Brush Back

I said, “It must have been hard on the guys who came to try out to have Boom-Boom in the spotlight there. Do you know if any of them actually got picked up by the franchise?”

Drechen bent over a group photo. All the men were in the uniforms of the amateur teams they played for. I could see the “Ba” from Bagby on the front of Frank’s warm-up jacket. Frank’s head was up, shoulders back, but his expression was fierce—a man holding back tears. The picture must have been taken after the guys had their chance.

Drechen said, “This guy back here”—he tapped the face of a man in the second row—“he played a season for us in Nashville, but he couldn’t adjust to the pros. We sent him to a development squad the next year, but he quit before the season was over. The rest of them, sadly, no. Open tryouts are like that. Every now and then you find that diamond in the rough, but we chiefly hold them because it’s good community relations. Fans give their heart and soul to this franchise and we want it to be a welcoming place for them.”

“Ever get any women at your open tryouts?” I asked.

“Every now and then,” Drechen said. “You want a shot?”

“If my cousin couldn’t hit major league pitching when he was at his peak, no way do I have a fantasy about doing it myself. Although a chance to stand on that turf—let me know the next time you’re holding them.”

Drechen laughed, said he understood I was writing a biography of Boom-Boom; they’d be glad to get me permission to use the pictures.

“The one of Boom-Boom with Mitch Williams, I’d like a copy of that for myself if it’s possible. The rest, I’ll let you know when I get that far.”

I left, offering a shower of thanks, before Drechen or Natalie could ask me for the name of a publisher or a publication date. On my way out, I stopped to study the pictures along the walls. Great moments in Cubs history covered everything from the time they brought elephants onto the field to Wrigley’s “League of Their Own” team in the 1940s.

I slowly followed the ramp back down to the ground, sidling past a forklift hoisting a crew up to do something with an overhead pipe, almost getting run over by a motorized cart hauling beer kegs. When I got outside, it was a relief to be in the open air, away from the dank pipes and the smell of beer.

I was at the corner of Clark and Addison when I heard my name called; it was Natalie Clements from the press office, breathless from ru

She held out a folder to me. “I was hoping I’d catch you—I made a print of your cousin for you. And Will wanted to give you a pass to next week’s game against New York.”

She darted back inside on my thanks, ru

“Sorry!” I looked up, smiling my apologies.

The man I’d bumped scowled and growled at me in a thick Slavic accent. “Watch where you put your feet.”

It wasn’t his hard-lined, cold-eyed face that wiped the smile from my mouth, but his companion: a short wide man who bore an amazing resemblance to Da

“Uncle Jerry,” I exclaimed.

“Who told you my name?” Uncle Jerry glanced involuntarily at the hard-faced man.

“No one. That’s what the woman you were with called you when I saw you in the church.”

“I wasn’t in church.” He looked again at the other man, whose eyes seemed even colder.

I don’t like to see people in fear, even rude angry men. “I must be confusing you with someone else,” I agreed.

“What church Jerry was in?” the hard-faced man asked. His syntax was Slavic but his accent was gravel in any language.

“I said I mistook him for someone else,” I said. “Let’s all just get on with our day, okay?”

“What woman he was talking to?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know you, I don’t know him, I don’t need this interrogation for the simple misdemeanor of not looking where I was going.”

“You know his name is Jerry. Where are you meeting him?”

“Tell you what,” I suggested. “You give me your name and tell me why you want to know, and I’ll answer the question.”

“When I ask question, I expect answer, no smart broads making fu

He bent over me, breathing garlic down my shirt. Beads of sweat stood out on Uncle Jerry’s forehead and my own throat felt tight, as if I were being strangled. I started to cross Clark, but the man grabbed my shoulder in a steel grip. I kicked hard against his exposed shin and twisted away, ru

Cars honked and swerved around me. Mr. Gravel-voice was trying to get at me but the street was lively with cabs; one stopped when I pounded on the door.

“Drive around the ballpark,” I said. “I want to see which way those two creeps are going.”

“He going to shoot me?” the cabbie asked, watching Gravel stick a hand inside his jacket.

“He’s going to realize he’s in the middle of a busy street with a thousand cops around him.”

The cabbie accelerated and turned left across the northbound traffic. As we turned, I saw a cop blowing a furious whistle at Gravel, forcing him back to the sidewalk. Hands on his hips, Gravel swiveled to keep an eye on the cab I was in.

I lost sight of him when we turned up Sheffield. The cabbie made the next left onto Waveland. I stopped him at the corner, handed him a ten for the three-dollar fare, stopped a cab from a different company and got him to drive me back down to the corner I’d just left. We were in time to see Gravel and Uncle Jerry climb into the Bagby truck. I took pictures as best I could from the moving taxi, but photos couldn’t begin to convey the menace in Gravel’s face or the fear in Uncle Jerry’s.

EJECTED

Joel was actually at his desk when I got to Ira’s office, typing on an old-model Dell. One thing about habitual heavy drinkers, they can stay upright and even function when the rest of us would be comatose. Ira wasn’t there, but Eunice was talking with an African-American woman around her own age. They were going through a thick stack of documents, checking them against an old calendar.

Eunice had buzzed me in, but her face was stiff with disapproval. Joel wasn’t ecstatic at seeing me, either.

“Are you here to nag some more about Stella? I told you yesterday that I know I fucked up her defense. There’s nothing else to say.”

He spoke loudly, belligerently, and Eunice froze in the middle of her own conversation.

“Joel, please take Ms. Warshawski into the office. Mrs. Eldridge’s affairs are complicated and we need quiet to focus on them.”

Joel muttered under his breath that he wasn’t a baby, he was tired of being bossed around, but he got to his feet and clumped his way to a small room at the back, not bothering to see if I was following.

“Well?” He stood just inside the door, arms folded across his chest, the edges of his full cheeks stained red.

“I talked to Melba Minsky yesterday and she sent me to Rafael Zukos.”

The red spread across his face. “Melba Minsky, she always was a goddam buttinsky. Minsky Buttinsky. She tell you the boy wonder’s amazing success stories, or did she fill your head with smutty gossip?”

“Neither.” Joel was blocking the visitor’s chair. I went around and sat behind the desk, facing him as his father must often have done. “All she said was that you and Rafe were in the same bar mitzvah class. Rafe told me—other things.”

Joel looked behind him at his mother, who couldn’t help turning around to send him an anguished glance. He closed the door and plopped heavily onto the visitor’s chair.

“Did you come here to threaten to tell Eunice and Ira those things?”

I shook my head. “Mr. Previn, your private business is no concern of mine, your parents or any other soul on the planet. Not unless your private business involved concealing evidence in Stella’s murder trial.”