The funeral mass was to be held at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, the seat of the archdiocese of Milwaukee. Like the German settlers who’d erected it, it was a structure more stolid than elegant, stern rather than inspiring. Once the center of a prosperous neighborhood, over the years changing demographics had left it on the fringes of downtown while earnest urban planners had turned an adjacent vacant lot into a small urban park. It was on this swatch of green, aptly named Cathedral Park, that a crowd of several hundred people now milled angrily, ringed by a cordon of mounted police decked out in full riot gear.
I looked out through the smoked glass of the funeral limousine at the church, dark and forbidding under the oppressive ceiling of low clouds that marked the day. Broadcast vans blocked the curb, electrical cables snaking out through their open doors, up the steps and into the vestry of the church. I caught a glimpse of Harald Feiss talking to a leggy woman with network hair, but I couldn’t tell whether they were arguing or getting set up for an interview.
As our car edged closer to the crowd Chrissy shifted nervously in her seat, no doubt saying a prayer of thanks that she’d decided to leave the baby at home with the sitter. Jeff, hidden from view by the limo’s mirrored windows, craned his neck to get a better look at the crowd. I examined his face expecting to see fear and was surprised to find something else burning in the back of Jeff’s eyes, something very much like satisfaction.
At the sight of the hearse the crowd suddenly heaved and surged like a living organism, pulsing until it had built up sufficient momentum to break through the police line. The officers pulled out their nightsticks, wheeled around, and dug their heels into their horses’ flanks in pursuit. I don’t know which was more terrifying, the screaming mob or the horde of journalists who thundered after them wielding their microphones like clubs.
Sometimes you don’t understand the danger until it has already passed. Events move so fast that their significance can’t be absorbed as they happen. It is only afterwards that you realize what might have been, what has been so narrowly averted.
I saw it all in snapshots: the half-eaten cheeseburger that struck the window and slid down the glass leaving a trail of mustard and a disk of pickle in its wake. The man with the big nose and flapping jowls, his Monarchs cap askew, lunging for the door handle. Then the look of surprise on his face as a cop on horseback grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and yanked him away.
There was yelling and the sounds of scuffle all punctuated by the ominous thunks of objects hitting the car. We sat frozen, helplessly watching the mayhem of which we were the center. In the front seat, our driver sweated and crossed himself, mumbling something under his breath— whether curses or prayers I could not tell.
Chrissy screamed as the windshield suddenly seemed thick with blood. It took a minute before we realized that it was ketchup. The driver, with a giggle of relief, switched on the windshield wipers, which smeared the thick liquid grotesquely across the glass.
Suddenly we heard the sound of impact as something heavy landed on the hood. The Jester, the bandy-legged member of the Monarchs’ court, dove across the hood of the car, his bug eyes staring at us through the pink streaks of ketchup. He banged his hands against the windshield in a fury, shouting out some piece of demented gibberish. But he disappeared almost as quickly as he’d materialized, pulled back by strong hands and leaving us with the memory of his pockmarked face, gap-toothed and filled with monumental rage.
CHAPTER 14
Sirens heralded the arrival of reinforcements, and slowly the tide began to turn. As soon as the threat of getting a ride downtown seemed credible, demonstrators took off on foot and quickly disappeared down alleys and side streets, leaving a trail of broken glass and garbage in their wake. After what seemed like an eternity, a uniformed officer approached our car, signaled the driver to roll down the window, and assured us that it was now safe to make our way into the church.
The archbishop, looking shaken, emerged from behind the heavy egg-splattered doors and greeted us on the wide, stone steps. Taking Jeff by the hand, he led the Rendells into the dark sanctuary of the cathedral. I made my way behind them followed by the first tentative clusters of funeral-goers.
The interior of the cathedral was damp and narrow like the inside of a tomb. Above, from the ribbed vaults of the ceiling, the vestments of dead clergy hung like flags while thousands of votive candles flickered in the gloomy alcoves that punctuated the transept. From somewhere behind us the deep-throated organ throbbed the first mournful strains of requiem, and the air was thick with incense.
I took my place in the hard pew beside Chrissy and Jeff and focused my attention on the casket that had just been brought to rest before us. In life Beau had always made himself the focus, the epicenter of attention. Why was it that in death I seemed to be always losing sight of him? His murder had put into motion a chain of events that seemingly swamped the event itself. Whenever I found myself even beginning to think about what had precipitated it all, something else popped up to divert my attention yet again.
Coach Bennato appeared on the altar to deliver the eulogy—one old man’s farewell to another. I looked around for Harald Feiss and found him seated across the aisle between Gus Wallenberg and a delegation from the mayor’s office. This being an election year, the mayor had no doubt decided that there was nothing to be gained by doing anything linking himself to Jeffrey Rendell, who had, with the publication of six column inches of type, found himself Milwaukee’s number one leper.
Marie Bennato snuffled noisily throughout her husband’s remarks while her daughter did her best to comfort her. Of the hundreds of mourners who had paid their respects, hers were the first tears I saw shed for Beau Rendell. I suspected she cried at funerals as a matter of course.
Bennato’s speech covered the distance between barroom reminiscence and locker room oratory. He told of miraculous victories and bitter defeats, of snowstorms and blown plays, of broken limbs and shattered dreams. He spoke without irony of Beau’s faith in his players, his love for the game, and his devotion to his community. His words were met with silence save for the scratching of the pencils of the reporters at the back of the church, scribbling it all for the afternoon editions.
At the conclusion of the service we made our way out of the church between police lines three men deep. Chrissy said it made her feel like the wife of an about-to-be-deposed Latin American dictator. Jeff just huddled in his coat, looking shell-shocked and oblivious. Four days earlier he thought he’d reached the end of his rope when he told his father that he was leaving the Monarchs. Now his father was dead, he owned the team, and he was so vilified by the fans that they were pelting him with garbage. If he were a prisoner, I would have had him placed on suicide watch. I made a mental note to speak to Jack about keeping an eye on him when they were in L.A.
At the cemetery it felt like February. Darkness clung stubbornly to the edges of the day while the clouds let loose a steady stream of freezing drizzle. Most of the mourners had not made the trip to River Hills for the burial. A few friends clustered beneath dripping umbrellas. The entire Monarchs team was there, no doubt Bennato’s doing. They stood together, silent and gigantic, like a stand of rain-washed sequoias.
Whatever meager semblance of restraint the press had managed at the cathedral was immediately abandoned in the open air of the cemetery. The clicking of camera shutters punctuated the archbishop’s final benediction, and at least one cameraman found a perch on an adjacent headstone in order to capture the most affecting shot of Beau Rendell’s casket being lowered into the earth. I don’t care what the ACLU lawyers say; the framers of the Constitution, when they contemplated freedom of the press, could not have possibly imagined such gall or such intrusion.
When it was done, we went back to Beau’s house and braced ourselves for the onslaught of mourners. Instead, we found ourselves barricaded in Beau’s house, under siege by the press, and abandoned by most of the people that Chrissy and Jeff had once
counted as friends. Under other circumstances it might have been funny. What if you threw a wake and nobody came? But it was all too clear that the news that Jeff might move the team had set into motion the complex phenomenon of shunning.
It was interesting to see who did show up. The Bennatos came, either out of a sense of loyalty to Beau or because the coach knew full well that the Monarchs were the only team in the NFL that would have him. The others who came were largely out-of-towners, league officials, sports luminaries, and broadcast executives who’d made the trip from places like New York and Los Angeles and were for the most part oblivious to the exigencies of what was going on in a place like Milwaukee.
Of course, the other owners came, not just to pay their respects, but to welcome the newest member to their select fraternity. Taken together they were a strangely geriatric group sporting, in several notable cases, surprisingly bad toupees. There was no question they were men for whom dollars now made do for testosterone, a fact that their female companions seemed to bear out. I thought of the owners’ meetings that were held several times a year and felt a sudden pang of sympathy for Chrissy.
As at the cemetery, the team was there to the man, whether out of loyalty to the franchise, the coach, or merely to do what they could to protect their highly paid jobs was hard to say. Seeing them in Beau’s living room made me realize that television does not do justice to football players. To really appreciate what sets them apart you need to stand next to them. Even after years with Stephen Azorini, who was six foot five, I found some of the players, especially the offensive linemen, nothing short of astonishing. Standing together near the bar, they seemed almost like a portrait of hugeness in repose—meaty arms that hung from their impossibly broad shoulders like thick-jointed clubs, hands that looked like they could crush coconuts as easily as peanut shells, necks like tree stumps. Collectively they seemed to evoke as many thoughts about the evolution of the species as they did about the evolution of football.
Suddenly the group shifted and Jake Palmer caught my eye. He was dressed in what looked like a Brooks Brothers suit on steroids, and he had a pair of delicate wire-rimmed glasses on his nose that lent him the air of the world’s largest poet. At the sight of me his face broke into a broad, gap-toothed grin and he excused himself from his teammates to come over and talk to me. He shook my hand, and for an instant it seemed to disappear up to the elbow. I was relieved to discover that today he smelled of aftershave, not whiskey, but I was astonished to find that if anything he seemed even bigger sober than he had drunk.
“I just wanted to say thank you for the other night,” he said. “You have to tell me what I can do to pay you back for your hospitality and all—you know, tickets, autographs, anything. You just name it.”
“How about you just promise to stay out of The Baton for a while,” I suggested.
“Are you kidding?” he demanded with a chuckle that seemed to originate deep within his three-hundred-pound frame and slowly rumble to the surface. “There’s no way I’m ever going back to that nasty-assed place again!”
“Good. Then you’ve learned your lesson.”
“I don’t know about that, but you had better believe that those special-team assholes that brought me there have learned a lesson or two, too,” he declared ominously. “But, hey, while we’re talking, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Jeff Rendell said that you’re some kind of big hotshot lawyer.”
“Something like that.”
“So then what I want to know is what the hell are you doin’ living in a place like the one I woke up at?”
“What? You don’t like my apartment?” I asked, in mock offense.
“I didn’t say that,” he replied quickly. “It’s just not the kind of crib I’d expect for some high-priced legal talent.”
“The apartment belongs to my roommate, who’s doing a surgical residency. It’s cheap and it’s convenient to the hospital.”
“So, you’re dating a doctor, huh?” He grinned approvingly.
“No.” I laughed. “You met my roommate the other night.”
“What? You mean that little girl with the smelling
salts?”
“You better hope that if they ever pull you out of a car wreck in pieces that ‘little girl’ is the one they get to put you back together. She’s one of the best young trauma surgeons in the country.”
“I may not remember that night that well, but I do know one thing, I still owe you big time.”
“Please, don’t mention it.”
“You don’t get it,” he replied earnestly. “When I was growing up in Alabama, we lived in a one-room house with outdoor plumbing, all seven of us. There’s not one single thing I’ve got in my life that I didn’t earn myself. When I make a mistake, I take my lumps, just like when I’m on the field. When somebody does me a good turn, I pay them back.”
I thought of what I had been born into, the doors that open at the mere mention of my name, and looked up at the big man before me with a new sense of admiration. “I understand,” I said.
“Then don’t forget that I owe you one. Jake the Giant always pays up. Just ask those special-team assholes,” he added with a chuckle. “In the meantime, you remember, anything you need, anything at all, you just come to me.”
I must confess I found his offer touching—especially coming as it did from a man whose thighs were roughly the same diameter as beer kegs.
* * *
The police came calling as soon as the last of the mourners had left. Of course, I knew that they’d been watching the house. I just hadn’t realized what they’d been waiting for. Jeff was in his father’s study, gathering up some papers, so I went with Chrissy to the door. When the two detectives handed Chrissy the warrant, she passed it to me quickly, as if it had burned her hand.
I read quickly, relief flooding through me. “It’s a warrant to search this house,” I told her, trying to keep my voice neutral. I didn’t want to give Eiben and Zellmer the satisfaction of knowing that I’d expected them to come for Jeff. “They also have one for your house.” I turned to the two detectives. “Do these have to be carried out right now?” I asked. “The Rendells are exhausted from the funeral.”
“They’re not going to have to do any heavy lifting,” replied Eiben without any trace of humor. “They don’t even have to be present if they choose not to. But we aren’t leaving without executing both warrants.”
“Could you do them simultaneously?” I asked. “I could stay out here, and Chrissy and Jeff could go back to their house. That way, at least, it won’t take all night.”
“Suit yourself,” replied the detective, taking a toothpick from his pocket, examining it critically, and inserting it in the corner of his mouth as I stepped aside to let him pass.
It was a hideous ending to an unspeakable day. It was also a message from the Milwaukee Police Department, one that said, loud and clear, that the gloves were now off. I whispered what few words of encouragement I could to Jeff before he and Chrissy got into the car and headed, leading a line of squad cars, back to their house to watch while men in uniform rifled through their personal possessions.
As soon as they were gone, I slipped back into the house and checked my address book to make sure that I still had my list of Milwaukee criminal attorneys with me. I’d started keeping one after I’d gotten my first late night call from Jeff about a player who’d gotten himself into trouble. I’d never once imagined that I’d have occasion to consult it on behalf of Jeff himself.
I went back into the house to observe the cops as they executed their warrant. Perhaps naively, I was less concerned with the possibility of planted evidence than I was about the cops lifting pieces of Beau’s sports memorabilia. I needn’t have been concerned. As I watched the cops turning the house inside out, it was obvious that the object of their search was something small and very specific. It was nearly midnight when they finally finished removing and bagging as evidence every single
key they could find.
CHAPTER 15
The next morning the mayor launched a public relations jihad against Jeff Rendell and the Milwaukee Monarchs organization. When I came downstairs, all three networks had preempted their regular broadcasts to carry his press conference (which had no doubt been timed for a live national feed and to be picked up by CNN). Mayor Robert V. Deutsch was nobody’s fool. A career politician with a reputation for fiery oratory and an unapologetically confrontational style, he was also a man with a grudge.
Beau Rendell had come out and campaigned actively for his opponent in the last election, one that Deutsch had won by the thinnest of margins. If his press conference was any indication, it appeared that this time around Deutsch was determined to improve on that margin of victory at any cost. I had wondered why he’d been so quick to cancel our meeting, but I had been too preoccupied with the funeral to figure it out. Now I knew. Whoever leaked the news of a possible Monarchs move had handed the mayor of Milwaukee an issue he could ride to victory in the next election.
And ride it he did. Clutching the top of the podium, which was jammed with microphones, he vilified Jeffrey Rendell like a revival tent minister bearing witness against the devil. Alleging that the city had been negotiating in good faith with Beau Rendell “right up to the morning of his death,” the mayor railed against Jeff’s greed and shocking lack of loyalty to the city of his birth. Somehow he neglected to mention the fact that we’d contacted him immediately after Beau’s death and the fact that he’d canceled our meeting. Maybe with so much political hay to make, it just slipped his mind.
Rough Trade Page 14