The grass was greener than it had been a week ago. The thick vines along the outfield wall were starting to turn green. I was facing the bleachers, where Boom-Boom and I used to climb the back wall and scramble into the seats—after sneaking onto the L by shinnying up the girders. We didn’t have any pocket money, but I guess that’s no excuse for a life of crime. I was still committing cons and crimes, I suppose, since I was letting Natalie Clements think I was writing my cousin’s biography.
I followed the ramps to the section where the press offices lay. They were cubbyholes, really, since every cubic inch in a ballpark needs to generate revenue. Natalie Clements introduced me to her boss, Will Drechen, who told me he hadn’t thought at first that they’d kept any of the pictures from that particular day.
“I happened to mention your project to my old boss when I went to see him last night. He’s been retired a long time, but he was a big fan of your cousin,” Drechen added. “He’d found these when he was going through old files.”
Drechen had the photos laid out on a tabletop. One showed Boom-Boom on the field, clowning around with Mitch Williams, who’d been a wild man on the mound, equally terrifying to fans and opponents. Boom-Boom’s face was alive with the excitement I’d seen a thousand times, whenever he was doing something high-risk. It was such a vivid photo I thought if I turned around my cousin might be standing behind me.
Natalie said, “Mr. Villard, he’s the gentleman who had the photos, he used to handle community relations, he said when Boom-Boom couldn’t come close to hitting Mitch Williams, Boom-Boom said it was because he was used to being in the penalty box for having his stick up that high.”
“Sounds like him,” I agreed.
I busied myself with the rest of the array to hide an unexpected spasm of grief. Seeing Boom-Boom’s face so filled with vitality, hearing my cousin’s words, the loss suddenly felt recent, not a decade old.
The pictures included three shots from inside the dugout. Frank was seated halfway down the bench, his face just visible behind Andre Dawson: the great right-fielder was leaning over to talk to my cousin, who was sitting at the end farthest from the field. Poor Frank. No wonder he felt bitter. No wonder he’d whiffed the curve.
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 running down the stairs.
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, running in high heels without tripping, which ought to be an Olympic event. I walked along, bent over my cousin’s face, and ran into someone.
“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 Danny DeVito.
“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 funny. Got that?”
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, running into Clark Street.
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.