Three Strikes You're Dead

Chapter 18

“Will you be right here when I get back, Dad?” Peter asked, trying to make the question sound casual rather than pleading.

“Right here, at this very spot, two weeks from today,” I assured him, pointing to the ornate, three-faced clock with Roman numerals that loomed directly above us. It was a muggy Saturday morning in July, and we were standing with Peter’s suitcases in the columned, echo-filled concourse of the North Western Terminal on West Madison, waiting along with hundreds of other chattering adolescent boys and their parents for the announcement that the “Campers’ Special” train to Wisconsin was ready for boarding.

Peter, who had never been to summer camp before, was not overjoyed with the prospect, which his mother had proposed. When I questioned her about it, she was adamant. “I need some time to myself, Steve,” she said in that quiet-but-firm tone that always had an unspoken “don’t argue with me” attachment.

“I need to get away for a little while, but I can’t very well do that with Peter at home all day. And remember, you don’t have any vacation coming until late September.”

When I asked where she planned to go (hardly my business any more), she said to St. Joseph, Michigan, a small resort town around the southern end of Lake Michigan from Chicago.

“Alone?” (Again, no business of mine.)

She paused, an expression of irritation on her face. “No. A friend has a place over there.”

“Who? Martin Baer?”

“I don’t see that it’s any concern of yours, Steve,” she had answered evenly. In the dozen-plus years we had been married, I had never known Norma to raise her voice — one of the things that was at the same time both comforting and maddening about her.

“Well, if anything happens to Peter when he’s up in Wisconsin, how will I get hold of you?” I countered with what I felt was irrefutable logic, although we both knew I was reaching.

“All right,” she said, letting her shoulders drop. “It is Martin Baer. I’ll give you the address and phone number over in St. Joe.”

“So, just you and him, huh?”

Norma came as close to glaring as she ever does. “Again, Steve, it is hardly any concern of yours, but in fact, we will not be alone. Martin’s mother will be there, too.”

“A chaperone, eh?” I retorted, wishing in an instant that I could pull the words back. She did not respond, and we parted that day without warmth but also without overt rancor — much the way we related to each other during those last, listless days of our marriage. In all the times I had come home looped, for instance, I was never met with outright anger or hostility, but rather with a resigned disappointment. Even the night I missed Peter’s seventh (or maybe eighth?) birthday and shambled into the apartment well after midnight, she turned over in bed when I walked into the darkened bedroom and asked if I was all right. When I told her I was, she said “Oh, good” as if she meant it and went back to sleep. Confrontation was not an element in our lives together.

By the time Peter boarded the camp-bound train, his mood had brightened somewhat, at least partially because of the anticipation of riding the brand new green-and-yellow North Western streamliner.

“How fast can it go, Dad?” he had asked, running his finger along the smooth yellow surface of the train as we walked along the platform, looking for his assigned coach.

“A hundred, easy,” I improvised, having no idea. “Faster’n that Pennsylvania train you rode on when you visited your grandpa and grandma over in Fort Wayne last Christmas.”

He liked that answer, uninformed as it was, and when I got him settled in next to an oversized and tinted window, I felt better about his being shipped off to the North Woods. “You’ll meet some nice boys, meet a lot of new friends,” I assured him, mouthing lines uncounted parents before me had used to hearten offspring who were facing the prospect of two weeks living in tents or spartan cabins, as well as other deprivations. I hugged him awkwardly and eased into the aisle to make way for the arrival of his seatmate, an acne-faced boy with straw-colored hair and an expression of doubt.

Within seconds, I learned from his parents that the newcomer’s name was Robert, that he was twelve, lived in Des Plaines, suffered from hay fever, and had never gone to camp before. After introductions were made, the boys sized each other up and I said my good-byes.

As I left the train, the last words I heard came from Robert’s mother, who gushed to her son: “See, now you’ve already met Peter here, and you haven’t even left the station yet. You’re going to make all kinds of friends when you’re up there in those beautiful Wisconsin woods just like your father and I have been telling you. All that worrying you did was for nothing, wasn’t it?”

Riding back to my place from the station on the Clark streetcar, I took stock of my feelings and my situation. On the one hand, I would truly miss seeing Peter over the next two weekends. On the other, I would have the time to myself. I felt guilty even thinking that — after all, I did only see my son for at most a day and a half a week, as was the agreement, while Norma was a full-time parent and a working one on top of it. Sure, I kicked in for alimony and child support, again as was the agreement, but she had to deal with most of the day-to-day stuff, like teacher conferences and buying school clothes and visits to the doctors and dentists and so on. She did all of this very efficiently and, as far as I could tell, very cheerfully.

But, so I rationalized, I had a job too, and I needed time to myself, same as Norma did. Besides, I was running out of things to do with Peter on weekends. After Riverview, the Lincoln Park Zoo, Wrigley Field, the Elevated and streetcar rides, and the big museums, there were only so many movies I felt comfortable taking him to. And of course, there was my current situation involving the mob and its interest in my activities.

That morning, for instance, when I left my apartment and went to Logan Square to pick Peter up, the car with its two fedora-lidded men was parked at the curb on Clark as usual. I slipped out through the alley and walked several blocks on side streets before flagging a cab on Belmont. Even then I wasn’t completely sure that I’d ditched the tail. Because Peter had so much luggage, he and I took another cab from Norma’s to the station, and on the way, I kept looking out the rear window of the hack, thinking I had recognized the tail car.

“How come you keep looking back, Dad?” Peter asked. “You think somebody’s following us?”

I forced a laugh. “Of course not, Peter. Why would anybody want to do something like that?”

The thick-necked cabbie turned back and laughed too, but it wasn’t forced. “Yeah, why would anybody be after us? It sure doesn’t figure to be a copper, because, heck, I ain’t even goin’ the speed limit. There’s just too doggone much traffic today.”

I didn’t look back again, although I was tempted to, so I never knew for sure if we were being dogged. And I didn’t spot a tail when I left the North Western Station after seeing Peter off. But as the streetcar approached my building, the sedan and its two occupants was still (or again?) out in front, so I rode a block farther north and made straight for Kilkenny’s.

The Killer had, as promised, added a touch to the outside: Next to the neon Pabst Blue Ribbon sign in the front window was an obviously posed black-and-white glossy photograph of a grinning Dizzy Dean in his Cub uniform, following through on a pitch with the empty Wrigley Field grandstands in the background. In the lower right-hand corner of the photo, Dean had scrawled “To my good friend Killer, who serves the best steaks in Chicago, bar none. Your pal, Diz.”

Although I wasn’t ready to call the Killer’s steaks the best in the city, bar none, they were good, and Chicago’s newest baseball luminary obviously agreed, as he’d become something of a regular since that night he had wandered in with Carl Reynolds. I’d even run into him there again myself, this time with another Cub pitcher, Clay Bryant, in tow, and I was surprised that Diz had remembered me.

“Ah, Snap, ’tis indeed fine to see your benign countenance this lovely day,” the Killer boomed heartily, saluting as I walked into the nearly deserted public house that Saturday. “Will you be partaking of the usual nectar?”

I started to ask for coffee, then checked myself when I noticed that the clock behind the bar registered five past noon. “The usual nectar sounds good. I see, by the way, that you’ve got Dean’s mug up in the window, as well as his written testimonial for your fine shoe leather.”

“Shoe leather my sainted Uncle Liam!” he howled in mock anger as he slid a foam-capped stein of Schlitz along the bar to me. “You’ve had more than your share of both T-bones and filets at my groaning board, if I may be so bold as to remind you. And speaking of our Mr. Dean, he may not be much for partaking the juice, which is fine given his line of employment, but he does indeed know a good piece of beef when he gets his gums into it. And he’s also pulled a few of the other Cubs in here with him, which doesn’t exactly hurt business any.”

The Killer grinned as he ran a rag over the bar. “He was in here with Billy Herman a few nights past, and he says he’s bringing that Irish stalwart Gabby Hartnett next. To top it off, all sorts of new folks have been dropping by, hoping to meet some players and jaw with ’em. And look here — Diz even signed a ball to me.” The Killer took a new Spaulding baseball from its place of honor on the back bar and proudly showed me Dean’s signature.

“Well, just make sure you don’t feed old Dizzy too much,” I grumbled. “The guy’s having enough trouble trying to throw as it is, so we sure don’t want him to get fat on top of it. If he doesn’t start playing soon, the Cubs will be as dead as last Sunday’s paper, and about as interesting. And if the Cubs are dead, you know all too well that your newfound patronage will plummet like a brick in a pond, not to mention what will happen to every other saloon, restaurant, and shop within three or four blocks of the Wrigley playpen. And just remember, my Gaelic friend, if our Mr. Dean does begin pitching again, there’s a guaranteed 40,000 in the old ball yard up the street every time he starts. And more than a few of them figure to stop in here — both before and after the game.”

The Killer looked smug as he leaned on the bar and crossed his beefy arms. “Now don’t go and get yourself all riled up, Snap. In point of fact, Diz is pitching next week, probably against the Boston gladiators. I bring you glad tidings that his wing’s healthy again.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been hearing that for so long that it puts me to sleep. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“’Tis really true this time,” the barkeep avowed. “He mentioned that his wife’s coming up from Dixie for a few days to see him pitch, and he says that always gives him a boost. Also, Charley Grimm told Diz he’s ready to start him.”

“Grimm better do something soon or Phil Wrigley’s going to get himself a new manager and send Charley to the bush leagues,” I remarked sourly.

“Diz’ll be back in fine form, and real soon,” Dean’s new pal proclaimed, forming a circle with his thumb and forefinger. “You can bank on that, my fourth-estate friend.”

I wasn’t willing to bank on much of anything these days, except that there would be a car with two hoods inside at the curb in front of the unimposing building I called home. And I was getting more than a little tired of having them around. As I walked south from the Killer’s along the west side of Clark, I saw them yet again. But this time, instead of sneaking around to the alley door of the building, I pulled in air, approached the sedan from behind — it was the Studebaker this time, with its windows rolled down — and put a foot on the passenger-side running board.

“Hello there, boys. Waiting for anyone in particular?” I said amiably, touching the brim of my hat.

“Damn!” the thug in the passenger seat muttered, jumping as if he’d been slapped.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to scare you,” I told him, keeping my tone breezy and holding up a palm like the traffic cop at Clark and Madison. “It’s just that I’ve noticed you fellows before — you’re hard to miss — and I figured maybe you were looking for somebody in the neighborhood. I’ve lived around here for awhile now and thought maybe I could help you find who you’re after.”

“Goddamn you,” the passenger growled, opening the door and starting to get out. “I’m gonna—”

“Shut the fuck up and sit down, Marko,” the driver snapped. “I’ll take care of this.” He stepped out and circled around the front of the car toward me. He was at least six-four and 200 pounds, and the expression on his square, swarthy face raised scowling to an art form.

“You got yourself a problem, Mac?” he growled in a voice that suggested problems upset him.

“Not me,” I told him, trying to generate enough saliva to swallow. “I’m just trying to be helpful, that’s all.”

“You’re fulla crap, that’s what you are. You know goddamn well why we’re here. And don’t think you’re foolin’ anybody with that sneakin’ out the back way shit.”

“Huh?” I put on a puzzled expression.

He loomed over me, creating a solar eclipse. “I’ll spell it out, Mr. Newspaper Hotshot. If it was up to me and Marko here, you’d be sittin’ up on some cloud strummin’ a harp. And I could make that happen right now, right here, without a sound. Silencer, see?” He cackled and jabbed at the bulge under his 46 long blue pinstripe suit coat.

“Now I got better things to do than shadow some goddamn scribbler, but I also got my orders, and I follow orders. The Brother, he says to watch you, so I watch you, with Marko and his dumb-ass jokes to keep me from gettin’ too bored. But the Brother is going to be pissed, real pissed, if he don’t find out pretty damn soon who croaked Goody Two Shoes Martindale, and he says you’re the guy what can find out for him — the cops sure can’t. But so far, you ain’t come up with shit — or have you?” I never saw the back of his right hand until it whacked my cheek, spinning me around. “Have you?” he repeated the question as I picked my hat up off the sidewalk and shook my head.

“No... I haven’t.”

His asthmatic laugh held only menace. “Didn’t think so, pal. Just figured I’d see whether you was payin’ attention. Now listen, listen good: the Brother, I know him pretty well, and I can see he’s runnin’ out of patience. If I was you, I’d be workin’ real hard to find out who pulled the trigger.”

“So your friend the Brother can croak him?” I responded in a weak attempt at bravado.

The driver laughed some more and rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t worry about what happens then. It ain’t your affair, is it?”

I started to contradict him but quickly checked myself, rubbing a cheek that already was beginning to swell. Any satisfaction I might have derived from tossing off a clever remark would be more than offset by another reminder that I should be attentive.

The driver — although our paths would cross again, I never learned his name — gave an insolent salute, turned on his heel, and slid back behind the wheel but didn’t start the Studebaker, while Marko leered at me over sunglasses balanced halfway down his Roman nose. I entered the building by the front door this time — there was no point to slinking around to the alley — and went up to my apartment to contemplate an ongoing existence in a fishbowl and how I might wriggle out of it.

I climbed out of bed at 9:15 on Sunday morning, having formulated a plan of sorts, nothing elaborate. Looking down onto Clark Street from my living room, I spotted the tail car, a black Dodge this time. Given the man-hours they were putting in, the organization placed a ton of faith in my detecting abilities — far more than I did myself. Once again, I had to wonder how smart they were, collectively. And although they had indeed been patient until now, I didn’t need some oversized, pea-brained wheelman to tell me that their patience was wearing thin.

I could have brought in the cops any time during the last few weeks, of course, and had them knock out the surveillance. But the respite would only have been temporary... although I was a police reporter and as such unofficially entitled to protection beyond that received by the average citizen, the boys who wore brass buttons on their uniforms were not about to keep watch indefinitely. You could bet the farm that as soon as the prowl cars pulled back, the fedora-lids would return, watching and waiting. And there was another good reason for not calling in the law: They would want to know just why the mob was so interested in me, and for now I wanted to pursue the Martindale case alone and unfettered, and unquestioned by the police.

I strangled the juice out of a half grapefruit, then slurped two bowls of Rice Krispies with brown sugar and three cups of coffee at the kitchen table while reading the Trib and the Examiner, which I had begun subscribing to on Sundays. The line story on both papers was the death in a Paris subway station of old Sam Insull, who had been the grand poohbah of the public utilities in Chicago and across the whole of the Middle West until his electric empire came crashing down around him during the Depression. Sam skedaddled to Greece in the early ’30s to avoid all kinds of investigations, and damned if he wasn’t acquitted when they finally did have a trial in ’35. The public, many of whom lost their shirts on his stocks, never acquitted him, though, and he was smart enough to spend the rest of his life on the far side of the Atlantic.

The Examiner, which like every Hearst paper was big on celebrity news, also had fun with the ongoing hit-and-miss romance between Hollywood’s Katharine Hepburn and Howard Hughes, the big-bucks aviator who had been setting all sorts of speed records in his souped-up aeroplane. The two were good at avoiding reporters, though, as both a news story and Damon Runyon’s smart-alecky column reported with undertones of frustration.

I dumped my dishes in the sink and put on a white shirt and my newest summer suit, a light gray herringbone. After giving the hairbrush a workout and straightening my maroon-and-gray striped tie, I contemplated my image in the bathroom mirror. Despite the slight bruise on my right cheek where I’d gotten belted the day before, I looked respectable enough to be heading for Mass, which in fact I was.

Walking along Clark from my building, I kept my eyes straight ahead, paying no heed to the Dodge at curbside. I heard its motor start and knew that it had to be crawling along several yards behind me, which was fine. Standing as though I didn’t have a care in the world, I turned east on Belmont and assumed the Dodge did as well. Both auto and pedestrian traffic increased as I neared Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church. It was the 11 o’clock Mass crowd.

I had been in the church only once before, for the funeral of a Tribune reporter about a half dozen years earlier, but I had a clear recollection of the layout. Not looking back, I joined the crowd of worshipers shuffling through the double doors, dipped my hand in the holy water from the font, and genuflected. I then made for the far right aisle and briskly moved toward the front of the sanctuary. I finally did risk a peek back, and only then from behind a knot of people pushing toward the pews. I saw no one who looked like a hoodlum, so I walked to the front of the nave and out through a door to the right of the altar. I found myself in a small, windowless room with three straight-backed wooden chairs, on one of which sat a young, dark-haired priest in his vestments who was praying aloud.

“Yes?” He looked up, startled, his eyes magnified by horned-rim glasses with thick lenses.

“This the way out?” I muttered, trying to look befuddled and probably succeeding.

“Uh, yes... that is... if you want the alley?” he said, blinking and gesturing vaguely down a hallway. I thanked him and within seconds found myself in the alley that ran behind the church. No sign of the Dodge or of anybody following me. I turned west and eventually hailed a southbound Checker on Halsted. All the way downtown, I kept watch out the rear window — this was getting to be a habit. The cabbie didn’t remark on it, although he gave me a questioning look when we pulled up in front of the LaSalle Street Station. “It’s okay,” I told him with a grin. “I’m only wanted for bookmaking and bunko, nothing rough like armed robbery or, heaven forbid, murder. Hell, I’m not even packing a rod.”

Leaving him with a quarter tip and an open mouth, I went into the depot. Given the Sunday schedules, I had to wait almost an hour for a Rock Island local. As on my previous trip to Beverly Hills on this line, I was one of just a handful of passengers in my sooty coach. Stepping off the train into the sunlight at 103rd Street, I followed the route from my earlier visit except that once I reached Longwood Drive, my destination was not Edna Warburton’s house but rather the massive brick-and-stone Victorian pile with all its chimneys that sat haughtily on a rise on the opposite side of the street.

I climbed the brick stairway cut into the embankment and marched up to an oaken door with leaded glass that was recessed in an archway on the front porch. I pushed the doorbell and heard chimes within. I waited a decent interval, then made the chimes sound again. This time, the thick door swung silently inward, revealing a broad-shouldered, somewhat hunched-over figure in a dark suit standing in the dark-paneled foyer. His oddly handsome triangular face, tapering to a pointed cleft chin, was without expression. “Yes?”

“Hello,” I said cheerfully. “My name is Stephen Malek, from the Tribune.” I held out my press card. “I apologize for not calling in advance. I am writing a long feature article for the newspaper saluting Lloyd Martindale for his accomplishments, and I would like very much to talk to his mother for a few minutes. I promise not to take too much of her time.”

He frowned as he studied my card, then inhaled to speak when the shaky, querulous voice of a woman came from somewhere within. “Who is there, Preston?”

“Excuse me, sir,” he said frostily, closing the door in my face. Either I had been dismissed or the dour Preston was receiving instructions, presumably from Mrs. Martindale, on how to deal with me. Ever the optimist, I waited, hat in hand. No more than a minute had elapsed when the door opened and the butler, if that was his role, reappeared.

“Sir, Mrs. Martindale regrets that she is indisposed and is unable to see you,” he pronounced in a precise, well-modulated radio announcer-type tone that was as emotionless as his face was expressionless.

I nodded. “I certainly understand, of course, my coming on the spur-of-the-moment as I did. I should have made an appointment, sorry. Well, I would like to make one now — at Mrs. Martindale’s convenience, of course.”

Preston cocked his head and emitted a practiced throat-clearing sound, which they must teach in butler’s school. “Sir, if you will permit me to be more specific: Mrs. Martindale is permanently indisposed. She is unable to see you at any time whatever.”

“But, I—”

“Good day, sir,” he said with the slightest of bows, his crisp tone contradicting his words as he closed the door with no further pretense of politeness.

Thus dismissed, I nodded to no one and executed an about-face, descending the steps to Longwood Drive and wondering how long the wait would be for a train back to the Loop.