The Babe Ruth Deception (16 page)

“I'll pass on the word, of course. But I don't know. If I was Attell—or his crowd—I might want to wait to see how it plays out. Maybe Ruppert doesn't follow through. Maybe Landis doesn't care what Ruppert says, goes ahead anyway.”

“Exactly. That's why we gotta finish the deal now. If we wait, who knows how many ways they'll figure out how to welsh? That's what those sons-a-bitches do. Lie, cheat, steal. I did what I said I'd do. You testify to that. I put it on the line for them. They need to do what they said.”

Cook found himself nodding. The Babe who stood in front of him wasn't the high-spirited kid whose parents put him in an orphanage because he was running wild through the streets of Baltimore. This Babe had the force to make that kid into a national colossus, more famous than the president. Certainly better liked. Sure, Babe had that great swing, that amazing body, he had all that. But other guys had great talent. Babe had something hard inside, something most people never saw, a will that gave him the discipline and the drive to become great. He was no freak, no accident.

“Sure, Babe, sure. Word is the smart guys're all going up to Saratoga. Racing season. I can go up there and look for them, you want me to.”

“I'll pay for you to go, just don't go playing the horses all day.” He gave a slight smile, then looked over at the entrance to Ruppert's gaudy mansion. “What the hell's keeping them? I didn't get any breakfast. Christ, I'm hungry.”

They climbed into the Duesenberg to wait. Babe started the engine and let it idle. In the backseat, the doubt tugged at Cook's mind. What else did Rothstein have on the Babe, something that wasn't whether the 1918 World Series was fixed? Not knowing the full story, that might make this job a lot more complicated.

F
raser drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He was trying to keep his eyes on the two-story house that slumped wearily toward Lafayette Avenue in Fort Greene. A nondescript Ford sat in front of the building's ragged paneling and faded paint. A colored man from the house had just climbed behind the wheel. He began reading a newspaper, in no rush to go anywhere or do anything. Over the last thirty minutes, a few Negroes had walked down the street in the morning sun, their errands as opaque to Fraser as their dark complexions and their scruffy neighborhood. It was frustrating to sit here, knowing that Violet was right inside. He and Eliza wanted to talk to Violet alone, not with Joshua around, so they waited.

Occasionally, Fraser's eyes drifted over to the royal blue Cadillac at the curb in the next block of Lafayette. That car had no business on this street. Neither did the driver, a white man with a pointed Vandyke beard who was as out of place here as Fraser and Eliza were. He had driven the Caddy up, stepped out, then sauntered out of Fraser's view.

“Are you sure about this address?” Eliza's voice was tight.

Tugging on the bill of his snap-brim cap, Fraser tried to control his tension. “I'm not an old hand at finding bootleggers, but this is where the detective said they were. Neighborhood looks right. That man in the Ford could be a partner or something.”

Eliza sucked her breath in. Fraser laid a hand on her forearm. “We need to wait,” he said.

Just then, Joshua Cook stepped out the front door, dapper in a light blue suit and maroon tie. He checked the street in both directions, then trotted down the half flight of stairs and climbed into the car. The driver fired the engine and pulled out. When it turned down Portland Street, Eliza said, “I'm going in.”

“Just another minute,” Fraser said. “Let's be sure he hasn't forgotten anything.”

They heard another car start up. It was the blue Cadillac, the man with the Vandyke beard behind the wheel. It crossed in front of Joshua and Violet's building, then followed down Portland Street. Fraser's stomach churned. That didn't feel good.

He said nothing about the Cadillac to Eliza. Maybe she didn't notice it, didn't realize that Joshua seemed to be drawing more attention than he should. She didn't need something more to worry about. Neither of them had been sleeping much. When they started getting over the shock, had eased up on the recriminations and self-recriminations, they were left with the hard edge of loss, an edge that Fraser felt every minute. Years before, he had lost a child, a boy, with his first wife, and then he'd lost her, too. He wasn't going to lose another child.

He said that to Eliza the night before, after telling her the detective's news—that Eliza and Joshua were living in the same apartment. Her eyes flared over that news. Her hand went to her mouth. He told her straight, didn't beat around the bush. He didn't care about scandal or what was proper or not. And he didn't care about pride. And he sure as hell didn't care about race. He wasn't—they weren't—going to lose Violet. He wasn't going to lose another child. Because that would kill him.

Eliza had stared at him for the longest time. Then she sagged and looked down in a way he couldn't remember seeing before. “Okay,” she said. “You're right.” Even with that decided, he still didn't sleep much, keyed up at the prospect of seeing Violet, wondering if Eliza really meant what she had said.

After the street was quiet for another minute, he nodded to her. They stepped out onto the street.

The front door wasn't locked. The floorboards creaked as they walked back to 1B, in the back on the left. After knocking, Fraser recognized Violet's uneven gait, the pop of the cane on the floor. When the door swung open, she stood in the blue kimono that Eliza had bought her for the hospital. She froze, eyes wide. She seemed ready to bolt. Eliza rushed in and hugged her hard, saying Violet's name over and over. Violet didn't return the embrace. Eliza smoothed Violet's hair out of her face and leaned back. “We've been so worried,” she said.

“Mother,” Violet said sharply. “I don't have time for this. I have a trip to get ready for.” A steamer trunk stood open in the main room. Clothes draped the furniture but couldn't conceal upholstery that was split at the seams, wooden surfaces marked with scars and divots.

“We just want to see you, to talk with you,” Fraser said. “A trip where?”

Eliza stepped in front of him. “We'll help you pack, if that helps, dear. But you can't just go off without a word.” Violet backed two steps into the room, still not looking at her mother. “I won't say anything like I did the other day,” Eliza went on. “I was surprised then. I shouldn't have been angry. That was stupid of me. And wrong.” Eliza stepped into the room and sat uncertainly on a chair. “We love you and want nothing but good for you. That's all we've ever wanted.”

Violet was quiet for seconds more, then turned to her mother.

Eliza tried again. “I can see you're well. You're taking care of yourself.” Eliza steeled herself for the next part. “I can see that you and Joshua are happy.” At this, Violet also sat, perching on the edge of the divan. Eliza reached over and took her hand. “Can you tell us what you're planning? Where are you and Joshua going?”

The younger woman took a careful breath, then said, “I'm taking a train to Montreal, where Joshua will join me in a few days.” They waited. “He's going separately by car to Saratoga—he's got business there, he's been setting it up for a while. Then we'll go on to London.”

“London!” Panic passed through Eliza. Fraser, standing behind her, gripped her shoulder.

“Why London?” he asked.

Violet leaned back in her seat, but her eyes were still wary. “Joshua's business . . . , well, you know what he does. He says he can get into the legitimate end of it in Europe. There he can be an exporter, not take so many risks. We may end up in France, he's not sure. But he says we can live, you know, like normal people there. Live openly, as man and wife.” Eliza sucked in her breath. “No, we're not married yet, but we will be. It won't be like here. He says that during the war, it was better over there.”

“Violet,” Fraser said. “Violet.”

She shook her head and set her jaw. “We've gone over and over it. We could marry here. It'd be legal here in New York, not like some states, but he doesn't want to deal with the clerk's office, with all of the issues, everything that would come up if we did it here. And we can't live here, not together, not the way people would be about it. I never really knew how people are. How it is to be colored.”

“Violet,” he said. “When is the baby due?”

Eliza twisted to look at him. “What?”

When Violet didn't answer, he gave her a small smile. “Honey, I'm an old country doctor. Let us help.”

Violet's face crumpled for a moment, then swiftly recomposed. “How can you be sure? I haven't been. Sure, that is.”

“I wasn't entirely until just now.”

She covered her face with her hands. Eliza knelt next to her chair, her head pressed against Violet's. In whispers, she repeated her daughter's name. Fraser cleared a place near them on the couch. He sat heavily.

After a minute, Eliza moved back to the chair, still gripping Violet's hands. “Does he know?”

Violet shook her head and took a stuttering breath. “I don't know what to do about it. I don't want that to be why, why he chooses me. I'm such a burden.”

“You must tell him.”

Violet looked helpless. Fraser sat forward, his forearms on his knees. “Violet, why are you leaving in such a hurry? There's something else, isn't there?”

“Oh, Daddy, I don't know. Joshua says it's nothing, but maybe it isn't.” She looked down. “The police may be looking for him.”

He looked surprised. “For bootlegging? It's not that easy to get arrested for that.”

“It's about the bombing, the one I was in. Somehow they may suspect him of being involved.”

“That's crazy,” Eliza said. “He was hurt, too. He saved you.”

“He and his partner, Cecil,” Violet said, “they were in some radical groups, after they came back from France. Not any more. He swears to that. And that they had nothing to do with the bombing. He couldn't have. I know him.” She looked intently at each parent, then cast her eyes down again. “But, you know, the investigation's been going on so long and they've never found out who was behind it. And he was there. Somehow they may know that.”

“They're looking for him?” Fraser asked.

Violet nodded. “He just heard.”

“So,” he said pensively, “the cops think maybe he just blew himself up a little bit, by mistake.” He shrugged. “I suppose that could happen with a bomber who didn't know his business.”

“He says he's the perfect pigeon for the police—a Negro, a radical past, a bootlegger, with army training. He thinks we need to go right away. He says he won't ever let anyone put him in prison again. I think he means that.”

The silence was thick. Fraser thought back to the Cadillac. It was wrong for a police car, much too nice. And the man with the trim beard didn't strike him like a cop. No need to talk about all that now. Not with Violet's condition, not with how edgy she was already. “So,” Fraser said, “you're planning to sail to London from Montreal. Why not from here?”

“Joshua's business in Saratoga, it's partway there. Also, he says it'll be easier for him to get across the border into Canada and then leave through Montreal. He's afraid the police might be watching for him at the shipping lines here in New York.”

Fraser nodded. “That makes sense. He's been making careful plans, I can see that. But have you really thought about this? He's got so many problems, Violet. And the government has ways to bring people back from foreign countries if they want to.”

“You don't have to do all this, not by yourself,” Eliza said, nodding at the clothes littering the room. “We can help with these things, with legal problems and lawyers, with the baby. We want to help.”

“No, Mother, I have to do this. We chose these problems because we chose each other.” She looked off for a moment. “Yes, I'm afraid, too. Of course I am. I know you both think I'm just being some empty-headed girl, carried away by a forbidden love, but I'm not.”

Fraser had leaned back on the divan. He fingered a seam on the armrest. He was bursting to speak out, to explain the plain logic: Violet needed to forget this whole adventure; being with Joshua could never bring her what she wanted from life. Her life would shrink. She would end up hating the man who shrank it. But Eliza had said those things and had failed. And now he would lose not only Violet, but her baby. Plain logic could drive Violet to more dangerous mistakes.

“Thank you,” Violet said, looking from Eliza to Fraser and back. “Thank you for not being angry.”

“Violet,” Fraser said without rising. “We have to think about these things. For your welfare, and for the baby. Please hear me out.” Eliza's eyes were full of warning, but he went on. “We can't know for sure, but Joshua's business in Saratoga, right in the middle of racing season—that makes me nervous. I know Joshua's a capable young man, but that town's full of all the big-time gamblers now, hoodlums from everywhere. And we know his business can be, well, a rough one. He doesn't want you there now, which I entirely agree with, but his business there may well be risky.”

“You think he's in danger?”

“I don't know. But his business has danger, that's why he's trying to change it.” He sat forward with his elbows on his knees. “I just don't think you want to be waiting alone in Montreal for him, not knowing when he'll get there. It would be lonely, hard. And I don't think you should be traveling with him when there's any risk, any risk at all, that the police might swoop down on him. Not in your condition. You have to think of that, of more than just yourself, or even the two of you. What about your mother and you going to London straight from here? Then Joshua can join you there from Montreal. The police won't be looking for you. Not yet, anyway. You can travel without fear.”

“Yes, honey,” Eliza said. “That would spare you the trip to Montreal also. That's such a long ride, switching into a hotel, all of that. And I can be there to help with everything. Joshua can't object to that. He can go to Montreal as he planned and follow us over.”

“How will he know where we've gone? I have no way to contact him in Saratoga. He could end up in Montreal thinking I had run out on him.”

“I'll go to Saratoga and let him know,” Fraser said. “It won't be hard to find a young man who dresses as well as he does.” He could see her indecision. “Violet, I can't say we understand all of this. But no matter how much we may be afraid for you, this isn't a scheme to separate you two. We only want to look after you. Joshua should be glad about it.”

Her small, sad smile nearly split him in two. She sniffled and nodded. “We were going to be married on the ship. By the captain.”

Eliza, her eyes red and glassy, hugged her daughter. “I know that sounds romantic, Violet, but we would be so sad not to be there for your wedding.”

Violet pulled back as her tears fell. She nodded and said quietly, “Yes. I know.”

“Right,” Eliza said briskly, straightening up. “Let's get you packed and get your trunk over to the Ansonia. We can make the arrangements from there, get the money and the tickets.”

“Joshua's left me money.”