Hunting a Detroit Tiger Page 5

Zaluski glared at me. “Rawlings? You got some nerve showing your face here.”

  A half dozen men gathered behind Whitey. They muttered curses at me, but did nothing more than look menacing. They seemed to be waiting for the little man to take the lead.

  Whitey fixed me with cold, pale, pinpoint eyes. “Murderer always returns,” he said, as he slowly drew his right hand from his pocket. “But when you come back here, you don’t get away again.” Flicking open an ivory-handled straight razor, he stepped toward me, the other men pressing his back.

  The glinting blade looked deadlier than a bayonet. I knew how much a razor could hurt as a shaving tool; as a weapon, it terrified me. Besides, I’d been trained to protect myself from the thrust of a bayonet. I had no idea how to defend against the slash of a straight razor.

  I shot a look at Landfors. His eyes were wide and his mouth agape. This wasn’t a battle of words like he was used to; he wasn’t going to be much help in a physical brawl. Then a quick backward glance at the door. I had no doubt that Whitey would be on me before I could get it open. I’d rather face him and fight than have my throat cut from behind.

  Whitey took another step closer, waving the razor in a tight side-to-side pattern. I hunched my left shoulder, drawing my arm as high into my coat sleeve as I could, preparing to block the blade with my forearm. Then maybe I could move close enough that he couldn’t swing the razor. I had no idea what to do about the other men, but at least they appeared unarmed.

  The crowd behind Whitey abruptly parted as a large, snowy-bearded man of about sixty came through from the main hall. His impressive paunch, covered by a red flannel shirt, acted as a cowcatcher to push the others aside. Green suspenders curved around his gut and attached to worn, baggy dungarees. “What’s going on here?” he demanded, looking from man to man through small wire spectacles perched on his bulbous nose.

  Whitey didn’t divert his gaze from me. “This is the bastard who killed Emmett Siever. Gonna give him a little justice.”

  “No you’re not,” the larger man said. “Not here.”

  “But—”

  “I said not here! Put it away.”

  Whitey hesitated, like a kid who doesn’t like being told what to do and so stalls in sullen defiance. But then he closed the razor and jammed it back into his pocket.

  The large man turned to Landfors and me. Although he resembled a department-store Santa Claus, his bass voice was far from jolly when he said, “What the hell you doing here, you scrawny-assed son of a bitch?”

  I was trying for an answer when Karl Landfors spoke up. “Leo Hyman, you fat-assed Bolshevik. Good to see you, too.”

  I immediately tried to pretend that I’d known all along that it hadn’t been me Hyman was addressing.

  Teeth became visible through long strands of mustache, and Hyman stepped forward. He and Landfors shook hands; firmly but not warmly, I noticed. “You in charge here, Leo?” Landfors asked.

  Hyman nodded.

  “The reason we’re here,” Landfors said, “is Mickey tells me he didn’t have anything to do with Emmett Siever’s death. I believe him, and I want to help him find out who did. I’d appreciate it if you’d let us in so he can walk me through what happened that night.”

  Whitey spoke up, “You’re not letting them in here, are you?”

  Hyman turned. “That’s my decision to make.” Jerking his head toward the doorway, he said, “All of you get back to work. You too, Whitey.”

  The other men went back into the main hall. Stan Zaluski sat down in a chair next to one of the tables and puffed at his pipe until smoke billowed from the bowl.

  Whitey was the last to leave. “Better frisk them first,” he said before strutting away.

  “That’s Whitey Boggs,” said Hyman. “Head of the Relief Committee. Good man, but a little high-strung.”

  “How about it, Leo?” Landfors said. “Can we look around?”

  Hyman thought a moment. “Sure. Come on in.”

  Landfors and I stepped around the literature tables and into the main hall. It was about the size of one of the storefront nickelodeons I used to frequent, dimly lit, with unpainted concrete block walls. At the far end was the door that Emmett Siever had passed through just before he’d been shot.

  Whitey Boggs stood in the center of the room, supervising the other men, who were setting folding chairs into circles of eight to ten each.

  Hyman hooked his thumbs in his suspender straps and leaned back to counterbalance his belly. “I don’t see where it would do any harm for you to look around. Those fellows are gonna be watching you, though, so don’t try anything out of line. And if you want to go in the back, I gotta go with you.”

  “Thanks, Leo.” When Hyman left, Landfors said to me, “Let’s have it. From the beginning.”

  I glanced around. On Monday night, the chairs had all been lined up in rows facing a small platform to the left. Other than that, it looked basically the same as I remembered. It also felt the same; there was a clamminess in the air that came from being encased by concrete. The only decorations were more IWW posters, which failed to give the room any feeling of warmth.

  “Okay,” I began. “Like I told you before, I came early hoping to talk to Siever but he wasn’t around. There were a lot of men—and some women, too—milling around ... jawing with each other, handing out pamphlets, nothing unusual. Then there was a call for order, and everyone took their seats.”

  I now remembered where I’d seen Boggs before. Pointing to the stage, I said, “Whitey Boggs was the fellow running things. I don’t remember seeing Leo Hyman. Anyway, first thing we did was sing those damn songs. Then Boggs introduced the speakers, about eight of them.” Among them, there had been an electrician who’d recently been fired from the Fordson tractor plant, a Peninsular Stove metal worker, and a longshoreman from the Riopelle Street docks. They’d all spoken of “one big union” and used the same slogans. They had sounded so much alike, that I’d stopped paying attention after the third speech.

  I started walking across the bare cement floor toward the back door, with Landfors following. “Emmett Siever was the last to talk,” I said. “He seemed to really be saying something—didn’ t just spout slogans. He came across as reasonable instead of radical. Tell you the truth, I kind of liked listening to him myself.” I chose not to add that I didn’t necessarily agree with everything Siever had said.

  “And then?”

  “Siever’s speech was the last one. Something that sounded like a Salvation Army band struck up ‘Solidarity Forever’ again, and everybody started singing. Except for Siever. He left the stage and went out that door. After a few minutes, I followed him and waited a little while to see if he’d come back out. Then I heard a ‘bang’! With the music and the singing being so loud, it took a moment till I realized it was a gunshot. Nobody else seemed to notice. Anyway, that’s when I went through to see what happened.”

  We’d reached the door in question, and Landfors called to Leo Hyman, who was speaking to several other men near the entrance. They all stopped to stare at Landfors and me.

  When Hyman rejoined us, Landfors asked him, “Can we see the offices?”

  Hyman caressed his beard. “Sure. It’s not locked. Go ahead.”

  I pushed in the door and led the way. We stepped into the middle of a narrow hallway that ran the length of the building. Across the hallway were a number of closed doors which I assumed were the offices. “This is the way I came,” I said, turning left.

  “Why?” Landfors interrupted. “Did you hear something?”

  I thought about the question. “No, just the singing and the band. I guess I turned this way because that’s the way the door opened.” It was hinged on the right and swung in, so the easiest direction to go was left.

  “See anyone?”

  “Not till I went back there,” I said, pointing toward the end of the corridor.

  Landfors nodded for me to proceed. Hyman maintained silence as he accompanied us.

 
; About ten feet down the hall, we came to a large kitchen. Black iron kettles simmering on a couple of old-fashioned wood ranges gave off a rich, spicy smell. One woman stirred the pots while two others diced potatoes at a butcher-block table piled high with small loaves of dark bread. They all paused from their activity until Hyman said to them, “Please go on with your work.” To us, he said, “Getting ready to serve dinner. Got a lot of folks needing soup and bread these days.”

  I barely registered the dinner preparations. Pointing to the floor in front of an enormous icebox, I said softly, “That’s where I found Emmett Siever.” The sight was still vivid in my memory. Siever’s aged face had been handsome even in death; not one strand of his carefully groomed silver hair was out of place, and his chiseled features had softened to an expression of peaceful contentment. His gaunt body, however, had looked far less serene: arms and legs splayed, a white shirt dripping crimson from a gunshot wound to the chest. My stomach began to experience the same queasiness that had run through me that awful night.

  Visualizing the way I had found him, I knew for certain that Siever had no gun in his hand. I decided to tell Landfors about that later, because I wasn’t sure how much to say with Leo Hyman there. “I was bent over looking at Siever,” I continued, “when a guy in a dark suit came up behind me. Showed me a badge, said he was Detective Aikens of the Detroit Police. He barely looked at Siever—didn’t have to because he was obviously dead. Aikens asked my name, what I was doing there—I told him I was looking for the toilet—and then he sent me away.”

  “He just let you go?” Landfors said.

  “Yeah. I sure wasn’t going to argue with him about it. I went back in the main hall and heard people yelling that Siever’d been assassinated. Then cops started busting in, swinging their clubs. Some of the Wobblies tried to fight them off. I didn’t know what to do, so I pushed my way to the door and went home as soon as I could.” I started walking back along the hallway.

  Hyman said, “It’s been getting bad again, Karl. Ever since Palmer lost the primary here, they’ve been rousting us, harassing us every way they can. Almost as bad as the raids in January.”

  Recalling the headline about the attorney general’s loss in the Michigan presidential primary, I said, “Palmer’s blaming the loss on Detroit radicals.”

  They both looked at me with surprise.

  “It was in the paper,” I said.

  “They cover that in the sports page?” Landfors ribbed me.

  “Politics is a sport,” I said. “You just don’t have to be in shape to play it.”

  Hyman chuckled and patted his gut. “Your friend might have a point there, Karl.” Turning serious again, he went on, “Palmer’s afraid he’s losing his power. The raids were his last glory.” I also knew from the papers that the Palmer raids over the winter had rounded up ten thousand “undesirables,” and that many were still in prison awaiting deportation. “People are finally getting tired of his scare tactics.” Hyman pursed his lips. “Some are even bothered by the fact that the raids were unconstitutional.”

  “Palmer says there’ll be bombings come May first,” I said. “Says Bolsheviks are planning a revolution to take over America.”

  Landfors spoke up, “He’s crying wolf once too often.”

  I gestured to the end of the hallway opposite the kitchen, past the row of office doors to an open space. “What’s down there?”

  “Work area,” Hyman answered. “Where we make picket signs and such. Got a small printing press, too.”

  “And in these rooms?” I asked, referring to the ones along the hallway.

  “Just offices and storage. And a toilet. No bomb factories if that’s what you’re thinking.” It wasn’t what I’d been thinking, but Hyman stopped and opened one of the doors anyway. “Don’t even lock them anymore. Just keep the doors closed to keep from having to see what’s inside.” The office was wrecked: desk and chairs overturned, drawers and papers strewn on the floor. “The cops keep tossing the place. Doesn’t pay to keep cleaning the mess.”

  “Something bothers me,” I said. “How did Aikens get here so fast? And the other cops, too.”

  Landfors stared at the wreckage. “They were probably watching the place.”

  “All the time,” said Hyman. “Of course, we watch them, too.” My face must have shown something, because he smiled and explained, “We all spy on each other. Neither side does anything that the other doesn’t know about.”

  The three of us went back into the main hall. I remembered the anonymous phone call I’d gotten, and that someone must have seen me with Donner. “Are your people keeping an eye on a fellow named Hub Donner?”

  “Ah, Donner,” Hyman said, his eyes twinkling behind his spectacles. “An old and cherished enemy of my people.”

  “Huh?”

  “Donner’s been fighting us for years. Capitalists pay him a lot of money to keep honest men from eating. The last few years, he’s been with the Ford Service Department out at the Highland Park plant.”

  “A repairman?”

  Hyman and Landfors both laughed. Landfors said, “More like military service. It’s Ford’s private police force.”

  “Union busters,” put in Hyman.

  As we walked to the front exit, I noticed the Wobblies were all clustered there staring at us.

  “Anything else I can do for you?” Hyman finally asked.

  “Think we’re all set,” said Landfors. He raised his eyebrows at me.

  “All set,” I agreed.

  Hyman said good-bye and Landfors and I started toward the door. To my relief, the men made way for us to pass through, shooting nothing more deadly at us than angry glares.

  I expected that when I met my teammates in Cleveland, they’d be looking at me much the same way. Except they’d be holding baseball bats.

  Chapter Six

  The pallid grass of League Park was patchy and tentative, perhaps not quite convinced that spring had arrived. The clay of the base paths, still frozen, seemed equally uncertain; pebbles bulged from its terra-cotta surface like wary groundhogs checking to see if they should go back into hibernation.

  There was no sunshine to brighten the view of the diamond; low, dark skies were threatening rain, possibly the same storm clouds that had caused two of the scheduled games in Chicago to be postponed. Now they’d drifted over to Cleveland, following the Tigers team. I didn’t consider myself superstitious, but the current weather pattern couldn’t be considered a good omen for the new season.

  Although the playing ground wasn’t yet in prime condition, it was the Elysian Fields compared to the parks we’d slogged through during the spring-training tour. For me, it was enough that it was a major-league ball field, the first one I’d been on since last September.

  Not that I was doing much. I stood alone in foul territory, between first base and the visitors’ dugout, watching the other Tigers go through pregame warm-ups.

  Several were lined up for batting practice. Ty Cobb, who had to be first at everything, was already in the cage; as he sprayed line drives around the park, he repeatedly cursed the pitcher for not throwing the ball exactly as he wanted.

  Along the right-field foul line, starting pitcher Howard Ehmke, a tall right-hander who threw the sharpest curveball in baseball, warmed up with catcher Oscar Stanage.

  Tossing the ball near Ehmke were my rivals: the infielders. For me to break into the lineup, one of them would have to be injured or in need of rest. The Detroit infielders were discouragingly healthy, but I hoped to benefit from their spotty playing records. Second baseman Ralph Young had a career batting average of only .200. Rookie Babe Pinelli, slated for third base, had yet to prove himself a major-league player. Donie Bush, the Tigers veteran shortstop, was starting to slow down, and his range wasn’t what it used to be. On the whole, I thought I had a good chance of playing fifty or sixty games this year, and possibly earning a starting position.

  But it looked like I had no chance of touching a baseball
today. I fidgeted in my road flannels, scraped my spikes at the hard ground, and started slapping my mitt against my hip. My wrist wasn’t good enough for me to take batting practice, but I did want to throw the ball some. The problem was that no one wanted to play catch with the man who killed Emmett Siever.

  My teammates hadn’t welcomed me back with open arms, but at least they hadn’t greeted my arrival with firearms either. Dutch Leonard was the only one who’d been openly hostile; among other things, he’d asked if I felt like a hero for gunning down a sixty-year-old man. I’d tried to dismiss Leonard’s words; the burly pitcher was known for having a disposition as nasty as Cobb’s, and this was nothing out of the ordinary for him. He failed to rouse the other players against me and eventually dropped the goading. The Tigers, who seemed to enjoy quarreling among themselves as much as the Wobblies liked sing-alongs, had so many factions and internal squabbles that they couldn’t even cooperate long enough to gang up on me. Not on short notice, anyway.

  Hughie Jennings had been indifferent to my return to the team; he did little more than grunt when I’d reported to him. The Tigers’ manager was entangled in his own battles, especially with Frank Navin and Jack Coombs. Navin had hired former Athletics pitcher Coombs to coach the pitching staff, and Jennings took it as a challenge to his authority, convinced that Navin was planning to give Coombs the managing job. As a result, Jennings paid even less attention to the players than he used to, and they took advantage to pursue their own petty wars.

  A low rumble of thunder came from the direction of Lake Erie. I suddenly realized how dim things really looked.

  It had been so different a year ago. When the 1919 season opened, the nation was celebrating its victory in the Great War, rejoicing in the safe return of those doughboys who’d survived and honoring the memory of those who hadn’t. The major-league baseball owners, who’d spent most of the war trying to exempt their players from serving, deftly tried to change history by crediting ballplayers with winning the war. Opening Day ceremonies at Cubs Park included a lengthy eulogy for Eddie Grant, my teammate on the 1914 Giants, who’d been killed in the Argonne. The Chicago players who’d served, such as Grover Cleveland Alexander and me, were singled out for lavish praise during the team introductions. It was such a promising spring. Returning to the National League Champions, the chances were strong that by the end of the season I’d finally realize my ambition of playing in the World Series. But came October, the Cubs were twenty games behind the pennant-winning Cincinnati Reds. A month later, I was sold to Detroit for less than the price of a used Studebaker. I now tried to console myself that perhaps this season would do the reverse: start lousy and end in triumph.