Double Play

22.

In Boston to play the Braves, Robinson was able to stay at the Hotel Kenmore with the rest of the team. Burke stayed with him. There was a night game Friday and when they got back to the hotel, someone had slipped a letter under the door addressed to Jackie Robinson. Robinson opened it and read it, holding the envelope in his left hand, and the letter in his right, his dark eyes moving without expression over the page. When he got through he read it again. After the second reading, he handed the letter to Burke. It was handwritten in lavender ink, in a carefully rounded Palmer method hand.

It was signed Millicent, and both i’s were dotted with a circle.

“Picture?” Burke said.

Robinson took a black-and-white snapshot out of the envelope and looked at it and handed it to Burke. It was a big-breasted blond woman in a one-piece bathing suit, standing on her toes at the beach, with her chin tilted up and both hands behind her head.

“White,” Burke said.

“Blond white,” Robinson said.

Burke put the picture down on the bureau and sat on one of the twin beds. Robinson stood at the window, looking out at the air shaft. Burke swung his feet up on the bed, propped the pillows a little and lay back with his hands folded on his chest.

“We got three possibilities here,” Burke said. “One, she’s a crazed fan and she wants your autograph. Two, she’s part of a setup to catch you in a compromising situation with a white woman. Three, she’s some kind of sex bomb with a thing for colored guys.”

“She ain’t just a crazed fan,” Robinson said.

“So we look at possibilities two and three,” Burke said.

“Three,” Robinson said.

“Because?” Burke said.

Robinson turned from the window and sat on the other twin bed across from Burke. He leaned forward with his forearms on his thighs and his hands clasped.

“There’s women like that,” Robinson said.

“The legend of the large black dick,” Burke said.

Robinson shrugged.

“That might be part of it,” Robinson said, “but it’s more than that. Women like that want you to be crude. They don’t want no high-toned college Negro. They want a savage.”

Burke thought about Lauren.

“Why?” he said.

“I look like Sigmund Freud to you?” Robinson said.

“Not without a beard,” Burke said. “The way some girls are crazy for horses? You know? Get to control a big powerful thing between their legs?”

“Don’t know about horses,” Robinson said. “But I know there’s a certain kind of white woman that wants to do it with a big crude nigger and have him swear and talk dirty and shove her down and tear off her clothes.”

“And if the big crude nigger is also the most famous nigger in America?” Burke said.

“So much the better,” Robinson said.

“It could still be a setup,” Burke said.

Robinson nodded.

“Either way,” Burke said. “I got to keep her away from you.”

“You’re no fun at all,” Robinson said.