The Babe Ruth Deception

by David O. Stewart

  Chapter 23

  Joshua burst through the door, throwing the trays against the wall to make maximum noise, their cymbal-like clatter both jarring and confusing. Cecil pushed the guard to the floor, then spun on another who sat inside the door, hitting him flush in the face with the pistol barrel. That one fell, deadweight. Joshua’s voice rang out: “Hands on the table, chilluns!”

  The cardplayers looked into the barrels of two German pistols. Cecil strode to the table, while Joshua announced, “My friend here’ll take your guns. If you sit nice and quiet, I won’t shoot you.” Cecil held out his sack. Some grudgingly, some quickly, the gamblers gave up their guns. Cecil carried the nearly full sack over to Joshua. He lifted the guns from the guards on the floor and added those to the sack, then left it at the door.

  “Now the cash,” Joshua called out. “Don’t make us wait. My friend gets very impatient! Ain’t nothing in your pockets worth dying over. Don’t sweat the jewelry. Just cash.”

  Cecil grabbed the bills on the table and stuffed them into a second sack. Then he circled the table demanding wallets.

  “I don’t know who you are,” Rothstein snarled, color flooding his usually pallid face, “but you’re going to be one sorry son of a bitch.”

  “Wait, massah—I almost forgots. Y’all need to stand up now. Just you.” He waggled the gun at Rothstein and adopted a singsong tone. “Now, please, suh, would you step back from the table, maybe three giant steps.” Rothstein retreated about half the prescribed distance. Joshua nodded. Cecil pulled up the carpet under the gambling boss’s chair. Rothstein’s complexion neared purple while Cecil opened a compartment in the floor and scooped up a newly revealed wad of bills. That casino worker had told Joshua about Rothstein’s hidey-hole.

  Cecil backed toward the doorway, gun in one hand and money sack in the other. Joshua picked up the bag of guns and said, “Y’all’s gonna want to count to one hundred before doing anything, seeing how our partner is directly outside this door, holding two guns. He sho’ ’nuf has bullets aplenty to shoot anyone’s coming out this room, leastways the first fourteen of ’em. If you wants to stay healthy, I suggest you be the fifteenth.”

  The two men backed out and closed the door behind them. Joshua turned the lock with the key from inside the door. They dashed to an open window at the end of the short hall. Joshua tossed out the sack of guns. Each man dropped from the window frame to the ground. Cecil never let go of the bag of money.

  They sprinted across the lawn to the trees, skirting lighted areas. Angry voices burst from the building.

  From the ditch across the road, Cook heard the shouts. The men on the front porch pulled out their weapons and jumped into the night. Gunshots and muzzle flashes showed their progress across the lawn. The chances of hitting a running form in the dark were close to zero. “They’re cutting through the woods,” Cook said to Fraser, pulling him up by the arm. “Let’s go.”

  Cook and Fraser jog-trotted around the curve toward the Stutz. They heard an engine roar in the woods on their left. “That’s them,” Cook said. A large car broke from the trees and veered their way. Cook pulled Fraser into the ditch. He didn’t want to spook the boys, draw their fire as they sped past. Then Fraser and Cook climbed up on the road. Both were gasping when they got to the car and got it running. Cook hopped in as Fraser started in the direction the boys were going—north toward Canada.

  “Follow them,” Cook said, “but not fast.”

  “You’re sure it’s them?”

  “Who else?” Cook craned his neck to look for the pursuit. “Get in the middle of the road.” Fraser did. “Weave back and forth, not regular. You’re drunk. We both are.” He pulled out a flask and splashed liquor on both of them.

  The next seconds, while Fraser wobbled the Stutz down the road, keeping his speed low, seemed to take forever. How could professional hoodlums be so slow? Finally, they heard a car engine. No, several engines. “Okay now,” Cook said. “We’re still drunk.”

  A car roared up and tried to pass on the left. Fraser swung left to block it, then jerked right, as though recovering from a surprise swerve, then turned back left before the car behind could pass. The driver behind hit the horn, hard. Then again. Fraser turned the wheel in response, as if startled, but still held the center of the road.

  When the trailing car pulled right, Fraser slid that way. The honking became more frantic. A second horn joined. Fraser jerked the wheel from side to side, in no rhythm, as if in panic. “Good,” Cook said. “Hang on.”

  Fraser veered left to block the second car, which had pulled out to pass both the Stutz and the first car. For a moment, the two pursuing cars advanced side by side. The second car fell back, no longer honking. More seconds passed. Then Fraser heard tires squeal. An engine roared to its limit.

  One of the cars smashed into the Stutz’s rear and kept accelerating, heaving Fraser into the windshield. He didn’t register the smack of skull against glass—it was the steering wheel in his chest that took his breath, then hurt like blazes. Then his brain didn’t work so well. He snapped back into his seat, fingers holding the steering wheel but controlling nothing. The Stutz leaned right, then jammed itself into the roadside ditch with another lurch that sent Fraser back against the windshield.

  Dazed, Fraser saw a thought float by, wondered what it was. Yes, that’s it, cars explode in crashes. He should get out. He pawed his door, wondering where the handle had gone, then heard noises behind him. He swiveled his head to see, a motion that sent a stab of pain through his neck and head. He groaned. Men were jumping out of cars on the road. One was a blue Cadillac. The men had pistols. They ran toward the Stutz.

  “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” he tried to say, but his voice was weak. He lifted his arms in surrender.

  Another car engine blasted. A shouted voice surged, indistinct, then faded after the car passed. A flashlight blinded him. More shouts came from behind it.

  Squinting against the glare, Fraser asked, “What’s going on?” Cotton batting circled his head. The world was slow. Noises muffled. “We, we . . .” The words were in his head. He had to catch up to them. “My friend,” he got out, “my friend and I, we, you know, were in town.” No one answered. “I’m a doctor,” he said. Why did he say that? Some sort of general claim on the goodwill of the universe?

  A man leaned down and screamed something at him. Fraser still couldn’t make out any words. When the flashlight moved off his face, he looked through flaring circles. Then a face loomed up. It had a Vandyke beard. Maybe it did. Fraser couldn’t be sure. There was a metallic taste in his mouth.

  The shouts separated into words. “Stop screwing around! Get after those guys!”

  Two gunmen turned and started back to their car. A third jammed a gun barrel into Fraser’s chest. Yes, definitely a Vandyke beard. “Fucking dumb civilians. You and your friend, count yourselves lucky we don’t shoot you and leave you here to die. Goddamned lushes.” He waved the gun at Cook. “Your nigger friend’s gone way over his limit.”

  Fraser looked over. Cook had been quiet the whole time. That wasn’t usual. He wasn’t moving. Cracks spiderwebbed the windshield on that side. Cook’s head must have hit it hard.

  “Hey,” Fraser said, “he’s hurt.” He looked over at the beard. “Help us! Please! He needs a hospital.”

  “This is your friend’s lucky day, Doc. I’m not shooting him and you’re a doctor.”

  Chapter 24

  Cecil pulled the sleek touring car into the farm lot and stopped behind a large willow. A worn-looking Chevrolet stood there, next to an unhitched plow. He and Joshua wiped the makeup off their faces. They changed into worn overalls they had bought from a Brooklyn church that ran clothing drives for the poor. They threw their blackened towels and clothes into a small stream that ran behind the lot.

  Joshua pulled a bottle of moonshine from the old Chevy. They took turns rinsing their mouths out with the bad liquor. “Don’t go lighting any cigarettes around me,” Cecil sai
d with a smile, their first words since fleeing the poker room.

  “Tell you what, brother,” Cecil continued. “This is looking okay. Don’t mean to jinx it, but did you see their faces? Those were some surprised badmen. It was a treat to see them scared.”

  Cecil climbed into the Chevy. Joshua froze holding the door handle.

  Cecil leaned over. “We got to move.”

  “Who was in that car behind us?”

  “The one pulled out after we took off?”

  “Yeah. It was a big one.”

  “Don’t know. I wasn’t calling the roll. Innocent bystanders, I guess. Come on. We got to go.”

  Joshua didn’t move. “Innocent bystanders don’t hang around outside the Brook after midnight.” He hit the car roof with his open palm. “Dammit. I bet it was my father.” He leaned into the car. “Listen, he could be hurt.”

  “Josh, we’ve already spent too long talking. Going back? That’s the worst idea you ever had. We just cleaned out Rothstein. We made his boys look stupid. They’re coming now, lots of ’em, and they’re loaded for bear. You got a sweet little girl to worry about, a baby coming, all our plans.”

  Joshua still didn’t move. “Come on!” Cecil called. “Even if that was your daddy—and you don’t know that—he’s a volunteer. He picked his poison. Anyway, he’s a rough tough character, didn’t you tell me that enough times?”

  When Joshua remained where he was, Cecil raised his voice. “Get in the damned car. We need to make tracks, right now. We’re some country Negroes drank too much and can’t seem to find Glens Falls, hard as we try.”

  Joshua got into the car. Cecil had them on the road before the door was closed. He started driving slowly and unsteadily north.

  * * *

  Cook was slumped against the door of Fraser’s Stutz. Fraser tried to open the passenger-side door to get to him, but it was stuck. To get at Cook from his own seat, Fraser stretched on his side, the steering wheel jammed into his back, legs hanging out the door. He tried to look Cook over in the darkness.

  Cook’s breathing was shallow, his pupils dilated. Fraser could feel swelling at the top of Cook’s forehead, where his hairline had once started. Cook must have leaned over to brace himself, then got thrown straight into the windshield, unable to break the momentum with his hands.

  Cook’s torso began to spasm. He vomited yellow, oily-looking liquid onto his shirt. Fraser squirmed to reach his handkerchief. He tried to mop up. An acrid stench filled the car. Nothing from inside the human body smelled very good. Fraser wriggled out of the car and took off his jacket. He knelt on the driver’s seat and draped the jacket over Cook.

  He fought to clear his head. They were stuck in the middle of nowhere, yet way too close to the Brook. He’d have to flag down a passing car, but it was a lonesome stretch of road at a lonesome time of night. Also, anyone driving by could be connected to Rothstein.

  Cook groaned. His eyelids flickered. “Where?” he mumbled. “Where am I?”

  Fraser leaned over to look into Cook’s eyes. “A few miles toward Glens Falls,” he said. “We got run off the road by Rothstein’s thugs. You hit your head.”

  Cook groaned again. “Not such a great plan, eh?”

  “Not for us, but maybe we helped Joshua. No sign yet they’ve caught him.”

  Cook’s eyes fell closed. He panted for a few seconds. “Hope so.” After a couple of more breaths, he winced as he tried to sit up straighter, but couldn’t. “I’m done, Jamie.”

  “You’re not gonna cash in your chips in a boring old car crash. That’s nowhere near glorious enough for Speedwell Cook.” He gripped Cook’s shoulder, meaning to be reassuring. “I’ll flag down a car and get us to a hospital. Maybe there’s a farmhouse around here where I can get help.”

  Fraser tried to help Cook get more comfortable, pulling him from the gap between the seat and the door. “Better?” he asked.

  Cook nodded. Then he seemed to black out again. His breathing got shallower. Fraser couldn’t make up his mind. Wandering around the countryside in search of a friendly farmer meant leaving Cook in pretty shaky shape. He couldn’t see any lights, any sign of nearby people. It had to be three or four miles back to the Brook, but he could hardly go there. A passing car, that was their best chance. But there hadn’t been any. Not yet, anyway. And Rothstein’s men might come by from either direction.

  Cook grunted and started awake, eyes wide. “Speed,” Fraser said, “I’m here.”

  Cook tried to take a deep breath but it broke up halfway. He looked right at Fraser. “Something I didn’t do, what I came to Saratoga for. Need to get an IOU from Attell and Rothstein. It’s Babe’s. That’s the job for Babe. I told your wife about it.”

  “Come on, Speed. Babe’s got plenty of money. Why doesn’t he just pay it off?”

  Cook pulled down his mouth at the edges. “Won’t let him. Ran the interest so it’s more’n even he can cover. They . . . they want him on the string. Bad for the Babe. Bad for baseball.” He stopped and licked his lips, his eyes drifting closed. He opened them. “There’s something else, too. Some other hold, other thing they got. He won’t say, not to me, but I think so.”

  “What do you care? Aren’t you the guy they threw out of baseball, the one who thinks they should all go to hell?”

  Cook grabbed Fraser’s arm with his old catcher’s hand, still powerful. “I took this on. It’s important for Babe, for the game. For me. You get it back. He’ll pay you.” Cook relaxed his grip. “Give the money to the baby.”

  Fraser’s eyes blurred. “Sure. I’ll do what I can.”

  Cook gave a half smile. “Don’t do what you can. Get it.”

  Fraser nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

  Time passed, not that much. Cook grunted. “What is it?” Fraser asked.

  Cook still had the half smile on his face. “Could be a funny-looking baby, if it looks like you or me.”

  “The baby’ll be perfect. You’ll see.”

  * * *

  By the time a car came by, Cook had been dead for a while. Fraser didn’t try to wave it down. He stayed in his seat, next to his friend.

  They sat together until morning light, when a passing truck driver stopped to see what was wrong.

  Chapter 25

  A man in a loose brown suit pointed Fraser to a church down the block. The stone structure of Abyssinian Baptist, topped by four spires and a pyramid crest, announced respectability. Fraser squinted against the high white sky as his eye followed the spires up. Except in the shade, the day was warm.

  Inside the church, balconies circled three sides of a broad worship space. A choir loft rose behind the altar, a bank of stained glass windows beyond. White lilies swanned next to the pulpit. Joshua had sent a wire asking Fraser to arrange for flowers. He wired money to pay for everything. He couldn’t come, of course. Rothstein’s men might be watching. Joshua’s telegram to his mother had been awful. “The sins of the son,” it said, “visited upon the father. I’m so sorry.”

  Fraser wondered if Speed had ever been in this building. They had never exchanged a religious word. One of a thousand subjects he and Speed never talked about. What would be a better place for this service? The Catholic Protectory Oval up in the Bronx? Anyway, funerals were for the living, not the dead. Aurelia picked the church, probably for what it would say about Speed. That he was a man of substance. A serious man. Not the full picture, but part of it.

  “You’re here for the Cook service?”

  Fraser pivoted to the soft southern accent. He took a hand extended by a man nearly his height. “Adam Powell. I’m pastor here.”

  “Mr. Powell, how do you do.” Fraser was off balance. Surely this Harlem church had a Negro minister, but Mr. Powell wasn’t any more Negro than Fraser was.

  “How are you, sir? You didn’t suffer any injuries from the crash?”

  “Nothing serious, no.” The pastor’s eyes told him that the question came from kindness, but Fraser felt the accusation behind it. Speed Coo
k died and the white man lived. An old story.

  “Such a shame that Brother Cook’s son can’t be here.”

  “Yes,” Fraser said. “Yes. He’s in Europe. Business. He’s very regretful.”

  Pastor Powell showed Fraser to a reception room off the altar. Fraser shook hands with colored men in somber suits, white shirts, dark ties. Every one of them respectable, even the ones who looked like baseball men.

  Fraser thought one was Cannonball Dick Redding, who had pitched against the Babe, but he let it go. Not the time or the place. The same for the small, balding fellow with a close-clipped beard, Doctor Du Bois, who had made Cook so angry when they were in Paris two years back. Fraser didn’t feel like paying court to a great man.

  He went to Aurelia. She sat near the coffin in a red plush chair. Leaning over, Fraser grasped her arms gently and spoke empty words of comfort, the ones he always used. Ones he had probably said to her before over the last few days. Her eyes flickered up, registered who he was, then went back to the middle distance. He and Aurelia had rarely spoken until five days ago, when he placed a scratchy call from Saratoga Springs that took three operators and ten minutes to set up. They had since stumbled through this bad dream together. Speed’s younger brother had showed up a couple of days before, but he wasn’t much help. He was taking the loss hard.

  Fraser, the survivor, had dealt with the shoals of policemen, the coroner, arranging to bring Speed to New York and then to this church. What would go on inside the church, that was all Aurelia. She and her daughter never showed Fraser anything other than firm self-possession. Their grief was their grief, not anyone else’s. Certainly not his.

  Fraser could no longer avoid the gleaming walnut box. It was too small for the man Fraser knew, but there he was, eyes closed, a serene expression molded onto his dark face. Fraser would have preferred an angry glare, maybe an ironic twist to the mouth or the intense gaze Speed got when he was planning something. But this expression, not one Fraser could remember seeing, made the point that Speed was gone. It wasn’t him.