by Troy Soos
I had some idea of what the Knights were: the Patriotic Knights of Liberty, one of a number of quasi-legal deputy forces around the country that were supposed to enforce patriotism. I had no idea how you could enforce something like that, but I’d heard that they had their ways.
“You can be damn sure,” Fohl said with a defiant glance at Edna—he was going to cuss whether she liked it or not—“the cops won’t do nothing about it.”
If my experience with Mike the Cop was any example, Fohl was probably right about that.
“We’re gonna take care of it ourselves,” Fohl went on with a wag of his finger. “We’ll get revenge for Willie Kaiser.” Idle boasting? I couldn’t tell.
The “we” again. That German group? The one Willie wouldn’t meet with? The meeting Weeghman said he did go to?
I did have a starting point: was Willie really at that meeting, and if so, what was he doing there?
“We better bring them in,” Edna said to me with a nod at the dogs.
“Yeah, okay.”
She carried the food and I pulled the drooping dachshunds into the house. The air was no fresher than it was before, and I gagged on my first breath.
Two women were talking to Mrs. Chapman. She still had the uniform on her lap.
“Let me check on Mama,” Edna said.
I touched her elbow and gestured to the back of the house. We were both somewhat startled by the contact. We’d never really touched before, never even held hands.
With puzzlement in her eyes, Edna followed me through the parlor and into the kitchen. She put the dish on top of the stove, then joined me in the dogs’ room.
I dropped the leashes on the floor. The dachshunds plodded to their beds and collapsed in total contentment.
“The other night,” I said. “Hans asked Willie to go to some meeting. Do you know anything about it?”
Edna paused. “I remember him asking,” she said evasively. She bent over the dogs and began detaching the leashes from their collars.
“Do you know where it was?”
“I’m not supposed to know.”
“But you do, don’t you?”
She finished unhooking the leashes and straightened up. After a long pause, she nodded reluctantly.
If she was ever to be interrogated by the police, I pitied the officer who’d have to question her. “Well, where was it? Tell me.”
“First Trinity Lutheran. It’s off Division Street, near Humbolt Park. Not far from the movie theater.”
“The” movie theater being the one showing Tarzan. “Okay. Thanks.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“I’m going to find out—” I almost said “who killed your brother.” But I wasn’t doing it for her or for Mrs. Chapman. I wanted to know who killed my friend.
“I’m going to find out who killed Willie,” I said.
Chapter Six
I don’t know exactly what I expected to find at the church. Perhaps I’d absorbed enough newspaper propaganda that I thought I’d see men in spiked helmets devising plots to poison the nation’s water supply or blow up the Palmer House hotel.
That’s not what I found.
First Trinity Lutheran was a down-to-earth edifice, squat and solid, with a modest steeple that had no pretensions of reaching to heaven. The granite structure, impressive in its simple, clean construction, spread over half a block east of Humbolt Park.
I stood across the street from the church, talking with a barefoot newsboy while I kept an eye on the building.
Small red brick homes lined most of the quiet street, with a few churches, shops, and restaurants interspersed between them. The neighborhood was mixed: largely German, especially to the north, as well as a number of Poles and some recent Ukrainian immigrants.
Most of the shops had closed and daylight was waning. I pulled my watch from my vest pocket: twenty past eight. Last week, Fohl had told Willie the meeting would start at nine. I assumed it would be the same today. If there was a meeting, that is.
From my vantage point, I could see nothing sinister developing at the church. A stream of people trickled into the front entrance, sometimes dawdling to greet acquaintances, with no sign of furtiveness. There were young families with small children in tow, older couples walking slowly together, groups of chatting women, and sullen-faced adolescent boys who would have preferred to be elsewhere. Everyone was dressed in what my uncle used to call Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes (he rarely wore such clothes and never attended such meetings). It could have been Sunday church in any town in America. Except that it was Saturday night in Chicago, the church was German, and America and Germany were enemies.
I was in church clothes, too: a stiff black serge suit that I’d worn for the first time to Willie’s funeral this afternoon. A somber dark gray fedora, also new, took the place of the straw boater I usually wore. It was heavy attire for a warm summer night, and the cloth seemed to absorb moisture from the humid air, making it all the more cumbersome. The clothing didn’t weigh me down nearly as much, though, as the memory of Willie lying in his casket.
Of course, with the funeral, Edna and I weren’t going to be attending the movies this night. Instead, I was going to church to pay a surprise visit to Hans Fohl. After another twenty minutes of watching, I decided it was time to try getting in.
A family of five, a young husband and wife with two daughters skipping in front of them and a baby in the woman’s arms, turned from Western Avenue toward First Trinity. I put a dime in the newsboy’s palm and trotted across the street to join them.
A few quick steps drew me even with the tall young man. He was about twenty-five, with a proud bearing that I was sure came from being head of such a fine family. His clothes were far from new but clean and neatly pressed. “Hey, good to see you again,” I said, offering my hand.
He shook it firmly. “Ah, yes,” he stammered, “good to see you, too.” His brow furrowed as he tried to remember me. He wasn’t going to succeed.
His pale wife gave me a shy smile, and I tipped my hat in greeting. I noticed the baby was wrapped in a blue blanket. “My but he’s getting big,” I said. She smiled more fully and tilted the infant so I could see him better. Tapping the man on his shoulder, I added, “Soon he’s gonna be as big as you.”
He lit up. “Yeah, he’s gonna be a strong one, all right.”
By the time we walked up the steps to the church door, he was telling me that he planned for his son to be a pitcher “like Big Ed Walsh.”
There were no guards at the door, no one checking the identity of those who entered. Whatever was going on at First Trinity Lutheran was neither secret nor exclusive. Not that I could see, anyway.
Still, having used this family to ease my way in, I wanted to minimize any possible trouble I might cause them. As soon as politeness would allow, I detached myself from them and strolled down a broad hallway, carrying my hat in hand. I tried to blend in, occasionally giving a familiar nod or a “How are you?” to people I’d never before met.
The tile hallway encircled the worship area of the church the way a corridor runs around the playing field of a ballpark to let people get to their seating sections. I looked in through the large open doorways. Instead of a green grass field were rows of varnished wooden pews. A large, plain wood cross took the place of a scoreboard. No services were under way, but a few pews were occupied by worshippers in solitary prayer or quiet contemplation—like pregame warm-ups.
Along the outer side of the hallway ran a series of smaller doors. All of them were open, and each led to a rapidly filling classroom.
A spindly, dark-haired young woman stepped from one of the rooms and placed her hand on the doorknob. After looking up and down the hall, she began to pull the door closed. This innocent act contrasted so sharply with the generally open atmosphere that it piqued my interest, and I quickly approached her.
She hesitated. “Were you coming in?” Her tone was surprised but hospitable.
I looked past her
. The room was entirely filled with children. There was a piano, and many of the kids held violins and flutes. “Uh, no,” I said. “Wrong room.”
“Wrong church, if you ask me,” a deep voice behind me said.
The woman pulled the door shut and I turned around. A muscular blond man had me fixed in his glare. Something about him was familiar. “What do you think you’re doing here?” he demanded.
Caught. Not that I was caught really doing anything. “I was looking for Hans Fohl,” I said.
“And who’s Hans Fohl?”
I finally recognized the man. “You should know. You were with him outside Willie Kaiser’s house yesterday.” This was the fellow who’d said it was a “lucky shot” for somebody.
“You’re ...”
“Mickey Rawlings. Is Fohl here?”
The brittle screeching of violins came from behind the closed door.
He nodded. “Wait here. I’ll get him.” He started to walk away. Over his broad shoulder he added, “Wait right here.”
As soon as he was out of view, I disobeyed the instruction. I strode the length of the hallway, looking into as many of the rooms as I could. I saw nothing unusual and returned to the music room.
Hans Fohl soon approached me, alone, his footsteps slapping loudly on the tile floor. Fohl’s black hair glistened with something he’d applied in an attempt to slick it down, but it had sprung back up in spikes, giving him the appearance of an agitated porcupine. Like me, he was still attired in the dark suit he’d worn to Willie’s funeral. “Looking for me?” he asked in his gritty voice.
“Yeah. I think we have something in common, you and me.”
“And what’s that?”
“At the funeral this afternoon, you were talking about how you were going to get even for Willie.” That was putting it nicely. “Blood will flow” were the exact words he’d used.
“And you’re planning to do the same?”
“Maybe not exactly the same,” I admitted. “But I do want to know who killed him.” Eerie flutes joined the scratchy violins in disharmony, producing something that sounded like a dirge. I pointed to the door. “This isn’t what I was expecting to find here.”
Fohl shrugged. “What were you expecting?”
“Some kind of meeting. Last Saturday you told Willie there was a meeting here. This looks like school or something.”
“It is a school, in a way.” After a moment, Fohl cracked something akin to a smile. “Come on, I’ll show you around.”
Fohl rapped twice on the door, then opened it and ushered me in. The music halted, and the woman I’d seen earlier looked at us.
“Please go on, Miss Reisdorf. My friend here just wanted to hear the music a little better.”
No, really, I didn’t.
She smiled at me, then nodded to the boys and girls, and the awful sounds picked up with more exuberance than before.
Fohl and I listened for several excruciating minutes. He said in my ear, “Those kids are breaking the law, you know.” His voice was a welcome change from what the children were doing.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He gestured to the door. I followed him out after we both thanked the teacher.
Once outside, he explained, “They’re learning the music of Beethoven, Bach, Mozart. It’s illegal to play music by those composers.”
“Oh yeah, I read that all their music’s been banned.”
“Last year,” Fohl said with rising outrage, “Dr. Karl Muck was fired from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and put in jail. A harmless old man, a symphony conductor, a scholar—and they put him in jail for playing ‘German’ music.” His face flushed with anger.
“That’s lousy,” I said, and I meant it. I let Fohl settle down a bit, then added, “By the way, what exactly were they playing in there?” Whatever it was, I wanted to avoid it when it became legal again.
“Damned if I know. One of those classical guys. I can’t tell one from another. I like ragtime,” Fohl admitted. “But I’m not going to stand by while this government tries to wipe out our culture. That’s what we’re doing here: keeping our heritage alive.”
We stopped outside the open door of the next room. A group of children were reciting German words in high-pitched tones. “The language has been banned in schools,” Fohl said. He spoke flatly now, the anger gone from his voice, letting the facts themselves carry the weight of his argument. “We keep it alive here.”
I didn’t see anything wrong with what I was finding at First Trinity Lutheran.
The next room was quieter; a group of elderly women were doing needlework and chatting amiably in German. “Some of the older folks don’t speak any English,” Fohl said. “And the Staats-Zeitung—that’s a German-language paper—has been closed down. What are they supposed to do? Not talk or read until the war is over?”
We passed to the next room, this one filled with old men talking in the same guttural tones. It appeared to be a crafts shop, some of the men doing leatherwork, others woodcarving. One wizened little man spotted us at the door and waved at Fohl. “Ah, Henry,” he called. The man pulled himself from his chair and a brown paper parcel from under his seat.
“Henry,” he said to Fohl. “I want to show you.” He pulled open the wrapping and exposed a pair of new high-button ladies shoes. He held them out for Fohl’s inspection.
“That’s nice work, Mr. Doscher,” Fohl said. The shoes had shiny black vamps and cream white tops that looked to be almost knee-high.
“Feel. Soft as butter.”
Fohl hesitated, then poked at one of the shoes. “Yes, very nice.”
The little man grabbed Fohl’s arm and squinted up at him through tiny spectacles. “Bless you Henry Fohl. You’re a good man.”
Fohl pulled away. “It’s okay. Don’t mention it.” He dismissed the man with a nod and ushered me back into the hallway. Fohl looked embarrassed.
“Why’d he call you ‘Henry’?” I asked.
“That’s my real name,” he answered with a shrug.
“I thought it was Hans.”
“That’s what I go by now.”
Fohl was obviously uncomfortable. Maybe he realized how foolish it was. And he looked enough off balance that I thought I’d try to throw him further off.
“Why did Willie come here last Saturday?” I asked point blank.
He pulled up short. “What makes you think he was here?”
I stared him in the eyes. “I know he was.”
Fohl clenched his teeth so sharply that his jowls rippled. He ran a hand over his black hair, causing more of it to pop to attention. Then he decided to talk. “Yeah, okay, he was here. He wanted to know about the smoke bombs that day. And he warned us that the Knights were going to come after us.”
“How would Willie know what the Knights were planning?”
“He wouldn’t,” Fohl said with a shake of his head. “He just wanted us to keep low and not do anything. I think he was bluffing about the Knights. Needed something to try to scare us. Like we’re going to be scared of the Patriotic Knights of Liberty. Bunch of—”
The big blond fellow lumbered down the hall toward us. Before he arrived, I quickly asked, “Did you plant the smoke bombs?”
Fohl tried to laugh off the question. “Oh yeah, we had those kids smuggle them into Cubs Park in their violin cases.”
“Hans, you done with this guy yet?” the blond asked.
“I think so, Gus.” Fohl said. “Anything else on your mind?” he asked me.
“No, not for now.”
Gus asked me, “Where you from, anyway?”
“Lake View,” I said.
“No, no. Originally.”
“Oh. New Jersey.”
He gave a scowl that would have done Charles Weeghman proud. “Before that.”
Now I caught on to what he meant. I chose to pretend that I didn’t. “I wasn’t anywhere before that. I’ve always been from New Jersey.” I like aggravating people who ask pointless questions.
“Rawlings,” he growled. “That don’t sound German to me. If you ain’t German, you don’t belong here.”
Actually, I did have a German grandfather, but I chose not to mention it. I didn’t need Hans and his friend to approve my background. It shouldn’t matter. Once you’re here, you’re American. It’s like a baseball team that way. Probably a simple way of thinking, but that’s the way I saw it. Although it might have been easy for me; without a deep sense of national identity of my own, I didn’t know how strong the ties of heritage or culture could be.
Fohl put an end to Gus’s interrogation, and the two of them escorted me out of the church.
I had the feeling I’d missed something. While I tried to figure out what it was, I strolled through Humbolt Park, enjoying the cool air and the smell of the greenery. Softly glowing gas lamps provided just enough light for me to see my way.
Fohl wasn’t straight with me, I thought. Or maybe the classrooms were a little too innocent. Or perhaps because I agreed with what they seemed to be doing at the church there were things I’d chosen not to see. Something was missing.
I emerged from the park on North Avenue and headed east. Near California Street was the Crystal Theatre, where I’d been sitting with Edna Chapman one week ago at this time. One very long week ago.
In front of the theater, I caught a street car for Lake View. It wasn’t until the ride home that I realized what I hadn’t seen at First Trinity: young men. Other than Fohl and his friend Gus, everyone in the classrooms had been children, young ladies, or old folks.
Where were all the young men I’d seen entering the church? Like the fellow whose boy was going to be the next Ed Walsh. There were rooms Fohl didn’t show me and maybe a basement. The men were somewhere in the building, and I’d bet they weren’t taking music lessons.
Chapter Seven
Sunday morning, half past nine, halfway into my second cup of coffee, Charles Weeghman phoned. “What the hell are you trying to do to me?” was his greeting.
“Uh, I don’t know what you mean.”
