Hunting a Detroit Tiger (28 page)

T
hree days in New York was exactly what I needed, and Harry Heilmann was just the fellow to spend them with. He knew every speakeasy in Manhattan that served up cold beer and hot music. Now that I was accepted as part of the team, he let me join him on his nightly outings. I stayed up too late, drank a little too much, and danced with women whose names I never asked.

In the daytime, I played two of our three games at the Polo Grounds, my home field when I’d been with John McGraw’s Giants. The park was also presently home to the New York Yankees, who had been spending a lot of money buying baseball players, mostly from the Red Sox. I thought that if they could afford to buy players, the least they could do was build their own ballpark for them to play in.

Carl Mays pitched the opener for the Yankees. The right-hander was a submarine spitball pitcher with a reputation for headhunting. More for protection than strategy, I batted lefty against him. In the second inning, I beat out a bunt for a single. In my next at bat, I faked a bunt and when the third baseman moved in I poked a bloop single over his head. The next two times up, Mays hit me twice, once on the thigh and once on the shoulder. It was as successful as I could hope to be against Mays: two-for-two, with no broken bones.

Altogether, I had a better series against the Yankees than Ty Cobb did. Cobb’s hatred for Babe Ruth got the better of him, and he played foolishly, trying to take extra bases, bunting in the wrong situations, and getting thrown out stealing in four out of five attempts. Meanwhile, Ruth hit two mammoth home runs, beating us twice in three games. At the rate the Babe was going, he’d break his own season home run record of twenty-nine before the end of July.

While Cobb cursed the demise of “inside baseball,” I still had some hope that the kind of strategy he and I loved would survive the current rage for home runs. There was only one Babe Ruth, and I didn’t see how one man could revolutionize the game, not even with the help of a livelier ball.

I gave up the recreational pursuits when we got to Boston. I’d had my little respite, and now it was time to get serious again.

The first morning in town, I took a cab to a forbidding stone fortress located between Massachusetts General Hospital and the foot of the Longfellow Bridge. It was the Charles Street Jail, and I was there to pay a call on Karl Landfors.

The process of getting to him wasn’t a simple one. I was questioned by a surly officer, my clothes were inspected, and then I had to wait nearly an hour until the designated time when the prisoners could receive visitors.

When that time came, I was led through a series of cold, dank corridors to a cell that wasn’t much bigger than a batter’s box. Landfors was alone, seated on his bunk, reading a small book.

“Landfors!” the guard bellowed. “Ya got a visitor.”

My friend sprang up at the sight of me, and a wan smile crossed his face. “What are you doing here?”

“I figured since you can’t get out to the ballpark to see me, I’d just have to stop by to see you.”

The guard unlocked the cell door. “Talk to him inside. Ya got fifteen minutes.” He then stomped away.

The instant the door clanged shut behind me, breathing became difficult. I had to force my lungs to keep working.

The cell contained few furnishings: a wooden water bucket, an enamel pail for a toilet, and a single bunk covered by a thin blanket and no mattress. The air was thick with the smells of excrement, disinfectant, and cigarette smoke. I couldn’t imagine Landfors surviving a locker room, much less a place like this. “At least you have lots of time to read,” I said.

“Yes, but it’s expensive. I have to bribe the guard to let me keep books—and if they look like they’re on a subject he wouldn’t understand, he charges me extra.” He forced another smile. “It turns out that he doesn’t understand much.”

“What I don’t understand, Karl, is what you’re doing here. What happened?”

“I’d like the answer to that question myself. I still haven’t been charged with anything.”

“Don’t they have to charge you or let you go?”

“Only if they’re concerned about legalities. Apparently, they’re not. All I’ve been told is that the charges will probably have something to do with conspiracy.”

“What conspiracy?”

“Whatever one they decide to invent. The authorities don’t like it that I’m writing about Sacco and Vanzetti. And they especially don’t like the fact that I’m reporting the truth. That’s what this is really about.”

“Jeez. What about bail? I’ll give you whatever I have for bail. Can probably borrow some, too, if you need it.”

“Thank you. But they can’t set bail until they charge me. So ... here I sit. And sit.”

We both sat down on the bunk, which was hard and uncomfortable. “I got some bad news for you, Karl.”

“Darn, and just when things were going so well,” he joked.

“It’s about Leo Hyman.”

“I heard. He’s dead. Any word on who did it?”

“No. Nothing in the papers, anyway. And I haven’t wanted to appear overly curious about it. You know, after what happened with Siever.”

“It’s probably wise for you to stay out of it. Is there anything new about Emmett Siever?”

“Not really. I did wonder though ... It’s just an idea ...”

“Yes?”

“What if somebody’s knocking off labor leaders? First Emmett Siever, then Leo Hyman.”

“It’s a possibility. You think Hub Donner or one of his ilk?”

“Could be. That GID man—Catvin Garrett—he’s back in Detroit now. He was there when Siever was killed, and now he’s back in town when Hyman’s killed. Coincidence?”

Landfors pursed his lips. “Perhaps not entirely. But I don’t think he was sent there to assassinate labor leaders, either. It probably has to do with Mitchell Palmer’s presidential aspirations. Palmer was badly hurt by the Michigan primary in April. He’d been such a favorite, that the other candidates conceded him the state. Not only did Palmer end up losing, though, he came in
fifth,
and Herbert Hoover—a Republican—won the Democratic primary! Since Palmer blamed the loss on labor, I can imagine him sending GID men to Detroit to crack down on unions. And I can understand him sending Garrett back now: it’s only two weeks until the national convention, and if Palmer has any hope of getting the nomination, he has to do something dramatic to redeem himself for the loss in Michigan.”

“And for predicting the May Day revolution that never happened,” I put in.

“Yes, that too. However, killing labor leaders doesn’t do Palmer any good. He needs to uncover them hatching some evil plot or something—even if the GID has to create the plot itself.”

I followed the political motives Landfors had outlined, but there was one thing I didn’t understand. “Why did Garrett want to know about the baseball union, though? How would that help Palmer?”

“Well, let’s see ... Oh! I’ve got it! Palmer saves the national pastime from the clutches of Bolsheviks. It strikes a nice patriotic chord.”

I was skeptical. “That sounds like a bit much to me.”

He looked at me over the top of his spectacles. “You haven’t listened to many political speeches, have you?”

“Not when I can help it.”

“Take my word for it, I’ve heard campaign slogans based on far less.” He shook his head sadly. “I am truly disappointed in Mitchell Palmer. He was a Progressive when he was in the Senate. He introduced the Suffrage Amendment, child-labor laws, was a strong ally of labor. I don’t understand how he could have changed ideology so dramatically. It seems he got the bug to be president and decided to ride the Red Scare all the way to the White House. I don’t know if I’m angrier at him for his policies or for changing sides as he did.”

Steering the conversation away from national politics, I said, “I had another idea about Leo Hyman getting killed. Remember, there were
two
attempts to kill Emmett Siever—he was shot
and
stabbed. I think Hyman might have known who one of the killers was, but not the other. That’s why he kept giving me time to look into it.”

“And he was killed to silence him for what he did know about Siever’s death?”

“Exactly.”

The prisoner in the adjacent cell made noisy use of his toilet pail. Landfors’s nose wrinkled as the smell drifted over to us.

It struck me as ironic that Landfors and I were sitting in a jail cell on Boston’s Charles Street. It was on this same street that I had first made his acquaintance eight years ago. The same street, but a different neighborhood: it had been in a Beacon Hill town house. “You remember when we first met?” I asked.

He smiled. “Yes, at ...”

“At Peggy Shaw’s house.” She had been a friend of Landfors and a sweetheart of mine when I was with the Red Sox. “Have you talked to her since you been in town?” I asked.

“Would you really want to know if I have?”

“No, I guess not. I was just thinking about her lately.”

“Why? I thought you and Miss Turner ...”

“I think Margie’s going to do to me what I did to Peggy. I left Peggy for a baseball career. After the Sox released me, I wanted to be free to go wherever I could catch on with a team. Peggy wanted to be settled down, so ... that ended it between us. Now I think Margie’s going to be ieaving—and maybe not even tell me. There’s a new show starting at her theater July 4, and she hasn’t even mentioned it to me.” I sighed. “She’s going to leave me the same as I left Peggy.”

The guard appeared at the cell door. “Time,” he said.

I stood. “I’ll do whatever I can to get you out of here, Karl.”

“Thanks,” he said. “But no cakes with files in them, please. I don’t want to be shot in an escape attempt.”

I was glad he was still trying to maintain some humor. I reminded myself that Landfors had survived as an ambulance driver during the war, and if he was strong enough to get through that, he could handle this place.

I visited Landfors every day during the Boston series. I didn’t bring him anything with a file in it, but did bring cookies, sandwiches, bottles of Moxie, and most of the current magazines. The guard thoroughly examined each item and charged me what he called a “tax” for allowing them through; he also took bites from much of the food.

Landfors and I didn’t talk about Leo Hyman or Emmett Siever any more. Instead, in an effort to brighten his spirits,

I asked him to explain socialism to me; he always seemed happiest when talking politics. The effort didn’t succeed. Each day, he looked a little more haggard. The food I gave him went uneaten, except by the guard and by the next-door prisoners—Landfors bribed them with sandwiches to move their slop buckets to the far side of their cells. I vowed to myself that I would find a way to get him out of this place.

Whenever I left the jail, it didn’t seem that I could breathe properly again until I got onto the field at Fenway Park. I played all three games against the Red Sox, and we swept the series—it probably would have been different had Boston not sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees.

Our last night in town, I ran into Chick Fogarty in the hotel elevator. There were only the two of us, and he looked sheepish when he saw me. Just like in the army, smart alecks are different when it’s one on one, when there’s no crowd on hand to egg them on or applaud their antics. I asked him straight out, “What’s your problem with me?”

He lowered his head. “Ain’t nothing personal.”

“Then what is it?”

“Dutch Leonard don’t like you.”

“And you go along with him.”

“Got to. See, I figure if Leonard likes me, maybe he’ll keep me as his personal catcher.” He looked up, appealing to me with his eyes to understand his point of view. “Like Cy Young had Lou Criger. I know I don’t got a lot of time left to play ball. If I can get an extra year or two by staying on Leonard’s good side, even if it’s mostly on the bench, I’ll take it.”