Hunting a Detroit Tiger

by Troy Soos

  This month couldn’t get much worse.

  Chapter Nine

  I was alone again the next night, at the soda fountain of Fyfe’s Pharmacy, sipping a chocolate ice-cream soda with little appreciation for its flavor. The afternoon game had been another loss to Chicago, extending our “unvictorious streak,” as Karl Landfors called it, to seven straight games. Hughie Jennings still attributed the poor start to the team’s exhausting barnstorming trip, but that excuse was no longer carrying much weight with the sportswriters or the fans. The simple fact was that our hitters, including Ty Cobb, weren’t hitting, our pitchers couldn’t get anyone out, and our fielders turned the simplest plays into juggling routines. If we didn’t win one of the next four games, the Tigers would end up 0-for-April.

  Landfors was off on another date with Connie Siever. All he’d tell me about the first one was that it had been “thoroughly pleasant,” but the fact that he borrowed my brightest red tie for this evening showed he was more smitten than his words indicated. He was in such a lovesick daze that I’d made him twice repeat the directions from Leo Hyman on where and when we were to meet.

  In accordance with Hyman’s instructions, I sat at the end of the counter farthest from the entrance. Through the glass storefront, I watched the traffic on busy Woodward Avenue just north of the Campus Martius. I couldn’t get over how much the downtown had grown since I’d been here last. Back then, the city had been one of the smallest to have a major-league baseball franchise, and there had still been a rural character to many of the streets. But times change, especially in Detroit, where the roaring automobile industry sets the pace of progress.

  While my eyes watched the passing cars, my mind turned to Margie Turner again. And I got to worrying that I’d missed my chance at “the one.” In the last six years, although I’d had enough dates and a few romances, I had never found a girl I was as crazy about as I had been about Margie. What if I didn’t find someone like her in the next six years? I would be pushing thirty-five and alone—or settling for someone just for companionship. If I’d only gone to California with her . . . It might have killed my major-league career for a while, but I still could have played ball in the Pacific Coast League . . . No, I’d made the right choice. Hell, it wasn’t really a choice at all. Not a ballplayer in the world would have given up a roster spot on John McGraw’s New York Giants to play for the Los Angeles Angels or the San Francisco Seals.

  A bright blue Maxwell roadster slid up to the curb. The open, distinctive car was a refreshing contrast to the sea of black Fords cruising by, but not the ideal car to avoid a tail, I thought. I watched as Leo Hyman got out of the driver’s side and Whitey Boggs exited the passenger’s door. Hyman was again dressed in red flannel and dungarees, the only change being the color of his suspenders: yellow. The sight of Boggs was an unpleasant surprise; I had expected Hyman to be alone.

  The two men came into the drugstore without acknowledging me and took seats near the door. Boggs pointed to the menu and the men gave every indication they were going to order something. After a few minutes, they quietly slid off their stools and ambled toward me. “Come with us,” Hyman said.

  Abandoning my soda, I followed them as they went through the drugstore’s small storage room and out the back door into an alley. An empty, four-door hardtop Model T sedan was there, with its engine running. “In the back,” said Boggs, opening the rear door for me. I hesitated a moment. Then I figured Karl Landfors wouldn’t send me into a setup. I slid into the backseat, Boggs followed me, and Hyman went behind the wheel. He shifted into gear and eased out of the alley. Clever, I thought: if they were being watched, the blue Maxwell would still be under surveillance while they left in this car.

  When we turned onto Griswold, Boggs reached into his jacket pocket. I tried to prepare myself in case he pulled his razor. All he took out was a strip of black cloth. “Gonna have to put this on ya.”

  “Why?”

  From the front seat, Hyman said, “No need for the blindfold, Whitey. Landfors vouched for him.”

  “I don’t care what Landfors says. This guy shouldn’t know about the place.”

  Hyman turned slightly. “I said no. ”

  Boggs jammed the cloth back in his pocket. He hunched his shoulders a couple of times, billowing out a cheap, gray Norfolk jacket that was at least two sizes too large for his slight body. The move reminded me of a cat fluffing out its fur to look bigger.

  “Isn’t this a bit much?” I asked. “All I wanted to do was ask you a few questions, Leo. Why the production?” To Boggs, I added, “I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “Think I’m gonna let Leo meet you alone? You killed Siever with fifty of his friends right there. No telling what you’d try to pull with Leo if he was by himself.”

  “That’s enough, Whitey,” Hyman said.

  Removing his cap, Boggs ran a hand through his translucent, limp hair and turned his eyes to the window.

  “The reason for the ‘production,’ ” Hyman explained, “is that your friend wanted it that way. Karl said he wanted our meeting to be ‘invisible.’ ”

  “Oh, but this isn’t necessary. All I told him was that I couldn’t go to the hall to see you.”

  Hyman tugged at his Santa beard. With him behind the wheel, I thought, we should have had reindeer pulling the car. “He shouldn’t have used that word then; he knows what it means.”

  “Well, Karl’s been a little preoccupied lately. Probably didn’t realize what he was saying.”

  “No need to go on then,” Hyman said. “We’ll just find a little place to pull in and talk.”

  “No,” piped up Boggs. “Keep going. Maybe Rawlings doesn’t mind being seen with us, but I don’t want to be seen with him. ”

  “Fine,” said Hyman, with a shake of his head. He accelerated and we sped southwest on Fort Street. “Weren’t you supposed to be taking Norma out tonight?”

  “Who’s Norman?” I asked.

  Hyman laughed so hard his shoulders rocked.

  The first color I’d seen came into Boggs’s face. “Norma,” he said sharply. “She’s my ... she’s the future Mrs. Boggs.”

  “Distant future,” said Hyman in a teasing tone. He obviously would have preferred that Boggs had kept his date with her.

  I was trying to sort out how much authority each of them had—it’s hard to tell with anarchists and communists. My impression was that Hyman was in charge, but he allowed Boggs to have his way at times.

  The farther we got from downtown Detroit, the worse the road surface became. My back was starting to ache, and I squirmed in discomfort.

  I asked Hyman, “What about the car you left in front of the drugstore?”

  “Somebody will have picked it up by now. Whoever was following us—and somebody always is—will have caught on that he’s lost us, but it’s too late now.”

  About five miles out of the city, Hyman cut into a cemetery and drove along a winding single-lane dirt road until we came to a small river.

  “This the Rouge River?”

  “Baby Creek,” he said. Nodding his head to the left, he added, “Rouge is right down there.” He eased the car over a shaky wooden bridge to the opposite bank which looked like it had been used as a trash dump. “This used to be a nice quiet area—marshes, mostly, great fishing and duck hunting—till Ford got himself a contract to build boats during the war. Boats weren’t worth a damn, but the Navy put millions into building that plant. Now it’s another part of his empire.” Visible beyond the dump site was the Ford Rouge Plant, its blast furnaces spitting smoke and cinders into the orange sky.

  Hyman pulled up near a wood shack far from the main buildings of the complex.

  “We’re meeting here?” I asked.

  Boggs turned to me. “You have any objection?”

  “What I mean is, Mr. Ford doesn’t mind you using his property?”

  “Not a bit,” said Hyman as he killed the engine. “Because he doesn’t know about it. Perfect place for us t
o get together, in his own backyard. They watch our places closer than they do their own.”

  The shack was the size of a small carriage house. Its bare boards had split and turned gray, and its corrugated metal roof was solid rust. Boggs took a key from his breast pocket, opened the padlock on the door, and led the way in.

  “Where’d you get the key?” I asked.

  Boggs shot me a look that warned I was being a little too nosy.

  Hyman hesitated, then answered, “Whitey used to work for Ford until he got fired for his union activities. But he still has friends with the company. This place isn’t used much anymore anyway. It was just for storage during construction.”

  There was little inside the windowless building: a cot along one wall, some torn cement bags and dented paint cans tossed in the corner, cigar butts and empty bottles littering the dirt floor. In the center of the room was an upended packing crate supporting a kerosene lamp; four boxes were placed around it like a dining-room table for hobos. Boggs lit the lamp and adjusted the flame. Hyman closed the door behind us, and we each sat down on a box.

  “Damn,” said Hyman. His belly rested on his thighs, and the box was barely visible under his ample posterior. “Wish to hell you had better seats in here. This is murder on my ass.” With the low, flickering lamplight shining on his face, he looked like the Santa Claus from hell. After shifting to find a comfortable way to sit, he said, “So what’s on your mind, Mickey?”

  “A lot of things. For starters, I’m wondering about the raids on the hall. You said cops keep tossing the place. But from what I remember about the Palmer raids, it was the federal government that carried them out, wasn’t it? Not local police.”

  “You’re half-right,” said Hyman. “The Justice Department—”

  “Anti-Radical Division,” Boggs interrupted.

  Hyman shushed him with a sharp look. “That’s what it used to be called. It’s the General Intelligence Division now, a division of the Justice Department. Anyway, the GID did—and still does—coordinate the raids. Local police supply manpower and jail cells. Why?”

  “So the federal government is involved, at least to some extent.”

  “Yes. What’s your point?”

  “During the war, there were thousands of guys who were made some kind of deputy federal agents—”

  “American Protective League,” said Hyman. “There were tens of thousands. Just about any man or boy who ever wanted to play detective or spy.”

  I went on, “And they reported to the Justice Department anyone they thought was pro-German or in some way unpatriotic.”

  “Yes. We were in the ‘unpatriotic’ category. All union men were.”

  “Well, I was wondering about Hub Donner. You told me he’s fought against unions for years. And he’s working as a union buster for at least two businesses right now: Ford and the American League. What I’m wondering is: could he be working for the Justice Department, too?”

  “It’s possible,” said Hyman. “The GID still has what they call Dollar-a-Day men who spy for them and do some of the dirty business they don’t want to be connected with.” He smiled wryly. “I think Hub Donner would be more expensive than that, though. In protecting capitalism, he turns quite a nice profit for himself. Again: why?”

  I wasn’t sure if I should tell these men my theory. A look at Whitey Boggs, and the memory of his flashing razor, made up my mind. Giving them another suspect in Siever’s murder should reduce their suspicions of me—and maybe discourage any more shotgun attacks. “Seems to me,” I said, “Hub Donner is a good candidate for having killed Emmett Siever—a whole lot better than me. Donner’s job is to stop the ballplayers union. What better way to stop it than killing the leader? Players are jittery enough about going against the owners, and now they’ll really be afraid.”

  Boggs spoke up, “Somebody will take Siever’s place. They can kill us, but they can’t stop us.”

  Hyman stroked his beard. It appeared a darker shade of gray owing to the black smoke filling the room. The only ventilation was chinks between the boards—not sufficient to remove either the smoke or the nauseating smell of kerosene vapors.

  I went on, “There’s no doubt Donner was keeping an eye on Siever, right? So he’d know where he was that night. What better place to kill him than in the Hall?” It had also occurred to me that that might explain why Donner was pushing me to go public as Siever’s killer: putting me in the limelight would keep suspicion off himself.

  “Hub Donner . . .” repeated Hyman. “What do you think, Whitey?”

  “Whoever it was,” answered Boggs, “is gonna pay for it. Emmett Siever was one of the good guys.”

  That gave me a nice opening for the questions I had about Siever. “Did you know Siever a long time?”

  Hyman shook his head. “Less than a year. He was important to us, though. Linking the ballplayers’ union to the IWW made us seem less radical and foreign. We’re accused of being un-American, but what’s more American than the national pastime? You know, a few years ago, there was some talk of ballplayers hooking up with the ‘White Rats’—that’s the vaudeville union. The players decided not to because they didn’t want to be associated with actors. Siever didn’t have any such snobbish notions. He believed ballplayers were the same as every other worker.”

  “I heard his speech,” I said. “You say Siever was good for the IWW, but what did he have to gain by being associated with you? Why did he come to you in the first place—or did you go to him?”

  “He came to us,” said Hyman. “Through his daughter Connie. She’s been active with us for . . . oh, must be going on ten years now. She introduced him to me. Emmett was getting frustrated with the ballplayers—they’re a pretty timid bunch when it comes to organizing against the owners. He figured getting some real union men involved would light a fire under them.”

  Boggs snorted. “The one thing ballplayers don’t got is balls. Buncha crybabies who ain’t willing to stand up for themselves.” He leaned toward me. “Who do you got on the Tigers who’s doing anything to organize?”

  “Hell,” I said. “This year we’re hardly organized enough to make sure we got the right number of players on the field.”

  Hyman laughed.

  Boggs leaned closer. “You don’t got one player unionizing?”

  “If there was, they wouldn’t trust me enough to tell me now.”

  “And you’re not bright enough to figure out who it is on your own?”

  I wanted to get Boggs off me. “Okay,” I said. “As far as I can tell, Chick Fogarty is the team’s union leader.”

  Hyman grinned. Boggs rolled his eyes at the joke and gave up pressing me.

  “You know,” Hyman said, “it pains me to say this—because I love baseball—but Whitey’s right. Baseball’s owners are as mean and stingy and devious as they come. And the players are as meek and gutless as scared puppies.”

  Not wanting to defend either the owners or the players, I steered the discussion back to Emmett Siever. “You said you didn’t know Siever for very long. And I never heard of him being active with the baseball union until a year or so ago. How did he get so involved so fast? Doesn’t that seem pretty sudden?” I’d been having difficulty reconciling the drinking, philandering ballplayer Emmett Siever had been with the more recent labor-organizer version.

  Hyman said thoughtfully, “Usually it’s when a man first discovers that something’s important to him that he’s the most zealous about it. We need enthusiastic newcomers like that. They keep the movement fresh.”

  “And you’re convinced the union really was important to Siever?”

  “Absolutely. Sometimes somebody will come along, full of piss and vinegar, and they turn out to be plants, sent in to infiltrate us. Emmett Siever wasn’t one of those. And, of course, we had his daughter to vouch for him.”

  “If you get plants, how do you know who to trust?”

  “We have ways of testing new guys,” said Boggs. “Besides, the conseq
uences if they’re caught keeps most of them from even trying.”

  “Why? What happens?”

  Hyman answered, “The penalty for treason is the same in every country on earth . . .”

  He didn’t have to elaborate. “That’s what somebody was intending for me yesterday morning,” I said. “You wouldn’t happen to know who might have put a load of buckshot through my window, would you?”

  Hyman and Boggs both shook their heads; I couldn’t tell if what I’d said was news to them or not. Neither of them looked distressed to hear it, though.

  “Right now,” I went on, “I figure it’s even. I didn’t kill Siever, and whoever shot up my apartment didn’t kill me. I’d like to keep it that way. Because if I stay alive, I will do everything I can to find out who did kill him.”

  Boggs said, “I don’t see how that’s even—Siever’s dead, you’re not.”

  Hyman had a small coughing fit. “Let’s get out of here. Can hardly breathe anymore.” With a heavy groan, he slowly stood up. “If you got any more questions, you can ask them on the way back.”

  The ride home was slow. Hyman navigated the cemetery road by moonlight; he didn’t turn on the headlamps until we were back on Fort Street.

  I had no more questions, and my companions had no additional comments. Eventually, I broke the silence by saying to Boggs, “Sorry you had to break your date with Norma for this.” I was trying to sound friendly.

  “Wasn’t worth it,” he said. Then, a little more brightly, he added, “But I’ll see her for breakfast.”

  With Landfors dating Connie, and Boggs seeing Norma, the thought occurred to me that maybe I should join the IWW to meet women.

  Hyman swung a left on Twelfth Street, and spoke for the first time since we’d left the shack. “I don’t know anything about what happened yesterday. But I do know a lot of the boys were upset about Siever, and they figure you did it. I’ll spread the word to keep hands off you—for a while. And if you can nail Hub Donner for it, or whoever else was responsible, you’re off the hook.”

  “Thanks. Uh, what do you mean ‘for a while’?”