Baseball Joe In The Big League Part 30

"Wait a minute!" Joe called after him. "Where'd you get this note?" the young pitcher asked.

"At de office."

"Yes, I know. But who brought it in?"

"I dunno. Youse'll have to see de manager."

"Oh, all right," Joe a.s.sented, and then he turned aside. He was still in a quandary as to what to do.

Once more he read the note.

"'If you want to do your friend Rad a good turn,'" he repeated. "Of course I do, but what does it mean? Rad can't be in trouble, or he'd have sent me some word himself. That isn't a very good neighborhood at night, but I guess I can take care of myself. The trouble is, though, if I go out, and Rad comes back here in the meanwhile, what will happen?"

Joe was thinking hard, trying to find some solution of the mystery, and then a flash came to him.

"Baseball!" he whispered to himself. "Maybe it is something to do with baseball! Someone may be scouting for Rad, and want to find out, on the quiet, if he's willing to help in making a shift to some other team.

They want me to aid them, perhaps."

Joe had been long enough in organized baseball to know that there are many twists and turns to it, and that many "deals" are carried on in what might be considered an underhand manner. Often, when rival organizations in the baseball world are at war, the various managers, and scouts, go to great lengths, and secretly, to get some player they consider valuable.

"Maybe some rival club is after Rad and doesn't want its plans known,"

mused Joe. "That must be it. They know he and I are chums, and they come to me first. Well, I sure do want to help Rad, but I don't want to see him leave the Cardinals. I guess I'll take a chance and go down there.

I'll leave word at the desk that I'll meet Rad at the theatre. That will be the best. I can telephone back to the hotel, after I go to this address, and find out if Rad has been back here. I'll go."

Stuffing the queer note into his pocket, Joe started off, catching a car that would take him near the address given. Before leaving, he arranged with the hotel clerk to tell Rad that he would meet him at the theatre.

It was a rather dark, and quite lonesome, street in which Joe found himself after leaving the street car. On either side were tall buildings that shut out much of the light by day, while at night they made the place a veritable canyon of gloom. There were big warehouses and factories with, here and there, a smaller building, and some ramshackle dwellings that had withstood the encroachment of business.

Some of these latter had fallen into decay, and others were being used as miserable homes by those who could afford no better. In one or two, saloons held forth, the light from their swinging doors making yellow patches on the dark pavement.

"I wouldn't like to have to live down here," mused Joe, as he picked his way along, looking, as best he could, for the number given in the note.

"It's a queer place to appoint a meeting, but I suppose the baseball fellows don't want to be spied on. I'll be glad when I'm through."

Joe walked on a little farther. The neighborhood seemed to become more deserted and lonesome. From afar off came the distant hum and roar of the city, but all around Joe was silence, broken, now and then, by the sound of ribald laughter from the occasional saloons.

"Ah, here's the place!" exclaimed Joe, as he stood in front of one of the few dwellings in the midst of the factories. "It looks gloomy enough. I wonder who can be waiting to see me here about Rad? Well, there's a light, anyhow."

As Joe approached the steps of the old house he saw, at one side of the door, a board on which were scrawled the words:

_Peerless Athletic Club_

"Hum! Must be a queer sort of club," mused Joe. "I guess they do more exercise with their tongues, and with billiard cues, than with their muscles."

For, as he mounted the steps, he heard from within the click of billiard and pool b.a.l.l.s, and the noise of talk and laughter. It was one of the so-called "athletic" clubs, that often abound in low neighborhoods, where the name is but an excuse for young "toughs" to gather. Under the name, and sometimes incorporation of a "club," they have certain rights and privileges not otherwise obtainable. They are often a political factor, and the authorities, for the sake of the votes they control, wink at minor violations of the law. It was to such a place as this that Joe had come--or, in view of what happened afterward, had been lured would be the more proper term.

"Well, what do youse want?" asked an ill-favored youth, as Joe entered the poorly lighted hall. The fellow had his hat tilted to one side, and a cigarette was glued to one lip, moving up and down curiously as he spoke.

"I don't know who I want," said Joe, as pleasantly as he could. "I was told to come here to do my friend Rad Chase a favor. I'm Joe Matson, of the Cardinals, and----"

"Oh, yes. He's expectin' youse. Go on in," and the fellow nodded toward a back room, the door of which stood partly open. Joe hesitated a moment, while the youth who had spoken to him went out and stood on the half-rotting steps. Then, deciding that, as he had come thus far, he might as well see the thing through, Joe started for the rear room.

But, as he reached the door, and heard a voice speaking, he hesitated.

For what he heard was this:

"S'posin' he don't come?"

"Aw, he'll come all right, Wessel," said another voice. "He sure is stuck on his friend Rad, and he'll want to know what he can do for him.

He'll come, all right."

"Shalleg!" gasped Joe, as he recognized the tones. "It's a trick. He thinks he can trap me here!"

As he turned to go, Joe heard Wessel say:

"There won't be no rough work; will there?"

"Oh, no! Not too rough!" replied Shalleg with a nasty laugh.

Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, Joe was hastening away when he accidentally knocked over a box in the hall. Instantly the door to the rear room was thrown wide open, giving the young pitcher, as he turned, a glimpse of Shalleg, Wessel and several other men seated about a table, playing cards.

"Who's there?" cried Shalleg. Then, as he saw Joe hurrying away, he added: "Hold on, Matson. I sent for you. I want to see you!"

"But I don't want to see you!" Joe called back over his shoulder.

"Say, this is straight goods!" cried Shalleg, pushing back his chair from the table, the legs sc.r.a.ping over the bare boards of the floor.

"It's all right. I've got a chance to do your friend Rad Chase a good turn, and you can help in it. Wait a minute!"

But Joe fled, unheeding. Then Shalleg, seeing that his plans were about to miscarry, yelled:

"Stop him, somebody!"

Joe was running along the dim hallway. As he reached the outside steps the youth who had first accosted him turned, and made a grab for him.

"What's your hurry?" he demanded. "Hold on!"

Joe did not answer, but, eluding the outstretched hands, made the sidewalk in a jump and ran up the street. He was fleet of foot--his training gave him that--and soon he was safe from pursuit, though, as a matter of fact, no one came after him. Shalleg and his tools were hardly ready for such desperate measures yet, it seemed.

Joe pa.s.sed a side street, and, looking up it, saw at the other end, a more brilliantly lighted thoroughfare. Arguing rightly that he would be safer there, Joe turned up, and soon was in a more decent neighborhood.

His heart was beating rapidly, partly from the run, and partly through apprehension, for he had an underlying fear that it would not have been for his good to have gone into the room where Shalleg was.

"Whew! That was a happening," remarked Joe, as he slowed down. "I wonder what it all meant? Shalleg must be getting desperate. But why does he keep after me? Unless he thinks I am responsible for his not getting a place on the Cardinals. It's absurd to think that, but it does seem so.

I wonder what I'd better do?"

Joe tried to reason it out, and then came the recollection of Rad.

"I'll telephone to the hotel, and see if he's come back," he said.

"Then, when I meet him, I'll tell him all that happened. It's a queer go, sure enough."

A telephone message to the hotel clerk brought the information that Rad had telephoned in himself, saying that he had been unexpectedly detained, and would meet Joe at the theatre entrance.