Hardball

I kept petting her and crooning to her, trying to assure her that we could fix it all so that no one got killed or sent to prison, although I wasn’t sure about either of those things. Finally, when she seemed a bit calmer, I asked how she’d ended up here in Elton’s shack.

“That was after they made me open your office for them.”

“Yeah, babe, I know that much. I saw you on my video camera.”

“They said you had a picture that might send Daddy to jail,” she whispered. “When I told them you and I hadn’t been able to get into your old South Chicago house, they made me go down there with them to show them which house it was. Then when Uncle Sal gave me your apartment keys so I could make up your bed and bring you some yogurt-you know, while you were staying at Dr. Herschel’s-Mr. Strangwell made me give him the keys to make copies.

“I guess then they tore your house apart. I wasn’t there. This one man, the one they called Larry, he found an old picture of Uncle Tony and all of them playing ball together, and the Strangler was just totally pissed, because he said only a drunk idiot would think that proved anything about anyone. So they decided they had to go through your office.

“I had to go with them. They wouldn’t let me just tell them your keypad code because the Strangler said if you were there-like, maybe you didn’t get in to see the snake man-you’d let me in. Then they went just totally crazy inside your office, and I was terrified they would kill me because I’d seen too much. And Mr. Dornick kept phoning the Strangler and saying how could he be so sure a big-mouth like me wouldn’t end up babbling it all to you. So I pretended I was having my period, that I was bleeding and needed the bathroom, and went down the hall.

“This horrible man, the one they called Larry, he was standing there, holding his gun, and I saw the back door and just bolted outside and ran like fury. And Elton was there, out on the street, so I remembered how he talked about his crib. And I begged him to save my life. So the bus was just coming, and we jumped on. And he brought me here. And I’ve been too scared to leave.”

While I cradled her, I tried to think of a safe house, someplace where Petra at least could sleep while I tried to get the police to listen to my side of the story. I was imagining and discarding ideas when Petra suddenly asked about the pictures.

“What are they?”

“It’s an old story and an ugly one. Your father was at a riot in Marquette Park in 1966-”

“A race riot, you mean. When blacks were tearing down the neighborhood.”

“Those came later. This was a white riot, your father and your uncle Harvey and about eight thousand other people screaming and yelling at Martin Luther King. The pictures show your father and your uncle Harvey in the vicinity of the murder of a black woman. They show a police officer-I’m guessing it was either George Dornick or Larry Alito-pocketing the murder weapon. Later, Dornick and Alito tortured a black man into confessing to the murder.”

“No, you’re lying! Daddy couldn’t… Uncle Harvey wouldn’t-”

I cut her off. “I know how you feel, because my father was involved, too. He watched the torture, and when he tried to stop it they threatened to send Peter to prison. So my father-my father, the best man I’ve ever known-he turned his back on the torturers to save Peter. And later he took the baseball-that Nellie Fox baseball, the murder weapon-to save your father from prison.”

“That’s not true!” Petra screamed, getting to her feet. “You’re making this up!”

“I wish I was.” I got to my feet, too, and reached under my shirt for the photo album. The light was too dim for her to make out much, but she pretended to study the pages.

“Sister Frankie was at the march with the murdered woman. She was killed to keep her from talking to me. Why do you think they sent you to her apartment to collect evidence? It was to keep someone like me from turning it over to the cops. That building is under Homeland Security surveillance because the nuns provide assistance to immigrants, but they didn’t take your picture, or Larry Alito’s, the night you two showed up, because George Dornick has good co

“I can’t let you publish these,” she whispered. “You mustn’t, you mustn’t.”

“Petra, forty years of wrong are sitting on us. On you and me, I mean. Forty years of wrong our own fathers did. I can’t even guess how many other men Dornick and Alito tortured. I can’t keep quiet, not to save Peter, not even to save Tony.”

“Oh, damn you,” she choked. “It’s like Uncle Sal says, you’re the only who gets to be right. The rest of us don’t count in your uni verse.”

“Damn you, too, Petra Warshawski. You’ve put my life in danger along with your own. If you’d told me all this a month ago, Sister Frankie might still be alive. How many people have to die to protect Peter?”

We were glaring at each other, our noses almost touching in the cramped space, both panting with fury and fear, when we heard footfalls crashing down the side of the embankment. The noise of many people, not Elton. Flashlights played around the embankment. The summer evening was ending, and the pale light coming in through Elton’s skylights had turned purple while we quarreled. I squeezed Petra’s arm and put my hand over her mouth.

The envelope of pictures… They had to survive, whatever happened to me. I looked wildly around and grabbed a black garbage bag from the pile of bags and blankets on the floor. I rolled the envelope up in it. I didn’t have time to get the bag or Petra out of the shack. I stuffed it into a crack and pushed my cousin against the sliver of wall next to the door. I stood in front of her. When the door opened, we wouldn’t be instantly visible.

I pulled the Smith & Wesson from the tuck holster, flipped off the safety, and spoke directly into my cousin’s ear. “When I say go, you stoop down, run out of there, and jump in that water. Swim across, get to Uncle Sal.”

It wasn’t a great plan, but it was all I had. Even in the purple light, I could see her eyes large and terrified in her pale face. The muscles in her throat moved, but she only nodded.

“This is the place?” The voice was George Dornick’s.

“Yes, yessir, it is.” Elton, quavering, barely audible.

“What a dump. You are a worthless piece of shit, you know that?” Dornick, amused, contemptuous. “Open the door. I want to see the girl myself.”

“You said you wasn’t going to hurt her none,” Elton was anxious. “You told me you just wanted to talk to her.”

“That’s right, dirtbag, no one’s going to get hurt. The girl needs to go home, that’s all.” That was a third man, a stranger, and when he laughed a couple of other men joined in: Dornick and two, perhaps three, subordinates.

Petra’s heart was jumping against my shoulder blades. I reached behind me and squeezed her hand. The shack door swung open. A flashlight played around the tiny space, found my feet. I dropped, rolled, and crashed into the figure behind the light, knocking him to the ground.

“Go!” I yelled, and kept rolling, away from the shack so that the second flashlight followed me. I heard Petra behind me. I fired at random to cover her dash out the door, down to the river, the moment’s hesitation, the splash as she dropped into the water. Good girl! I started down the slope after her, but the lights followed me, and someone fired. I dropped into the brush, landing on something large and sharp, rolled away again, and fired blindly toward the light.

“That’s Warshawski. Goddamn it, where’s the girl?”

“Someone jumped in the water.”

The person I’d knocked over had recovered, and I saw the flashlight beam going down to the water. A shot sang out over the river, and ducks began honking and squawking. Wings flapped, and the man shot again. Shouts sounded from the far side.