The Hunt aka 27 (37 page)

Beerbohm came into the Killarney Rose every day, Tuesday through Saturday, at almost the same time—4: 10. He sat on the same stool near the back of the bar and drank two bo
i
lermakers—Seagram’s Seven and Schlitz on tap—always left at 5:40 to catch the 5:50 E train to Jamaica, where he lived alone in a two-bedroom duplex. There was no reason for him to rush home except that Beerbohm was, first of all, a man of habit— catching the 5:50 was part of his daily ritual; and second, he was a potential alcoholic. Two boilermakers was his limit. It put him right on the edge. After downing his two drinks a mere whiff of blended whiskey would have made him a slobbering, falling- down drunk.

Keegan had known Ned Beerbohm for twenty years, since Keegan was fifteen and had first worked the bar at the Killarney and Beerbohm was a young reporter. Beerbohm had gone the usual route—reporter, columnist, drunk. He had taken the cure and started over on the copy desk, working his way back up the ladder to news editor. But he still had the haunted eyes and spare frame of the alcoholic. Beerboh
m
was one of the few people Keegan did not share his tragic story with. Why bother— Beerbohm was a walking encyclopedia of current events. He had heard it all.

He was usually in a rumpled blue or gray suit, red tie hanging down from an open collar, twisted and destroyed, the late edition curled up and jammed in his suit coat pocket, gray homburg perched on the back of his head. Beerbohm was always the first one in, followed shortly by reporters and editors from the
Mirror, News, T
rib
and
Journal-American.
The Killarney Rose through the years had maintained its position as one of the favorite watering holes of the city’s news community.

The dialogue rarely varied:

“Phew,” Beerbohm would say, dropping like a sack of rocks on the bar stool. “This has been one hell of a day,” to which Keegan would reply, “You say that every day.”

Then Tiny the bartender would bring Beerbohm his glass of draft and shot of Seagram’s Seven and Ned would throw the paper to Keegan in the back booth and wait to be invited over.

“Depressing,” Beerbohm would say. “Every story is apocalyptic.”

“The world is apocalyptic, Ned,” Keegan would answer without looking up.

Beerbohm would shake his head, hold the shot glass over the mug of beer and carefully drop it in, watching it sink straight to the bottom of the glass and settle there where the thick, oily liquor would seep up into the brew like an amber trail of smoke. He would tilt the glass toward the ceiling, suck in the whiskey and let the beer chase the bitter taste. Then he would pull his lips back, sigh and hold the empty glass up toward Tiny, the 250.pound ex-wrestler who tended the rear section of the Killarney bar.

Ritual. Five days a week. As certain as the sunrise.

It was that kind of relationship, spiced occasionally by a trip to the ball game or to a special event like the fight.
.

The gladiators returned to their corners. Nobody sat down. The roar increased. The air crackled with tension.

Louis was hunched over, his eyes cool, staring across the ring at Schmeling, taking his size. The German avoided the stare, talked to his handler, glanced around at the gigantic saucer of people.

The bell.

They came toward each other, Schmeling with his shuffling
gait, moving one foot, then bringing the other up beside it; Louis lighter on his feet, more fluid, his body as hard as a boulder. Louis’s eyes were cobra’s eyes, watching his victim, waiting for the proper moment. There was a bit of sparring, then suddenly Schmeling loosed his right, the same right that had put Louis away two years before.

It hit hard, a thud against the side of the Bomber’s jaw. Louis shook his head and forgot it. It was as if Schmeling had blown him a kiss. He moved past the punch like it never happened and for an instant fear widened Schmeling’s eyes. Then the onslaught began.

Louis lashed out with blurred rights and lefts. They sizzled through the hot air under the heavy lights and battered the German into the ropes. Then Louis unleashed a left hook. Schmeling never saw it. It drove him up in the air and against the ropes where he dangled like a drunk, one arm dangling over the top strand, dazed, confused, surprised.

Fear was etched into every muscle of his face. Louis was all over him, smashing lefts and rights into the stricken German. Finally the referee pushed him back. Schmeling was shaking on his feet. He took a one-count and plodded forth for more.

“He’s going to take him out in the first,” Keegan said. “Say goodbye twenty.”

With each wracking thud of Louis’s fists, Keegan felt a moment of delirious pleasure, as though he himself were landing the punch. Every splash of blood from Schmeling’s battered face gave him another moment of
joy. He stood in the screaming, sweating crowd, fists clenched, eyes afire, yelling: “Kill him! Kill him! Kill the Nazi bastard,” with such unbridled fervor that even Beerbohm was surprised.

Schmeling looked pleadingly toward his corner, turned and caught a vicious right cross to the jaw. Above the din of the crowd, Keegan heard the bone-crunching sound as it connected. It literally hammered Schmeling to the canvas.

He was hurt. His eyes were roving crazily, trying to focus. He was back up on three, struggling up through air as heavy as oil, almost in slow motion. Arms half up, wide open, wounded and defenseless, he stared terrified as the next right smashed his already swollen jaw. He went down again, his gloves brushing the canvas, legs bent, head lolling.
And again he rose, staggering, his senses battered to oblivion, his knees rubber.
The Bomber stepped in tight and whacked him again.

“Jesus!” Beerbohm cried.

“Go ahead,” Keegan yelled. “Hit him again! Knock the bastard back to Germany where he belongs!”

Briefly, watching this Aryan apostle being demolished and humiliated, Keegan felt a moment of relief from four years of pain and anger, a moment when his hate seemed sated, a moment when he almost forgot Jenny Gould and Dachau. He had used his political connections. He’d sent hundreds of thousands to Germany in bribes. But he had learned nothing, accomplished nothing. He had failed at the only thing he’d ever truly needed to succeed at. So this, watching the fury of the -Negro fighter, was an instant of retribution.

Louis struck again, a coiled spring of destruction that battered Schmeling’s sagging jaw and demolished his hope. The Aryan apostle fell face-down on the gritty canvas.

Keegan could see the delight in Louis’s eyes as he danced to a neutral corner. From the corner of his eye, Keegan saw the white towel float from Schmeling’s corner and fall at the referee’s feet. He snatched it up and threw it over his shoulder. It dangled from the ropes as he began his count:

“One
...
two
. . .
three
. . .
four
. . .
five
. .

The crowd was manic. Schmeling’s handlers were awe- struck.

The referee looked down at the stricken Nazi and stopped counting. He spread his hands sharply apart, palms down.

“Yer out!”

The first round. Pandemonium.

And so on this June night in 1938, Joe Louis had finally gotten even.

As for Keegan, his heart soared as they dragged Schmeling’s battered body back to his corner. It was a bittersweet moment, a small taste of revenge. But it was not enough.

Not enough to make up for four years. Four years without a letter or a word from Dachau. Was she alive or dead? Keegan did not know.

How could it be enough?

It could never be enough.

The crowd in the Killarney Rose was rowdy with victory, yelling, cheering, jitterbugging in the aisles to a Count Basie record in the
jukebox
they could hardly hear. It was like New Year’s Eve. Somebody stood up on the bar and started counting

“One
. . .
two
. . .
three
. . .
four
. . .
five
. .

“Yer out!” the gang yelled. Then somebody else struck up a chorus of “Yankee Doodle” and everybody joined in.

Beerbohm and Keegan sat sideways in the back booth, singing, laughing, reveling in this instant of national retaliation.

“What a sweet moment,” said Keegan. “You know, for a little while there I felt
. . .
I felt

He paused, trying to find the right word.

“Like you got even?” Beerbohm offered.

“Is that all it’s about, Ned? Getting even?”

“Look at it this way,” Beerbohm said. “Hate is very fashionable these days. The Germans hate the Jews, the Italians hate the Africans, the Japs hate the Chinese, the Fascists hate the Co
m
mies and the Spanish hate each other. What I mean is, I’m not knocking it. Getting even helps. When you get rid of all the superfluous stuff, then you can zero in on what’s really hurting you. Someday you’ll be able to deal with that, too.”

“I guess I never thought about it in those terms before.”

“Look at it this way. Father Coughlin is finished. Huey Long’s dead. The Bund is about to be outlawed. Louis has just destroyed Schmeling. Take heart, pal, that’s a lot of little ‘get evens.’”

“Not enough.”

“You want the big kill, right. Fantasy time—Hitler in your sights.”

“How come you got so wise?”

“I got old,” Beerbohm said and smiled.

Keegan smiled too and said, “Well, it’s been one helluva night, let’s not spoil it.”

A young man in knickers and a cap sheepishly entered the bar, stared wide-eyed at the party, edged his way to the corner of the bar. He cupped his hands and yelled to Tiny who nodded and pointed to the booth. Completely intimidated, the lad scurried down through the crowd staring straight ahead.

“M-m-mister Beerbohm,” he stammered.

Ned looked up and smiled.

“Hi, Shorty, what’re you doing in here?”

“Mr. MacGregor on the night desk asked me to run this over to you.” He handed Beerbohm an envelope.

“Thanks, kid. Shorty, this is Mr. Keegan. He owns the joint. Shorty here’s one of our primo copy boys.” He tore open the envelope, took out a sheet of paper.

“How long have you been with the paper?” Keegan asked.

“Almost a year, sir.”

“Tell you what, go over there and tell Tiny, the big bartender, to give you a hamburger and a soda, on the house.”

“Gee, thanks!”

“Sure.”

The boy rushed off and Keegan turned back to Beerbohm. The editor’s face was suddenly drawn and bloodless.

“What the hell happened to you, Ned?” Keegan said. “You look like World War Two just started.”

“Almost as bad,” Beerbohm said and slid a cablegram across the table. Keegan knew before he read it. He knew what it was going to say. He had feared this telegram for four years.

“I’m sorry as hell to be the one to show you that,” Beerbohm said.

The cable was simple and to the point:

BERT RUDMAN KILLED NOON TODAY DURING BOMBING RAID ON ALICANTE. RUDMAN WITH THE
FIFTH
VICTORY DIVISION. ATTACKED BY GERMAN DIVE BOMBERS. KILLED INSTANTLY. MORE FOLLOWS. PLEASE ADVISE RE REMAINS. MANNERLY, MADRID BUREAU CHIEF.

Keegan stared at it for several minutes, reading and rereading it, hoping perhaps he was missing something in the sparse message. His throat began to ache and the old anger welled up in him again.

“Goddamn them,” he said in a cracked voice.
“Goddamn
those miserable bastards.” He slammed his fist on the table.

“I’m awful damn sorry, kid,” said Beerbohm. “I know how close you two were.”

Keegan was silent for a minute or two and then he shook his head. “No you don’t,” he said, and there was misery in every syllable. “We haven’t been close at all since I left Europe.”

“I just thought.
. .“
Beerbohm said with surprise.

“That he was my best friend? He was. He was one of those people who make life a little sweeter for you, who care about you.”

He stopped and took a deep breath, trying to control the hurt. He began to babble, about Rudman and Jenny and that summer in Paris. About von Meister and Conrad Weil and the dirty little hunchback, Vierhaus. About friendship and betrayal and the dumb things we sometimes do and never undo.

“I’m not sure I ever told him how really good I thought he was. Used to kid him all the time
. . .
fact is, he had more guts than anybody I ever knew. Just kept
. . .
going back for more. It had to happen sooner or later. Ironic, isn’t it? He probably wrote more about what’s really going on in Germany than anyone alive and a goddamn German plane kills him in Spain.”

He paused for a moment and took several deep breaths.

“Can I keep this?” Keegan asked, holding up the cable.

Beerbohm nodded.

“I don’t feel very sociable right now,” Keegan said.

Keegan sat for a long time staring off toward the front of the bar. His chest hurt and his throat hurt. Faced with the sudden death of his friend, he wished desperately for just five minutes to tell Bert how much his friendship had really meant to him. How much he had missed him these last few years. How much he admired his talent and courage and insight. How much he had learned about love and devotion from him and from Jenny.

Too late. Too late for anything. He folded the cable several times and stuck it in his pocket. “I’m sorry, pal,” he said to nobody. “I’m so sorry.”

Finally he got up, walked across to Fifth Avenue and up past St. Patrick’s. Then he crossed over to Third Avenue and wandered back down, thinking about his two best friends. Beerbohm was right, he wanted to hurt somebody, to get even. But who was there to hurt? He picked up the
News
at a corner stand. Bob Considine’s story was on the front page.

“Listen to this, buddy,” it began, “for it comes from a guy whose palms are still wet, whose throat is dry and whose jaw is still agape from the utter shock of watching
Joe Louis knock out Max Schmeling

Christ,
he thought,
what am I doing reading about a prize
fi
ght?
He threw the paper in a trash can and went back to the Rose, seeking the security of his back booth. But
t
he joy of the crowd was more than he could handle and he went up to his apartment. He got a bottle of champagne from the walk-in refrigerator, took three tulip glasses from the cabinet, went into the living room and took a scrapbook from the bookcase. He sat down on the sofa, popped the cork and poured three glasses. Keegan clinked his glass against theirs.

“Salud,”
he said.

He had started the scrapbook when Rudman went to Ethiopia, carefully pasting each dispatch in its pages. He had planned to give it to Bert as a peace offering when he finally returned from the wars. He started turning the pages, stopping occasionally to reread a particularly poignant or significant story.

Mussolini Invades Ethiopia;

Bombers Attack Civilians

by

Bert Rudman

ADOWA, ETHIOPIA, Oct. 3, 1935. The barefoot tribes of Haile Selassie, Lion of Judah, Emperor of Ethiopia, direct descendant of the kings of the Ras Tafari, and Prince of the ancient tribes of the Nile, were attacked today by the tanks, bombers and booted legions of Benito Mussolini, the barber turned Dictator of Italy. In what may very well be an Apocalyptic vision of modern warfare, bombs and incendiaries shrieked down from the night sky on helpless civilians. In the chaos that followed, great fires swept the city and the confused and wounded raced through the blazing city like mice in a maze

And less than six months later

Ethiopia Falls in Italy’s

Slaughter of the Innocents

by

Bert Rudman

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA, Feb. 2, 1936. The Lion of Judah has been caged and tamed by the Roman Legions of Dictator Mussolini. But in winning this victory, Italy has fouled its own house .

By the summer of 1936, the civil war in Spain had become a reality and Rudman was in the thick of it, where he would stay almost continuously until he died.

Death Rains on Spain’s Capital

As Fascists Declare War

by

Bert Rudman

MADRID,
SPAIN, July
22, 1936. Spain finally erupted into Civil War last night as the Fascist Rebels of General Francisco Franco attacked this stronghold of the Loyalist
. .

Innocents Die by Thousands in

Brutal Fascist Reprisal Raid

by

Bert Rudman

GUERNICA, SPAIN, Apr. 27, 1937.. German dive bombers and fighter planes without warning swept out of the skies over this Basque city today, strafing and bombing schools, hospitals, farmhouses and the marketplace and killing thousands of innocent people.

His work was a devastating mosaic of a world gone mad. It was as if a great cloak of darkness had been draped over Europe and down into Africa. And as the darkness spread, Dachau was lost in its core, a mere spot in the center of the growing fascist empire.

Triumphant Hitler Marches into

Austria as Crowds Cheer

by

Bert Rudman

VIENNA, AUSTRIA, Mar. 14, 1938. Adolf Hitler, who left this Austrian city as a penniless yos.ith, returned in triumph today and claimed this natio
n
as his own.

To cries of
“Heil, Hitler”
and
“Sieg Heil,”
the dictator drove through the streets of this city as crowds cheered and threw flowers in his path
. .

And even more ominously
. .

Germany Readies Several

New Concentration Camps

by

Bert Rudman

BERLIN, AUG. 7, 1938. The Nazis have opened three new concentration camps in Germany and have several others under construction, according to confidential sources

Keegan was struck by the fact that his estranged friend was the harbinger of his own personal despair. With each story, Jenny’s plight seemed more desperate. Was she still alive? Had she been tortured, brutalized, in that infamous Nazi cesspool?

There was one story, late in the book, that particularly touched Keegan. Laced with sadness, it had a foreboding sense of doom between every line. It was written as if Rudman had seen the future and knew his string was running out.

A Quiet New Year’s
Dinner

in Barcelona

by

Bert Rudman

BARCELONA, SPAIN, Jan. 1, 1938. A few of us American correspondents got together tonight for a traditional New Year’s Eve party at our favorite bistro.

It is now only a bombed-out hole on the ground littered with the rubble of war. Around us in this beleaguered city, the smell of death hangs heavy in the air.

But we brought a lantern, some cheese and a bottle of wine and sat on broken chairs and at midnight we sang “Auld Lang Syne.” We wept for fallen friends on both sides of this bitter struggle and talked about home and family and friends we have not seen for a very long time.

As we sat there, escaping for the moment from this dreadful war I could not escape the realization that if Franco and his hordes succeed in winning this civil war, France will be trapped between Germany and a new Fascist stronghold. Thus Spain may have the nefarious distinction of being the final dress rehearsal for World War II.
. .

Francis Keegan stared at the book, no longer reading, his mind tumbling through time, when the doorbell rang. He tried to ignore it, hoping whoever it was would go away. But the bell was persistent and finally he got up and answered it.

Vanessa Bromley was standing in the doorway.