, although I don't know what it means."
"Well, these guys are all over the place–even in the bars. Although not in uniform then."
"Which I'm sure you quickly discovered, Pickles."
"Hey, I did tell you I was going to visit the U.T. at 55th and University, which I did."
"Okay, and what came of that visit, other than the consumption of some amber-colored liquid?"
Pickles cleared his throat. "The place was mobbed–students, maybe some faculty members if I was to guess their professions, a few blue-collar-type guys who look like they might drive trucks or work in the stockyards, and also a number of soldiers and sailors, at least that's what I think; they were wearing civilian clothes. I was lucky to find a stool at the bar, so I plopped myself down and ordered a stein of draught. And a very good draught it was."
"Pickles, I'm happy to learn that you were able to please your palate, at my expense, I might add. But is this narrative going anywhere?"
"I'm getting to it, my typewriter jockey friend. After I'd been in the place…oh, maybe half an hour or so, a couple of joes with tweed sports jackets and ties, they were maybe in their late thirties or so, coulda been profs maybe, sit down just to my right, and they're talking about the war, see?"
"A natural subject these days."
"Yeah, well the one guy, he's all mopey about how our boys are takin' a pounding both in Europe and out in the Pacific. He's really depressed, says he'll probably get drafted just in time to see the Jerries invade New York and the Japs take over San Francisco."
"A real cheerful Charlie, eh?"
"Uh-huh. But what the other guy, who has a little beard, says then really gets me to listening close."
"Which was?"
"He says, 'If you only knew what I know, you wouldn't have any worries at all about us winning this war.' The other guy asks him what he means by that, and the bearded one starts to clam up."
"So that's all?"
"Will you let me tell it, Snap? The mopey guy keeps on pushing, and the other one starts getting kinda nervous and doesn't want to say any more. They lower their voices, see, but even with all the noise in that saloon, I got real good ears. Comes from listening for footsteps from outside when I'm in the middle of a crap game. Or used to be in the middle of a game."
"So stipulated. Pray continue, before I have to break for lunch."
"Very funny. Anyway, the mopey one, he keeps askin' questions, and the beard says something big is goin' on right there on the campus, so big it's gonna change the whole world, he says.
"The mope then asks if that's why some of the school's buildings are boarded up and off limits now with soldiers out in front, and the other guy nods his head, but he won't say any more."
"Interesting. Did you get the impression this man of secrets hangs out in that saloon regularly?"
"Couldn't tell for sure, Snap. Although he did seem like he knew the barkeep, a fellow named Chester."
"Good sign. Can I talk you into being in that same saloon again this evening, Pickles? I'll pick up the tab, as well as reimburse you for last night, of course."
"I had planned on taking a chair in a friendly little game of five-card draw with some friends in my neighborhood, but they're always there for the plucking, so I will graciously accept your generosity. What time?"
"When did you see this fellow last night?"
"A little after eight."
"I'll be in the U.T. at eight tonight."
Leaving work at twenty past five–the Trib's evening man, Ellis, was invariably late in relieving me–I decided to hang around downtown instead of going north to my apartment on
Clark Street near Wrigley Field. I polished off a so-so beef potpie and not-very-good coffee in a little beanery on Van Buren, under the elevated tracks just west of State, and then made up for it with two steins of very good beer in the grand old Berghoff Restaurant on Adams. Thus fortified, I took the Illinois Central electric train down to the university community of Hyde Park, no more than fifteen minutes south of the Loop. Being late fall, it was of course long past sundown when I got off the train at
55th Street and went down the dank concrete stairway to the street. The evening was mild, which made my stroll through the little business district around the station a pleasant one. The neighborhood was quiet, at least outside the University Tavern…the din hit me the moment I opened the door to the watering hole, which seemed to be filled with the entire population of Hyde Park, every one of them yakking and drinking and smoking. Through the nicotine-blue haze, I spotted Pickles Podgorny on a stool about halfway along a bar at which every seat was taken. He gave me a salute and ambled over.
"Got here early, mate," he said, cupping a hand to my ear to be heard above the clamor. "Wanted to make sure I got a spot next to the guy. That's him." He gestured to a dark-haired, bearded specimen hunched over the seat beside the one he had just vacated, although the half-filled stein on the bar indicated the stool still had an occupant.
I thanked Pickles, let him take his beer away, and sat down, looking straight ahead. After about a half minute, the bartender came over and I ordered a Blue Ribbon on draught. "Things don't look so good for our boys these days overseas, do they?" I asked when he delivered the frosted stein.
The barkeep, a burly, bull-necked specimen of about forty-five, who was indeed named Chester, shrugged. "I dunno, seems to me like we're doing better in the Pacific these days. Y'know, Coral Sea, Midway, those navy battles, they turned out okay."
I shrugged, avoiding any glance at the figure on my right. "At least that's what we're being told," I said. "But even at Midway, for Pete's sake, we lost that carrier, the Yorktown. And after all the ships that got sent to the bottom at Pearl Harbor, we sure as hell can't afford to keep losing them. I still say these are bad times."
My pessimism finally drew a reaction from the right, as I had intended. "Things are going to get better, a lot better, you can bank on that," the bearded fellow said to me, spacing his last five words for emphasis.
"Really? You think so?" I swiveled to face him. He looked to be in his late thirties, as Pickles had estimated, with shaggy dark hair hanging down to the tops of equally shaggy eyebrows and a beard that hadn't seen a trimming in weeks, maybe months. Thick-lensed horned-rim glasses magnified coal-black eyes, giving him a manic appearance.
"I know so," he stated, as if daring contradiction.
I watched him as I sipped my beer. "You seem awfully confident. I wish I could be."
He allowed himself a slight smile. "You don't know what I know," he said smugly.
"Sounds like we've got some kind of a secret weapon," I replied, intent on keeping the conversation alive.
Another brief smile. "At the place where we surrendered…that's where we shall rise again," he announced, setting his stein down firmly on the bar as if to add an exclamation point to his cryptic comment. "A good evening to you, sir–and to you as well, Chester," he said, nodding and rising to leave.
"Unusual fellow," I rema
rked to the bartender.
"That's the professor," Chester said as he wiped the polished mahogany surface of the bar. "Comes in here a lot."
"He certainly seems confident about the war," I said as Pickles Podgorny slid into the just-vacated seat beside me.
"Sure, and I am too," the man behind the bar said with a touch of belligerence in his voice. "What's the matter, aren't you patriotic?"
"I am indeed. But that doesn't keep me from worrying. That professor talks like he seems to know something."
Chester turned his beefy palms up. "He knows a lot about a lot of stuff, but then he's a wisehead. They's different from you and me."
"I won't argue that point. What does he teach?"
"Beats me, I wouldn't understand it anyway. Something about physics, I think. Over there." He made a head gesture in the general direction of the campus.
"Thanks," I told him, getting up. "What did you say his name is?"
"I didn't, but it's Bergman."
It was a name I was not to forget.
Chapter 4
In the half-dozen years since my divorce, my weekend routine had been essentially regimented. On Saturday mornings, I would pick up my son Peter at the apartment on
North Lake Shore Drive where he lived with Norma and her husband, Martin Baer. We would then spend Saturday and most of Sunday together, and I would drop him off at the Baer household Sunday evening. As Peter had gotten older–he was now a sophomore at Lake View High–it had gotten more difficult for me to find activities we could do together. He felt he'd pretty well outgrown the Riverview amusement park, and over the years we had seen most of the museums in town several times. There were still Cubs games in the summer, and movies. We both liked westerns and war films.
Peter often had enough homework that he had to spend time with his books while he was at my place. Most important to me was that even as he had gotten older, he still wanted to spend time with his dad, although I knew this would soon change. His growing consciousness of his female classmates meant that Saturday nights soon would be reserved for something other than hanging out with the old man.
In the last year, he also had become interested in football and, even with his slight frame, he had made the Lake View junior varsity squad as a reserve. This interest in the game now extended to the Chicago Bears. He had never seen them play, and a couple of times had asked me if it was hard to get tickets. It was damned hard, particularly as the Bears had won the league championship the last two years and looked like they were going to do it again with another powerhouse squad.
The Trib's sports staff was notoriously stingy in sharing passes to games–in any sport–with members of other departments. On a couple of occasions previously, I had pressed Leo Cahill, a copyreader on the sports copy desk, for Bears tickets for me and Peter, and each time he'd told me there weren't any. "Geez, Snap, I'd love to help you out, but these ducats are scarcer than hen's teeth. I'm lucky if I get to one game a year myself."
Now Leo and I are not what you would call close friends, never have been. He's a devout Catholic, or so he likes to inform me regularly, and on several occasions he has pointed out, none too subtly, my lapsed status as a member of the Church of Rome. Also, Leo is that relative rarity, a teetotaling Irishman, and he has delighted in mentioning what he refers to as my "Achilles heel"–specifically, my periodic tendency to overindulge, a tendency I have for the most part overcome these last few years. But to the sanctimonious Leo, I shall forever be one of the fallen, as both a worshiper and an imbiber.
Right now, however, I needed Leo Cahill, and I saw a way to get what I wanted.
"Are you behaving yourself?" I asked as I phoned him from my desk in the Police Headquarters press room on a Friday afternoon.
"Snap Malek, what brings a call from you?" he asked with a forced bonhomie. "Need beer money?"
"No, Mr. Cahill," I said, gritting my teeth, "I would never impose on you in that way, especially knowing your strong feelings about the evils of demon rum. What I am interested in is two tickets to Sunday's Bears-Packers game." Leo let loose with a guffaw that must have startled his co-workers on the sports copy desk. "Oh, Snap, you know that's a hot ticket right now, and impossible to get. Sorry old pal."
"Well, just thought I'd ask. By the way, Leo, how's your Knights of Columbus fund drive going, the one to make sure kids on the South Side have Christmas presents this year?"
I was met with silence at the other end for perhaps ten seconds. "We can always use some help," Leo said in a suddenly subdued tone. I knew from an article in one of the papers that the K of C campaign for kids was struggling.
"Hmm. Well, I've got a double sawbuck that I would be happy to pony up if…well, if someone saw fit to, shall we say, give something in return."
"Snap, that's playing dirty," Leo responded in a hushed tone; it sounded like he was cupping the speaker with his hand.
"Leo, I never play dirty, you should know that as an old friend. I'm hurt that you would suggest such a thing."
Silence from the other end, followed by a drawn-out sigh. "Twenty dollars, you say?"
"Coin of the realm, Leo, coin of the realm. In exchange for two tickets, Bears-Packers, close to the fifty-yard line."
"Now come on, Snap," he whined. "That's unreasonable."
"I'm holding the double sawbuck in my hand, Leo, and Andrew Jackson is looking back at me sternly. This piece of paper could buy two or three, or maybe four nice gifts for some needy kids. I might even be persuaded to add an Abe Lincoln–that's a fin, for your information. You can do a lot with twenty-five simoleons these days."
Another silence on the line, followed by another sigh. "Do they have to be on the fifty-yard line?"
"No, Leo, I said close to the fifty. But we want to at least be between the forty-yard lines. Don't try to tell me our fine Sports Department can't come up with something in that vicinity."
He didn't bother to sigh this time. "Okay…that's twenty-five bucks, right?"
"Twenty-five for a great cause, Leo."
"All right. I'll have the tickets in an envelope here with your name on it."
"And I'll leave an envelope with your name on it, and the greenbacks inside. You're a truly fine gentleman, Leo."
"Yeah," he muttered.
When I picked Peter up on
Lake Shore Drive Saturday morning, I was pleased to tell Norma and Martin Baer that we had tickets to the game. Baer, who I had to concede was a decent fellow, could provide for Norma and Peter in ways I couldn't have begun to match. His men's haberdashery over in the Lincoln-Belmont-Ashland area apparently turned a dandy profit, because he owned an eight-room co-op on the twelfth floor overlooking the lake and took his wife and stepson to Florida every winter. So going to a Bears-Packers game with my son was at least a small victory, almost equal to my getting us seats four years earlier for a Cubs-Yankees World Series game. Peter still talked about that afternoon, and about meeting Dizzy Dean in the locker room after the game. And so it was that on a Sunday afternoon, remarkably mild and more typical of late September than mid-November, Peter and I left my third-floor apartment on
North Clark Street, after a lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, and started on the three-block walk north to Wrigley Field. Before we got halfway there, we began running into American entrepreneurs: "Here's two, thirty-yard line," one beer-breathed guy in a flat cap rasped, thrusting a pair of tickets at us. "Over here, I got four, upper deck, sixth row," a gaunt specimen in a threadbare sport coat brayed, vigorously waving the fanned offerings above his head. "How come they're selling tickets on the street, Dad?" Peter wanted to know after we had pushed past the fourth hustler.
"They're called scalpers–somehow they get hold of tickets at face value and then sell 'em for inflated prices. It only works when there's a big demand for seats, like today."
"Is it legal?"
"No, but the cops don't usually do anything about it; they've got too much other stuff to worry about." (Chicago'
s Finest proved me wrong this time: As I was to learn in Monday's paper, they had indeed hauled in several of these independent ticket "merchants.")
Our own seats, true to Leo Cahill's promise, were excellent, about ten rows back on the north forty-five yard line, which in baseball terms put them about halfway between the third-base dugout and the home bullpen. Both teams were still working out as we got settled in, and Peter searched the field for the Bears' premier player, Sid Luckman.
"There he is, number forty-two, just throwing a pass," I told him. "The top quarterback in the league. But you already knew that, didn't you?"
Peter nodded enthusiastically. "And these are the two best teams in football, right?"
"Without a doubt, along with the Washington club. The Redskins are a cinch to win the East title, and we haven't lost a game this year. Green Bay's only been beaten once, by the Bears early in the season. We win today, and we'll be back in the championship game for the third year in a row."
"And what about George Halas, Dad? He's not coaching the Bears anymore, right?"
"He enlisted in the Navy earlier this year. The coach now is Luke Johnsos, he's over there," I said, pointing to a man in a felt hat who was stalking the sidelines and making hand gestures to his players as they warmed up.
Once the game started, it didn't take long for us, along with the other forty-two thousand in the stands, to realize that the Bears would be in the title game again, thanks in large measure to Green Bay's mistakes. In the first quarter, Chicago's center, Bulldog Turner, picked up a Packer fumble and ran 45 yards for a touchdown. Then Luckman, playing on defense as well as offense, intercepted a deflected pass from the Packer quarterback, Isbell, and ran 54 yards to score. The game was all over for the Green Bay boys by halftime, and the Bears went on to a surprisingly easy victory, 38 to 7.
"What a great afternoon," Peter enthused as we left the park. "There's a guy in my class, Charlie Marsh, who moved down from someplace in Wisconsin this year, and he's been telling everybody all week how the Packers were going to really smash the Bears today. I can't wait to see him!"
Shadow of the Bomb (A Snap Malek Mystery) Page 3
