19.

“You are not here to take his side,” Mr. Rickey said. “If someone throws a rotten egg at him you let it go. If someone calls him a vile jigaboo you pay no attention. If Robinson comes into the stands after the miscreant who threw the egg, you stop him. If someone tries to shoot Robinson, you stop him. Do you understand?”

“I do.”

Burke was behind the visitors’ dugout at Wrigley Field, looking around the stands. The game was peripheral, but he knew that Robinson was two for two off a struggling Claude Passeau, and the Dodgers had a six-run lead in the fifth inning. Most of the cheap seats were filled with black faces. The box seats, where Burke was, were half empty. A tall thin guy with high shoulders sat down in the seat beside Burke.

“How ya doing,” he said.

He had a bag of peanuts.

“Fine,” Burke said.

“Remember me,” he said. “The shine joint up on Lenox Ave.”

“I do,” Burke said.

“I got a message,” he said.

Burke didn’t say anything. The thin high-shouldered man took a peanut from his bag, and shelled it. Both men were staring at the field. But Burke’s full concentration was on the thin man.

There was movement on the field. Somebody had hit the ball. Somebody had caught it.

“For me,” Burke said.

“For you and young Rastus.” The thin guy nodded toward the field.

Burke didn’t say anything. The inning must have ended. Teams were coming in and going out. The thin man ate another peanut.

“Mr. Paglia says that you and the nigger going to die this season.”

“Why tell me about it,” Burke said. “I’ll know when it happens.”

The thin guy grinned.

“Don’t rattle too easy, do you.”

“I don’t,” Burke said.

“Me either. Mr. Paglia’s insulted. So he wants you to know ahead of time. He wants you to know it was him when it happens. He wants you to sweat about it for a while.”

“Who’s going to do the shooting?”

“Probably be me,” the thin guy said.

Burke nodded. Beer was being passed. Peanuts were tossed. The base paths were reddish. The grass was bright green. Behind the left field fence, across the street, people were watching the game from the roof of a building.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Burke said.

The thin man ate his peanuts. He was careful about it. Open the shell, take out the nuts inside, throw away the shells, pop the nuts into his mouth, chew slowly, his eyes on the field.

“Still got that big forty-five?” he said after a while.

“Yep.”

He ate three more peanuts. They smelled good.

“Kind of clumsy to pull,” he said.

“Knock you on your ass, though.”

“True.”

He offered his bag of peanuts. Burke took a couple. The game on the field seemed silent and remote.

“Lemme ask you something,” the thin guy said.

Burke didn’t say anything.

“I seen you,” he said. “Up in Harlem. You can handle yourself. Fists. Gun. You know what you’re doing.”

Burke ate his peanuts.

“So how come,” the thin guy said, “you’re hanging around with this buck nigger like he was your cousin?”

“Can’t sing or dance,” Burke said.

“It’s work,” the thin man said.

Burke nodded.

“There’s a lot of work,” the thin man said.

“Like walking behind a fat thug who can’t do his own shooting?”

“He don’t have to no more,” the thin man said.

“You do it.”

The thin man grinned.

“Can’t sing or dance,” he said.

The ex cathedra voice of the PA announcer said that Stan Hack was batting for Claude Passeau. Hack.

“So how come?” the thin man said.

“It’s a good payday,” Burke said.

“You a nigger lover?”

“I don’t love much of anything,” Burke said.

The thin man nodded as if he knew about that.

“You willing to die for this coon?” he said.

“Been willing to die for a lot less,” Burke said.

The thin guy was quiet for a while. Then he shrugged.

“Well,” he said. “You signed on for it.”

Hack popped the ball high and foul to the left side. They watched Spider Jorgenson catch it in the third-base coaches’ box and the inning was over. When Burke looked back, the thin man was gone.

Box Score 2
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