Double Play

18.

It didn’t take Burke long to pick up the way it was going to be. Pee Wee Reese was supportive. Dixie Walker was not. Everyone else was on the spectrum somewhere between.

In St. Louis the base runner spiked Robinson at first base.

In Chicago he was tagged in the face sliding into second.

In Philly somebody tossed a black cat onto the field.

In Cincinnati he was knocked down three times in one at bat.

In every city he heard the word nigger out of the opposition’s dugout.

There was nothing Burke could do about it. He sat near the corner of the dugout and did nothing. His work was off the field.

There was hate mail. Death threats were forwarded to the police, but there were too many of them. All Robinson and Burke could do was be ready. After a doubleheader against the Giants, Burke drove Robinson uptown. A gray two-door Ford pulled up beside them at a stoplight and Burke stared at the driver. The light changed and the Ford pulled away.

“I’m starting to look at everybody as if they were dangerous,” Burke said.

Robinson glanced over and smiled. The smile said, Pal, you have no idea.

But all he said was, “Un huh.”

They stopped to eat at a restaurant on 125th Street. When Burke and Robinson entered, everyone stared. At first Burke thought it was Robinson. Then he realized that they were staring at him. He was the only white face in the room.

“Sit in the back,” Burke said to Robinson.

“Have to, with you along,” he said.

As they walked through, the diners recognized Robinson and somebody began to clap. Then everybody clapped. Then they stood and clapped and hooted and whistled.

“Probably wasn’t for me,” Burke said.

“Probably not.”

Robinson had a Coke.

“You ever drink booze?” Burke said.

“Not in public,” Robinson said.

“Good.”

Burke looked around. It surprised him that he was uncomfortable being in a room full of colored people. He would have been more uncomfortable without Robinson.

They ordered steak.

“No fried chicken?” Burke said.

“Not in public,” Robinson said.

The room grew suddenly quiet. The silence was so sharp that it made Burke hunch forward so he could reach the gun on his hip. Through the front door came six white men in suits and overcoats and felt hats. There was nothing uneasy about them as they came into the colored place. They swaggered. One of them swaggered like the boss, a little fat guy with his overcoat open over a dark suit. He had on a blue silk tie with a pink flamingo hand painted on it.

“Mr. Paglia,” Robinson said. “He owns the place.”

Without taking off their hats or overcoats, the six men sat at a large round table near the front.

“When Bumpy Johnson was around,” Burke said, “the Italians stayed downtown.”

“Good for colored people to own the businesses they run,” Robinson said.

A big man sitting next to Paglia stood and walked over to the table. He was big. Bigger than either Robinson or Burke. He was thick-bodied and tall, with very little neck and a lot of chin. His face was clean-shaved and had a moist glisten. His shirt was crisp white. His chesterfield overcoat hung open, and he reeked of strong cologne.

“Mr. Paglia wants to buy you a bottle of champagne,” he said to Robinson.

Robinson put a bite of steak in his mouth and chewed it carefully and swallowed and said, “Tell Mr. Paglia, no thank you.”

The big man stared at him for a moment.

“Most people don’t say no to Mr. Paglia, Rastus.”

Robinson said nothing, but his gaze on the big man was heavy.

“Maybe we can buy Mr. Paglia a bottle,” Burke said.

“Mr. Paglia don’t need nobody buying him a bottle.”

“Well, I guess it’s a draw,” Burke said. “Thanks for stopping by.”

The big guy looked at Burke for a long moment, then swaggered back to his boss. He leaned over and spoke to Paglia, his left hand resting on the back of Paglia’s chair. Then he nodded and turned and swaggered back.

“On your feet, boy,” he said to Robinson.

“I’m eating my dinner,” Robinson said.

The big man took hold of Robinson’s arm, and Robinson came out of the chair as if he’d been ejected and hit the big guy with a good right hand. Robinson was nearly two hundred pounds, in good condition, and he knew how to punch. It should have put the big man down. But it didn’t. He took a couple of backward steps and steadied himself and shook his head as if there were flies. At Paglia’s table everyone turned to look. The only sound in the room was the faint clatter of dishes from the kitchen. Burke stood.

“Not up here,” Robinson said. “I’ll take it downtown, but not up here.”

The big man had his head cleared. He looked at the table where Paglia sat.

“Go ahead, Allie,” Paglia said. “Show the nigger something.”

The big man lunged toward Robinson. Burke stepped between them. The big man would have run over him if Burke hadn’t hit him with a pair of brass knuckles. It stopped him but it didn’t put him down. To do that Burke had to get a knee into his groin and hit him again with the brass knuckles. The big man grunted and went down slowly, first to his knees, then slowly toppling face forward onto the floor.

There was no sound in the room. Even the kitchen noise had stopped. Burke could hear someone’s breath rasping in and out. He’d heard it before. It was his.

The four men at Paglia’s table were on their feet. All of them had guns. Paglia remained seated. He looked mildly amused.

“Don’t shoot them in here,” he said. “Take them out.”

Burke’s .45 was still on his hip. A thin tall man with high shoulders said, “Outside,” and gestured with the .38 belly gun he carried. He held the weapon like it was precious.

“No,” Robinson said.

“How about you, pal?” the gunman said to Burke.

Burke shook his head. The gunman looked at Paglia.

Paglia said, “Okay, shoot them here. Make sure the niggers clean up afterwards.”

The gunman smiled. Burke could see that he liked the work.

“Which one of you wants it first?” he said.

At the next table a small Negro with a thin mustache, wearing a cerulean blue suit, said, “No.”

The gunman glanced at him.

“You too, boy?” he said.

At the table on the other side of them a large woman in a too-tight yellow dress said, “No.” And stood up.

The gunman glanced at her. The small Negro with the mustache stood too. Then everyone at his table stood. The woman in the too-tight dress moved in front of Robinson and Burke. The people from her table joined her. The people from Mustache’s table joined them. Then everyone in the room was on their feet, making an implacable black wall between Robinson and the gunman. Burke took his gun out. Robinson stood motionless, balanced on the balls of his feet. From the bar along the far side of the room came the sound of someone working the action of a pump shotgun. It was a sound, Burke thought, like the sound of a tank, that didn’t sound like anything else. The round-faced bartender leaned his elbows on the bar aiming a shotgun with most of the stock cut off.

The gunman looked at Paglia again. They were an island of pallid faces in a sea of dark faces. Paglia got to his feet for the first time. His face was no longer amused. He looked at Burke through the crowd, and at Robinson, and seemed to study them for a moment.

“His name I know,” Paglia said, jerking his head toward Robinson. Then he stared hard at Burke as if committing him to memory. “What’s your name?”

“Burke.”

Paglia nodded thoughtfully. Looking at Burke through the crowd of black faces, his eyes seemed to refocus, as if recalling something.

“Burke,” he said.

The room was quiet.

“Burke.”

He nodded again and kept nodding. Then he jerked a thumb toward the big man, who had managed to sit up on the floor among the forest of Negro feet. Two of the other men with Paglia eased through the crowd and got the big man on his feet. They looked at Paglia. Paglia looked at Burke again, then turned without speaking and walked out. The gunman put his belly gun away, sadly, and turned and followed Paglia. The other men, two of them helping the big guy, went out after him.

The room remained still and motionless. Then Robinson said again, “Not up here,” and everyone in the room heard him and everyone in the room began to cheer.

“Lucky thing this is a baseball crowd,” Burke said to Robinson.

Robinson looked at Burke for a moment as if he were somewhere else. Then he seemed slowly to come back. He smiled.

“Yeah,” he said. “You scared?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Burke shrugged.

“No,” Robinson said. “I want to know. You could have run off. You didn’t. Aren’t you scared of getting killed?”

“Don’t much care,” Burke said.

“About dying?”

“About anything,” Burke said.