The Babe Ruth Deception

by David O. Stewart

  Babe threw a bill on the table to cover whatever damage they’d done to the liquor supply. He slid his chair next to the comatose Slaughter and put an arm around the half cop’s shoulders. He tried to act like he was about to ease Slaughter out of the chair and get him moving toward the end of their evening. Levering Slaughter upright, Babe got the man’s head off the table, then reached his free hand inside Slaughter’s jacket.

  Slaughter’s hand clutched Babe’s wrist long before the ballplayer could even consider a next move. Slaughter’s eyes were open. They were directed at Babe’s face, but Babe couldn’t be sure how much the man was taking in.

  “Easy now, buckaroo,” Babe said. “We’re all friends here.”

  Slaughter slowly relaxed his grip. His eyelids began to drop. So did his hand. Babe finished extracting the papers as he hauled Slaughter out of his seat. He stashed the papers in his back pocket, then started to move both of them toward the door.

  Chapter 32

  Rothstein’s office wasn’t what Fraser expected, not for a man the newspapers called an underworld kingpin. It should have been an elegant hotel suite rented under a false name. Or a cluttered hole-in-the-wall in the back of a speakeasy littered with men wearing shoulder holsters, the atmosphere heavy with restless danger. Instead, it was a workaday office building, plain as mud, that fronted on Fifty-seventh Street west of Fifth Avenue. The nameplates in the lobby claimed the building was the home of insurance, real estate, and bail bond firms. A professional reserve permeated the top floor, the seventh, where the boss’s office was. Conservatively dressed men and women spoke in measured tones and hunched over adding machines or typewriters. Not a pistol in sight.

  Rothstein met them in a small conference room with a red and black oriental carpet. Bookshelves on one wall displayed pottery and other souvenirs of an ordinary life. It could have been the office of a local bank in Westchester County.

  Rothstein’s appearance was as disappointing as it had been at Lefty’s. Wearing a high-buttoned business suit with a narrow bow tie, he received them politely but showed little personality. Behind the bland facade, though, intelligence lit his eyes. The man’s demeanor seemed to mask a mind that was constantly making calculations and recalculations—where there might be gain, where risk. Nothing about Rothstein seemed genuine or spontaneous.

  The meeting went much as Walsh predicted. Rothstein happily acknowledged that Abe Attell was an acquaintance, then professed bewilderment why anyone would think the two men shared business interests. “Gentlemen,” he said drily, “I do a great deal of business, and I do it myself. As those who do business with me know, they may rely upon my word, but only my word, not the word of someone claiming to act for me. Did Mr. Attell present any proof that he could act on my behalf? Do you see him here in my office now?”

  “You weren’t twenty feet away from us at Lefty’s,” Fraser said as calmly as he could. “He agreed to cancel the Babe’s debt in return for health information about the Yankees.”

  “Are you with the Yankees, Doctor Fraser?” Rothstein had picked up a pencil and was twirling it between his fingers, then passing it over his knuckles, one finger at a time.

  “No, not officially, but I was caring for Babe at the time.”

  “You didn’t make much of a job of it, near as I can tell. That poor fella’s arm nearly fell off.”

  “If only I’d had the benefit of your medical expertise,” Fraser said through clenched teeth, “things doubtless would’ve gone better.” Walsh placed a hand on Fraser’s forearm, then excused himself, saying he had a matter to attend to. “But I understand you made a magnificent profit from exactly that information about the Babe’s arm.”

  “I’m not sure what you might be talking about. Perhaps it was more wild talk from Abe Attell. That fella can be a loose cannon. But I hope you’re not implying that you made poor Babe’s arm worse in order to cash in on betting against the Yankees. Wouldn’t something like that be against your professional duty as a doctor?” Rothstein leaned back in his chair and pointed the pencil at Fraser, signaling that he thought he had scored.

  “So, you’re saying you know nothing about an IOU from the Babe?”

  “Mr. Walsh represents Mr. Ruth, I know that much. I don’t see how you get into the picture here.” Rothstein rose from his chair. “So, since you and I don’t have any business together and never have, I wish you a good day.”

  The interior door to the room opened and a large man entered. Fraser recognized him. The domesticated gorilla from Lefty’s, still forty-eight hours behind on his shaving. He strode next to Fraser and stood there, looking large, angry, and eager.

  Fraser didn’t budge. “I’m with Mr. Walsh, as you were told just a few minutes ago. We both represent Mr. Ruth. I ask my question again. Do you acknowledge that you hold an IOU from Mr. Ruth?”

  “I’m not comfortable discussing Mr. Ruth’s private business matters with you, Doctor Fraser, when I really don’t know you. I have other appointments now. I’ve asked you politely to leave. I won’t do that again.” There was some force in Rothstein’s tone. Fraser didn’t care.

  “Mr. Walsh and I haven’t completed our business with you. I hear him coming right now.”

  The door to the conference room opened and Ruth’s unmistakable outline loomed at the threshold. “Babe!” Rothstein said, putting a trace of startled warmth into his voice. “What a surprise.”

  Walsh followed Ruth in and closed the door. “Listen, Rothstein,” the Babe said, ignoring the man’s outstretched hand, “we need to get this business done, once and for all, you know?”

  Rothstein gestured at the chairs around the table. Walsh took one, but Ruth leaned back against the bookshelves, his arms folded across his chest. The domesticated gorilla was caught in no-man’s-land. Warily, he backed toward the door he’d used to enter and leaned against that.

  Rothstein’s eyes were cold again. He resumed his one-handed fiddling with the pencil. “Okay,” he said quietly, “talk. I don’t have all day.”

  “Jack Quinn,” Ruth said.

  “What of him?”

  Ruth nodded at Walsh, who explained. “The commissioner has heard from a witness who claims you paid Carl Mays to groove the pitch to George Burns in the seventh inning of game four, the one he hit for a double that started the Giants’ comeback.”

  Rothstein allowed himself a small smile. “I heard that fairy tale. It’s bullshit.”

  “The commissioner won’t think so when the Babe backs it up.”

  Rothstein’s mouth turned up in an effort at a smile. “Don’t make me laugh. The Babe doesn’t know shit about anything like that. He can’t say any such thing.”

  “The thing is, I can,” Ruth said. “You remember where you were on that Saturday night before game four?”

  “I had a social engagement.”

  “At the Broadway Central Hotel?”

  “Yes.”

  “So did I.”

  “I didn’t see you there.”

  “Funny. I saw you.” The Babe unfolded his arms and pointed at the gambler. “I saw you when we shared an elevator up to the sixth floor where your social engagement was. That’s where it was, right?”

  Rothstein just stared at him.

  “And you told me that I shouldn’t worry about my arm being hurt for the next game, because you’d bought Carl Mays, so it didn’t matter what I did. Mays would let in as many runs as it would take to lose the game.”

  “Bullshit,” Rothstein said, raising his voice. “You know that’s bullshit. You were injured, not out on the town that night.”

  The Babe grinned. “Really? You think anyone in New York’s gonna think I stayed home at night because of a sore arm?”

  “I didn’t see you. You’re telling me I rode in an elevator with a big goof like you and didn’t even notice? Who’d believe that? And I never said any such thing. Nobody thinks I’m that stupid. And I never paid that gonif Mays a dime, which he’ll back me up on.”

  No
w Walsh started to smile. “Based on what the commissioner did with Joe Jackson and the rest of those White Sox,” he said, “or should I say Black Sox, he doesn’t put a lot of stock in guys who say they didn’t throw a game.”

  “Why would he believe Babe?”

  “Mr. Rothstein. I shouldn’t have to spell this out for you. Babe is the Babe. Mays is the son of a bitch who killed Ray Chapman. And you, hell, you’re the guy who fixed the Black Sox Series. Who do you think he’s going to believe?”

  “Why would the Babe say something like that, that Mays was bought? It would just bring out all those rumors about the 1918 Series.”

  “Who survives the fallout better—you or Babe?” Walsh said. He looked back at Ruth, who nodded. “Time to decide, Mr. Rothstein. Judge Landis is still here in New York, so we can get in to see him this afternoon.”

  “It’s a game try, Walsh, but what do I have to be afraid of from Judge Landis? He’s got no power over me. I’ve got no connection to organized baseball.”

  “How about the Manhattan district attorney? Does he have power over you?” When Rothstein didn’t answer, Walsh leaned forward on his elbows. “I don’t mean the old DA, the one you owned. I mean the new one, the one who’s facing the voters in just a couple of weeks, who needs some headlines about how tough he is on crime.”

  Rothstein resumed his pencil play, passing the thin wood quickly between each pair of fingers, then back again. He gave a shrug, more with his eyes than his shoulders. “Show ’em if you got’em, Walsh.”

  Babe stepped forward and drew a single paper out of his inside jacket pocket. He placed it in front of the gambler. Rothstein used his fingertips to move the paper in front of him and stared down at it for a long time, still passing the pencil through the fingers of his other hand.

  “You see,” Walsh said, “they want Babe to testify before the grand jury here in New York. Tomorrow, isn’t that what it says? And it’ll be hard for him not to mention that Jack Quinn business.”

  A crack startled the room. The gambler had snapped his pencil between two fingers. He leaned forward and looked up at the Babe. “But not impossible, am I right?”

  It was Babe’s turn to shrug. “I can be forgetful. I drink a lot.”

  “Talk to me.”

  Ruth nodded at Walsh. “You give us Babe’s paper,” Walsh said. “Doctor Fraser here is willing to pay for it, just like he proposed a little while back but which you said you’d think about, and now you’ve decided to accept. And this nigger kid, Speed Cook’s kid—you pass the word that he’s okay so long as he stays out of New York, which we guarantee he will.”

  Rothstein turned to the Babe. “What do I get?”

  “Hell, kid,” Babe said, “seventy-five grand ain’t a bad day’s pay, even for you. On top of which you don’t go to jail over this Carl Mays business.”

  Rothstein’s eyes darted around the room. He sank back into his chair, tapping the table with one of the pencil halves. “Wait here,” he said.

  He returned with a single sheet of paper, two photos, and two negatives. Without a flicker of feeling on his face, he handed them to the Babe. Ruth looked at the paper closely. He placed it in an ashtray, then struck a match. He picked up the paper and lit a corner of it. All four men watched the paper flare, curl, and blacken. When the flame approached the Babe’s fingertips, he dropped the residue into the ashtray. He pocketed the other items.

  Rothstein’s eyes landed on Fraser. “Attell will pick up the money from you.”

  “Have him do it today,” Fraser said. “I’m leaving on a long trip, right away.”

  The three visitors left. They remained silent in the elevator and while walking to the Babe’s Duesenberg, which gleamed at a Sixth Avenue curb around the corner. Fraser stopped them short of the car.

  “I think I’ll walk, gentlemen,” he said. “It’s a nice day.”

  “Enjoy the victory,” Walsh said as he shook Fraser’s hand. “And thanks for helping Babe out.”

  “Don’t forget,” Fraser said to Ruth. “You said you’d pay Speed Cook’s widow what you were going to pay Speed.”

  “Sure, kid,” the Babe said. “Just get the address to Christy here.” He took Fraser’s hand, too. “So I hear your daughter’s married to Cook’s kid, the nigger?”

  “He’s colored, Babe. Not a nigger.”

  “Yeah, sure. And they’re having a kid?”

  “Yeah, in a few months. That’s where I’m going. To them.”

  “Yeah. Well. How about that?”

  Chapter 33

  Fraser forced himself to lie in his second-class berth until sunrise . The Aquitania’s crossing, through choppy seas and swirling fog, had taken seven days. He spent at least three seasick nights wishing he was somewhere else, but here he was.

  Impatience got the upper hand. He dressed and took up his usual spot on the ship’s rail, on the starboard side in front of the main saloon. He had spent quite a few hours at that spot, turning over the events of the past year. It all started with that terrible movie, Headin’ Home. Fraser felt the contradiction in his own journey: he was heading home to his family, but to a foreign land. And his family was changing. Or had changed. A couple of other passengers paused to chat. He was civil but not welcoming.

  The late October chill sliced into him while dawn washed out the twinkling lights of Southampton. Low, grainy clouds spread over the sky. Sunbeams rushed through a single cloud break, blessing a patch of the dim land. Fog festered to the east but didn’t obstruct Fraser’s view. Three tugs steamed out from the harbor, coming to harry the ocean liner to its pier.

  When the Aquitania was tied up, Fraser was almost to the end of the gangplank before he saw Violet. He stopped in wonder. Her long coat hung open to accommodate her swelling middle, not yet large but insistent. A woman walked into him from behind, then maneuvered around when he still didn’t move. He smiled and waved. Eliza reached him first and held him. “You’re safe,” she said. “You’re safe.”

  Joshua hung back from the reunion. When the giddiness of the moment receded, he shook Fraser’s hand somewhat formally. His offer to collect the luggage started a wave of suggestions from all four of them, which ended as a plan for the men to lasso the bags while the women acquired a taxi.

  Fraser watched Eliza and Violet depart. “Joshua,” he said, “am I imagining it or is her limp really better? How’s her balance, with the baby?”

  “I can’t say, Doctor Fraser. I don’t really see a limp.” He shrugged slightly. “Maybe a little, when she’s tired.”

  They dodged through the crowd on the pier and joined the line for retrieving luggage. What should Joshua call him? The problem hadn’t occurred to Fraser. Not “Father” or “Dad.” Too ridiculous. “Doctor Fraser” was pretty stiff. Fraser decided to wait to see what Joshua called Eliza. They must have worked something out.

  And there was something more important to say, even on this crowded dock, shuffling forward in the queue. “I feel terrible about your father. It seemed so impossible, with all his strength, to lose him like that.”

  “I know. I still don’t quite believe it. And I’m completely responsible.”

  “You couldn’t have kept him away that night. He had to be there.”

  Joshua looked away. “I could have done a lot of things different.” His voice was husky. “I just have to live with that, sir. And try to be the man he expected me to be.”

  “You know, Joshua, I teased him once that he’d used up all his luck and mine, too, the chances he took. He just smiled and said he’d been playing with the house’s money for a long time.”

  Joshua cleared his throat and nodded. “It’s been hard, not being with my mother and sister, not with anyone who really knew him.”

  The stevedore shouted, “Next!” Fraser fumbled for his luggage receipt. Overcoat pockets, jacket pockets, trouser pockets, shirt pocket. He started over. They were in his right overcoat pocket, the first one he had tried. He pointed out the bags that were his. He had
brought a lot of things. He might be in London a long time.

  * * *

  Eliza had rented rooms just for the two of them. They looked out on Clapham Common, a flat expanse without much distinction beyond the vibrant green of English grass. When Fraser’s things were stashed and he had distributed the gifts sent by Joshua’s mother and sister, Joshua opened champagne to toast the occasion. They drank to marriage, the baby, the World Series, and Speed Cook. They were near the end of a second bottle when Fraser pushed the conversation into territory the others had avoided.

  “I’m still new to all of this. How’s it going? Your marriage, being in England, and all that.”

  “You mean that I’m colored,” Joshua broke in.

  Fraser nodded. “Yes, but maybe not in the way you mean. I know you were thinking England would be better for you, for the two of you.” His eyes went from Joshua to Violet and back. Both of them looked tense, despite the champagne. “Is it?”

  “It’s not everything I’d hoped,” Joshua said. “Not paradise. When we’re together in public we sometimes get dirty looks, even remarks.”

  “The good part,” Violet broke in with a nervous smile, “is that between the slang and the accents, I don’t understand most of them.”

  Joshua’s gaze rested on her, then came back to Fraser. “We know what they’re saying. When I got here we looked into moving to Liverpool, which would be good for the shipping business. But it turns out they had race riots there a couple of years ago.” He shook his head. “Not here in London, though. I guess there’s not enough colored people here to riot over.” He stood to offer the last of the champagne to Eliza, who held out her glass to receive it. He sat again.