Hanging Curve (12 page)

“Only lately—like when you were in Detroit.”

“What are you so upset about? I’m late for dinner once, and you’re mad?”

“That’s not it. You’ve been grouchy for more than a week now.”

“Look, I forgot to call. So what? It’s not like I forgot to tell you I had a wife somewhere.”

Margie took a step backward, staring daggers at me. “I knew you were still mad about that. Tell me now: Are you planning to hold that against me forever?”

“Maybe.”

“Fine.” Margie went to the sideboard and got her purse and hat. “I’m going to have a peaceful dinner someplace else.” She slammed the door behind her.

 

Let her go, I told myself. If she’s going to be irrational, I’d rather have the house to myself anyway.

Grabbing the evening edition of the
St. Louis Times,
I settled into my Morris chair. I proceeded to stare at the paper for ten or fifteen minutes without reading a single word, waiting for a sound at the door. I had assumed Margie would change her mind and come right back. Once again, I’d assumed wrong.

I tossed down the newspaper. Then I glanced at the sideboard, where I’d put the stack of papers Franklin Aubury had given me, and began to review my conversation with Aubury and Karl. I was almost grateful to have something other than my spat with Margie to occupy my mind.

It seemed likely to me that Tater Greene would know something about Denver Jones’s home being torched, especially since he’d told me that the Elcars were planning some kind of retaliation for the destruction at the car lot. I decided to give him the impression that I was
sure
he knew something, and went to the telephone.

Greene answered with a grumpy, “Yeah, what?”

“You lied to me, Tater,” I said. “You told me you guys aren’t involved in violence.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. Burning down a man’s house is violence in my book.” Then I fibbed a bit. “After what you and Vaughn told me about the Klan, I was starting to think about joining. But now ...”

“Hey, it wasn’t the Klan,” Greene said. “Enoch and Vaughn really
don’t
want any violence. This was just some of the boys getting back for the cars being smashed.”

“Why Jones?”

“Because it was the Cubs who busted up Enoch’s lot.”

“You
know
that for a fact?”

“Stands to reason. They thought we killed Crawford—which we didn’t—so they hit Enoch’s place.”

Some reasoning. Franklin Aubury was right, I thought; the Elcars had simply pinned the blame on whoever was most convenient. “But why go after Jones? Why not the others?”

“He’s the only one we were able to find out where he lived.”

“Does that mean you’re still going after other Cubs?”

“Not unless we have to. This should have been enough to teach ’em a lesson.”

The we’s Greene kept using confirmed he was involved. “You
were
there last night,” I said.

“Sure. I
had
to be—you know how it is. But I didn’t do nothin’. I just stood by. It’s the other fellows who torched the place.”

“The ‘place’ was a home,” I said. “His wife and kids were there.”

“We got them out first. Didn’t hurt ’em a bit.” Greene breathed deeply. “Hell, Mickey, I didn’t want to be part of anything like this. I even tried to talk the guys into burning down the ballpark instead if they were dead set on burning something, not somebody’s home.”

“Were the guys who burned Jones’s house the same ones who lynched Crawford?”

Greene said firmly, “I told you before, I don’t know who was mixed up in that. And I’ll tell you something else: We all agreed beforehand that nobody was going to get hurt last night.”

“If Jones had been home, he’d have tried to stop you,” I said.

“Somebody
would
have got hurt. And now his wife and kids don’t have a roof over their heads—that’s being hurt, too.”

“You ever seen them shacks in Brooklyn?” Greene asked. “It wasn’t much of a house anyway.”

I changed my mind about Tater Greene. I used to believe he was a basically decent man.

I continued to think about Greene after we hung up. Since he admitted being involved in the arson at the Jones house, maybe he was telling the truth when he said he didn’t know anything about the Crawford lynching. Then I realized there was one major difference between the two events: Nobody died last night.

 

Margie had been gone for a couple of hours. If she only went out for a meal, she should have been back by now, I thought. But I wasn’t going to worry about it.

I went into the kitchen for a drink and noticed that the dinner Margie had made was lasagna, one of my favorites. I started to put the dish away in the icebox, then decided to try a plateful. I wasn’t at all hungry, but I didn’t want her to think that our argument had diminished my appetite any.

Back in the parlor, I picked up the stack of the
Argus
. The newspaper was a slim, weekly publication with the masthead slogan, “Published in the Interest of Colored People.” The issues Aubury had given me covered most of the last six months. It was a six-month chronicle of atrocities.

I didn’t get past the front pages. A banner headline in the most recent issue read:
Three Men Burned at Stake in Texas.
The three were Negroes accused of assaulting a white woman, and the mob that killed them came from several counties to join in “the fun.” The headline of the week before was:
Colored Boy Burned at Stake in GA.
This victim was fifteen years old, and was tortured over a “slow fire” before an enthusiastic crowd of several thousand onlookers; the mob then shot more than two hundred bullets into the boy’s body.

A front-page article headed
Bloody Record of the Ku Klux Klan
summarized a number of similar outrages against Negroes. A dentist in Houston was castrated in front of his wife; a man in Dallas was branded with acid spelling out
KKK
on his forehead; and in North Carolina, the United States senator from that state, Lee Overman, along with two congressmen, was among the spectators when three Negro men were hanged by a lynch mob.

I read of numerous incidents of stoning, branding, and tarand-feathering, mostly in the South. Colored colleges were routinely being set afire, and a church in Texas was dynamited. Other articles in the
Argus
reported that the Klan was getting more violent as the antilynching bill moved through Congress, as if to demonstrate that they would not be stopped by legislation. Klansmen had also recently adopted burning-at-the-stake as their preferred method of lynching because hanging killed their victims too quickly. The
Argus
dubbed the fire-loving KKK the “Knights of the Kerosene Kan.”

There were also front-page editorials condemning “Negroes who ape lawless whites,” and urging colored people to work peacefully for passage of the antilynching law instead of retaliating against whites with violence. The St. Louis Board of Aldermen made no similar urging to the city’s white population, however, and refused to condemn the Klan.

I was horrified by what I read, and incredulous that there was so little coverage of the atrocities in the major white papers. When I couldn’t absorb any more of the horror stories in the Argus, I put the papers away. Maybe that’s why the white papers didn’t print the stories, I realized; people might get upset if they read them.

Then I went over to my desk and pulled out the pamphlets Buddy Vaughn had given me. They portrayed the Ku Klux Klan as a patriotic group in favor of the Bible, Prohibition, purity of womanhood, and “100 percent Americanism.” The organization was opposed to “bootleggers, gamblers, and moral degenerates.” These innocuous generalities sounded like they could have been put out by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. What a difference between what the Klan claimed and what they actually did, I thought.

I was startled when the front door opened, and Margie came in. I quickly hid the pamphlets under a
Sporting News;
I didn’t even want to be seen reading Klan literature.

But I needn’t have worried. Margie barely gave me a glance.

“How was dinner?” I asked.

“Fine.” She stalked off to the bedroom without another word.

I stayed up a little longer, and briefly debated whether I should sleep on the sofa. I opted for the bed, though. There’d be plenty of space, I knew, especially between Margie and me.

T
here was even more space when I woke up in the morning. Margie’s side of the bed was empty. I felt reassured when I heard her moving about in the kitchen; at least she was still in the house.

I groggily remembered our argument of yesterday, although the reasoning behind it escaped me. The aroma of brewing coffee sparked some life in my brain, but even with my head clearer, I couldn’t grasp exactly what Margie and I had been angry about. As I listened to the sizzle of frying bacon, a hunger stirred my stomach. Then I realized I might have to end up making my own breakfast; just because Margie was cooking didn’t mean she was cooking for both of us.

I pulled my robe around me and shuffled into the kitchen.

Margie shot me a look, and a curt, “Good morning.”

“Morning.” I could be just as terse as she.

I continued on to the bathroom. When I got back, I saw she’d set two cups of coffee and two plates of eggs and bacon on the table. At least we’d be having breakfast together.

As we sat down, I said, “Sorry about yesterday.”

“Me too,” she replied.

Neither of us had much conviction in our voices, though, and we began eating in silence.

I broke first. I gave Margie a report on my meeting with Franklin Aubury and Karl Landfors. “It doesn’t look like things are going to blow over peacefully,” I concluded.

“Thank heaven no one was killed in the fire, at least,” Margie said.

“Not this time.” I poked at the eggs with my fork, breaking the yolks. “But there’ll be more.”

“Is that what Karl thinks?”

I nodded. “And Aubury.” My talk with Tater Greene had also left me convinced that should there be any retaliation for the arson, the Elcars would strike again, even harder. “I’m going to do whatever I can to try to stop anything else from happening.”

“You think you can?”

Realistically, no, I had to admit to myself. “Maybe not stop it,” I said. “But slow it down some. I hope.” I looked at Margie. “I gotta try anyway.”

“Why?”

There were several reasons. One was that I’d read in the Argus to what horrific extremes the violence could escalate. I briefly considered showing the articles to Margie, but decided against it; the way they’d remained in my mind, I knew she would be even more upset by them. Besides, maybe it wasn’t what I read about incidents in Texas or North Carolina that affected me. I had the feeling it was more because I’d looked into the faces of Slip Crawford and Denver Jones, and had imagined them in every story I’d read. “I just have to,” I said.

“This isn’t like anything you’ve been involved in before,” Margie said. “You’d be up against a lot of people—not only those who might have been part of the mob, but those who sympathize with them.”

“I’ll drop it if I think I’m in too deep, or if I’m not getting anywhere.”

Margie rolled her eyes; she knew me better than to believe my last statement. Then she offered, “I’ll help—if you like.”

“No.” My answer came out sharper than I’d intended.

She tried again. “I think I know a way to get some information that you might not have—”

“No. Like you said, this is going to be tougher than anything before.” I thought again of the atrocities the Klan committed. Even though they claimed to be protectors of womanhood, I had little doubt that anyone who opposed them, of either gender, would feel their wrath.

Margie pushed her half-eaten meal aside. She wasn’t happy at my reaction to her offer. “Maybe there are other things for you to be paying some attention to.”

I knew full well what she meant, but I asked, “Like what?”

“Like the problem we’ve been having. I think we should talk about it.”

I dug into the eggs, as if to show that I was too occupied to talk right then. “Okay,” I said. “Maybe later.”

“Why not now?”

“I don’t want to right now.”

“Things can’t continue the way they are,” she said. “And the sooner we ...” Her voice trailed off when she saw me shaking my head no. “Excuse me.” She got up from the table.

“Where are you going?”

“To get dressed. I have an appointment at the nursing school.”

“Are you still going to enroll?”

“I don’t know,” she muttered as she went into the bedroom.

I guess she didn’t want to talk after all.

 

After Margie left, I was tempted to try to get a bit more sleep before going to the ballpark. I’d had little rest during the night; my thoughts kept bouncing around from the argument with Margie to the stories I’d read of Klan brutality to the recent violence in East St. Louis. I didn’t get anywhere trying to figure out what was going on with Margie and me, but I did have an idea about Slip Crawford’s death.

Instead of going back to bed, I took a long shower, then called Franklin Aubury. He was back at his office, and I made an appointment to meet him there after the game.

I got there a little after four o’clock. To my disappointment, Aubury didn’t ask how the game went; I was eager to tell somebody that I’d hit two doubles while filling in for Marty McManus.

“Karl couldn’t be here,” the lawyer said. “He’s been detained in a meeting at Congressman Dyer’s office.”

“That’s all right,” I said. Karl wouldn’t have thought to ask me about the game either. “I read those newspapers you gave me, and I had a couple of ideas.”

A hint of a smile indicated Aubury was pleased that I’d already read them.

“There’s a difference,” I began, “between the lynchings and violence in the South and what’s been going on here. In most cases, the Klan is open about what they do—not open about who they are under the hoods, but about the fact that the Klan is behind the lynchings. They even brand some of their victims with ‘KKK,’ like signing their work. They want people to know it’s them, don’t they? To show how powerful they are?”

Aubury nodded.

“But here, even if some of the men involved in lynching Slip Crawford and burning Jones’s house are in the Klan, they don’t want anyone to think it was done by the Klan.”

Aubury’s eyebrows arched above the rims of his glasses. “Do you know something about who was responsible for burning down Denver Jones’s home?”

“Yes, I talked to one of them last night.” I didn’t give Tater Greene’s name. “He tells me it wasn’t officially a Klan activity. This was a bunch of guys who blamed the Cubs for damaging Enoch’s cars, so they wanted to hit back at a Cub player.”

“Not
officially
a Klan activity,” Aubury said. “They publicly disavow violence, but secretly encourage it.”

“I don’t know. The fellow I talked to said the local Klan leaders gave strict orders not to do anything violent.”

“If so, that’s only for the time being. Most likely they want to keep their reputation ‘clean’ until their membership has increased. Then, when they have police officers and potential jurors as members, they can commit whatever crimes they wish to with impunity.” Aubury removed his pince-nez. “Did your friend tell you anything about the Crawford lynching?”

“He’s not a ‘friend,’ ” I corrected. “He says he wasn’t there when Crawford was killed and doesn’t know anything about it.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I’m not sure. I
think
he told me the truth, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it.” As I said it, I told myself that was probably something I should keep in mind. “Anyway, since the Klan is publicly claiming they’re not behind the violence—and for now they are telling their members to keep things peaceful, according to my contact—then maybe they really
weren’t
behind the Crawford lynching.”

“You think it was the Elcars’ players, then?”

“Could be. But I expect most of them are in the Klan. I don’t think they’d risk getting their leaders mad at them by doing anything that could be pinned on the Klan. And they had to know the KKK would be suspected in the lynching, even if it wasn’t officially a Klan action.”

“Then what do you think?”

“Maybe it was somebody who wanted to murder Slip Crawford for a personal reason. And he figured by making it look like a lynching, he could get away with it.”

“You mean to say you believe
one
person killed him and staged it to look like a lynching?”

I considered that for a moment; from the circumstances, I doubted that one person could have handled Crawford alone. “I guess it had to be more than one.”

“So several people wanted to murder him and collaborated on it?”

That didn’t make much sense either. “Or,” I said, “one person got a mob incited against Crawford and basically used the mob as a murder weapon.”

“With all respect,” Aubury said, “perhaps you simply
want
to believe that there has to be a
motive
for Crawford to have been killed. That’s not the way it is. I’ve lived my whole life knowing that a colored man can be beaten or killed because some white men don’t care for his pigmentation.”

I couldn’t argue with Aubury’s experience, but the news reports did support my belief. “From what I read in the
Argus,”
I said, “there usually was some reason given for what the Klan did, even if it was a piss-poor one.” Most often, the justification was that their Negro victim was suspected of insulting or assaulting a white woman.

“That’s true,” Aubury said. “But I don’t know what cause there could have been for killing Slip Crawford, other than the fact that he’d won a game from a white team.”

I asked Aubury what else he knew about the dead pitcher. He told me that Crawford had a wife Hannah who owned a hair salon in St. Louis, and that the two of them were among the many who’d crossed to this side of the Mississippi after the East St. Louis riot. Most of what he knew about Crawford involved his baseball career.

Maybe I should find out more about Crawford, I thought. “I’d like to talk to some of his teammates on the Stars,” I said. “Maybe they’d know if somebody had a quarrel with him.”

“They won’t be in town for some time,” Aubury said.

“Hasn’t their season started yet?”

“If you’d read the sports pages of the Argus, you’d know that they’re playing the first two months on the road.”

“I didn’t get past the front pages,” I admitted.

From the satisfied expression on Aubury’s face, I had the feeling he’d given me the papers primarily to learn about the atrocities, not about colored baseball. “This is the Stars’ first season,” he explained, “and they don’t have a home ballpark yet. Ground was broken last week, but it won’t be ready until the end of June.”

I was still thinking of the stories I’d read, and they gave me an idea. “For whatever reason, the Klan wants to pretend they’re not violent, right?”

Aubury nodded.

“Why? Because people won’t join if they think the KKK is about killing and torturing. So they keep quiet about that and try to present themselves as some kind of patriotic society.”

He nodded again.

“Then why don’t we get some stories into the local papers—the, uh, white papers—saying that the Klan is suspected in Crawford’s death and the house-buming.”

“And what will that accomplish?”

“Maybe they’ll crack down on their members to keep them from doing anything more for a while.” I wished Karl was there; he knew the newspaper business. “I’ll bet Karl has contacts he can use to plant some stories,” I said.

“What about your earlier theory—that the Klan
wasn’t
involved? That would make the planted stories lies.”

“I’m not worried about giving the Klan a bad name,” I said. Judging from their literature, they didn’t care about presenting themselves accurately, so why should we?

Aubury flashed a smile. Even though he was an attorney, I don’t think he was worried about libeling the Ku Klux Klan either.