Three Strikes You're Dead

Chapter 12

On the first Saturday of May, just as I was leaving the apartment to pick up Peter for a trip to the Riverview amusement park, the phone rang.

“Snap, ol’ pal, how’s everything goin’?” Leo Cahill bubbled. Whenever Leo calls me “ol’ pal,” I want to check my pocket for my billfold.

“I’m just fine, Leo. Or at least I was until you called. To what do I owe the supposed pleasure?”

“Hey, what kind of attitude is that?” he said, voice still sounding jovial. “I just wondered if you’d heard the latest about Dizzy Dean?”

“I do read those sports pages of yours occasionally, you know.”

“Then you must know that good ol’ Diz is on the shelf — for at least a month, so they say — with that torn muscle in his pitching wing. A damn shame.”

“Yeah, I can tell that you’re all broken up about it.”

“Well, Snap, after all, I did warn you that the old buzzard wouldn’t win five games this year, remember?”

“How could I forget — you bring it up enough. But he’s already won three and we’re not even a month into the season,” I growled. “And he hasn’t lost any. Seems to me that’s hard to improve on.”

Leo chuckled. “Always an optimist, aren’t ’cha? Shoot, I guess a Cub fan has to be, though. But you know as well as I do that Diz is through, finished, done. He’ll never pitch another game, so I hear from my sources. And Snap, I’ve got good sources, damn good sources. I just figured that I’d be a good guy and let you off the hook on the little wager of ours.”

“Getting cold feet, are you, Leo?”

“Hey, not me. I...”

“I figured you’d eventually want to back out, not that I blame you. I just didn’t think it would be this soon.”

“Listen, Snap, here I’m tryin’ to do you a good turn, and this is the kind of thanks I get.”

“Leo, let me spell it out for you: I’m real happy with the bet, exactly as it stands. And as I recall, the whole thing was your idea. But if you want to call it off, I can understand why. You figured that the Cubs weren’t going to be so hot, and so far they — and Dean — have fooled you. As an old friend, I’m prepared to do you a good turn, but with this condition: I’ll let you out of the bet, but you’ll have to write me a note that says it’s you, not me, who wants out. And be sure to sign it. And date it.”

“Dammit, Snap, you’re throwing good money away,” he spat angrily.

“Well, if you feel that’s what I’m doing, be ready to catch it,” I told him. I started to say something else, but the line went dead.

I climbed the front steps of the two-flat in Logan Square a little past nine, and when I got buzzed in, I discovered that Peter was home alone.

“Your Mama’s not here?” I asked, surprised.

“No, gone to work.” He grinned, slipping on his jacket. “Hey, Dad, she lets me stay alone now, since you talked to her about it. Thanks.”

“Aha! No more Mrs. ‘What’s-Her-Name’ with the body odor, eh?”

“Mrs. McAfee. Nope. No sitter anymore.”

“Glad to hear it. Let’s get out of here and celebrate your new freedom.”

Two streetcar rides later, we were at the elaborate arched wooden entrance to Riverview Park, at Western and Belmont on the Northwest side, which had just opened for the season. It billed itself as the world’s largest amusement park, and for all I know, it might have been. I’d been going there myself since the ninth grade, when my father deemed that I was old enough to ride the streetcars with just my friends, no adults. Last summer, I introduced Peter to the place briefly — we only had time for two or three rides — and ever since the weather started warming up this spring, he’d been asking when he could go back.

“I want to ride all the roller coasters this year, Dad,” he announced after we were inside. “There’s six of ’em, aren’t there?”

“That sounds about right. You even want to go on the Bobs?” I asked, referring to the fastest, scariest, most famous of them all.

“Sure, even the Bobs.”

“Well, you’re going to have to do that one by yourself,” I told him. “My stomach isn’t what it used to be. What about the Parachute Jump?” I pointed to the twenty-story girdered tower that loomed over the park like a gaunt, skeletal dinosaur rearing up on its hind legs. Riders got strapped onto open, backless seats and were hoisted slowly to the top, then they plummeted earthward on cables in a free fall until their parachutes opened, about halfway down.

“Uh, maybe not that,” he said, eyeing the tower with respect. “Did you ever go on it?”

“It’s only been open since last year. And for me, it’s in the same category as the Bobs; watching it is excitement enough. It really does look a lot like that tower you built at home with the Erector set, doesn’t it?”

Peter agreed, but he clearly had no interest in riding the thing; his heart belonged to the roller coasters. And I did manage to survive three of them with him, along with the Chutes, a relatively tame water slide. As we walked under newly leafed trees on the park grounds with frankfurters and Cokes, we passed a row of metal cages called the “African Dip,” where Negroes were perched precariously on boards above tanks of water. For a nickel, or maybe a dime, you got to throw three baseballs at a target, and if you hit it, the board would drop, dunking its occupant into the water tank.

“Want to try?” I asked Peter, gesturing toward the cages, where the colored men good-naturedly and loudly heckled potential pitchers.

He wrinkled his nose and shook his head vigorously. “That’s really dumb. Why would they want to do that?”

“They get paid,” I said. “And jobs are hard to come by these days, especially if you’re a Negro.”

“Really dumb,” he repeated, looking over his shoulder at them as we headed off in the direction of the fabled Bobs.

Before work on Monday, I stopped in at Tribune Tower and paid a visit to the morgue — or reference room, as some of its staff insist on referring to it.

“Well, by God, if it isn’t old Snap. What brings you inside the holiest of the holies? Haven’t seen you around here for a couple of years. Been called on the carpet for insubordination?”

It was “Popeye” Petrucci, so named because he sported a black patch over his left eye. Stories varied as to its origin — among them that he was beaned in a minor-league baseball game in Louisiana about 1905, partially blinding him; that he lost his eye in a barroom brawl on the Marseilles waterfront just after the Armistice; or that he was stabbed in the face by a holdup man while guarding a shipment of gold on a train going through the Canadian Rockies, date unknown. Popeye wouldn’t confirm any of the versions, although I always suspected he generated all of them himself.

“Believe it or not, I’m here in search of information, although given the quality of this so-called archive, that may be a fool’s errand.”

“Them thar’s real fightin’ words, padnuh,” Popeye cracked, doing a middling Walter Brennan imitation. “This here dollar says that we got what you’re looking for. Even money.”

“Put your cash away, you old fraud of a trail hand. Actually, my request is simplicity itself; I’m after a Chicago phone directory, circa 1910.”

“Duck soup! Goddamit, Snap, I thought you was really gonna give me a challenge. I could use a real challenge.” Popeye limped back into the rows of shoulder-high filing cabinets and returned two minutes later with a mildewed, dog-eared directory. “You ask for 1910, you get 1910,” he proclaimed as he slapped the big book down on the table, raising so much dust we both coughed.

Normally, the overly nosy Popeye would have asked why I wanted something as abstruse as a twenty-eight-year-old Chicago directory, but today I was spared an inquisition. The phone jangled at that moment, and he was the only one on duty in the morgue.

As he shuffled off to answer the rings, I flipped the directory open, gently turning its brittle pages to the Mrs. Edgar Martindale was listed on Longwood Drive, all right, which I vaguely knew to be in the expensive Beverly Hills district on the Far South Side of the city.

Next, I went to the reference shelf and pulled down the current city directory, or “criss-cross,” as reporters refer to it. As thick as the phone directory, this volume lists residences and businesses by street address, rather than alphabetically by name. I paged to Longwood Drive and found a listing for “Mrs. E. Martindale” at the same address as the one in the 1910 directory. I recalled that in Lloyd Martindale’s obituary, his mother was mentioned as one of the survivors, and she had been described as something like “long active in both social and charitable circles.”

I wrote down the addresses of a half-dozen names on the Martindale block of Longwood and returned to the ancient phone directory to see how many had lived in the neighborhood almost three decades earlier. The answer was two, surnamed Warburton and Cook, both on the opposite side of the street from the Martindale address. The Warburton name in the earlier book was Harold, with the current listing being Mrs. Harold, presumably his widow. The Cook entry had remained unchanged: Lewis J.

Popeye was off the phone. “Find what you want, Snap?”

“Pretty much. Thanks.”

“Don’t get a lot of requests for old directories,” he observed pointedly, eyebrow raised in anticipation of an explanation.

“I’m sure that’s true, Popeye. Good to see you again; sorry, I’ve got to run or I’ll be late getting down to 11th and State.”

The next weekend, Peter was staying overnight with a friend from school, and although I enjoyed and valued my time with him, I was glad for the freedom and I planned to make effective use of it. On Saturday morning, I climbed onto a sooty Rock Island Line commuter local at the LaSalle Street Station and rode south to Beverly Hills, a trip of a half-hour. It was hard to conceive that I was still well inside Chicago’s city limits as I stepped off the train at 103rd Street. The cozy little business district that clustered around the depot had the feel of a small village or a distant suburb with its block of groceries, meat markets, barber shop, and the like, and at the far end, a church spire poking above the trees.

Once again referring to my ratty pocket map, I walked west one block to Longwood Drive, which parallels the railroad tracks, and here I got another surprise: hills! I haven’t traveled extensively, but from what I’ve seen of other places across the U.S., Chicago is about the flattest city around. Yet here, only a dozen miles or so south of the Loop, the streets actually climbed uphill west from Longwood. Okay, I grant that these slopes would not be impressive to somebody from San Francisco, but for me, at least, they were a local novelty.

I guessed it was the Martindale house even before I got close enough to read the address. Stone-and-brick Victorian, it was three stories and had even higher round turrets topped by dunce-cap roofs on two of the corners. I counted six brick chimneys, although there could have been even more on the back side, hidden by the steep slate roof. With its front entrance framed by a bulky stone archway, the house loomed on a grassy, elm-shaded hill well above the street. A flight of brick steps that rose from the sidewalk had been cut into the embankment. At the top of the rise, the steps leveled off to a brick walk leading to the front door. A brick driveway also scaled the grade and curved around behind the big house, presumably to the garage or coach house.

But the Martindale manse was not my destination, not now, anyway. On the opposite side of Longwood, the east side, the homes were at street level, which despite their sizes and elegant styles made them seem less impressive than the higher-altitude neighbors that looked down on them. I passed in front of a two-story graystone house with a flat roof and a porte-cochere on the right side and checked its address against my notebook.

This was the residence of Edna Warburton, with whom I had an appointment. To back up a bit: Of the two long-time dwellers on the block other than the Martindales themselves, I had decided to try Mrs. Warburton on the theory that elderly women (I assumed her to be elderly), particularly widows, tend to be garrulous and to enjoy talking about their neighborhoods and the people in them. I telephoned her, identifying myself as a Tribune writer (I didn’t specify what kind of writer) and saying that I was thinking of doing a story on Beverly Hills and its history. I also told her that I heard, I couldn’t remember from whom, that she was a long-time resident of the area.

“Well, Mr. ... Malek, is it? I don’t know that I qualify as any sort of expert on the history of our fine little community,” she had responded in a quavering though friendly voice. “But I would be happy to talk to you, and perhaps direct you to some other folks who might be more helpful than I.” I told her that I was perfectly happy to take my chances on her as a source, at least for starters, and we made the date.

A Negro maid in a starched white uniform answered my ring of the Warburton chimes. I took off my hat and introduced myself.

“Oh, yes, Miz Warburton’s expecting you,” she said in a cultured tone when I gave her my name. “Please come in, sir.”

The oval-shaped foyer was twice the size of my bedroom, with a vaulted, coffered ceiling and a chandelier that would have held its own in the grand ballroom of the Drake Hotel. A staircase with an elaborate white balustrade swept gracefully upward, hugging the contour of the foyer’s back wall. Looking down on the flight of white-carpeted steps was an oil painting of a standing woman in a long, lavender gown, her delicate face framed by russet hair and dominated by intense blue eyes.

I followed the maid through a parlor that looked like a set piece from an English drawing-room comedy and then along an unlit, wood-paneled corridor. Just as my eyes were adapting to the dark, we burst into the startling brilliance of a solarium. A forest of ferns and leafy plants, some of them taller than me, fought a losing battle for attention with splashes of red, yellow, and purple flowers that were highlighted by the rays of the morning sun pouring through the glass walls and roof.

“It’s quite a sight, isn’t it? I do so enjoy receiving people in here.” The voice came from the far corner, giving me a start. All but enveloped by the greenery and flowers, she sat in a white wicker chair with a wool blanket covering her lap, despite the room’s warmth. Her face, now framed by well-coiffed white hair, was still dominated by the intense blue eyes of the foyer portrait.

“I’m Edna Warburton. Please sit down, Mr. Malek,” she said in a voice that showed no hint of the quaver I had heard when we spoke on the phone. She gestured me to a twin wicker chair separated from her own by a small table, also wicker. “Armantha has gone to get coffee. Or would you prefer tea? That’s what I’m having.”

Only then did I realize that the maid was no longer in the room. “Coffee is fine,” I answered, ducking under a branch and easing into the chair, which proved to be more comfortable than it looked.

She nodded. “Every man I have ever known — every American man that is — has preferred coffee over tea.” As she adjusted her blanket, I studied Edna Warburton. She was about seventy-five, I guessed, although her skin was remarkably smooth, and even her small and well-tended hands were wrinkle-free. Maybe that had something to do with the climate in this room.

“Well, what can I tell you about Beverly Hills?” she asked. “As I said when you called, there are others who know far more than I about the community, although I have been here a long time, over forty years now.”

I looked duly impressed. “This is a beautiful neighborhood,” I said, pulling a notebook from my pocket because I would be expected to write things down.

“Prettiest section of Chicago,” she stated as if daring contradiction. “And, I might add, more civilized and genteel than that other Beverly Hills.” She made a vague gesture toward the west with a delicate hand and sniffed disparagingly. “Warburton and I traveled to California by Pullman back in the ’20s to visit friends in Los Angeles, and they drove us through their Beverly Hills. Ostentatious, that’s what it was, Mr. Malek. Motion picture stars with no taste living in garish houses that only proved that they had no taste.”

It was time to redirect the conversation. “So, you’ve been here for forty years, four decades; you’ve probably seen a lot of changes.”

“And not all for the good. Your surname sounds very European. Are you a Catholic, Mr. Malek?” Her tone made it clear that she was not.

“Lapsed,” I said with what I hoped she would interpret as a self-deprecating shrug.

Her nod seemed to signal approval of my religious status. “Well, I have nothing against their church — live and let live, I always say. But when a few move into a neighborhood, all of a sudden it seems like they bring others, and pretty soon that’s all you have. And that is just what’s happened here, Mr. Malek.” She paused for breath as Armantha entered carrying a silver tray with matching coffee and teapots and china cups. The maid poured for both of us and slipped out noiselessly.

“So this area is heavily Catholic now?”

“More so every day,” she conceded, shaking her head. “When Warburton and I built this house a few years after the fair — the ’93 fair, that is — our neighbors were mostly Episcopalians and Methodists and a few Presbyterians. We were among our own, you might say. We’re Episcopal. But the Catholics bought land and planned to build a church — right here on Longwood, would you believe! Well, that didn’t work, because a group in the neighborhood got that piece of land condemned for a park. But eventually, they built a church in the neighborhood anyway, and now they’ve built a second one here, up at 93rd and Hamilton.”

I scribbled some notes on my pad, feeling only marginally deceitful. “Has all this caused neighborhood problems or tensions?”

She sipped tea and set her cup in its saucer gingerly. “I’ll just say that most of these newcomers are Irish, that should answer your question. Now, more than ever, it’s a good thing we don’t allow saloons around here, by law.”

I nodded, thinking of Kilkenny’s description of growing up Irish in another South Side neighborhood almost two generations ago. Possibly, attitudes had not changed as much as I thought.

“And of course they’re all Democrats, every last one of them,” Edna Warburton went on with feeling. “It seems like the whole country is Democratic now, what with that man in the White House and all of his socialist scheming. Every day I thank the Lord for your Tribune and your fine Colonel McCormick,” she said, reaching across the table and patting my arm. “A voice of sanity and reason crying out in the wilderness. We’ve always gotten the Tribune — Warburton wouldn’t have any other paper in the house.” She apparently never used her husband’s first name.

“Mr. Warburton, is he...?” I let my question trail off.

“Oh, I guess I didn’t tell you, did I? He died a little over five years ago; heart attack, the doctor said. But I can tell you what really finished him; it was that man getting elected.”

“Roosevelt?”

“That turncoat Episcopal! I never saw Warburton so angry as he was right after the election. And he died six weeks later. Six weeks, mind you. Heart attack — hah! He was killed by Franklin Damn Roosevelt.” Her hand trembled slightly as she picked up her cup.

I waited the requisite moment and then plunged back in. “That’s an impressive house across the street from you.”

She nodded absently. “Mmm. The Martindale place.”

“Oh! Would that be the Martindales?”

“It would,” she said somberly. “Of course Lloyd hadn’t lived there for years. He and his wife — she’s a Catholic — lived up on Lake Shore Drive in one of those big apartment buildings along the Gold Coast. What a tragedy. He would have made a fine mayor, unlike that Irish hooligan we have now. From what I read in your newspaper, they say that the crime syndicate had Lloyd murdered. But do you know what I think?” She fastened her blue eyes on me, waiting for a prompting.

“What?”

“I think it was those Democrats who murdered Lloyd, that vile Kelly-Nash crowd. What do you think, Mr. Malek?”

“You might very well be right,” I responded, eager to keep steering the conversation. “Have the Martindales lived here a long time?”

“Oh my, yes. Longer even than we have.”

“Do you ever see Mrs. Martindale?”

She straightened up and folded her hands primly in her lap. “Years ago, when her Edgar and Warburton were both alive, we used to get together to play bridge once in awhile, or cocktails. In fact, back then there was a lot of socializing all along this block of Longwood, parties and dinners and such, wonderful festive parties. Anyway, as time has passed, Beatrice — that’s Mrs. Martindale — has become more and more, well, reclusive is the word, yes. Doesn’t leave the house often, doesn’t have visitors. Just lately I did see her, of course, at Lloyd’s funeral, and said my regrets. And although I have talked to her on the telephone very occasionally, that was the first time I’d laid eyes on her or spoken to her face-to-face since my own Warburton’s funeral five years ago. And my, how she had aged, although I grant you that a tragedy can do that to you. Beatrice must be, oh, probably close to eighty by now. But it was more than just being older; she seemed... harder somehow, as if she had frozen people out. She barely acknowledged me — and the same was true regarding others in the neighborhood that she has known for years and years. Some of them remarked on it to me.”

“Maybe it really is her age,” I ventured.

Edna Warburton looked doubtful. “She didn’t show any particular signs of senility, and she certainly wasn’t doddering, no cane or anything like that to support her. No sir, I think her personality has changed. Now I realize that I only saw her for a few minutes, and I only talked to her for one or two, but she’s changed, yes she has. I saw her long enough to be sure of that much.”

“Hmm. I’m sorry to hear that she doesn’t see people. I thought I might call on her sometime and ask her about her own recollections of this neighborhood. What do you think?”

“Well... she certainly should have many recollections, I’ll grant you that. I would be glad to telephone her by way of introducing you, but I can’t promise that she would be receptive.”

“Thank you. I might ask you to do that. I noticed walking here from the station that there were some other big houses on either side of the Martindales’. Are they long-time residents as well?”

She shook her head emphatically. “The one on the left is an Irish family, I forget the name. Reilly, or some such,” she said dismissively. “And the house on the right is for sale. It used to be the Peabodys’, but they’ve been gone for years now, and there have been two or three owners since they moved to Florida for Arthur Peabody’s health. I haven’t known any of those people.”

I began to zero in. “Over the years, were there ever a lot of children on this block?”

“Well, yes, quite a few. Warburton and I never had any ourselves, so we really did not become involved in activities regarding children, such as the schools and such. But let’s see, there was Lloyd, of course, he was a toddler when we moved in, and his sister was maybe five. Next door to us to the south, the MacGregors, rest their souls, had two boys, fine boys, Duncan and Malcolm. They’re both lawyers on LaSalle Street now in their father’s old firm and live somewhere out in the suburbs. And for all I know, they may be grandparents — they’d be old enough. Back across the street, next door to the Martindales, the Stovers had two children, a boy and a girl.”

“You’ve got a wonderful memory, Mrs. Warburton. I’m impressed. Do you remember the names of the Stover kids?” I asked in a casual tone.

“The boy was Chester, I believe, and the girl was Nicolette.” She looked thoughtful. “My, but that was a long time ago, because the Stovers have been gone for... well, since 1912.”

I took note that these must be the children Steel Trap had talked about, then grinned at her and shook my head in wonderment. “Just out of curiosity, how do you happen to know the exact year?”

“With good reason!” she replied. “That was the year of the Titanic, and some folks that lived down the block, the Fergusons, were supposed to be on that maiden trip it made from England to New York.”

“The trip it never completed.”

She nodded somberly. “Yes, when we heard that the ship had gone down, everyone on Longwood and the surrounding streets was despondent — the Fergusons were such fine, upstanding people. But then imagine our great joy when we learned they were not on board! They had had an automobile accident in Scotland — Mr. Ferguson, Howard, forgot to drive on the left-hand side of the road and was in a collision. Fortunately, they were not badly hurt, only scratches, but they couldn’t make their way down to the port, Southampton, I think it was, in time for the sailing. Well sir, we threw a big party for them when they finally did arrive home; we had it right here in this very house. We invited people from blocks around. I think it may have been the biggest party we ever had. It was a joyous celebration.”

“And the Stovers?”

“Oh, yes. That was the strange thing. We tried to invite them, too, of course, but they were gone.”

“Gone?”

“Moved out, practically overnight. Nobody seemed to know why, and they never said good-bye to anyone so far as I know. The house didn’t even go on the market until after they’d gone, it all happened so quickly. And they had always seemed like such a friendly couple, too.”

“Interesting. Ever learn where they went?”

“Yes. Sometime later we heard, I forget from whom now, that they were living down in Flossmoor, supposedly in a much bigger house than they had here, although their house across the way, as you can see yourself, is very nice. As to why they moved so quickly, no one ever knew. We sent them Christmas cards for a few years, but never received one, so we finally stopped.”

“That’s quite a story,” I remarked. “Was Lloyd Martindale still living in his parents’ house at the time the Stovers left?”

“Oh, my, Mr. Malek, you are putting my memory to some tests now, aren’t you? Well, let’s see... yes, I think Lloyd probably was in college then — it was Harvard, you know — but he was of course home summers and holidays.”

“And another question, just to test you. How old were the Stover children when the family moved?”

She looked at me and moved her head slowly from side to side in puzzlement. “I don’t know what all this has to do with our neighborhood history, but I realize that you newspaper people have your methods. Oh, I suppose that the boy, Chester, was about twelve or so, and the girl was probably a few years younger — maybe eight or nine.”

“What did Mr. Stover do for a living?”

“He was an accountant of some sort up in the Loop, probably a CPA.”

“Wealthy?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Not at all. I always suspected they were mortgaged to the hilt, and so did Warburton. A nice couple, I’ll grant, but if you ask me, I think they were living beyond their means. Which made it even more surprising to us that they moved to a larger house in a wealthy suburb. It has always been puzzling to me how they could have afforded it.”

“Uh-huh. That does sound quite puzzling. You said their daughter was named Nicolette — I had a girl friend by that name once,” I improvised. “People used to call her Nikki.”

“Well, I believe that’s what Tom and Wilma — those were the Stovers — called their girl, too. Cute little blonde she was, head full of curls. Or... no, I think perhaps they called her Kiki,” she said, rubbing her cheek with her hand. “Oh, well, what does it matter? That was a long time ago.”

“Yes it was,” I agreed, making sure to dodge the branch as I rose. “And I’ve been here for a long time, too. I really must be leaving. Thank you so much for your hospitality; you’ve been very helpful.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry that you have to leave,” she said, tilting her head to one side in a gesture that probably set male hearts aflutter in the Chicago society of a half-century earlier. “But I’m afraid I really haven’t been all that much help. We hardly got into the history of Beverly Hills at all.”

“Oh, but I feel it was a very good start, and I may stop back and see you again, with your permission, of course.” She told me to come back any time, and when I leaned down and took her hand in parting, Armantha magically materialized to show me out. As I left the solarium, I turned back and smiled. Edna Warburton waved vaguely and returned the smile, nestled among her flowers and foliage and memories.