Murder at Wrigley Field (2 page)

I was the last one into the showers after the game. By the time I finished washing, most of my teammates were getting into their street clothes.

Wearing a towel tied at my waist, I sat down on a wooden stool in front of my locker. Willie Kaiser dressed slowly at the locker next to me, pulling on an ill-fitting suit of faded blue seersucker. His face sagged with worry.

“Hey,
Wilhelm, ”
a voice called out. “I guess that was some of your German buddies that tried to burn down the park!” It was the nasal bray of Wicket Greene, a washed up infielder. Greene had earned his nickname earlier in the season by consistently giving ground balls free passage through his legs. For the same reason, Willie unseated him as the Cubs’ starting shortstop. Greene retaliated by launching a persecution campaign against the rookie.

Willie ignored Wicket Greene and continued glumly buttoning his shirt.

C’mon, show some gumption, I silently prodded him. Don’t take any guff from Wicket.

Greene continued his goading. “Oughta send ya back to the
fatherland
is what they oughta do!”

Willie remained silent.

I didn’t. “Shut your mouth, Wicket,” I warned. Greene knew, but didn’t care, that Willie was under my protection. When Willie had come up to the Cubs I was assigned as his roommate. For the first time in my career, I’d been considered a veteran. As such, it was my job to introduce the rookie to life in the big leagues and keep him from getting into trouble. I took my job seriously. Besides, you don’t ride a teammate about his nationality or his religion or what part of the country he’s from. No matter his background, once a fellow joins your team, he’s family.

Greene lumbered over to us. When the Cubs drilled, he marched in the back row with the other six-footers. He stopped on the other side of Willie, folded his arms across his chest, and tried to look menacing. He succeeded only in looking ugly. Greene had thinning black hair combed straight back from a prominent forehead and a receding chin dotted with stubble. Through a tangle of brown teeth he said, “I wasn’t talking to you, Rawlings.”

But I knew he was. We’d gone through this before, and Greene could always get a rise out of me before he’d get one out of Willie. By now, Willie had almost become an excuse for Greene and me to go at each other.

“What’s your problem, Wicket?” I taunted him, rising from my seat. “Riding the bench giving you a headache?”

“Son of a bitch! You think you’re a big deal playing second? I’d rather be a batboy than a second baseman.”

“Too bad you don’t got enough talent to be a batboy.”

Greene’s dark eyes narrowed and he snarled, “I could get your job in a minute if I wanted it.”

“Sure
you could, Wicket. Don’t know how you’d run the bases though. All them splinters you been picking up, you got more wood in your ass than in your bat.”

“Well it ain’t second I want. I’m gonna be playing shortstop! Soon as they deport this little krauthead.” He feigned a slap at Willie’s head. Willie didn’t flinch.

“Watch yourself, Wicket,” I warned again. I suddenly realized I was still dripping wet and wearing nothing but a towel. It’s hard to look menacing in a towel. Between that and the fact that he outweighed me by thirty pounds, Greene wasn’t likely to be worried.

Other locker room conversations trailed off into silence. The staccato drip of a leaky shower echoed through the quiet clubhouse. Greene and I each took a half step toward each other while Willie sat silently between us.

Greene leaned forward, trying to intimidate me. It didn’t work. I knew that he moved slow and thought slower. He growled, “What are you, his protector?”

I held back, waiting for Willie to act. C’mon Willie, stand up for yourself. If that right arm of yours can throw an uppercut the way it can throw a baseball, Greene’s gonna be real quiet real fast.

Willie did nothing.

Greene stepped around Willie and poked me in the shoulder. “He need you to protect him? Is that it?”

“No, he don’t need me, but he got me.” I followed that with a hard shove to Greene’s chest, and we started grappling together. Neither of us threw an actual punch—baseball players hardly ever throw good punches.

Fred Merkle yelled, “Break it up!”

Teammates soon pulled Greene and me apart.

Merkle stepped between us. He was a strong, smart fellow with a mournful face. Greene wouldn’t argue with his muscle, and I wouldn’t argue with his wisdom. “Come on now,” Merkle said, looking first at Greene and then at me. “Don’t take the loss so hard. No reason to go squabbling with each other.” He knew the loss had nothing to do with the argument, but he didn’t understand what was really behind it.

Neither did I. All I knew for sure was that I was mad. Irrationally, seething mad. I was angry at Greene, of course. More so at Willie for not standing up for himself. And I was mad at something I couldn’t quite identify: a cruel intolerance, a perverse brand of nationalism that had taken over the country and intruded itself into baseball—
my
game.

I glanced at Wicket Greene. There was more than anger on his face. There was hatred, pure hatred burning in eyes aimed straight at me.

I knew we’d be going at each other again soon.

When we did, I didn’t want anyone around who could separate us.

R
ube’s pink tongue lapped my wrist as I scratched him under his chin. He sat on his haunches, his tail happily thumping the hardwood floor.

“I think his leg’s getting better,” I said. “He seemed to be putting more weight on it when I walked him.” Although it was hard to tell with Rube, the dachshund’s legs being so stubby.

“Mmm,” said Edna in a pleased tone. For her, that nearly amounted to a speech. She wasn’t one to use words when a nod, a smile, or a shrug would do. She didn’t need to. Edna could convey exactly what she meant through the smallest gestures. Her concise means of communication never seemed brusque though; she always nodded, smiled, or shrugged in the nicest ways.

If I could choose only one word to describe Edna Chapman, it would be “nice.” If allowed all the words I wanted, I would be hard pressed to elaborate on that description.

Edna wasn’t beautiful, though she wasn’t bad-looking, either. She had a round, fair face that always looked freshly washed. Her dull blonde hair was pulled back and pinned in a simple bun. High Slavic cheekbones pulled up the corners of her blue eyes, giving them a slightly exotic touch, almost oriental.

Nor was she particularly intriguing. Edna rarely expressed an opinion on anything, and there were few indications that she had any she was keeping to herself.

Edna Chapman was simply a quiet girl who was comfortable to be with.

It was probably just as well that I didn’t find her any more tantalizing than that, for she was Willie Kaiser’s little sister and there were tacit rules about proper conduct with a teammate’s sister. She was his half-sister really, but Willie had made it clear to me that he considered her to be his sister, period.

Edna was bent over, feeding the other dogs. They were all dachshunds, all victims of the hysterical campaign to erase everything Teutonic from American life. People with dachshunds were accused of being German sympathizers. Those with German shepherds were reported as spies. As a consequence, dogs of both breeds were often cast out by fearful owners.

A couple of months ago, Edna had taken in several abandoned dachshunds, giving up her small bedroom to house them. Willie and I had moved her bed and belongings to a sitting room outside their mother’s bedroom upstairs. Edna now had less space and almost no privacy, but she never showed signs of regretting her sacrifice and treated the residents of her former bedroom as welcome guests. Like I said: nice.

A contented rumble came from deep in Rube’s throat.

Edna straightened up. Her figure was more sturdy than shapely and stretched a couple of inches taller than mine. “He likes you,” she said. When Edna did put a few words together, I was always surprised at how childlike her voice sounded. She was a full eighteen years old. Or as Willie kept reminding me, “going on nineteen and not getting any younger.”

“He’s a good dog,” I said, stroking his smooth brown coat.

Rube was my addition to the kennel. I’d found him on Belmont Avenue, cringing against the wall of an apartment building. A big drunk had been kicking the little dog while yelling about “goddamn wiener dogs” and “goddamn Huns.” I’d objected to the drunk’s behavior, and he’d objected to my interference. By the time we’d finished scuffling and punching, I found myself guardian of a dachshund with a busted hind leg. I named him “Rube” after the old Athletics pitcher Rube Waddell. The dog didn’t look anything like Waddell, but he was the first creature I ever got to christen, so I named him after my boyhood hero. Rube took to his name, and to me, as if he fully appreciated the honor.

I couldn’t keep Rube myself since I spent half the season on the road, so Edna gave him a home and I helped her care for the dogs. It was one of two activities we did together. The other was going to the movies every Saturday the Cubs were in town.

“What would you like to see tonight?” I asked, though I could guess what her answer would be.

Sure enough.
“Tarzan of the Apes,
” was her quick response.

Every Saturday this month we’d gone to the Crystal Theatre on North Avenue to see Elmo Lincoln as Tarzan. There wasn’t much else to choose from. Most movies currently playing were propaganda films, like
To Hell With the Kaiser
and
The Beast of Berlin.

“How about Charlie Chaplin?” I suggested as a change.
“Shoulder Arms
is a comedy—it’s not really a war movie.”

Edna shook her head with distaste. No. Comedy or not, no war pictures.

There was a western playing at Covent Garden, a theater that was only a short trolley ride down Clark Street, but the movie starred Norman Kerry and I was boycotting his pictures. He used to be Norman Kaiser until he’d decided his career would benefit from a name change. I figured it was cowards like Kerry who made things tougher on people like Willie.

I gave in. “Okay.
Tarzan
it is.”

She flashed a smile at her victory.

I patted Rube on the head and stood up. “I’m going to talk to Willie for a bit before dinner.”

Edna’s gaze dropped. I think she sometimes wondered whether I preferred to spend time with her or her brother, but she never asked.

Willie’s room was the same size as the one Edna had relinquished to the dogs—about eight foot square with one tiny window, sparsely furnished and tidy. A high maple bureau and a narrow iron rail bed with a navy wool blanket pulled taut over the mattress were the only pieces of furniture.

On top of the bureau was a mail-order set of
The Complete Works of Mark Twain,
with the green cloth-bound volumes lined up alphabetically by title. Willie had probably agonized over whether to arrange them alphabetically or by year of publication. I knew from rooming with him on the road that he liked things neat and orderly. Even in hotels that provided chambermaids, he made his own bed and cleaned the wash basin after shaving. He still had some things to learn about living like a ballplayer.

Willie stood before a small framed display on the wall. Inside the dark wood frame were two brass disks hanging from bright-colored ribbons.

“I know,” I said from the doorway. “You want some of your own.”

He ran his forefinger over one of the medals, a bust of Admiral Dewey attached to a striped ribbon of blue and gold—the Manila Bay Medal. Then he dropped his hand. “I don’t care about medals,” he said. “It’s what you do to get them that’s important.” Before Willie was two years old, his father died in America’s “splendid little war” with Spain to earn those medals. “And I’m gonna go fight,” he added.

I immediately resorted to the same argument I’d given him many times before. “What about Edna and your mother? How are they going to get along without you?” The U. S. government sided with me on this: it had given Willie a deferment. Other than the pension his mother received as a military widow—a two-time military widow—he was the sole support of his family.

Willie shrugged off the question. “I’m an American. America’s at war. I should be fighting in the war.”

I thought for a moment and tried to remember if the world had seemed that simple to me when I was twenty-one. If it did, it had sure gotten more complicated in the five years since I was Willie’s age.

“You don’t have to prove anything to anybody,” I said. “Stay here, play out the season. Your mother and sister need you.”

Willie was unfazed by my words. His eyes were fixed and his face hardened with determination.

Rookies. Sometimes there’s no talking sense to them. I gave it another try anyway. “If it’s about Wicket Greene,” I said. “Don’t let him get to you. He’s not half the ballplayer you are.”

“It ain’t about Greene,” Willie snapped. Then he asked, “I ever show you my father’s picture?”

He had, at least half a dozen times. I sighed and surrendered. “No, I don’t think so. Can I see?”

I sat down on the bed and Willie went to the bureau. He pulled an iron strongbox from the bottom drawer and a rusty key from the top drawer, then sat down next to me. With the box on his lap, Willie unlocked the padlock and pried open the lid. He pulled a creased photograph from the box. Holding it carefully by the edges, he looked at it for a few seconds, then handed it to me.

The tinted photo was of a young man in the smart uniform of the United States Marines. Corporal Otto Kaiser looked a lot like his son and not at all like a soldier. His build was spare and his features delicate. The dark cap he wore was similar to a trolley conductor’s and much too big on him. Just like Willie in his Cubs cap. His eyes were like Willie’s, too: bright and determined.

“Looks like quite a man,” I said. “But, you know, you don’t have to go to war just because he did.”

“That ain’t it either,” Willie said. He put the strongbox on the floor at our feet. “I just know I got to go fight.”

I looked down at the contents of the box. The most prominent item was a revolver: Colt .38, Model 1892, double-action. Willie had recited its specifications to me numerous times. There were a few more photos in the box and some papers.

“My mother wanted to throw all this out,” Willie said. “The medals, too. But she kept it. Said otherwise I wouldn’t have nothing to remember him by.” He reached down and took the revolver from the box. It was not an attractive object: the blue steel of the barrel was scratched and nicked, the trigger guard was bent, and the plain walnut grip was chipped.

“Careful with that,” I said.

“Don’t worry. No bullets.” Willie swung open the cylinder to show me it was empty, then clicked it shut. Touching his forefinger to the trigger, he aimed the weapon in the direction of the window. “You think they’ll let me use his gun over there?”

I sighed. “Your mother’s going to wish she did throw it out.”

“I’m going to tell her at supper. I’m enlisting.”

From the kitchen, Mrs. Chapman called, “Dinner!”

I had the feeling indigestion was going to be the main course.

“It’s terrible, this war,” said Mrs. Chapman. “Keeping people from their beer.”

I shared her unhappiness with the wartime prohibition. “And it looks like it’s going to be permanent,” I said mournfully. One state after another was ratifying the Eighteenth Amendment; there was little doubt that the ban on alcohol would soon be written into the Constitution.

Willie sat at one end of the small dinner table, Mrs. Chapman at the other. She looked like an older version of her daughter, with hair that had lightened halfway to silver, skin creased with character lines, and a settled figure—not quite shapeless, but the shapes were less defined and at lower altitudes than they were on Edna.

Unlike her daughter, Mrs. Chapman had no end of opinions and no reluctance about expressing them. “A good pilsner,” she said, “could make even this food taste good.”

I doubted that. Not with the wartime restrictions on food in effect. Herbert Hoover had decreed this to be a “Meatless Saturday,” so instead of beefsteak we were dining on the recommended alternative: whale meat. There wasn’t a beer in the world strong enough to make whale meat palatable. Nor was there one that could improve the “liberty bread,” which was made with little wheat and a great deal of an unidentified substitute—sand, I suspected. The best part of the meal was the pungent sauerkraut, on which there was no prohibition, though it was supposed to be called “liberty cabbage.” We called it “sauerkraut.”

“It’s a delicious dinner, Mrs. Chapman,” I lied.

Willie had hardly touched his plate, but he murmured in unconvincing agreement. Edna, seated at my right, nodded.

Hans Fohl, the only other dinner guest, snorted. He was a cousin of Willie’s. Presumably a distant cousin, for there was no physical resemblance. He was a burly fellow of about thirty, with dark bristly hair that needed trimming.

Fohl sat across the table from Edna and me. “Told you before,” he said to Mrs. Chapman.
“I
can get you beer. Just got to know the right people.” He had a gravelly voice and loose jowls that quivered when he spoke.