Speedy (Holman)/Chapter 10
While Steven Carter was telephoning his "medical" friend, "Doctor" Mason, down on De Lacey Street, in front of the Hotel Envoy Speedy Swift was in line waiting for his next fare. Speedy was in no hurry. He had had a strenuous day so far and his right-hand coat pocket sagged with receipts. If his luck kept up, he was sure Jerry Moore would be well satisfied with the first day's activities of his new driver.
Speedy even ventured to draw forth the afternoon edition of the newspaper from his pocket and read over again the baseball dope, already digested along with his beans at the lunch room. He looked at his watch. It was two o'clock. The rival World's Series teams would probably be dressing now, preparatory to taking the field. He wished he had arrived at the Envoy a little sooner. He had retained in his mind the knowledge that the New York baseball team stopped there and possibly he could have conveyed some of them to the Yankee Stadium. By dawdling so long at his lunch he had missed picking up possible customers bound to the game too. It was too bad. He would have gotten a thrill from just seeing the outside of the Stadium and seeing the crowds pouring in.
In a second his thoughts were interrupted abruptly. A stocky figure came dashing out of the Envoy.
"Hey, taxi!" yelled the flying newcomer. "Snap out of it and buzz me up to the Yankee Stadium with all you've got! I'm late."
Speedy looked at him. His heart stood still. His mouth parted foolishly in an awed grin. Surely he could not be mistaken. He had seen this famous man's picture often enough. It was, it must be—Babe Ruth!
"Say," said Speedy, almost afraid to ask. "You're Babe Ruth, aren't you?"
"Sure," grinned Babe. "And I'm in an awful rush too. Just found out my car was out of commission."
"Will you—shake—hands with me?" asked Speedy.
"Sure—if it'll make you get five miles an hour faster out of that coffin you're driving."
He reached over, grabbed Speedy's hand and gave it a he-man's grip. Then he leaped into the cab and shouted, "Come on now, big boy. Bear down and get going."
Speedy sat up straight at the wheel and stuck out his chest. Already several pedestrians had stopped and were staring at the famous Babe. Speedy would like to have lingered longer. But the Babe was already hurling further demands for him to "step on her." Speedy stepped. The car leaped forward, nearly smacking into the motor ahead. Speedy whirled the wheel, avoided catastrophe by inches and was up at the crossing just in time to get the officer's go-ahead signal. He swung into Fifth Avenue with the uptown tide.
"Don't mind the lights. Take a chance. I know most of these cops," Babe urged.
Speedy obeyed. He notched up his speed ten miles faster than the law allows. A whistle shrilled. A bluecoat held up a halting hand. Babe thrust his grinning head out and shouted, "All right, Mike. It's me. Got to make the game." The cop smiled good-naturedly and motioned them on. Taking courage from this episode Speedy piled on more and more speed. The car shrieked and groaned. He dived from one side of the street to the other, trying to pass traffic. Babe was flung off the seat, recovered and clung desperately to the strap by the window.
At 60th Street a jam of cars held them up.
"Fast enough for you?" Harold turned and asked anxiously.
"I'll say so, brother," grunted Babe grimly. "If we're both alive when we get there, we'll be lucky."
The wild journey continued. Once above 125th Street traffic thinned a bit and Speedy pressed down more on his accelerator. A score of indulgent cops, at intervals, stepping sternly out to stop the flying taxi, drew back and waved them on when the familiar features of the Sultan of Swat saluted them.
But a half mile or so from the Stadium the law ceased to smile.
"You've got a couple of motorcycle guys after you!" Babe called out suddenly. "Speed up and fade them. They're no friends of mine. They must be new. They don't have motorcycle cops up this way."
Speedy obediently notched up his protesting engine more, though the water was now starting to steam out of his radiator and every nut and bolt in his car seemed to be dancing around. He could see through the mirror on his windshield the two motorcycle bluecoats dodging traffic and hot on his trail. Only the fact that they were not disposed to risk their necks in the daredevil way Speedy was holding his out for destruction prevented them from catching up to him.
And now the gray mass of the Yankee Stadium loomed up. The bleachers and stands were black with humanity. Every "L" train was landing more hordes of fans. Flags waved gayly in the breeze from the ramparts. New Yorkers by the thousands were slowly winding up the runways toward the ticket offices. From the elevated position of the highway Speedy could see white-clad baseball players against the green background of the perfectly kept grounds.
With a final burst of speed they swooped up to the side entrance of the ball park and Babe Ruth leaped out.
"Good boy," he said, and thrust a ten-dollar bill in Speedy's hand. "Better beat it yourself for a while and wait those motorcycle cops out," was Babe's final breathless word of advice as he dashed toward the little gate leading to the Yankee dressing room.
Speedy could hear the roaring of motorcycles approaching and could discern the grim, dust-flecked faces of the cops as they descended upon their prey. Hesitating for only an instant, he leaped out of his car and ran. He sped around the outside wall of the Stadium until he came to the main entrance blocked with a solid mass of humanity pushing its way slowly up toward the box offices and the precious tickets.
Speedy ducked agilely into the midst of this heaving crowd. He burrowed his way in, frantically despite the loud protests, warnings and maledictions of the throng around him. Several hands reached for him to pull him back, but Speedy was quick as a cat.
"Hey, taxi, where do you think you are? Fifth Avenue?" called a rough, taunting voice.
Speedy took the tip and thrust his cap proclaiming his vocation into his pocket. When he thought he was buried sufficiently in the middle of the army of would-be ticket purchasers to avoid the inquisitive eyes of his motorcycle followers, he consented to stop shoving and allow himself to drift with the tide. In spite of himself he was soon again on the outer fringe of the mob near the wall, though very close now to the ticket offices. He could look down from the elevation and see his abandoned cab. Two officers were making a minute inspection of it. They wore the black leather puttees of motorcycle policemen. They looked inside the cab and all around it. They conversed together, then both stared up at the crowd wending its way into the grounds. They must have concluded that their prey was headed for the game, for both hurried over toward the entrance to the grounds. Speedy began furiously to force himself into the midst of the throng again.
At the ticket office window, which he reached after what seemed an age, he tendered Babe Ruth's ten-dollar bill, most of which was rightfully his, for a ticket and carefully counted his change, to the disgust of those behind him. He had hardly gained the other side of the turnstile when the two motorcycle cops loomed suddenly behind him.
Without wasting a second look, Speedy started to run down the aisle bordering the last row of grandstand seats, dodging in and out among the people and nearly knocking a score or more down. A fleeting backward glance told him that the cops were right after him. One policeman started to shout at him to stop. Hands were jerked out to bar his path, but Speedy avoided them. The attention of the whole grandstand was diverted from the field, where the Pittsburgh team was holding fielding practice, and directed at the flying youth and his two pursuers. Strangely enough, most of the sympathy seemed to be for Speedy, for many voices shouted, "Beat it, kid," "Thatta boy, Jesse James" and the like.
Speedy swung abruptly to the right and ran down one of the inclined aisles, attempting to lose himself among the ticket-holders who were being shown to their seats by the ushers. He gained some ground in this way but when he reached the end of the aisle, with only the row of boxes between him and the field, he flashed a backward look and saw that his relentless pursuers were still on his trail.
Undaunted, he turned and dashed along the space between the back of the boxes and the first row of seats, leaving this avenue to leap up into the left field bleachers where the grandstand ended. He had nearly encompassed the whole field in this way and was very close to being completely exhausted and out of breath. He saw a door leading down into some subterranean depths below the grandstand, and tried it. It was open. He pushed in quickly and closed it after him.
"What's the matter, kid?" asked the booming, humorous voice that Speedy recognized. Babe Ruth, in uniform, was coming up from the Yankee dressing room to take his place on the field. Below, Speedy could make out the lockers, shower baths and rubbing tables that comprised the bulk of the fittings in the ball players' rendezvous.
"Those two cops are still after me," Speedy panted.
"That so?" said Babe. "Well, you just stick down here for a while till they beat it. They'll never think of looking for you down here. If they do, just tell them to get in touch with me. I got you into this trouble and I'll get you out." With which suggestion and promise the famous Babe hurried on his way.
Speedy, delighted to obey and awe-struck to be invited into the sacred precincts frequented by Babe and Gehrig and Miller Huggins and the other gods of the diamond, walked down the steps and into the athletic regions below. The faint smell of arnica, always present in locker rooms, was in the air. At first Speedy thought the place was deserted, but he soon heard voices in the other end of the room. A low-voiced conversation punctuated with a groan now and then. He walked down between the row of lockers and saw a ball player stretched out upon a rubbing table. One of his stockings was rolled down and a squatty little man was rubbing a badly swollen ankle with a pungent concoction out of a bottle.
"Easy, Barney, easy," the injured man was cautioning.
"The only way to reduce that swelling is to rub it out," grunted his masseur.
Speedy approached closely and was watching this operation with considerable interest when the man addressed as Barney saw him.
"Hey—what are you doing in here?" demanded Barney in a belligerent tone.
"Mr. Ruth sent me here," Speedy replied, not very much ruffled.
"He did, hey. Like fun he did. Now you get the—" Barney stopped his order abruptly. A light seemed to dawn upon his low, beetled brow. "Maybe he did at that." Barney abandoned his rubbing and walked over to the little office adjoining the locker room. He came out with a long, narrow bundle from which he removed the paper. Two long, narrow, yellow baseball bats emerged from the bundle.
"Here's what he sent you for," said Barney. "Beat it now and get them to him on the bench before the game starts."
Speedy grinned broadly. He was in luck. Not only had he brought Ruth to the game but now he had been made custodian of the famous slugger's two newest bats and had been appointed the Mercury who was to speed them to him. Speedy started up toward the door through which he entered these sacred precincts.
"Here, you—the other door," called Barney, eyeing him suspiciously.
Speedy dashed over to the exit pointed out to him. It led directly onto the field. The New York team was holding their batting practice and the field was alive with white-clad players. Speedy hurried down the field, keeping close to the grandstand and carrying his important burden proudly over his right shoulder. Babe was standing midway between the bench and the home plate leaning on a bat. Speedy approached him amid the curious glances of the other players and a glowering look from the Yankee's little red-headed mascot, who must have thought somebody had arrived to take his job away from him.
"Here's your new bats, Mr. Ruth," said Speedy, holding them out.
"Good. Thanks," said Babe. Then noticing who had brought them, "Golly, kid, you sure do get around a lot," he laughed.
It was his turn at bat at that moment and he dropped the stick in his hand and selected one of the new ones brought by Speedy. He tossed the two spare bats in toward the bench, where the red-headed bat boy seized them and lined them up neatly with the rest of the timber lying in a row in front of the Yankee dugout. Ball players, one of the most superstitious classes of human beings in the world, believe bad luck will befall the team which does not arrange its bats tidily before its bench.
Speedy stood a moment and watched Babe foul two balls, then hit one with his well-known full, graceful swing on a lazy fly out to deep center field. Speedy looked around with lively interest. He recognized several of the players, even among the gray-shirted Pittsburgh athletes in their dugout on the other side of the plate. He even began to entertain hopes that he might be invited to view the game from the Yankee bench. Imagine—the World's series and he, Speedy Swift, seeing it from the dugout, hearing all the inside dope, rubbing elbows with Ruth and the rest.
But these hopes were short-lived. A—short, wrinkled-looking little man in uniform, evidently the manager of the team, accosted him.
"You'll have to get out of here," he said in a not unkindly voice. "The game's about to start. You've got a ticket, haven't you?"
"Sure," said Speedy.
The little man held open the gate opening up from the field into an aisle leading into the grandstand seats and waited for Speedy to exit. Speedy went. Almost immediately he was met by an usher.
"Where's your ticket?" asked that individual.
Speedy felt confidently into his pocket, where he had put the precious paste-board. It wasn't there. In his rush through the stands and around the field he had evidently dropped it. Consternation seized the youth. But he did not allow it to appear on his face or his manner. The attention of the usher having been diverted by the demand of another patron to know where his seat was, Speedy ducked past the pair and up toward the higher reaches of the grandstand. He thought of slipping into the first unoccupied seat he came to, but he knew this ruse would not be successful. Upon the arrival of the rightful owner of the seat and the usher's demand that Speedy produce his coupon, he would be ejected, probably from the grounds as well as the seat. He must think of something else.
At the top of the aisle, he stopped to reconnoiter. He was near the big counter from which the white-coated purveyors of pop, sandwiches, other edibles and scorecards drew their supplies. A youth of about his own age bustled past him and spoke to a red-faced, fretty, derby-hatted man behind the counter.
"Mr. Todd sent me here. Said you was short," said the youth.
"All right. All right," whined the worried man in the derby. "You bet I'm short. How do they expect me to work this mob with the handful of ignoramuses they've given me. Come around here and get your outfit."
The youth went around the back of the counter, disappeared into a closet-like room, to step out almost immediately past Speedy in a white coat and hat and bearing on straps around his shoulders a big tray laden with merchandise to sell to hungry, thirsty and information-craving fandom.
Speedy hesitated no longer. He also strode up to the still worried man with the derby. His Smythe's Sweets Shoppe experience would come in handy now.
"Mr. Todd sent me here. Said you were short," said Speedy brazenly.
"Another one of you," sighed the derbied one. "Todd's waking up at last. Come around and get your outfit."
Speedy was around in a flash. In the compartment back of the counter he found caps, coats and trays neatly laid out on shelves. He helped himself to one of each. The cap was too small, sitting only on the topmost part of his head, but there was no time to be lost. The man in the derby selected an array of saleables and piled them on the tray, checking them on a little pad.
"Two sections to the right and down one—and go to work," said the manager behind the counter.
Speedy obeyed. "Peanuts, popcorn, chewing gum and corn crisp! All the players and how they go to bat! Can't tell the players without a score card! Ice cold pop, gents," sang out Speedy, having listened to the vendors at baseball games carefully and also having done this same type of job once before at a carnival. He knew the jargon. He could hurl a box of crackerjack twenty feet down a row of seats with the best of them and catch the patron's dime as it came spinning through the air
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Speedy overhears the crook conversing on the telephone at the baseball park.
with perfect nonchalance. The section he was working had evidently been virgin territory for quite a while, for business was very brisk.
"O.K., gents. Ginger ale?—sure! Sorry, can't change a five. Peanuts? Coming right up."
Through it all he took time to steal a glance down at the field now and then. Pittsburgh having been retired without a run in the first inning, the Yankees were now coming to bat. Two men went out on infield grounders and now Babe was to hit. Speedy rested his tray against his knee and, despite the clamors of his customers for his wares, watched the Babe take two healthy swipes at the ball without connecting and then send a long fly out to right field which the guardian of that pasture gathered in without moving more than a step or two. Speedy sighed. He started to dispense merchandise again.
"Why don't you pay attention to your job?" grumbled a pale, anemic fan who had been crying for lemon soda.
"Boy, if you can drink pop while the Babe's hitting, you don't belong here," replied Speedy tartly.
"That's right, kid," a well-dressed, elderly gentleman seated next to the complaining clerk approved.
Others took up Speedy's defense and in a few minutes the clerk was undergoing some good-natured razzing.
Speedy continued to do a rushing business. In another half hour his tray was completely empty. He had been allowing his interest to wander more and more to what was happening down there on the field and less and less to his business. It was the fifth inning and the score was a tie. Pittsburgh was coming up for their half of the sixth, with the heavy hitters at the head of the batting order out to break up the ball game right then and there. It was too much for Speedy. If Speedy went back for more stuff to sell, as he knew he ought to do, he would miss one of the crucial points in the game. Besides, another meeting with the harassed man with the derby might result in the discovery that the unknown (to Speedy) Mr. Todd had not sent him there at all. Speedy slipped into an empty seat high up in the Stadium and, resting his tray on his knees, concentrated on watching the game. From this vantage point he saw two innings played, the score remaining a deadlock. Several boys with trays passed him, glared and made remarks. Speedy paid no attention to them.
But now he saw a pair of ominous looking blue coats approaching up the aisle from the direction of the field, and his eyes immediately shifted from Gehrig at the bat to this nearing danger. Yes, they had black puttees. They were certainly the same two policemen who had been chasing him earlier! They were now coming toward him, darting sharp glances right and left into the crowd, evidently still looking for him. When they were five or six rows away, Speedy could stand the suspense and impending discovery no longer. He sprang up and, still burdened with his tray, started running down the space in back of the last row of seats.
Almost immediately the two cops spotted the fleeing figure and ran after him. Speedy scurried along at random, hampered by the huge tray. He had covered ten yards or more when he became aware that a small figure with a big slouchy cap pulled down over his eyes was racing along in front of him. Big Cap looked back for an instant, disclosing a keen, ratty little face, the stub of a cold cigarette dangling from one corner of his mouth. Then the small man suddenly swerved to the left and disappeared into a box-like compartment. It was a telephone booth, Speedy discovered, and there was a whole row of them stretching out along that part of the Stadium.
On an impulse Speedy leaped into one of the booths. He slammed the door behind him. But he had reckoned without his tray. The booth was too narrow to contain both him and his impediment. The tray was caught outside. And it was too late now to rid himself of it. The two cops were standing just abaft the booth and were looking the other way into the grandstand, evidently believing Speedy had disappeared down there.
It was an exciting moment in the game and the whole crowd was on its feet yelling. Speedy wondered what had happened. It was just his luck to be caught in here just when the best part of the contest was going on! But his regrets promptly vanished and he bent an alert ear to the thin partition dividing him from the tough-looking little fellow in the next booth when he heard the latter talking over the 'phone and mentioning a familiar name.
"Carter is getting rid of old man Dillon today—" the man in the next booth was saying. Just then a wild cheer from the crowd prevented Speedy from hearing the next part of the conversation. He pressed his ear hard against the barrier and listened intently. The cheering died away. The little man was still talking.
"—it's a cinch," he was saying. "Carter shipped the old bird up to Connecticut and told him he'd get another fellow to drive the car. Of course that's the bunk. The car won't make its trip tomorrow and the old man loses the whole shebang. Then Carter steps in and cops if off—get me. Now what—"
Again the mob of fans burst into a wild roar. Ruth had crashed out a three bagger with two of his teammates on base, practically cinching the game for the Yankees. The cheering drowned out the hoarse voice of the man in the next compartment, strain as the aroused Speedy did to catch what he said. When it was again quiet, the conversation was almost over.
"—only got until six o'clock Saturday afternoon—day after tomorrow—to cop the franchise. If Carter don't come through by that time, the company's goin' to jump in and do business with the old man themselves."
With that the little man hung up. Speedy, deciding to risk arrest or anything to check up on this amazing matter immediately, stepped quickly out of the booth. So did the conversationalist from the next booth. The two policemen stepped simultaneously. Speedy thought they were about to seize him and prepared for the worst. But instead one of them clutched at the little man with the big cap just as the latter ducked with a swift movement and started to run. He completely eluded the policeman and, aided by the fact that the game had just been finished and the crowd was pouring out of their seats and cluttering up the place, plunged into the oncoming hordes and disappeared.
"Who was that fellow?" Speedy quickly asked the other policeman, who was still standing there.
"That's Al Murphy, of Callahan's gang. Wanted for a fur robbery down at the Atlantic Basin last night. A bad egg," snapped the cop and dashed into the crowd in the direction his fellow cop had taken.
Speedy sighed with relief and felt a little foolish. The policemen had not been chasing him at all. All the time they had been after Al Murphy. Probably they had had a tip he would be at the game, had gotten on his trail and followed him there. Doubtless he had arrived just ahead of Speedy and the cops had been hot after him ever since. Now that he thought of it, Speedy had noticed a little fellow with a cap ahead of him several times that hectic afternoon.
But then he came to with a start. He would have to get into action at once! As he had suspected, this fellow Carter was a crook. Linked up with the Callahan gang. Just as he had doped it out. The conversation in the next booth and the identification of Al Murphy as being one of the Callahans proved it. He must get back to the Dillons at once and warn Jane and Pop. Pop must make the trip in the car the next day at all costs. And he would confront this Mr. Carter and tell him what he thought of him. That is, provided the fellow was still around. He quickly divested himself of his vendor's cap, jacket and tray and deposited them in the nearest seat.
Hurrying as fast as the outbound army would allow him down the ramp to the exit gate of the Stadium, Speedy for the first time thought about the taxicab he had abandoned just outside. He wondered whether it was still there. Thank goodness he had had sense enough to lock the car and put the key in his pocket. Though, heavens knows, that didn't faze an experienced auto thief if he really wanted to make a haul. One thing in favor of the car being safe, it was just a dilapidated vehicle that few people would take the trouble to steal.
Reaching the exit, Speedy plunged sideways through the crowd and managed after fifteen minutes or more to make his way to the spot where he had left his taxi. To his joy it was still there. A stockily built man was walking around it inspecting it, but the car was intact. That was the important thing. Speedy leaped up into the seat and turned the key in the lock. He resolved to take no passengers but to hasten empty downtown to the Dillons'.
"Who's that? Swift?" came a sharp voice at his side.
Speedy looked around, to be confronted by the angry face of his boss, Jerry Moore.
"What do you mean, leaving this cab here and going to the ball game?" Moore demanded. "Don't you—"
"But, Mr. Moore, I can explain. I brought Babe Ruth up here and—"
"Yeah, and I suppose President Coolidge invited you in to the ball game with him, hey? Tell it to Sweeney. You're fired."
"Listen, Mr. Moore, I drove the Babe so fast—"
"You didn't drive him near so fast as you're making up this cock and bull story. Not another word, young feller—I'm going to get in this cab to make sure you don't sink it in the East River or something, and you drive me back to the garage as quick as you can without getting pinched."
"Won't you believe me, Mr. Moore, I—"
"Not another word!" bellowed Moore. "Get goin'."
Speedy, having something even more on his mind at the moment than his job, got going. The long ride downtown was accomplished without any more exchanges of pleasantries between driver and passenger. Speedy's mind was in a torrent of confusion. How he ever managed to drive fast and successfully under the circumstances, he never could figure out later.
But he finally drew up in front of the Only One Company's garage, jumped out and opened the doors. He had no sooner arrived inside and stepped from his cab when Moore, alighting simultaneously, ordered curtly, "Come into the office." Moore extracted the receipt slips from Speedy's meter.
Speedy followed the boss in.
"Where's your day's receipts?" asked Moore.
Speedy produced them. Advised by Danny, he had kept the fares in one pocket and his tips in the other. Moore grimly tallied fares and slips. They matched exactly. He grunted.
"All right, Swift. And good-bye. You're through. I was crazy to hire you. You pretty near ruined a good car and you went to the ball game instead of staying on the job. Lucky I went to the ball game too and spotted the car. You'll never get along in this business. Here's your day's pay." He counted out three dollars and handed them to Speedy.
Speedy's temper was aroused.
"O.K., with me," he said sharply. "I don't want to work for anybody who won't take my word for things. And I wouldn't risk my life and my passengers driving a tin can like the one you handed me today. Good-bye yourself."
Before the sputtering Moore could give forth an effective retort, verbal or physical, Speedy had left the place. He walked quickly the three blocks between the Only One garage and the Dillons'. He was delighted to find a light burning in the Dillon hall. He hastened up the Dillon steps, flung open the door and entered the hall.