The Babe Ruth Deception Read Online Free Page A

stubbed it out in an ashtray that advertised a hit show from several years past. “We’d spent most of the money by the time I understood who he is.”
    â€œSo it was probably Rothstein money.”
    She finished her drink. “Whoever’s it was, it spent like everybody else’s. I’m sorry about this . . . connection. I should be smarter than that. But I’m hoping it’ll go away. Can’t figure out what else to do—no one’s going to buy Attell out now, not for that dog of a movie.”
    â€œSo the problem is if someone gets mad about losing his money?”
    â€œYeah, who would mind that?” She moaned softly as she stood, picking up the shoes she had kicked off. “What do you think: Eliza Fraser, moll for the mob?” She tried a rueful smile. It was more ghastly than winning.
    â€œI thought being colorful was good in the theater world.”
    â€œColorful, yes. Even downright raffish. But not actually criminal. That’s overdoing it.” Eliza finished her bourbon, then trailed a finger down his cheek. “Don’t drink too much, dear.”
    He saluted her with his glass. “Be there in a few.”
    Over his second, which he intended to be his last, Fraser’s mind snagged on Eliza’s use of the term criminal . That word, and the idea behind it, was not a casual matter to her. Through no fault of hers, she was indelibly connected to a man many would call an arch-criminal. Hell, that’s what everyone would call him. It was the great secret of her life, one not even their daughter Violet knew. As long as he’d known her, her deepest fear was falling into that category. This Babe Ruth business was definitely under her skin. He wasn’t sure if it should be, or if she was just being skittish.
    Lately he’d been remembering his first wife, Ginny, dead so long. It seemed like things were a lot simpler with her, but maybe it was just that they’d been younger and young people are simpler. He smiled. No, that wasn’t right. Eliza was definitely more complicated. A lot more complicated. He daily confronted how much he didn’t understand about her, but one thing he did know. She wouldn’t ever ask for help, not from him, and not when she really needed it. But she expected him to help without being asked. He didn’t mind that. Except maybe the part about not asking. A third drink, he decided, might be a good idea. Just tonight.
    Pouring a short one, he had a thought. He could look up Speed Cook, his old . . . friend. That was the best word, though it really didn’t capture it. They had never spent much time together—just a couple of stretches of a few months each. Even those had been twenty years apart. But they were damned interesting stretches. After the Cook family’s troubles in Paris last year, troubles that Fraser helped repair, Speed owed him one. At least one.
    Fraser stared out the window at the city’s lights, making no effort to find a pattern in them. Speed was smart about the world. He had knocked around a lot of places, sometimes in surprising ways. Most important for Eliza’s current situation, he’d played professional ball back in the eighties, before the white players drove out the Negroes. Now Speed was promoting Negro baseball teams around New York, also promoting rights for Negroes. He was bound to know gamblers like Abe Attell and the men he worked with. And the one Attell worked for.
    Eliza and Speed had gotten off on the wrong foot twenty years ago. That was because of her secret. The thing was, they hadn’t found the right foot yet. She probably wouldn’t like having her new troubles laid out for Speed. She didn’t need to know.

Chapter 3
    I t was the middle of the third inning before Fraser, clutching a bag of warm peanuts, climbed the bleachers behind the first-base line. His outing to the Catholic Protectory Oval, the home field for the New York