The Babe Ruth Deception

by David O. Stewart

  “Late night?” Cook asked.

  “Don’t ask,” came the muttered reply.

  The well-dressed man nodded at Cook. “Christy Walsh,” he said.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Babe said. He worked a toothpick into his rear molars, then looked at the toothpick to gauge his success. “Christy helps with business stuff. He and Ruppert, you know, they talk the same lingo.” He waved the toothpick vaguely. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  On the sidewalk, a shiny doorman held out a key for Babe while Walsh let out a low whistle. A cream-colored coupe with black trim sat at the curb. Its top down, the roadster sparkled in the sunlight. Walsh stepped slowly down the car’s length, stopping to touch the winged hood ornament.

  “I’ve heard about the Duesenberg,” Walsh said. “She’s something else. Smart how they made it so you need a key to start it. It’d be a hell of a temptation to hop into this baby and find some empty road.”

  Babe beamed at the car. A fat stogie had replaced the toothpick in his hand. “Brand new—on loan for as long as I want. Pile in and lemme show you what she can do. It’s a straight eight, power coming out of its ears.”

  Cook had mixed feelings as he folded himself into the backseat. He’d heard about Ruth’s driving. Wrecks and cops followed him like fire dogs.

  As they pulled into traffic, Walsh started in. “Babe, you need to tell me why we’re doing this. Colonel Ruppert’s got no reason to get into this Black Sox business, not with Judge Landis hogging the limelight on it. You can’t win with that man. You know what happens when you wrestle with a pig?”

  Ruth didn’t look over.

  “You get filthy,” Walsh said, “and the pig has fun.” He leaned closer to Babe. “We should be saving all our chits with Ruppert to get you more money, juice up your income. Any time we ask for a favor like this, he’s gonna turn that against you when we go in on your salary.”

  “Listen,” Babe called while swerving onto Seventy-ninth Street, headed east, “this has got to get taken care of. That’s my last word. Now you need to listen to this man.” He nodded toward the rear seat, then resumed weaving between delivery wagons, trucks, cars, and people. He hit the horn to punish an indecisive driver. He laughed out loud. “Jesus, great car, ain’t it?”

  Walsh raised an eyebrow over his shoulder.

  “First,” Cook started, “we’re asking Ruppert to do something that’s actually in his interest, not against it. Nothing should be more important to him than protecting Babe. Babe is baseball, pure and simple, certainly for the Yanks. Second, this is real important for Babe. That investigation by the commissioner needs to stop. If it goes on and on, that could end up costing him lots of money, not to mention peace of mind. And what’s important for Babe should be important for Ruppert.”

  “How’s it important to Babe? Not that old stuff about the 1918 Series? He and the Sox won the damned Series.”

  “Stop thinking so much!” Babe shouted without removing the cigar from his mouth. He plunged the Duesenberg into the twisty road through Central Park. “We need to get these guys off my back. Play it the way the man here says.”

  Looking exasperated, Walsh called over, “But I still don’t get it.”

  “You don’t need to, kid.”

  * * *

  The Ruppert mansion glowered from the corner of Ninety-third and Fifth, an ill-tempered pile of mismatched Gothic gewgaws hemmed in with ornamental ironwork and topped with a weird corner spire. Just looking at it made Cook uncomfortable. What kind of person would build that monstrosity, or choose to live in it? Come to think of it, either might be better than living across the street and having to look at it every day.

  Babe left the Duesenberg at a NO PARKING sign and led them up the front steps. A tuxedoed servant deposited them in a rear room, fusty and cluttered with bookcases.

  Babe dropped into one of the wingback chairs that flanked a massive fireplace. Cook and Walsh drifted along the shelves, which held gleaming beer steins made of ceramic and pewter. A few glass steins sparkled with inlaid patterns of delicate silver filigree. Walsh stopped at a glass-covered case of porcelains and jade, while Cook lingered over a scale model of a baseball stadium that stood on a corner table.

  “You have found my pride and joy!” A medium-sized man entered. In a trim three-piece suit with a compact bow tie and slicked-back hair, Ruppert was all aerodynamic efficiency. “We may have to put it in the godforsaken Bronx, but that still qualifies as New York City. The New York Yankees—Babe Ruth’s Yankees—must have their own home, a stadium built for baseball. Not that foolish Polo Grounds.”

  Cook extended his hand and gave his name. Ruppert reciprocated, with a crisp bow from the waist but ignored Cook’s hand. He took the chair that faced Babe and pulled out cigars for both of them. “It’s a beautiful morning for a cigar, is it not?”

  Ruppert and Ruth enacted the rituals of tip-clipping, match-striking, and savoring the first puffs. Babe blew three smoke rings, close to perfect ones. “At least no one’s made cigars illegal yet,” he said with a big smile.

  Ruppert rose to the bait. “Ach, this liquor law is such madness, madness I say, and I say it until my face is blue. Trying to stand between Americans and a product as full of nutrition as beer. Why, without beer this country might never have been founded. The settlers, the pioneers, they drank beer to stay alive. The water was terrible, like poison!”

  “I still feel that way,” Walsh put in with a smile. He and Cook had settled on a stiff couch that faced the fireplace. “Who knows what’s in the water? Especially in this town.”

  “Exactly. That is exactly my point. This country must come to its senses. And, my God, no one wants to drink this near beer. Have you tried it?”

  Ruth offered a grunt and a look of disgust.

  “Colonel,” Walsh said, “I thought you were shifting your brewery over to other products. How’s that going?”

  “Hopeless. Utterly hopeless.” Ruppert held his hands out in mock surrender. “The workers, they cannot figure out anything that does not ferment. Then it involves a whole new system of shipping, often to very different stores. It is a nightmare.”

  “I heard,” Walsh said, “I heard some brewers are looking to make malt syrup and then sell that. The theory is that, hey, if the malt syrup happens to end up in the hands of bootleggers who make beer from it, how could the brewers be expected to know what they were going to do with it? Seems like maybe that’s legal.”

  Ruppert, abandoning his broad gestures, offered his first smile of the conversation. “You are well informed. It is an interesting idea. Very interesting. We are looking into it.” He turned. “Well, Babe, what brings you here with such a distinguished delegation?” He gestured with his cigar at Cook. “Don’t tell me—you’re considering a jump to the colored leagues, eh? The Lincoln Giants have the need of an outfielder?”

  Ruth and Walsh laughed at the gibe. To Cook’s taste, they laughed a bit too much. When the hilarity subsided, Ruppert put the cigar back in his mouth. “Time is money. Who’s speaking for you here?”

  Babe pointed to Cook. Cook made the pitch the way he planned to, laying out why everyone’s interests would be served if Judge Landis kept his nose the hell out of the 1918 Series. Investigating beyond the Black Sox would be bad for the game, bad for the Yanks, bad for the Babe. Most of all, bad for Colonel Ruppert.

  Ruppert heard him out, then took a long, luxurious pull on his cigar. He blew the smoke skyward with gusto, then shrugged. “You know, Mr.—” He arched his eyebrows.

  “Cook. Speedwell Cook.”

  “It would be an acute pleasure—a schadenfreude, if you know the German word—to watch Judge Landis strip Harry Frazee and the Red Sox of that championship of 1918. It would serve that silly bounder right. He’s certainly got it coming. He has no more business owning a ball club than does . . .” Ruppert started to gesture toward Cook, but the movement stalled out in midair. “The man in the moon.”

  “But look who also would
get hurt,” Cook said, ignoring Ruppert’s gesture. “The game can’t take it, nor can the Yankees. That new stadium, I’m afraid it might just go poof.” Cook spread his fingers to pantomime an explosion.

  “But the Babe didn’t throw that Series,” Ruppert objected. “The Red Sox won.”

  “Colonel”—Cook leaned forward—“there’s more to this story, which I can describe only in the strictest confidence.” Cook waited a few beats. When Ruppert said nothing, Cook picked up again. “Babe’s in hock to the guys who . . . guys who have been fingered as fixing the Series with the White Sox in 1919. Babe had nothing to do with fixing any Series, of course, so his debt hasn’t come to light in the Black Sox mess. But if Landis keeps going after whether the other Series was fixed, and there’s anything to it, those same men are certainly the ones who did it. It’s what they do. That makes it a real risk that the Babe’s connection to these people will come up. Even if he had nothing to do with the Series, no one’s going to notice that. You can see the headlines: BABE IN CAHOOTS WITH GAMBLERS! And that, Colonel, wouldn’t be good for anyone.”

  Ruppert gave Cook a flat look. “I take it that this debt isn’t just a few bucks.”

  “We wouldn’t be here if it was.”

  “What was it for?” Ruppert looked back at Ruth. So did Cook. He thought he knew, but it was up to Ruth to say.

  “It’s a private matter,” Babe said in a low voice. “There’s other people involved.”

  Ruppert sank back in his chair. “My, that’s certainly intriguing,” he said, staring into the cold fireplace. He turned back. “Mr. Cook, how do you come to be involved in this? A suspicious man might even think you were acting on behalf of those mysterious fellows who fixed the Series. Or were somehow involved in this mysterious debt.”

  Babe guffawed. “A jig like him? You don’t know those guys if you think they’d send him to handle this.”

  Ruppert took a deep breath. “Babe, it’s no secret that it’s hard to do anything about Hizzoner Judge Landis. That man is full of himself and getting fuller all the time. We can’t fire him. I can’t even say bad words about him in public. That’s in his blasted contract!” He turned to Walsh. “Did you see he’s making Charlie Stoneham of the Giants sell the racetrack he just bought. Making him sell it outright!” Walsh shook his head in shared dismay.

  “Colonel,” Cook said, “even Judge Landis has to recognize that the Babe’s different. He’s the whole game right now. You know that. Look at how the newspapers are following his home run totals. Will he hit sixty? Seventy? A hundred? No one in baseball can afford to have his reputation at risk. Even Landis has to appreciate that.”

  The room grew silent again. The silence expanded. Ruppert stood. “I will look for a way. I will be in Chicago with the judge soon. But I make no promises. He is a tough nut. And I want you to understand that if he takes the bait and does what we want, we may pay a hell of a price for that down the road. The next time he has the chance, he may unload on the Babe or the Yankees. The judge, let me assure you, is a man who enjoys holding grudges. They give him a reason to get out of bed in the morning.”

  Ruppert shook hands with Ruth and nodded at Cook. He asked Walsh to stay behind to discuss another matter. The other two walked down the front hall and out to the street.

  Babe, donning his hat, wheeled on Cook. “You don’t like this,” he said. “I could hear it in your voice.”

  “Don’t like what?”

  “Any part of this, this situation.” Babe waved his hand. His broad face showed confusion. “Listen, you were a ballplayer. I heard you were pretty good. You should know. It’s the greatest game in the world. There’s a million ways to win and a million ways to lose. You play with everything—your arms, your legs, your head. When you got the hitter facing the pitcher, both looking for that edge, trying to figure out what the other guy thinks his edge is, what the other guy thinks you think his edge is, fielders trying to figure out where to be, base runners dancing. . . Jesus, it never gets old.”

  “The ballplayers do,” Cook said. He jammed his left hand into his pants pocket. It had hurt like blazes all morning.

  “I’m talking about baseball, about what happens when bums like Rothstein and Attell and Judge Landis, who don’t know nothing about the game, and they . . . they take a crap all over it. You don’t want to touch it when they’re done.” He looked directly into Cook’s eyes. “They make it their game, and if you want to play baseball you’ve got only one choice—you play their game.”

  “Don’t break my heart, Babe. They threw me out of that wonderful game of yours because my skin is dark.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I heard. Some guys, you know . . .” He shook his head and looked off toward the park on the other side of the avenue. “Walsh tells me just to shut up and hit homers.”

  “Yeah. I bet he does.”

  Babe stared down Fifth Avenue. “I’ve gotten worse advice.”

  “I bet you have.”

  Babe straightened to his full height. He expanded his chest to fill out his double-breasted jacket. It was white with blue chalk stripes, making him look like an oversized snowman. Then Ruth stepped close to Cook, no longer a snowman but simply a large, grim man.

  “We need to close this thing out with Attell and his crowd,” Babe said. He pointed a forefinger at Cook but kept his voice low. “I got my reasons, good ones. You need to tell those guys what we did here, today, how we brought Ruppert around. He’s going to deliver the message to Landis, tell him he should shut down the investigation. Nothing on the 1918 Series. We delivered.”

  “I’ll pass on the word, of course. But I don’t know. If I was Attell—or his crowd—I might want to wait to see how it plays out. Maybe Ruppert doesn’t follow through. Maybe Landis doesn’t care what Ruppert says, goes ahead anyway.”

  “Exactly. That’s why we gotta finish the deal now. If we wait, who knows how many ways they’ll figure out how to welsh? That’s what those sons-a-bitches do. Lie, cheat, steal. I did what I said I’d do. You testify to that. I put it on the line for them. They need to do what they said.”

  Cook found himself nodding. The Babe who stood in front of him wasn’t the high-spirited kid whose parents put him in an orphanage because he was running wild through the streets of Baltimore. This Babe had the force to make that kid into a national colossus, more famous than the president. Certainly better liked. Sure, Babe had that great swing, that amazing body, he had all that. But other guys had great talent. Babe had something hard inside, something most people never saw, a will that gave him the discipline and the drive to become great. He was no freak, no accident.

  “Sure, Babe, sure. Word is the smart guys’re all going up to Saratoga. Racing season. I can go up there and look for them, you want me to.”

  “I’ll pay for you to go, just don’t go playing the horses all day.” He gave a slight smile, then looked over at the entrance to Ruppert’s gaudy mansion. “What the hell’s keeping them? I didn’t get any breakfast. Christ, I’m hungry.”

  They climbed into the Duesenberg to wait. Babe started the engine and let it idle. In the backseat, the doubt tugged at Cook’s mind. What else did Rothstein have on the Babe, something that wasn’t whether the 1918 World Series was fixed? Not knowing the full story, that might make this job a lot more complicated.

  Chapter 18

  Fraser drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He was trying to keep his eyes on the two-story house that slumped wearily toward Lafayette Avenue in Fort Greene. A nondescript Ford sat in front of the building’s ragged paneling and faded paint. A colored man from the house had just climbed behind the wheel. He began reading a newspaper, in no rush to go anywhere or do anything. Over the last thirty minutes, a few Negroes had walked down the street in the morning sun, their errands as opaque to Fraser as their dark complexions and their scruffy neighborhood. It was frustrating to sit here, knowing that Violet was right inside. He and Eliza wanted to talk to Violet alone, not with Joshua around, so they waited.r />
  Occasionally, Fraser’s eyes drifted over to the royal blue Cadillac at the curb in the next block of Lafayette. That car had no business on this street. Neither did the driver, a white man with a pointed Vandyke beard who was as out of place here as Fraser and Eliza were. He had driven the Caddy up, stepped out, then sauntered out of Fraser’s view.

  “Are you sure about this address?” Eliza’s voice was tight.

  Tugging on the bill of his snap-brim cap, Fraser tried to control his tension. “I’m not an old hand at finding bootleggers, but this is where the detective said they were. Neighborhood looks right. That man in the Ford could be a partner or something.”

  Eliza sucked her breath in. Fraser laid a hand on her forearm. “We need to wait,” he said.

  Just then, Joshua Cook stepped out the front door, dapper in a light blue suit and maroon tie. He checked the street in both directions, then trotted down the half flight of stairs and climbed into the car. The driver fired the engine and pulled out. When it turned down Portland Street, Eliza said, “I’m going in.”

  “Just another minute,” Fraser said. “Let’s be sure he hasn’t forgotten anything.”

  They heard another car start up. It was the blue Cadillac, the man with the Vandyke beard behind the wheel. It crossed in front of Joshua and Violet’s building, then followed down Portland Street. Fraser’s stomach churned. That didn’t feel good.

  He said nothing about the Cadillac to Eliza. Maybe she didn’t notice it, didn’t realize that Joshua seemed to be drawing more attention than he should. She didn’t need something more to worry about. Neither of them had been sleeping much. When they started getting over the shock, had eased up on the recriminations and self-recriminations, they were left with the hard edge of loss, an edge that Fraser felt every minute. Years before, he had lost a child, a boy, with his first wife, and then he’d lost her, too. He wasn’t going to lose another child.

  He said that to Eliza the night before, after telling her the detective’s news—that Eliza and Joshua were living in the same apartment. Her eyes flared over that news. Her hand went to her mouth. He told her straight, didn’t beat around the bush. He didn’t care about scandal or what was proper or not. And he didn’t care about pride. And he sure as hell didn’t care about race. He wasn’t—they weren’t—going to lose Violet. He wasn’t going to lose another child. Because that would kill him.