Three Strikes You're Dead

Chapter 16

From that day forward, I was on guard. Every morning as I stepped out onto the street, I would spot a sedan, sometimes the Studebaker, occasionally a Ford, and once or twice a Hudson, parked somewhere along my block on Clark with two fedora-topped silhouettes inside. Subtle they weren’t. And each time I climbed aboard the southbound streetcar, they immediately lost interest in me.

One of these autos also parked at the curb near my building every evening, so on the way home, I took to riding the car one block farther north and slipping into Kilkenny’s for beer and sometimes dinner before heading back to my building and going in undetected — or so I thought — through the alley entrance and up the back stairway. I didn’t like the idea of outfit guys patronizing the Killer’s place, or even hanging around just outside keeping watch on me. Also because of the tail, or so I told myself, I put off visiting Nicolette Stover’s apartment for the time being, lest I alert them as to her existence. She might be a murderer, but I was damned if I was going to be the one to finger her — at least not as some self-appointed judge, jury, and executioner all rolled into one.

It was drizzling on an early June evening when I ducked into the Killer’s establishment, having ridden the usual block beyond my stop after seeing the Studie and its twin fedoras at the curb. I took a stool at the bar and nodded to the Killer. He returned the nod and slid a foamy stein of Schlitz along the mahogany. As usual, it came to a stop directly in front of me. I looked around and recognized several familiar faces, both at the bar and in the booths.

Several stools to my right were a couple of guys who looked to be in their late twenties or maybe early thirties, both husky, that I’d never seen before. The one closest to me was loud and laughing and slapping the bar top with a large palm to underscore the points he was making to those around him.

The Killer waddled down to where I was sitting and gave me a smirk. “Recognize him, Snap?” he asked, tipping is head in the direction of the talkative one down the bar.

I shrugged. “Can’t say that I do. Should I?”

“Just thought you might, you being such a big Cub fan and all. That fellow, my earnest and hard-working scrivener friend, is none other than his eminence, Dizzy Dean.”

“No shit?”

“To coin a crude phrase. He just sauntered in here after the game this afternoon, easy as you please — Cubs won, by the way — along with one of his teammates, Reynolds there.”

“Carl Reynolds, the outfielder?”

“The self same. Used to be with the White Sox. Anyway, Ol’ Diz came through the doorway, introduced himself, and said that he heard we serve some of the best steaks in town. Never one to hide my light under a bushel, as you well know, I responded by saying that we serve THE best steaks hands down, no question, no debate.”

“Which of course you do. I know that because you’ve told me at least a hundred times.”

“If memory serves, oh man of letters, you have enjoyed more than a few of our fine T-bones and filets here yourself, often at that very stool,” the Killer responded good naturedly as he swiped at the surface of the bar with his ever-present rag. “And I cannot recall ever hearing a single complaint on the subject from your corner. Anyway, I’m getting Diz to send me an autographed picture that I can put up in the front window. Be a fine bit of publicity, and t’will serve to burnish our already sterling reputation as a culinary oasis. Under the picture I’ll have a sign: ‘The steaks preferred by Dizzy Dean.’”

“Might be even better for your business — and certainly for the Cubs’ success as well — if you can find some way to repair Dean’s arm,” I observed, keeping my voice low. “You know as well as I do that he hasn’t appeared in a game in several weeks now.”

Kilkenny nodded somberly. “I do indeed, Snap. In fact, you’ll be interested to hear that he was expounding on that very subject only minutes before you darkened my door.”

“Is he drunk?” I asked. The noise level down the bar had if anything increased.

“By no means. In point of fact, Mr. Dean is apparently not much of a drinker. Lord, I even tried to buy him a shot of my best Irish — again, it’s good business, you know. But he told me that he doesn’t touch the hard stuff, only a beer or two. Says it helps him keep up his strength after a game, poor lad. Come on down the line, and I’ll introduce you.”

“Well, all right. Just don’t say that I’m a newspaperman,” I told the Killer. “Dean hasn’t been all that happy with the way the local papers have gone on about him not playing — particularly the Trib.”

“What career would you like to invent for yourself?” the Killer asked. “A salesman, perhaps?”

“Why not? If the subject even happens to come up,” I told him as I rose, grabbed my beer, and walked over to where Dean and Reynolds were seated. Diz, big and square-faced and good-looking, with his brown hair slicked back, was turned sideways on his bar stool talking to Morty Easterly, one of the regulars in the Killer’s establishment, who had stopped in to get an autograph and exchange a few words with the man who had only four seasons earlier won thirty games in a single season for the Cardinals.

“...so anyways,” Dean was drawling, “this friend of mine, a night club comedian by name of Johnny Perkins, you may have heard of him, goes out to one of our games last year up there in Boston when I was still with the Cards, o’ course. And listen to this: He bets me two bits that I can’t strike out Vince DiMaggio — Joe’s older brother, ya know. ’Cept he ain’t near the hitter Joe is. I strike him out first time up, and Perkins yells to me from the stands that he wants to double the bet.

“I say okay, and I strike Vince out again. Perkins, he wants to raise the bet another two bits, and sure enough, I fan Vince a third time. So now he’s comin’ to bat again in the ninth, and Perk and me raise it another quarter. Damned if this time Vince don’t get ahold of a pitch and pops it up foul, toward the ol’ backstop. Our catcher, Brusie Ogrodowski — we called him Ogie — chases after it and I yell for him to let the damn bawl drop. Well, he does let it drop, and shoot, I end up gettin’ Vince to strike out again. Won me a whole dollar.” Dean slapped his leg and let out a whoop, while the group that had clustered around him laughed its approval.

“Diz, I’d like to have you meet a grand old friend of mine, a first-rate fellow and a regular patron here, Steve Malek,” the Killer said effusively. “We call him ‘Snap’ because he has this fondness for snap-brim hats, which he thinks make him look sophisticated. Some of us think otherwise, but that’s neither here nor there. What’s really important is, he loves the Cubs.”

“So do I love these here Cubs now, Mr. Snap,” Dean said with a wide grin, pumping my hand. “Glad to meetcha. Now you have yourself a seat on this stool right next to me. Over here, this is my teammate, Carl Reynolds, the best durn outfielder in the whole league, not to mention the way he can powder the ball. And he loves steaks as much as I do. Carl, meet Mr. Snap.”

Reynolds nodded, smiled slightly, and lifted his beer in salute, then ordered another. “Good idea,” Diz said. “I’ll have another one of them St. Louis champagnes to go with my steak, which is cooking back there in the kitchen. St. Louis champagne, that’s what we call Budweiser,” he added, winking at me. “Can I buy ya one? It’s better’n that there Schlitz.”

I said sure, and the Killer set us up. “I saw you shut out the Cardinals at Wrigley that Sunday back in April,” I told Dean. “That had to give you a lot of satisfaction.”

“Doggone right it did,” the big pitcher boomed. “Them Cards, they really screwed me up last year. After I got hurt — my busted toe in the All Star Game, y’know — Frisch had me out there pitching again too soon, way too soon. Mebbe I shouldn’t blame Frankie all that much, though, he’s jest the manager. He takes his orders from Mr. Rickey upstairs and also from Breadon, that tightwad miser which owns the team. But somebody’s gonna pay, I can tell ya that.”

“Pay? How do you mean?” I asked.

He scratched his forehead, then nodded his approval as a plate with T-bone steak, baked potato, and salad was plunked in front of him on the bar by Doris, the Killer’s sullen waitress.

“I ain’t said so much on this subject yet, and I sure as heck wouldn’t tell the papers in this town about it jest now, ’specially that Trib, the way they been ridin’ me about not bein’ able to pitch, as if it was my fault! Huh! But ah’m gonna sue the Cards and that Breadon for a quarter of a million bucks ’cause of the way they messed me up last year. A quarter of a million. And ah’m gonna give Mr. Wrigley a hunnert and some thousand of that for all the trouble’s that’s been caused. He’s been good to me, that man has. Yessir, he has.” Diz pumped a fist to underscore his feelings and then tore into his steak as if he hadn’t had a decent meal in a week.

“When do you think you’ll be able to pitch again?” I posed, trying to make the question sound nonchalant despite the knowledge that I’d just gotten a scoop handed to me — or at least to the paper.

“Next month — July,” Dean said as he chewed his steak and nodded his approval. “My arm ’n shoulder are both feelin’ a darn sight better now than they was, and I feel ah’m getting my rhythm back, too. Dontcha think so, Carl?”

The taciturn Reynolds nodded while tying into his own steak, but I didn’t read any enthusiasm into his affirmative gesture. And nothing figured to make any Cub teammate more enthusiastic than to have a healthy Dizzy Dean back in the starting rotation, particularly with the way the club was sputtering in its attempt to keep pace with the Giants and now the Pirates, who were coming on strong, along with the Cincinnati club.

“So, when are you going to sue?” I asked, keeping the tone casual.

“Soon, real soon. Say, what line of business are ya in, Mr. Snap?”

“I’m in sales — steel.”

“You out on the road a lot?”

“A fair amount, yeah.”

Dean’s wide face grew even wider as he broke into a grin that showed teeth as white as piano ivories. “With steel as your game, that would mean you’d get to Pittsburgh a lot, right? What with all them there mills they got sending up smoke and all.”

“From time to time,” I answered off-handedly.

“Good town, right, Carl?” Dean laughed and winked, getting another nod and nothing more from the impassive Reynolds, who was doing a trencherman’s job on the steak.

“Yes sir, I shore do like Pittsburgh,” the big pitcher went on. “Good steaks — not as good as these o’course — good night spots, good times. And a real tough team, them Pirates. Wouldn’t surprise me to see us and them fighting it out right down to the very end this year. They got them there Waner boys, y’know, best damn pair of brothers that ever been on the same team — ’ceptin’ for me ’n Paul, o’course.”

“That’s right — what is your brother doin’ these days?” a rotund bald-headed regular named Sunstrom asked.

“Paul’s havin’ himself kind of a tough time jest now,” the more famous sibling said, his voice suddenly lower and his mind surely drifting back to those lost glories of 1934, when the strapping and colorful Dean boys together won a combined forty-nine games and a World Series for St. Louis. And they each won two of the four Cardinal victories in the Series.

“He’s down there in that ol’ Texas League,” Dean continued, “tryin’ to work out his arm troubles. Jest like I am. And he’ll be back too, jest like I will. Heck, what am I sayin’?” Diz roared, his expansive self once more. “Shoot, I already am back, ’cause I never really been away! And now I’m a Cub, dammit, and proud of it, and we’re gonna win us a pennant for these fine Chicago folks here, ain’t we now, Carl?”

Reynolds nodded again, expressionless, and then actually spoke. He asked the Killer for another beer.

I hung around for another half hour or so, absorbing as much of Dizzy Dean’s bombastic but somehow endearing braggadocio as I could digest in a single session. As I started to edge out of the saloon, he was regaling his rapt assemblage about how before the seventh and deciding game of the ’34 World Series he had told Hank Greenberg, the Detroit Tigers star, to relax. “Yore troubles are gonna be over in two hours, because ol’ Diz is pitching. And shore ’nuff, about two hours later, we’d beaten those pore boys from Dee-troit by eleven to nothin.’”

“Snap, don’t run off just yet,” the Killer yelled above the rising noise level. “Did you ever get to talk to Dick Daley?”

“Oh, yeah, I did. Guess I forgot to tell you,” I said as we huddled at the far end of the bar, where we could almost hear each other. “We met twice, once down in Springfield, once here, and he was, well... I’d say fairly helpful. Just between us, I don’t believe the party had anything to do with Martindale’s death. But understand, that’s just me talking.”

“I never thought they did. Did you by chance mention anything to him about how his father had never come in here?”

“Why?”

“Well, the great Dizzy Dean has not been the only new face around the premises lately,” the bar owner said with his lopsided smile. “A few days back now — you weren’t in here that night — who do you think strolls in but Mike Daley himself, as if he just stopped by every day as part of his routine. Told me that he’d been planning to visit me for ages. We had a fine talk, about everything from folks back in the Old Sod to Chicago politics to how his son is doing down in Springfield. And he said he’d be coming back again soon — even if I was located so far north.”

“Interesting.”

“Indeed it is interesting. And thanks, Snap,” he said, clapping a big hand on my shoulder.

“For what?”

He smiled again and went back to the cluster of customers around the two ballplayers. The last thing I heard as I stepped out onto Clark Street was Diz’s audience, begging for more stories. And the last thing I saw was the Killer’s grinning face as he rushed to keep the glasses filled along the crowded bar.

My normal one-block trip home became two blocks because of my roundabout route down a side street and then in through the alley entrance to my building. Also, I’d taken to leaving a couple of my lamps on all day, and the Venetian blinds closed, so that the outfit boys stalking me couldn’t tell when I got home. Once inside the apartment, I immediately telephoned Leo Cahill at home.

“Snap Malek! To what do I owe this nocturnal honor?”

“I’ve got a scoop for your sports section.”

“You’re getting a little far afield from your police world, aren’t you?” he asked in a skeptical tone. News operations at the Tribune — and at all the other dailies in town as well — were rigidly territorial. Other than the top dogs, each editor worried about his own fiefdom and little else. And if you worked in one area of the paper, it was assumed that everything you did as a reporter would be for that area, or that section, and nobody else.

“A true reporter is never off duty, Leo, you should know that,” I sighed in mock solemnity. “Anyway, here it is, on a silver platter. I just came home from a saloon where none other than Dizzy Dean says he’s going to sue the Cardinals for 250,000 simoleons because they wrecked his arm when they made him pitch too soon after last year’s All Star Game, where, as you may recall, he got banged up by that line drive. He also says he’ll give at least a hundred thousand of that to Phil Wrigley as compensation for his lack of playing time with the Cubs so far this season.”

“Dean told you all that?” Leo responded, surprised. “How come? I thought he was pissed off at the Trib.”

“But he doesn’t know I’m with the Trib. I told him I’m a salesman in the steel business.”

“Uh-huh. Interesting. Well, it makes a nice anecdote to amuse your grandchildren with, Snap, but I can tell you that none of my editors would give that story even a column inch.”

“Oh? And why not?”

“Snap, Snap, wake up, for God’s sake, will you? You may be a whiz as a police and crime reporter, I’ll give you that. But you’re out of your league here; you don’t know these guys. Dean’s a bullshit artist — always has been. He’s not gonna sue anybody. He’s just thumping his chest and sounding off. The guy loves attention, can’t live without it. And since he can’t pitch anymore — probably never will again, in fact — he’s going to make noise some other way. Mark what I say, Snap — the guy is a hundred and ten percent hot air. He’s not going to file any suits or even suggest it. He’d get himself laughed out of town.”

“He said just a few minutes ago that he’d be pitching again in July,” I put in gamely.

“‘He said, he said, he said.’ Snap, get off it, will you? I know I rag you a lot about the Cubs, because you’re such an easy target. But this time, I actually feel sorry for you and all those other poor saps who pull for them. So, like I told you way back in the spring, Dean is washed up, through, done. Okay, so he got a little lucky and won... what? Two or three games right at the start of the season, when the hitters were still stiff. But what’s he done since then? Nothing. I told you then and I’ll tell you now — he won’t win five games. Shoot, Dizzy Dean is done winning, period. End of story. Give it up, Snap.”

There was no talking to Leo Cahill on the subject of Jay Hanna (Dizzy) Dean. Let the record show, however, that Leo was wrong on at least two counts. A month later, in mid-July, Diz really did pitch again — and he began to win. At about the same time, he announced publicly that he was suing the St. Louis Cardinals organization for that quarter of a million, and if he collected the money, he planned to give Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley a sizeable chunk of the settlement.

Ultimately, however, baseball’s crusty and dictatorial old commissioner, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, said he felt the suit would be detrimental to baseball (whatever that meant), and he put pressure on Dean, who dropped the idea. But it turned out to be a hell of a story, and all of the Chicago papers carried the developments more or less simultaneously and with strong play — but there were no scoops.

There could have been a scoop, however, a full month earlier. Leo Cahill knew that, of course, but he never mentioned it within my hearing. And he never again brought up the subject of Dizzy Dean with me. But you can bet that I brought Dizzy up to him more than once in the weeks that lay ahead.