“So he’s out to even it up,” Wendell said, “and Burke he come to me and say can I maybe do something to calm Gennaro down, and I say, sho’. And Ellis goes and talks with Gennaro and we, ah, reach a meetin’ of the minds.”
“Which was to take him off my back,” Jackie said.
“Exactly,” Wendell said.
Across the street the police car pulled away. Outside Wendell’s car Ellis was leaning on the fender again whistling softly to himself. Burke thought it might be “Sing, Sing, Sing.”
“Thanks,” Robinson said.
“You welcome,” Wendell said. “You didn’t tell him none of this, Burke?”
“I don’t talk much,” Burke said.
“You sure don’t,” Wendell said. “Anyway, I done you a favor, Jackie, and I hopin’ maybe you might do me one, sort of even us up.”
“What do you want?” Jackie said.
“Well, I seen some games this year. And I see you playing out of position.”
“Got Stanky at second,” Jackie said. “Need a first baseman.”
“Sure,” Wendell said. “That’s right. But still means you sort of new. Make some mistakes.”
Jackie nodded.
“Everybody understands that,” Wendell said. “Even if the mistake cost a game sometime. Hell, especially with a low-ball pitcher, first baseman involved in half the plays in the game.”
Jackie nodded again. Burke saw where this was going. He suspected Jackie did too.
“You make the right mistake at the right time, game go either way,” Wendell said.
“You going to tell me when the right time is?” Jackie said.
“Yes, I am,” Wendell said.
“Can’t do that,” Jackie said.
“Why not?”
“Ain’t gonna give you a lecture,” Jackie said. “Appreciate what you did for me with Paglia, but I can’t do you that favor.”
“What are we going to do with this boy, Burke,” Wendell said.
“Watch him play. Clap when he gets a hit.”
No one in the car said anything else. The driver continued to be perfectly still. Burke could see the stress of his shoulders on the back of his coat. Wendell stared at the two men in the back seat.
“So,” Wendell said after a while, “what’s a big old cracker like you doing hanging ’round with this nigger boy?”
“They pay me to,” Burke said.
Wendell looked at both of them some more. Then he raised his voice.
“Ellis?”
Ellis opened the back door and held it. Burke nudged Robinson and he climbed out. Burke climbed out after him. Ellis stood looking into the front seat at Wendell.
“Get in the car, Ellis,” Wendell said.
Ellis smiled. He nodded at Burke and Robinson and climbed into the back seat.
Through the open window in the front Wendell looked out at Burke.
“You understand why he can’t tank me a couple games?” Wendell said.
Burke didn’t answer right away.
But finally he said, “Yeah. I understand that.”
Wendell shook his head. The Chrysler started up.
“Deal still hold?” Burke said.
Wendell looked out the window at the two men on the late-night sidewalk.
“For the moment,” he said.
And the Chrysler pulled away.
Box Score 8
37.
THE DAY GAME with Pittsburgh was rained out, and Burke drove Jackie uptown to a meeting. The wipers moved steadily. There was something sort of cozy, Burke thought, about a car in the rain. Sort of safe.
In the meeting room there was the same coziness, lights on during the day, rain sheeting down the windows evenly. There was a large table in the middle of the room and six black men seated around it. There were drinking glasses at each place and a large pitcher of ice water on the table. There was one empty chair. Robinson introduced Burke. Everyone was polite.
A white-haired Negro man gestured Jackie toward the empty chair at the table.
“Sit down, Jackie,” he said. “Sit down, please.”
Jackie sat. Burke found a chair against the wall near the door and sat in it. Everyone was quiet. Jackie waited.
“Jackie,” the white-haired Negro said, “perhaps you could ask your friend to wait outside for us?”
Jackie shook his head.
“What we have to say, Jackie, is really rather confidential.”
“He stays,” Jackie said.
“We are not comfortable with that,” the white-haired Negro said.
Jackie leaned forward at the table. Burke sat on his chair by the door as if they were talking of someone else.
“Why is that?” Jackie said.
The white-haired man didn’t speak for a moment. He looked at the other men around the table.
“He’s not one of us,” the white-haired man said.
Jackie nodded slowly, his hands clasped before him at the table.
“I have trusted him with my life for the last four months,” he said. “You gonna have to trust him for an hour. Or both of us leave.”
One of the other men at the table spoke.
“Okay, Bascomb,” he said. “Let it go.”
He was a big muscular man who had gotten fat. His nose had been broken. There were scars around his eyes, and his hands looked thicker than they should have, and a little misshapen. He looked steadily at Burke as he spoke. His black oval eyes didn’t blink. Burke looked back.
“Bascomb’s a lawyer,” the big man said. “He can’t help himself.”
Burke shrugged.
“You used to fight,” the big man said.
“You, too,” Burke said.
“You win,” the big man said.
“Some,” Burke said.
“But not enough to keep doing it.”
“No,” Burke said.
“Me either,” the big man said.
He turned back to Jackie.
“You know everybody in this room,” the big man said. “Hell, you played for a couple of them.”
Jackie nodded.
“We gave you a chance to play,” the big man said, “and treated you as good as we could.”
“Probably did, Maurice,” Jackie said. “Doesn’t mean it was good.”
“I know,” Maurice said. “Money’s hard and it’s harder if you’re a black man.”
Jackie didn’t say anything. The other men at the table were motionless. The rain was steady against the windows. Burke was silent beside the door.
“Here’s the situation,” Maurice said. “You stay in the white leagues and pretty soon some other boys be following you.”
Jackie nodded.
“And pretty soon all the teams, St. Louis, everybody, be getting Negro players,” Maurice said, “and we won’t have no players that matter, and the fans won’t come, and the Negro leagues are gone.”
Jackie nodded.
“You unnerstand that?” Maurice said.
“I do.”
“That’s gonna come no matter what anyone says now.”
“I think that, too,” Jackie said.
“So what happens,” Maurice said. “Not just to us, but to all the players—the ones that ain’t good enough, or be too old now. Where they gonna play?”
Jackie shook his head.
“You don’t know,” Maurice said. “And we don’t know either.”
“I can’t stop that happening,” Jackie said.
“We think you can,” Maurice said. “Tell him, Bascomb.”
The white-haired man cleared his throat twice.
“You know, Jackie, how much DiMaggio is making?”
“Yes.”
“You could make that much.”
“Maybe I will,” Jackie said.
“We prepared to pool our money, all the owners, and pay you what they pay DiMaggio, if you’ll play for any team in the Negro leagues.”
“Any team?”
“Don’t matter which.”
/>
“And I don’t play for the Dodgers anymore.”
“No.”
“DiMaggio’s making eight times what I make,” Jackie said.
“You be worth it,” Bascomb said. “And you save the leagues. Give jobs to a lotta colored players.”
Jackie sat back in his chair and unfolded his hands and put them flat on the tabletop. He looked at the men gathered at the table. Then he looked at Burke. Burke didn’t move. Jackie looked back around the table again.
“I can’t do that,” he said.
“You mean you won’t,” Bascomb said.
“Whatever you like,” Jackie said.
“We could probably up the ante,” Bascomb said.
“No,” Jackie said.
“You unnerstand,” Maurice said, “what it would mean to a lot of colored folks.”
“What I’m doing now means something.”
“Maybe what we’re asking would mean more,” Maurice said.
“No,” Jackie said. “It wouldn’t.”
38.
IT WAS STILL RAINING as Burke drove downtown. The taillights of the cars were like jewels in the rain. Jackie sat beside Burke staring through the front windshield where the wipers moved back and forth. His hands were clenched and he began to tap his thighs with them. The tapping got hard.
“Lotta money,” Burke said.
“Everybody wants a piece,” Jackie said as if Burke hadn’t said anything. “Everybody wants a damn piece.”
“Nothing new there,” Burke said.
“I know.”
“Take it as a compliment,” Burke said.
“Thing is what they say make some sense,” Jackie said. “Be other colored players coming along after me, and eventually all the good ones be playing in the white leagues.”
“Ain’t that sort of the idea?” Burke said.
“Be putting a lotta Negroes out of business,” Jackie said. “The Negro leagues go under, and a lot of Negro players, the ones with less skill, gonna be out of a job.”
“True for white players too,” Burke said.
“White?” Jackie said.
“Every Negro comes into the major leagues,” Burke said, “is one less white man.”
Jackie was silent for a moment as they drove downtown in the rain.
“Hadn’t thought of that,” he said after a while.
“Nothing’s simple,” Burke said. “You’re doing a good thing.”
Jackie looked at Burke in silence for almost a full block.
Then he said, “Burke, you been thinking about this. I didn’t know you thought about anything.”
“I got nothing else to do,” Burke said.
“So what else do you think?”
“Don’t you read Time magazine? You’re conducting a fucking social experiment.”
Jackie nodded.
“And when it’s over,” Burke said, “five years down the line, ten, whenever, the best players are the ones gonna make the show. Spics, spades, Yids, A-rabs, Eskimos, Japs, fat guys from Baltimore, whoever can make it, makes it.”
Jackie didn’t say anything. Burke didn’t say anything else. The city glistened as they drove through it. The rain-washed cabs were clean yellow. The traffic lights blurred by the rain looked like wet flowers. Every lighted window along the street looked cozy behind the steady gray rain slant. Restaurants looked inviting. The streets were shiny black. The people on the streets and in the doorways, collars up, umbrellas opened, looked peaceful. A policeman in a gleaming slicker and hat was directing traffic around a street excavation. Burke slowed, but the cop waved him forward. And they drove on past.
39.
BURKE’S PHONE RANG in the morning while he was still asleep. He glanced at his wristwatch on the night table as he answered. It was 6:10.
Burke said, “Hello.”
He could hear breathing at the other end of the phone line, but no one spoke. He fumbled a cigarette from the package beside his watch, and lit it. On an empty stomach it tasted harsh.
“Hello?” he said.
Breathing.
“I’ll give it one more hello,” Burke said.
“It’s me,” a voice said.
Burke knew the voice.
“Lauren,” he said.
“Yes. I just got home.”
“Un huh.”
“He’s going to kill Robinson,” she said.
“Who is.”
“Louis.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. If he knew I told you he’d kill me.”
“When?” Burke said.
“Sunday, during the doubleheader against Pittsburgh.”
“At Ebbets Field,” Burke said.
“Yes.”
“Tell me what you know,” Burke said.
“You can’t ever tell him I told,” she said.
“I won’t. Tell me what you know.”
“I don’t know anything else.”
“He told you he was going to kill Jackie,” Burke said. “Tell me about that.”
“Yes,” Lauren said. She seemed to be having trouble breathing.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay . . . we were drunk and crazy with pills and he said did I ever think about you . . . and I said no . . . which was a lie . . . and he said how about when we were doing it, you know, sex, did I ever pretend he was you . . . and I said no. . . . And he said he didn’t believe me. . . . And he laughed and said here’s something to get your attention. . . . He said, I’m going to kill Jackie Robinson. . . . And I said how about Burke, are you going to kill Burke. . . . And he kind of laughed and said I’m not going to. . . . As if maybe, you know, somebody else was.”
“Is it to get even with me?”
“I don’t know.”
“If that’s it, why not kill me?”
“His father. His father told him to stay away from you.”
“And he does what his father says?”
“If he says it . . . if he says it in a certain way. . . . Louis is afraid of him.”
“Is he going to do it himself?”
Lauren laughed. Burke thought it sounded ugly.
“Of course not. . . . He’ll have it done. . . . He’ll want to watch . . . and giggle.”
“Do you know who will do it?”
“No. He has lots of people.”
“Can you find out any more?”
“No. God no. No. He’d kill me in an awful way if he knew I even called you.”
“I’ve got to tell the cops.”
“No. You can’t. He’d know. Please, please, please. You can’t.”
“Jesus Christ,” Burke said.
“My God, I hear him coming. Please!”
She hung up. Burke sat on the bed holding the phone for a time and then very slowly, as if it were difficult to do, he carefully placed the phone back in its cradle. He sat some more. The light outside his window got a lighter gray. From the bedside table, he picked up the big GI .45 which was his legacy of the war and looked at it for a moment. Then, holding it, he stood, and walked to the window, and looked down at the street, and watched the morning brighten.
40.
“WE CAN’T IGNORE the threat,” Rickey said.
“I know.”
“We also can’t have Jack playing baseball in an armed camp. We are selling baseball, family entertainment; and we are selling him. People aren’t going to come watch him play if they think there will be gunfire, for God’s sake.”
“Can’t have cops showing,” Burke said.
“Perhaps we best not mention it.”
“The ballpark threat, no. But you need to cover his home. The first thing he’ll want to know is about protecting Rachel.”
“Perhaps we best not mention it to him.”
“Get somebody to watch out for Rachel,” Burke said.
“I can arrange for that, I believe.”
“Your word,” Burke said.
“You have it.”
“Good,” Burke said. “They said they’d sho
ot him during the doubleheader. That implies while he’s playing.”
“It would be a dramatic thing to do,” Rickey said.
“It would,” Burke said.
They both sat silently for a moment.
Then Burke said, “We both know, Mr. Rickey, that complete protection isn’t possible.”
Rickey nodded.
“I don’t want him hurt,” Rickey said.
Burke said, “It’s like the war, Mr. Rickey. All you can do is be ready and do what you can. We’ll have to tell Robinson.”
“No.”
“I’ll tell him,” Burke said.
“Do you think that’s wise? He might be more comfortable, not knowing.”
“I’ll tell him,” Burke said.
“And if I instruct you not to?” Rickey said.
“I’ll tell him,” Burke said.
Rickey, his cigar clamped in his mouth, was studying Burke. His eyes narrowed.
“And if I fire you?”
Burke sat back a little in his chair. His voice was the same voice that he’d had since Rickey met him, flat, without emotion, not very loud.
“You do what you gotta do, Mr. Rickey. Fire me. Don’t fire me. I’m going to do what I’m gonna do, and I’m in this until it’s over.”
Rickey moved the cigar around without taking it from his mouth.
“Why?” he said.
Burke sat for a minute rubbing his palms together, looking at his hands, which were slightly distorted from prizefighting.
“All my life,” he said flatly, looking at his thickened hands, “I never done anything amounted to jack shit.”
“You were in the war,” Rickey said. “That was worth something.”
“That was me and ten thousand other guys going where they sent us, doing what they told us—which was to kill ten thousand Japs who went where they were sent and did what they were told.”
“Many consider you a hero, Burke.”
“I got shot to pieces on Bloody Ridge,” Burke said, “ ’cause that’s where they sent me. And that’s what they told me to do.”
“In defense of liberty,” Rickey said.
“Sure,” Burke said. “Probably was.”
“But it’s not enough.”
“Enough?” Burke said. “It’s a fucking Fourth of July speech, for which I got destroyed.”
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