Double Play (27 page)

Cat blinked at
Benji. This was a side of him she’d never seen before … and she
liked it. He could teach the McDaniels a thing or two about
conning.

Sam’s eyes
focused behind them and he stood up, walking around their chairs
and shutting the door. “Let me get us some privacy.” He returned to
his desk and pulled in his chair, folding his arms on top of the
clean desktop. “Okay, I suppose it’s not really confidential and
the story does make for sound business advice. You’ve heard that
old adage about lawyers—that a man who represents himself has a
fool for a client, right?”

“
Abraham Lincoln,” Cat said.

“
Hey,
that’s right.”

She shrugged.
“You don’t grow up in Illinois and go to Lincoln State University
without learning a few things about the sixteenth
president.
”

“
Well,
I have the same motto as Abe when it comes to investors who fund
their own inventions.”

Cat raised her
palm to stop him. “Hold up. Joel invented something? Why didn’t I
hear anything about this? I would’ve thought he would’ve wanted me
to give him some publicity.”

Sam shook his
head. “Only if you believe that even bad publicity is good
publicity.”

“
What’d he invent?” Benji asked.

Sam leaned back
and crossed his arms over his chest. “People tend to come up with
ideas that they can use themselves, right? Gerber baby food was
created by a mother, the polygraph was invented by a cop and kitty
litter came from a cat lover.”

Cat shrugged.
“Okay.”

“
Well,
Joel, being a ballplayer, uses those flip up and down sunglasses
during day games.”

“
Flip
shades, yeah.” She turned to Benji. “A lot of players don’t like
the darkness of sunglasses when they’re on the field, but when they
look up to try and catch a fly ball, the glare of the sun is too
much and can make them miss. They don’t have time to put a pair of
sunglasses on, so they wear these flip-up frames. When they’re
running toward a fly ball, they can just flip the shades
down.”

Sam nodded.
“Exactly. Except Joel got it in his head that the second it takes
to flip down the shades when you’re in pursuit of the ball is too
long, so he hired somebody to design a prototype for the automatic
and intuitive … Faulk Flips.” Sam shook his head sadly.

“
Intuitive?” Benji asked.

“
Automatic?” Cat cringed. She was beginning to see where this
was going.

Sam was grinning
now. “The glasses sense the wearer’s head tilting up and respond by
mechanically lowering the shades.”

“
He
didn’t.” Cat buried her face in her hands. “That’s
ridiculous.”

“
It
took three prototypes before the trigger wasn’t so sensitive that
it was flipping the shades down every time the wearer stretched his
neck or nodded at a sign. He thought once he got his teammates to
wear them during games, they’d sell like hot cakes.”

“
Since
I’ve never heard of them, I’m guessing he couldn’t talk his friends
into wearing them?”

“
No,
and a product has to be pretty bad if you can’t find one player to
hock it.
"

Cat nodded in agreement. “
There
isn’t a player in the league that doesn’t have a brand name on his
bats, gloves, shoes, and—in place of old fashioned eye black—black
stickers under his eyes.”

“
Any
players he might’ve been able to guilt into wearing them were
already in sponsor contracts for their eyewear and the guys he
considered to be friends took one look at the hideous two pound
sunglasses and laughed him out of the clubhouse.”

This was no shock
to Cat, either. All year long it had been Damien, Ryan and
Adam—they made The Three Stooges look like Rhodes Scholars. Joel
didn’t have enough ass-itude to make the trio a quattro, yet he
continued to waste his time trying to get their attention instead
of befriending the twenty-one other players who didn’t act like
bitchy queen bees.

“
How
come I’ve never heard any of this? I would’ve thought Joel would at
least try to get the word out and salvage what he could from the
investment.”

“
It
was too late and he was embarrassed. He’d sunk millions of his own
money into the development and manufacturing.” He held up his index
finger. “Despite my advice, mind you. I told him from the beginning
that he should look for investors to take on the risk and I warned
him to test the prototype before getting in too deep, but he didn’t
listen. He moved quickly because he wanted them to hit the market
for summer sales.”

“
Wow.”

“
So
you can see why I would be surprised if anyone is taking financial
advice from Joel Faulk, even if it is just a referral for a
representative.”

Cat had heard
enough. She made eye contact with Benji, wishing they’d thought to
coordinate a signal or code word to abort mission. “I guess we’re
not high risk people after all.”

Their footsteps
echoed through the cold, dank parking garage as they walked toward
Benji’s Focus.

He stopped just
before reaching it, searching his pockets for the car keys. “He’s a
nice guy. I almost felt bad about wasting his time.”

Cat shook his arm
as if to knock the guilt right off of him. “Trust me, the Soldiers
give him plenty of business. He’ll be just fine.”

“
I’m
sure he will.” He pulled out the keys and gave them a triumphant
shake.

“
I’ll
tell you what, when we’re rolling in money, we’ll invest it with
him.”

“
Unless an opportunity to resurrect the Faulk Flips comes up in
need of investors. Or rather philanthropists, because there ain’t
no return on that money.”

She giggled as
Benji opened the passenger door for her and scurried around to the
driver’s side.

“
Besides, we might’ve wasted an hour of Sam’s time but it was
worth it. We found out exactly why Joel Faulk was begging Roger for
an advance.”

“
Yeah,
we did. What do you think?”

“
I
think some people have more money than brain cells, but unless he
was bribing Quinn and the guys with sunglasses, the truth blew my
blackmail theory to hell. What do
you
think?”

“
I
think I need a pair of Faulk Flips. Any idea how I can get my hands
on some?”

Cat laughed.
“Actually, let me tell you a story. A kid I knew at LSU joined the
Peace Corps our junior year and ended up in this tiny village in
Mozambique. The Peace Corps had only entered the country in ’98 so
there was a lot of work to be done. He’d keep us up to date on
various projects. As a nursing major, he mainly worked inside a
clinic, but occasionally he’d volunteer at the schools. Anyway, I
got an email from him one day with a picture of two children. They
were wearing t-shirts that said ‘2003 Chicago Cubs National League
Champions.’ ” She tossed Benji a wry look as the car rolled
through the parking garage gate. “The team infamously fell short of
that title, but apparently not before merchandise was printed.
Later on, he sent old pics of people in
'
1993 Philadelphia Phillies World Series
Champions
'
hats and a
'
1989 Los Angeles Lakers
NBA Champs
'
foam finger
he found in a rec room—also titles that never happened. You see,
the teams want to be able to sell the merchandise seconds after the
deciding game ends, so they print an outcome of either scenario and
then the losing team’s merch ends up going to overseas
charities.”

“
Sort
of like ‘Dewey Defeats Truman,’ but on purpose.”

“
Exactly.” She laughed. That infamous
Chicago Tribune
headline was exactly why she never uploaded her articles until the
twenty-seventh out. You never knew what could happen.

“
Glad
they donate them instead of like, burning them.”

“
So I
can’t help but wonder if thousands of Faulk Flips are floating
around an impoverished village somewhere in Africa.”

“
I
just wish if Joel had millions to throw away, he would’ve given it
straight to the Peace Corps. I’m guessing they could’ve done a lot
more with the money than a load of two pound
sunglasses.”

“
Either way, the merchandise is probably history, which means
Joel probably doesn’t have the cash to pay off anybody.
He must’ve been asking for that advance
because he really needed it.”

“
You said he did just buy a
house.”

“
I
can’t really picture him chucking someone off a balcony anyway,
even drunk. On the other hand, I don’t think Adam Alvarez would
need a drop to drop someone.”

“
He
does seem a little out there.”

“
I
wish I could just ask Quinn. He was there. He must know what
happened.” She sighed. “This must be how Detective Kahn feels. No
wonder he’s so annoyed with all of us.”

“
Do
you really think Quinn would be on the take? He’s a gambler, but I
don’t believe he’s a swindler or a blackmailer.”

Cat turned her
head toward the window and sighed. Benji’s naiveté never ceased to
amaze her. Because his heart was so pure, he assumed everyone
else’s was, too. It was adorable, but at times like these she was
glad to have her street smart upbringing.

“
If
they made it worth his while, in a heartbeat. The thing is, he’s
not an idiot and he knows how the world works. If Ryan was pushed
off that balcony, Quinn could sell a first-person account to a
tabloid for at least twenty-five thousand.”

“
That’s what, like a pitch for Adam Alvarez? Seems to me he’d
stand to lose a lot more if it came out that he threw the team’s
ace pitcher from a balcony.”

“
That
still wouldn’t explain why Ryan would be in on it. He makes even
more money than Adam.”

“
I
guess we’ll never know.” Benji pulled in front of the staff door of
Soldiers Stadium and put the car in park.

She eyed the
stadium warily.

“
Besides, if the Soldiers don’t win tonight, I’ve got bigger
problems than Joel’s bank account.”

“
Are
people still hassling you? I thought that stopped with Damien’s
death.”

“
It
did, for the most part.” When she’d cruised the message boards,
she’d found a few fans holding a grudge, but most had moved on to
mourning the first baseman. “But if we’re knocked out of the
playoffs it’s only a matter of time before they remember I’m the
supposed catalyst.”

Benji furrowed
his brow thoughtfully. “Mmm, technically the poker game would be
the catalyst. You would be a substrate thereof.”

Cat rolled her
eyes and leaned over the gear shift to give him a kiss
goodbye.

“
I’ll
see you tonight, Beaker.”

“
Meep!”

Cat thought she
was getting up to the press box early, but when she opened the
door, the room was full. She hadn’t even beat Spencer, who’d waved
her over before she stepped inside.

He pulled out the
chair next to hi
s
. “You
ready for this?”

“
If I
say no, will they postpone it?”

Spencer pretended
to mull it over. “Considering they didn’t even postpone it for a
dead first baseman, I’m gonna say no.”

“
I
know, but they thought about it and the weather forecast is showing
rain for Friday and Saturday so—” She saw Spencer’s brows rising
and stopped herself, relenting to his cynicism with a smile. “So
I’m an ass for even trying to defend them.”

“
I
heard we’re doing a moment of silence before the anthem, at
least.”

“
Yeah,
they’ve planned a little pregame ceremony as a tribute,
too.”

“
How
nice,” Spencer replied dryly. “I’m sure if they’d had more advance
notice, they would’ve tried to get Kleenex to sponsor the
game.”

Cat shushed him
as the press box began to grow crowded. Down on the field, Melissa
Staats was escorted by Roger Aiken to a chair next to the first
base. Alongside them were arrangements of carnations, the flowers
dyed to a Soldiers’
pumpkin
orange. Over the speakers the PA announcer
began a eulogy, while the JumboTron played highlights of Damien’s
baseball career.

Other than the
Buffalo reporters, no one in the press box paid attention. Damien’s
death had been front page material yesterday, and today it was old
news. Neither Cat nor Spencer said a word until the eulogy had
concluded, at which point the JumboTron switched to personal photos
of Damien Staats, starting with his t-ball photos. Cat had to hand
it to the team’s event coordinator, she sure could put together a
tearjerker on short notice. “Stairway to Heaven” began to play and
Spencer broke the silence.

“
Come
on! Is it just me or are you having serious déjà vu?”

She whispered,
“What?”

“
We
did this last night. I don’t want to sound like the soulless
Commissioner, but let’s play baseball already.”