The Babe Ruth Deception (7 page)

Back in their seats, Attell turned to Cook and spoke in a low voice. “Listen, you're a smart guy. We like you. We know we can do business with you. You just need to know that Mr. Rothstein takes a special interest in the Babe. It usually doesn't pay to get between Mr. Rothstein and anything he's got a special interest in.” The small man patted Cook's arm, tipped his cap, and took off.

That took care of any elation Cook felt over the home run. He wanted nothing to do with Attell or his boss, Arnold Rothstein. And he didn't think the Babe should have anything to do with them, either.

Ruth had signed a second barnstorming deal that would kick in after the games with the Bacharachs. He would go to Cuba, where they were supposed to be crazy about baseball, and hit homers there. In a foreign country, the Babe should be able to stay away from Rothstein and Attell, and away from grand juries and subpoenas.

Cook scratched his head, wondering to himself why he was worrying about the Babe. The man was a national hero playing a kids' game, making as much in a month as Cook made in a year. The world was that man's oyster.

“P
ut 'em away.” Cecil's voice hissed through the dark night.

Joshua stuffed the cigarettes back into his peacoat. “I know, I know,” he whispered back. “Just keeping my hands busy.”

Cecil leaned against the shed at the beginning of the dock. The planks creaked when he shifted his weight. They were in Bay Ridge, in Brooklyn, a place Joshua had needed a map to find. When he checked out this dock two nights before, it took him a subway trip, two bus rides, and a half-hour's walk.

Cecil gave Joshua a sly look. “Come on, Sarge, you know this is for keeps.”

Joshua grunted. That's what he used to tell the men in France, after reminding them to clean their weapons, strap on their helmets, take cover. He reminded them every goddamned time. No exceptions, no moments of feeling lucky, no begging off or not giving a rat's ass anymore, figuring it would be easier to get wounded and go home. None of that not caring anymore. He couldn't let them not care because that might get them all killed. Cecil was right. Tonight was for keeps, too.

Joshua bunched his shoulders and jammed his hands in his pockets. “Cold bastard,” he muttered. A few lights sparkled across the Narrows from Staten Island, which didn't seem very far away. In the moonless night, clouds pressing down on the land, Joshua could barely make out the shapes of two large ships tied up to their left. Patches of mist drifted over the water, diffusing a low glow from the human lights on land. A bootlegger's night.

Cecil leaned toward him. “You sure this is the place?”

Joshua knew it was a dig, not an actual question. The smugglers' boat was late, but that wasn't any shock. Smugglers didn't run on a timetable. Anything could gum up the works. Engine trouble. Fog. A squabble over price. Confusion about which liquor supply ship was the right one. Six or eight supply ships might be loitering out in international waters, past the three-mile limit, waiting for the speedy rumrunners to show up. Even the coast guard might have stuck their big noses in the deal, though the word was that the coasties didn't bother Halloran's boats. Joshua had heard there was an arrangement.

Two white guys stood out at the business end of the dock, over the water, stamping their feet and blowing on their hands. When they drove up in their truck two hours before, Cecil and Joshua were already crouched behind the shed. They could have taken these two guys, but then they would have had to do something with them until the liquor boat showed up. Tying them up wasn't a great option and Joshua wasn't eager to kill over booze. Anyway, neither of these geniuses thought to look behind the shed. He smirked. Hard to get good help these days.

Joshua figured there'd be two more guys on the boat, the skipper and a guy to haul the cargo. That was the crew when he watched them come in the other night. That would make it two against four, but he and Cecil would surprise them, have that edge. Also, when Joshua watched them the other night, they looked soft. They weren't careful, not nearly careful enough. The krauts would've eaten these guys for breakfast.

Wearing dark clothes, pistols in their waistbands, he and Cecil watched and listened. It was a quiet neighborhood. A few foghorns in the bay. Some damned bell that never stopped clanging. Twice they heard a car engine. Not much else.

In France, on the line, he had clung to the night. Daylight showed the horrors. Mud everywhere—on clothes, seeping into skin, caked on guns, sucking boots down. Men scratching. Bodies all around, some alive, some sick, some asleep, some dead. And the eyes. So many dead eyes. Night was better, at least when there wasn't any fighting. It cloaked the horrors, leaving only the monsters of his imagination, and his imagination couldn't come up with anything to compare with what lay around him. For months after the war, those images stayed stuck in his brain, but they were fading now, at least a bit. Joshua mostly wasn't afraid of sleeping any more, not the way Cecil was. Joshua wondered if there was something wrong with him, if he'd been emptied out, numbed to the horror. He thought about Violet and smiled, then pushed her out of his mind.

Joshua checked his pistol again. It was the Mauser he took from a dead kraut officer. The crazy thing was that after the army let him out of prison, after his record got cleared, they gave him the gun back. Like it had been his. Damned US Army didn't know where half its soldiers were during any battle, but they'd kept track of this stolen pistol, delivered it to him in a cloth sack with a pack of cigarettes, the lighter he carried when he was arrested, and two letters from his mother.

Their plan wasn't airtight, but that didn't bother him. With houses around them, gunplay wasn't a great idea, so they had left a couple of oars out on the dock. Those would be the weapons. Unless they had to use guns. They would see what was what, improvise. Also fuzzy was how to get the liquor from here to where Cecil left their rented boat. The war taught Joshua to mistrust detailed plans. Nothing worked out like you planned. Check out the ground and understand what it offered. Think about the options. Trust yourself. Then get on with it. They weren't up against the German High Command tonight.

A throaty engine gurgle came over the water. The other night, Joshua had been impressed with the bootleggers' boat, its V12 Liberty plane engines. He half expected it to take off and fly. He touched Cecil's arm. With the engine noise as cover, he started out on the dock. On his toes, staying low. Cecil right behind.

The skipper cut the engine to glide the last three hundred yards. Joshua and Cecil froze. They weren't quite to the dock's T intersection. The oars lay a few feet in front of them, left of the T. The two onshore bootleggers stood to the right of the T, looking only at the arriving speedboat. Joshua slowed his breathing. The boat slid out of the mist, a man in the front dangling a rope end. The boat swung alongside the dock. The crewman threw the rope to one of the shore crew, then turned to the back of the boat.

Cecil's hand pushed him as Joshua rose and reached for an oar. He sprang forward and swung. He hit his man across the shoulders, launching him into the water with a startled shout that the water swallowed. Cecil ran by, wielding his oar like a jousting lance. He caught the other man as he turned and reached into his coat for a weapon. An
oof
, another splash.

Joshua was swinging the oar at the crewman on the boat. The man dodged the blow but lost his balance. Wearing a surprised look, he fell awkwardly into the drink. Joshua dropped the oar and jumped into the boat, pulling out his pistol. The skipper was reaching for the boat's throttle. Joshua fired a shot in his direction, aiming high. The skipper raised both hands. The struggling men churned the water around them. A clotted shout: “Can't. Swim.” The man was in the wrong line of work. Joshua waggled the gun. “Off! Off!” he shouted.

Before the skipper could move, Cecil clouted him with the oar. Cecil dropped the oar, climbed into the boat, and heaved the skipper over the side. “The rope,” he yelled. Joshua unwrapped the bowline. Cecil fired the engine and swung them away from shore. A thump on the right side of the hull. Must have been a bootlegger.

Heading toward the East River, Cecil hugged the shoreline. He kept the engine at midspeed, trying not to be noticed. This early on a January morning, a small boat in New York harbor was probably running booze. Joshua rifled the boat's storage compartments until he found a container of oil. He carried it back next to Cecil.

They came around a long pier with tugs tied up on either side. A spotlight glared from the Brooklyn shore. An amplified voice came through a megaphone, but the words sloshed into each other. Cecil gunned the engine. The bow pushed high as the propeller bit into the water. The cargo, piled around them, held down their speed. A coast guard cutter was casting off, pointed right at them.

When Joshua regained his balance, he hauled the oil can out onto the boat's back ledge. Looking away to shield his eyes, he poured oil on the hot twin engines. Acrid smoke billowed up and mingled with the mist already in the air. Cecil slowed the engine to a purr and turned them toward New Jersey. He cut across the path of a tug that was plowing along from that direction. Then he spun the boat around and hit the gas. They dove into the shadow of the tug and clung to it, lurking on its Manhattan side.

When they passed under the Brooklyn Bridge, Cecil dropped his speed further and eased them over toward Brooklyn. They scanned the waterfront for the coast guard. Joshua looked at Cecil and shrugged. Cecil turned them around again, back toward where they'd left their rented boat. They went slowly, as quietly as a powerboat could, staying just beyond the reach of the lights from shore. This was the worst part. They probably couldn't shake the coast guard a second time, not with dawn coming on. Joshua's heart hammered against his ribs.

Their rental was a tired-looking workboat, ropes and tackle strewn across its deck. They tied up next to it. Both of them carried the whiskey bottles into the workboat's hold. They changed into overalls and denim jackets and took off again. Joshua felt calmer. Their disguise was good. He could hear the city start to wake up. The waterfront, too. A sliver of sky lightened over Long Island. Thirty minutes more.

At the dock in Greenpoint, they humped the sacks of booze into the grubby warehouse Joshua had rented with the last money he had on earth. When the final sack was in, the two men shared a smile, then laughed and slapped each other on the back. They hadn't spoken since they left the bootleggers splashing in the water.

“Those boys,” Cecil said, “they didn't know what hit'em.”

“No idea at all.” Joshua led the way to the small office in the corner of the warehouse. A bare bulb hung over a table with three spindly chairs. He opened the bottles of beer he'd left there, handing one to Cecil. “Not so different from France. Ambush, surprise, deception. Get in and get out.” He swallowed some beer. “The big difference is that these guys are dumber.”

Cecil shook his head after taking a long draw on his bottle. “There's some other differences, Sarge.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Like no bayonets. No hand grenades. No artillery. No gas. And no killing, not yet.”

“Nothing we can't handle.”

Cecil shook his head again. “Another difference, you know, is that we're on the other side from the government.”

“Say what? You mean the government was on
our
side over in France? Do tell.” Joshua tilted his head back and smirked at Cecil, who smiled back. “That's a hundred fifty sacks, six bottles to the sack, near a thousand bottles.”

“It looked like bonded stuff.”

“Absolutely, straight from Scotland. We sell 'em at two bucks apiece. That's close to two thousand dollars, most of which we take home free and clear.”

“No taxes.”

“Not a dime.”

They finished their beers and headed out. Joshua knew it wouldn't be quite that easy. They'd have to peddle the hooch to neighborhood bars and speakeasies. That was donkey work, a mug's game. Some would be slow to pay. They'd have to reward a few cops for looking the other way. Maybe the cops' bosses, too. Maybe the bosses' bosses. But they'd clear a lot, then use that money to buy a seat at a bigger table. Joshua was aiming at the wholesale end of the business. He wanted to be the guy who paid hungry stiffs like him to run those boats out to the supply ships, then paid other hungry stiffs to sell it around. The return would be better, the risks fewer.

T
he skirt reached. Violet sighed her relief. It was going to be bad enough using a crutch at a chic nightclub. If people also could see her shriveled lower leg, she would just die. So long as she stood up straight, the leg brace on her upper leg didn't bulge out, not unless you were looking for it. The colors in the dress were bright enough that few eyes should stray down toward the floor. High heels were out of the question. She could get by with black, medium heels.

She heard the front door open. She had told her mother to leave the latch off as she left. “Joan?” Joan Battaglia answered, her voice uncertain. “In here,” Violet called. A small squeal from the doorway announced her friend's approval of the blue and green print dress with the swishy skirt.

“Aren't you going to turn heads tonight,” Joan said. She leaned over to look past Violet's shoulder at their images in the mirror. “Those colors are wonderful for you. And what an apartment this is.” She gazed up at the high ceiling and turned slowly in place.

“Oh, Joan, it's like any home. Come on, now. You promised to help with the makeup,” Violet said. “I've gotten so pale. I look like a ghost.”

“Are you sure that isn't a good thing tonight?”

Violet gave Joan's arm a light swat. They had both been new at the clinic, the one where Violet was learning to walk again and where Joan had her first job as a nurse. Weak from lying in bed so long, depressed at the deafening silence from Griff Keswick and by her continuing debility, Violet was grateful for Joan's gentleness. Other nurses seemed to hector their patients through exercises. They were abrupt, their voices harsh. Violet responded to Joan's quiet encouragement. They became friends. Without Joan, she never could have considered tonight's adventure.

Joan pulled a chair to the dressing table and began to brush Violet's hair. “It's such a beautiful shade,” she said. “Anything would be better than my mousy brown.”

Violet, comparing two sets of earrings, decided on the simpler ones. “But yours is so thick,” she protested. “I'd give anything to have hair with so much body. It's lush!” Violet stretched her arms out and twisted in mock pleasure. Joan smiled and placed her hands on Violet's shoulders. Violet felt the tears threaten. She grabbed one of Joan's hands. “Oh, I'm such a fool. He's going to take one look at me and this ridiculous leg and wish he was anywhere else in the world.”

“He, of all people, knows about your poor leg. And
he
asked
you
.” Joan gave Violet's shoulders a squeeze, then resumed her brushing. “The wonder of it is how brave you've been, going through all those exercises, and now tonight. I could never be so brave. And daring.”

“Now, you remember the movie we're supposed to be seeing, in case my mother asks?”

“Really, Violet. I don't know why you didn't tell your parents the truth. It's just one night. They seem like fine people, not strict-from-the-old-country like mine.”

“Please, Joan. The movie?”

“
Male and Female,
over at the Odeon.” She put down the hairbrush and smoothed Violet's hair with her hand. “Fitting title?” Violet grinned. “And we'll see the nine-thirty show that won't be over until almost midnight, and then we'll stop for coffee and pie at the diner on Sixty-eighth Street. All right?”

“Do you remember the plot?”

“Yes! Do you?”

“Of course. Some claptrap about spoiled rich people being helpless. Whatever could they have in mind?”

Joan smiled but said nothing. She stood and stepped back from the dressing table. “Now, stand up and show me how you're going to move through that nightclub like a queen.”

Their taxi dropped Joan off at her home on Tenth Avenue, then headed uptown to the address Violet gave the driver. She wiped her palms on the insides of her coat pockets, then moved the crutch to an angle that would make it easier to get out of the taxi. She was excited, nervous, scared. She had never been to Harlem. She certainly had never been out with a Negro before. Or several Negroes. Or any Negroes. No. That wasn't right. She and her mother and father had been with the Cook family in Paris, several times. Even with Joshua. So this really wasn't her first time.

But, no, it definitely was her first time for this. This was a date. A date with a man, close to her age, who might have romantic ideas. Until she met Joshua, she hadn't ever thought about romance with a Negro. She hadn't thought about it when they first met, not so she could remember. But she liked him, right from the beginning. She liked his confident, steady way. He seemed smart, but didn't have to show it off. He did like nice clothes, more than most men do. She noticed that when he came to the hospital. He looked good in them. Could she kiss a Negro? Be intimate with one? That was stupid. It wasn't some Negro she was thinking about. It was Joshua. She knew Joshua. She liked him. What else did she have to know?

Anyway, she had to get out of that apartment, out of her narrow little life. Her life as a cripple. That's how people thought of her. Maybe her parents didn't, and she hoped Joshua didn't, but everyone else did. She could see it in their faces as she crutched past. A few looked sympathetic, most impatient. Children stared when she and Joan left the clinic and slowly circled the block. That was certainly what Griff Keswick saw that one time he came by the hospital. That's what she was. That's what she'd always be. All right, then. Cripples could go out on the town, too.

* * *

Joshua, elegant in a camel-hair coat, was on the sidewalk when Violet's taxi pulled up. He opened the door and bent over, his smile wide. “You came.” Looking up, she took a deep breath. He gripped her arm as she maneuvered out of the taxi.

From the sidewalk, little suggested that a nightclub sizzled in the building before them. No lighted sign announced fun within. No doormen stood in livery. Inside, Violet had to climb a flight of wobbly stairs one at a time, something she'd been practicing with Joan that week. With her coat still on, the stairway was warm. The steps seemed to take the whole evening, but Joshua's smile remained in place. He supported her elbow.

He knocked twice on a door marked R & G I
MPORTING.
The door opened a crack. He said, “Ginger.” They passed into a hum of voices and movement, music in the distance. After checking their coats and complimenting her dress, he offered his arm, his dark double-breasted suit immaculate. As they walked forward, she tottered when the tip of her crutch came down on a shoe. The man whose shoe it was looked over, surprise on his dark face. “Sorry,” she said. He turned away without a word. Joshua steadied her with his free hand. Then his smile returned and they started again.

The floor captain was small and slender, with a thin mustache and marcelled hair. That might be his natural wave, Violet decided. He welcomed them to The Big House. “Good evening,” Joshua answered. “Cook. Table for two.” On the far side of the room, an orchestra of colored musicians played with a jazzy tempo, but not too much. Their white tuxedoes were blinding. A small dance floor was empty. The captain led them to a table in the second semicircle that looked out on the dancers, whenever they might show up. It was a good table but not a flashy one. After some confusion over what to do with Violet's crutch, which she would not relinquish, the captain slid it under the table so it wouldn't trip other customers. Violet closed her eyes briefly. She gathered herself.

“Next time,” Joshua said, “it'll be easier.”

She smiled and looked at him. “I'm sorry. You're very patient.”

“Are you kidding? There isn't a man in this place who wouldn't kill to change places with me right now.”

She laughed. It was a lovely lie.

While he ordered champagne and oysters, she began to look around. Candles flickered on tables covered with sparkling linen. Several tables had only white people. Several had only colored. A few, like theirs, had both. The staff was all colored—that seemed to be the rule. Everyone spoke with heads close together, or in loud voices, competing with the music that cushioned them against the world outside.

“I wasn't sure you'd come.” Joshua leaned close.

“I wasn't either. It wasn't easy getting out. My mother took forever getting ready for her evening.”

“No, I meant I wasn't sure you'd come up to Harlem. To see me.”

She smiled and put her hand on his. “I knew what you meant. Since I'm here, there's not much to say about it.” She looked around again. “I'm so glad to be out. To have a little bit of freedom. And to be in this exciting place.” She smiled again. “And with you.”

Their talk came easy, just as it had in the hospital room, and before that in France. He talked about the army. Not about the war or the fighting, but the army's rigid rules and how the soldiers got around them when they could. She talked about growing up in New York, tromping around backstages with her mother, extravagant theatrical characters, about her work with Joan. During a lull, when they were on the last of the champagne, she gazed out at the few couples on the dance floor. A woman was singing about her broken heart, though the uptempo rhythm contradicted the words. The song was like ragtime, which Violet knew, but different. More relaxed, less thought out. She swayed slightly.

“You look like you want to dance,” Joshua said. “Do you think you can?”

“I'd love to. But no.” She finished her champagne. “I wish I could.”

“Maybe we can dance sitting right here.” He pulled his chair closer and put his right arm around her shoulder. He turned and reached his left hand across to take hers, looking into her eyes and smiling. He was very close. Feeling his pulse through his hand, her own heart seemed to stop. She cast her eyes down and felt herself flush. They swayed in rhythm until the music ended.

Joshua, sitting back, dropped his head to look into her face. “Thank you for the dance, Miss Fraser. Are you ready for a cocktail?” She nodded. He ordered old-fashioneds.

“Your special rye, Mr. Cook?” the waiter asked.

“By all means,” Joshua answered. “It's a special night.”

Violet looked the question at him. His special rye? He smiled broadly and shrugged. “I have some involvement in supplying the beverages here.”

Violet clapped her hands together and looked at him. He nodded. “You're a bootlegger?” she asked.

“I prefer it the way I said it.” He gave her a sideways smile.

Her eyes were wide but a grin danced at the corners of her mouth. “So that's where the money comes from!” He nodded again. “You've been mysterious, so I was wondering. This all seems so extravagant.” She looked around again. “So, Mr. Cook, not only have you led me into this den of iniquity—”

“Which was fully disclosed ahead of time—”

“—but, as a bootlegger, you are directly threatening the moral foundations of our nation.”

Joshua looked away and pulled on an ear, then met her smile. “I believe I have already stated my occupation. As for moral foundation, it turns out that our nation is extremely thirsty, a dire situation I try to help with.”

She turned her shoulders toward him. “Tell me about your adventures, all the thrilling things you do while I'm lying on my back with Joan bending my leg into horrible angles. Or while I stumble down the street with poor Joan telling me to slow down, slow down, get into a rhythm.”

“No stories unless you save the last dance for me.”

“I'm not sure I can. You'll have to elbow aside all the men who have been pestering me all night.”

“They're too intimidated to approach such a magnificent woman.”

“And you?”

“Beverage suppliers don't intimidate easy. Speaking of which, I haven't received an answer to my request for the last dance.”

The waiter arrived with their drinks.

The rest of the night was a swirl. Their waiter announced curfew just before 2
AM
, when they did have the last dance, never rising from the table. Then it was down the alley next door for a nightcap at The Big House Annex, an after-hours dive where the tables stood between empty coal bins. Hanging steam pipes threatened decapitation for men as tall as Joshua. After the champagne and cocktails, Violet felt downright spry on her crutch. Nothing to it. She laughed when Joshua pointed out that in the Annex the drinks were cheaper for Negroes than for whites, but he had to pay the higher price because he was with her. She liked that.

On their way home, he drove to the Hudson River piers and killed the engine. The moonlight cast a conical glow across the water, the light shimmering as small waves beat by. After hours of talking, they talked some more. He had plans, large ones. He wasn't going to stop with what he was doing. Bootlegging wasn't a career. It was a way to get somewhere. When he fell quiet, Violet said she didn't think she would ever walk right again. She knew she'd never run again. A tear formed in the corner of her eye.

“I know,” he said. “It's a terrible thing. But there's lots worse.” He leaned over and kissed her. Even though they'd been in with all those coal bins, he still smelled good.