“Name calling,” Burke said. “Death threats, getting thrown at, getting spiked, me?”
“You’re all right,” Jackie said.
“Thanks.”
“The rest of it? Yeah, it’s bad. But it’s an extension, you know. It’s an extension of Negro life. Same thing go on if I try to live in the wrong neighborhood, or eat in the wrong restaurant, or go to the wrong school, or date the wrong woman.”
“White woman.”
“Yeah. So there’s nothing new going on here. Just getting more attention than it usually does.”
“Hard being colored,” Burke said.
“I got Rachel,” Robinson said.
“Rachel?”
“My wife.”
“I didn’t know you were married,” Burke said.
“You been out to my house,” Jackie said. “You picked me up at my house this morning.”
“I never been in, for all I knew you were living in there with a billy goat.”
“Been married now a year and a half. She’s at every home game.”
“I wasn’t looking for young Negro women,” Burke said.
“No, ’course not.”
“Thing like this must be hard on a marriage,” Burke said.
“Can tear it apart,” Robinson said.
“How you doing?”
“Makes us tighter,” Robinson said. “Her and me. We doing this together.”
“What the hell is it exactly you’re doing?”
“Integrating the great American pastime.”
“Yeah. I know all the stuff I read. But what is it that you are doing, yourself?”
“I’m playing at a level I’m good enough to play at. I’m making a little money. I’m getting famous. I’m proving to the bastards that I can play. I’m making Rachel proud.”
Burke thought about this for a moment.
“And,” Burke said, “you’re integrating baseball.”
“I am.”
“Rachel matters?”
“More than all the rest,” Jackie said.
“Because you love her,” Burke said.
“Because we love each other,” Jackie said.
Burke shook his head.
“You buy it all, don’t you,” he said. “Love, equality, the great American game.”
“Gotta buy something,” Jackie said. “Whadda you buy?”
“Lucky Strikes,” Burke said. “Vat 69.”
“That’s all?”
“Money’s good. I like to get laid.”
They turned east through Harlem.
“You ever been married?” Jackie said.
“Yeah.”
“Now you’re not.”
“Nope.”
“Divorce?”
Burke nodded.
“What about this Lauren?” Jackie said.
“I guarded her before I guarded you.”
“Anything else?”
“There was something else,” Burke said.
“What happened?”
Burke shrugged.
“She one of those women you talking about,” Jackie said. “Got a thing for the wrong men?”
Everyone on the street as Burke drove toward the Polo Grounds was Negro. Colored women sat together on the front stairs of elegant old brownstone houses, watching the street life, interested.
“You in the war,” Jackie said.
“Yeah.”
“Bad?”
“Yeah.”
Jackie nodded.
There were children playing stickball. They moved reluctantly as Burke drove slowly past. He didn’t answer Jackie’s question.
“Bad,” Jackie said. “How’d you feel ’bout this Lauren woman.”
Burke shrugged again. Jackie looked at him for a silent moment.
“You don’t know? Or you don’t want to say?”
“I got no feelings,” Burke said.
“You ever have any?” Jackie said.
“Before the war,” Burke said.
“Was it the war or the wife,” Jackie said, “wiped you out?”
“Both.”
It was warm. The windows were down. Burke could smell the tar and steam heat smell of the city. The dark Negro eyes on the street watched him as he drove past. Stranger in a strange land.
“So she have the hots for you?” Robinson said.
Burke shrugged.
“You turn her down, she hooks up with Boucicault’s son?”
“Something like that.”
“He bad?”
“Sick bad,” Burke said.
“And you don’t care,” Jackie said.
Burke shrugged. He braked for a red light.
“ ’Cause you got no feelings,” Jackie said.
“This is none of your fucking business,” Burke said.
“See,” Jackie said. “You do have feelings.”
“I feel like you’re a fucking asshole,” Burke said.
The two men looked at each other for a moment. Robinson was trying not to smile, and failing. Then Burke smiled with him.
“A fucking dark Sigmund Freud,” Burke said.
They were both laughing when the light changed and they made the turn to the Polo Grounds.
Box Score 6
27.
THE DODGERS HAD lost a night game, at home, to the Phillies. Jackie had tripled off Ken Heintzelman and been thrown out at the plate trying to steal home. Now, after midnight, in light traffic, Burke drove Jackie home.
“You were white,” Burke said, “you could have run over Seminick.”
“Not this year.”
“Next year?”
“Maybe.”
“Year after?” Burke said.
“Sooner or later,” Jackie said.
“You really believe that,” Burke said.
“Yes.”
“You think the day will come when you can run into somebody blocking the plate and it won’t cause trouble.”
“Yes.”
“You think that they’re going to like you?”
Robinson turned his head toward Burke. It was too dark for Burke to see his eyes, but he knew the look. He’d seen it before.
“Don’t care if they like me,” Jackie said. “But I can play this game and I’m going to ram it down their throats until they get used to it.”
There was a set of headlights behind them that seemed to Burke to have been there for a while. Past the next streetlight Burke slowed a little and watched in the rearview mirror. The car was a gray 1946 Ford sedan. Burke made no comment but as they drove he kept track of the gray Ford behind them.
“Who knows where you live?” Burke said. “Besides me.”
“Rachel knows,” Jackie said.
“And your mother probably knows,” Burke said. “I mean outside of family.”
“Mr. Rickey,” Robinson said.
“And?”
“That’s all,” Jackie said. “Shotton has my phone number, but no address. Why are you asking?”
“Just wondered,” Burke said.
“Why you wondering?”
“I’m supposed to wonder,” Burke said. “I’m your fucking bodyguard.”
“Oh,” Jackie said. “Yeah.”
The gray Ford was still with them when Burke pulled up in front of Robinson’s house. The front porch light was on and there was a light in the downstairs window on the right.
“She’s waiting up,” Burke said.
“Yeah. We usually have a cup of tea together when I get home.”
The gray Ford went slowly past them and turned right at the next corner. There were at least two men in it. Burke thought they were white.
“If she goes to all the home games,” Burke said, “why doesn’t she ever ride home with us?”
“She goes with some other wives,” Jackie said.
“The wives get along?”
“Some,” Jackie said. “Mr. Rickey’s worried ’bout us together in public. Somebody insults her and I . . .” Robinson spread his hands.
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Burke nodded.
“I’ll walk you to the door,” he said.
Robinson glanced at him sharply.
“What’s up?”
“All part of the service.”
“The hell it is,” Jackie said. “You worried about something.”
“I thought I spotted a car following us here. It went on by, and I don’t see it now.”
“Rachel,” Jackie said.
“You go on in,” Burke said. “Lock the door. If anyone tries to get in call the cops. I’ll hang around out here for a while.”
Jackie was silent for a moment. Then he nodded. They got out of the car and began to walk to his house. The summer night was still, except for some insect noise and an occasional traffic sound.
At the door Jackie said, “Be careful.”
“I was born for this,” Burke said.
Jackie nodded and went into his house. Burke stood until he heard the bolt slide, then he turned and went slowly back to his car. The gray Ford was not in sight. Burke drove his car two blocks down and wedged it in on a hydrant. He went to the trunk and took out a shotgun with both barrels sawn short. He opened it, put two shells in it, snapped the breech closed and began to walk back toward Jackie’s house with the shotgun held down next to his right leg. He stayed inconspicuously close to the cars parked on each side of the street.
Across the street from Jackie’s house, he sat on the curb, in the shadows between the bumpers of two parked cars, with the butt of the shotgun on the pavement between his legs, and the barrel cradled in his left arm. He kicked off his shoes. The street stayed empty. No cars moved on it. No people walked beside it. One yellow cat crossed it with little rapid steps that made no sound, and disappeared into some shrubs along the foundation of the house next door to Jackie’s. There was no wind. No insect sound. No night birds. No more cats. Dogs didn’t bark. No music. No domestic disturbance. Burke was motionless. He knew he could sit like this as long as he had to. He’d done it in the war. Part of the trick was to relax into it. No focus, absorb it. Let the situation soak into you.
From his right, up the street, a car came slowly toward him with its lights out. As it passed under the streetlight, he saw that it was a gray Ford sedan. It was very quiet, as if the engine had been shut off and the car was gliding in neutral. It stopped a house short of Jackie’s. No one got out. Burke sat still breathing gently through his nose. It was a two-door sedan with a black and yellow New York State license tag. After a while two men got out of the front seat of the Ford. One from the driver’s side, one from the passenger’s side. The man who got out the passenger’s side was carrying a small canvas bag. Burke wondered if there was anyone left in the car. It would make sense for them to leave a driver, but one of the men had come out from the driver’s side. Three people weren’t going to ride around for a while crammed into the front seat, while the back seat was empty. So if there was anyone, he was in the back seat and why would he stay there sitting in the back seat while the other men went to work?
The two men started across the neighboring front lawn walking toward the corner of Jackie’s house. When they reached it they turned toward the back, away from the streetlights. Burke stood and walked quietly across the street, past the Ford sedan, after them. Nothing happened. He made no sound as he walked in his stocking feet across Jackie’s neat grass lawn, and down along the side of Jackie’s house. In the shadow of the house, away from the streetlight, Burke stopped and listened while his pupils dilated. He could hear movement very slightly, and then as his eyes adjusted he could see the two men in vague shape gathered together at the back door. Burke moved closer. One of the men held a big revolver in his hand. The other had taken a flat bar from the canvas bag. Burke moved closer, his left shoulder brushing the house. There was no more relaxing into it. Now it was all focus, the two men and himself. Nothing else existed. The man with the flat bar whispered to the man with the gun. The sound in the night was shocking. The man with the gun whispered back. Burke was only ten feet away. He cocked both hammers on the shotgun. Both the men straightened and whirled toward the sound.
With his back pressed to the house, aiming at them across his body, Burke said, “Shotgun, both barrels.” The men hesitated. “Ten-gauge,” Burke said. “Cut both of you in two.” The men stared into the darkness trying to see. He was too close. From where he was, with a double-barreled ten-gauge, he couldn’t miss. Who was with him? “Drop the gun or I’ll kill you,” Burke said. The man with the gun hesitated, then decided. He turned suddenly, bringing the gun up, and Burke shot him in the chest with one barrel. The man made a sound of air suddenly expelled and went three feet backward and fell on his back. “Okay,” the man with the flat bar said. “Okay.” He put his hands in the air.
Burke saw movement at the window.
“Don’t come out,” he yelled. “Don’t call the cops. Don’t do anything.”
With the shotgun pushed up against the underside of the man’s chin Burke took a handgun from a holster on the man’s right hip. He dropped the gun into the canvas bag, put the flat bar in there as well.
“Okay,” he said. “Drag your pal to the car and stick him in the trunk.”
“He’s too fucking heavy.”
Burke jabbed the muzzle of the shotgun against the man’s cheek.
“Ow,” the man said and put his hand to his face.
“Do it, or I’ll drag you both.”
The man stooped down, got hold of his friend’s arms and began to drag him toward the Ford. Burke followed him. No lights went on in the neighborhood. No police cars roared up to the house. You could fire off an anti-aircraft gun in most neighborhoods, Burke thought, and no one would call the cops. They wouldn’t know it was an anti-aircraft gun. Just a loud noise. Go back to sleep, Edna. The man struggled to get the body in the trunk and by the time he finally succeeded he and the rear end of the Ford were smeared with blood.
“Close the trunk,” Burke said.
He did.
“You drive,” Burke said.
He kept the shotgun level until the man slipped into the driver’s seat, then he got into the passenger’s seat, put the canvas bag on the floor, and lay the still-cocked shotgun across his lap with the barrel pointing at the driver.
“Where?” the man said.
His voice was hoarse.
“Straight until I tell you something else,” Burke said.
The man put the keys in the ignition, pressed the starter button, put the car in gear and drove.
28.
THE MAN STARED straight ahead, as he drove slowly, without speaking. Burke watched him for a moment. He was a thick pale-faced man with a lot of flesh around his neck. He was wearing a tan golf jacket and a white broadcloth shirt. He was having trouble swallowing. Burke was silent. No cars passed them as they drove. As they went under a streetlight Burke could see the sweat on the man’s face. In the quiet night with only the sound of the tires on the pavement, Burke could hear how shallow the man’s breathing was.
There was a bus stop past a gas station on the right.
“Pull over,” Burke said. “Leave the motor on.”
The man pulled in and stopped in the empty space of the bus stop.
“I might not kill you,” Burke said.
The man didn’t answer.
“I want to kill you,” Burke said. “You would have killed me back there if you could have.”
The man shook his head.
“But I need something from you,” Burke said. “So I might have to let you go.”
The man turned and looked at him.
“If you got it and give it to me,” Burke said.
The man nodded.
“What’s your name?” Burke said.
The man cleared his throat.
“Richard,” he said.
Burke nodded as if a suspicion had been confirmed.
“Okay, Richard,” Burke said, “here’s how it is. You give me what I want and I let you go. Or you don’t—beca
use you won’t, because you can’t, makes no difference to me—and I cut you in two with the shotgun and dump you in the trunk on top of your buddy.”
“Whaddya want?” Richard said.
“What were you doing at that house?”
“I don’t know. I just went along with Chuck, for backup, you know?”
“Richard,” Burke said, “you don’t seem to get your situation here. If that’s the kind of answers you can give me, you’re going to be dead in maybe a minute.”
Richard looked down at the steering wheel and shook his head as if to clear it.
“We was going to kill the nigger,” he said.
“Why?”
“Guy wanted him dead.”
“What guy?”
“I can’t tell you that,” Richard said.
Burke laughed softly. He put the muzzle of the shotgun against Richard’s right cheekbone.
“ ‘I can’t. I rat and I’m a dead man.”
“And if you don’t?” Burke said softly.
Richard was silent for a moment, shaking his head slowly, staring at the empty street. Burke could see tears on his cheeks.
“Was it Paglia?” Burke said.
Richard nodded slowly.
“He hire you himself?” Burke said.
Richard shook his head.
“Who?” Burke said.
“Cash.” Richard was almost whispering.
“Tall thin guy?”
Richard nodded.
“Paglia’s shooter?” Burke said. “Sort of high shoulders?”
Richard nodded again, crying silently.
“How do you get in touch with him?” Burke said.
Richard started to shake his head. Burke jabbed his cheek with the shotgun.
“I . . .” Richard said. “I . . . You call a joint on the West Side, the Black Cat Club, leave a message with the bartender.”
“And Cash calls you back.”
“Yeah, or he meets you someplace.”
Burke nodded. He sat quietly for a moment.
Then he said, “Okay, drive back the way you came.”
“U-turn?” Richard said.
“Yeah.”
“What if there’s a cop?”
“Make the fucking U-turn,” Burke said.
They drove in silence back along the empty street. Two blocks from Robinson’s house, Burke said, “Stop here.”
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