Fastball (23 page)

“Piss off, man.” Robbie tried to break away,
but his strength was no match for Jake’s iron grip.

“Rob, you’re in hock to Joey Nazarian, and
you can’t pay up. You’re in a hell of a pile of trouble, man, and
you’re going to need some friends who have your back.”

Robbie’s head shot up, and he fired back at
Jake instantly. “Well, that’s my goddamn problem, not yours, isn’t
it? I’ll find a way to pay Nazarian. Anyway, it’s none of your damn
business, so just leave me alone.” His voice reached a crescendo.
“The last thing I need is you interfering.”

Jake gave him a withering stare. “Yeah,
right. Dude, you’re up past your neck in trouble. For God’s sake,
you’re betting on baseball! Maybe even on our own games.”

Robbie’s jerked his head back, as if Jake had
socked him. Then his gaze slid away with tell-tale guilt.

Shit. You stupid bastard
. He’d been
holding onto a frayed thread of hope that Nate had been mistaken,
but clearly he hadn’t been. Jake wasn’t sure whether he wanted to
help Robbie or murder him.

“Have you completely lost your goddamn mind?”
Jake’s voice rose and his grip tightened on Robbie’s arm. Robbie
paled and swallowed hard, and for a few moments there was dead
silence.

“I should have known,” Robbie finally lashed
back, looking like he was about to explode. “That asshole Carter
must have been listening at the door before he barged in. He
overheard Nazarian and me, and then went running to Daddy Jake.
Isn’t that right? Good old Jake Miller to the rescue.”

Robbie’s sneering insult hit Jake square in
the gut. “Don’t be such a naïve dickhead. You’re damn lucky Nate
happened to be there. And he came to me because he cares about the
team and what this could do to us, just like I do. Just like
you
should. You’re not just going to blow me off, Rob. This
is way bigger than you. It affects all of us. It affects the team
and our fans. Hell, it affects all of baseball, which you’d see if
you pulled your head out of your ass long enough to start
thinking.”

“Maybe,” Robbie said, jerking his arm out of
Jake’s grip. “Maybe not. But it doesn’t matter, because it can all
go away if you and Carter can just manage to keep your fucking
mouths shut. I told you before that I can take care of this thing.
Nothing bad has to happen unless one of you guys starts shooting
his mouth off. Just give me a few days and this’ll all be history,
Jake. Somehow I’ll find the money to get Nazarian off my back, and
then everything will be totally fine.”

Jake glared down at him, deliberately
intimidating him with his size. Robbie backed up against the
concrete wall of the corridor, his glance darting around as if he
was looking for an avenue of escape. It sucked having to pressure
Robbie like this, but Jake knew he wouldn’t take him seriously
unless he did.

“It’s not good enough to just pay off
Nazarian,” he said in a low voice. “You’ve got to stop betting,
period. If you don’t, you’re just going to get into the same mess
again and again, like a damn crack addict.”

“I repeat. Mind your own fucking business,
Jake,” Robbie snapped, glaring.

Infuriated, Jake grabbed Robbie’s shoulder,
giving him a shake. “I’m not kidding,” he said, making his voice as
cold as he could. “You know me better than that. I’m not going to
let you jeopardize the other guys on this team and their families
just because you don’t have the balls to stop gambling. You’re
going to dig deep and find the guts to do it, you selfish jerk, or
you’re going to have to answer to me and to every other guy on this
team. Nate and I are really sticking our necks out for you. We’re
going to help you keep it covered it up for now, but you damn well
better come through for us.”

At that, Robbie’s tough guy act began to
crumble. He hung his head again, but not before Jake saw his eyes
flood with tears. At first when he tried to speak, he seemed to
choke on the words. Jake loosened his grip and waited
patiently.

“Jesus, man, I’m a fucking mess,” Robbie
finally managed to mutter. He wiped his sleeve across his eyes.
“It’s been getting worse and worse. I keep upping my bets, trying
to recover, but now I’ve hit the wall. I have to figure out how to
borrow more cash.”

“How deep in hock are you?”

Robbie swallowed noisily. “Deep. And now that
fucker Nazarian is threatening to leak it that I’ve been betting on
the team’s games.”

Jake expelled an exasperated breath. “What do
you expect? Nazarian’s some kind of gangster. He’ll say anything
and do anything to scare the hell out of you. Do you really think
he’d hesitate for a minute to have you whacked if you don’t pay
up?”

Robbie jerked his head up. “I don’t think
he’d kill me. He’s a thug but I don’t think he’s a murderer. But
he’d beat the living shit out of me, that’s for sure. Maybe enough
to end my career.”

“And that’s the best case scenario,” Jake
said. “So, are you going to quit for good or not?”

Robbie shrugged, his face a picture of
misery.

Jake sighed. His friend was acting like a
jackass of the first order, but he couldn’t abandon him now. “Look,
I’ll make you a deal. You promise me you’ll quit right now and go
straight into a gambling addiction program, and I’ll lend you the
money to pay off Nazarian. Whatever it takes.” His stomach churned
at the thought of getting pulled any deeper into this hot mess, but
what choice did he really have? If he kept quiet, loaned Robbie the
money and got him some professional help, with a little luck this
all could go away without anybody having to get hurt.

Robbie stared at Jake as if he couldn’t grasp
what he’d just heard. Tears now streamed down his stricken face. “I
didn’t know where the hell I’d get the money. I couldn’t tell
anybody what I needed it for. Who was going to lend me two hundred
thousand, just like that? I guess I should have come to you
earlier, but I just didn’t have the guts to own up to it. You get
that, don’t you?”

Jake sucked in a startled breath. Coming up
with two hundred grand wasn’t a problem for him, but he couldn’t
believe Robbie had fallen that far into debt. In fact, he was
amazed that a bookie as ruthless as Nazarian hadn’t taken some
serious action to recover it already. Nazarian must have thought
Robbie was still in the big time, salary-wise. He wouldn’t be the
only one not to realize that as a bench-warming utility man, Robbie
Benton made fringe money compared to most players.

Shaking his head, he tried to will away the
headache starting to pound in his temples. “Yeah, I get that it’s
tough, but I always thought you were a damn tough son of a bitch. I
thought you had more guts than what I’m seeing now, Rob.”

“Don’t rub it in, for Christ’s sake,” Robbie
moaned.

Jake clenched his teeth against a flare of
anger. It was useless emotion when it came to Robbie. “Just get out
of here and get it done. Go to Nazarian and tell him you’ll pay up,
but after that you’re totally done with him.”

Robbie looked at his feet again. “Okay,” he
said in a choked voice.

“And tomorrow, you and I are going to get you
enrolled in addiction rehab,” Jake said.

Robbie’s head snapped up. “I don’t need any
fucking social workers on my ass to stop gambling, man. Give me
some credit, and let me do it my way. The last thing I need is to
get caught going to some dumbass meetings or counseling sessions.
That would sink me with the team if they found out.”

Jake started to interrupt, but Robbie held up
a hand. “Look, I already said I’d tell Nazarian I’m done when I
give him the money. Isn’t that good enough for now?”

“No, it sure as hell isn’t,” Jake said. “You
might think you can do it yourself, but so does every booze and
drug addict. Addiction doesn’t work that way, and you know it.”

Robbie grimaced. “Trust me, Jake.”

Jake shook his head. “Not good enough. Like I
said, I’ll front you the money, but on condition that you get
treatment, period. Management doesn’t have to know—we can find some
place totally discrete.”

“Let me think it over for a day or two,”
Robbie said.

“Fine, but you’re not getting the money until
I get your promise, and know you mean it.”

“Whatever,” Robbie said sullenly.

“Don’t screw this up, Rob, because this is
your last chance. If you try to play games I’ll kick your ass
myself, even if Nazarian doesn’t.”

Robbie nodded, then turned and walked
away.

* * *

By the time the ninth inning was over, Maddie
had nearly completed her piece for tomorrow’s paper. While Jake was
getting showered and dressed, she’d finish it, file it, and then
surprise him by meeting him at his car in the parking lot. She
badly wanted them to get away for a while tonight, and she was
going to suggest they drop in at an intimate bar in her
neighborhood where there were no sports TV’s and the locals pretty
much minded their own business. As long as she and Jake kept their
hands off each other, they should be fine.

She loved having Jake come to her apartment
night after night, but she’d been starting to wish for a life
together that felt, well, more normal
.
After all, they
really weren’t doing anything wrong—they were two consenting,
unmarried adults, and they rarely talked baseball when they were
together. That part had been surprisingly easy. Rather than running
into tricky questions around conflicts of interest when it came to
their work, she and Jake generally talked about everything
but
baseball. Okay, they did have a lot of sex and hooray
for that, but they also found plenty of things to talk about when
they weren’t acting like hormonally-crazed teenagers. It was yet
another indication of how good they were together, and Maddie was
beginning to struggle with a certain impatience to move ahead, to
deal with the obstacles standing in the way of a true
relationship.

And sooner or later, someone would out them.
It made sense to her that she and Jake control how that happened,
instead of leaving it up to chance.

By the time she made her way down from the
press box and out to the staff parking lot, most of the players and
team staff had already left. The lot was virtually empty but for
her Fusion, Jake’s Tahoe, and a few other cars scattered about. She
moved her car a few spaces away from the Tahoe, and settled in to
wait.

But after fifteen minutes, her nerves began
to jangle. Jake still hadn’t appeared and she hadn’t seen any other
players leaving the entire time she’d been waiting. What could be
keeping him? Maybe she should get out and walk toward the
clubhouse. Meeting him like that would surprise him—pleasantly, she
hoped—even more than waiting for him in the parking lot. And if
anyone spotted them, she could say she’d left something up in the
press box, and had simply bumped into Jake on the way back.
Reporters and players had that kind of casual contact all the time.
As long as they kept it light and brief, team management didn’t
make a fuss about it.

In any event, she didn’t want to sit in the
car any longer, sticking out like a sore thumb. Something was
bothering Jake, and it was starting to gnaw away at her nerves,
too. The sooner she found him, the better.

She got out and passed through the wire fence
that separated the concourse area from the parking lot. As she
neared the corridor that led to the clubhouse, she heard
voices—loud, angry voices. Disconcerted, she slowed her pace. She
had no desire to run into players or staff in the middle of an
argument, nor would they appreciate a reporter walking into that
kind of scene.

As she began to turn on her heel to go back
to her car, the voices rose again. She stopped, almost dropping her
purse when she recognized Jake’s voice as one of them. It held a
cold, lethal tone that caused shivers to ripple down her spine.
She’d never heard him so angry, and it sent her low-level anxiety
about him shooting into the stratosphere. Who was he fighting with,
and why? Could somebody have already found out about them and
confronted him? Her stomach cramped at the idea that they might
have already lost control of the situation.

Before she could decide what to do, the other
man cut Jake off, yelling back. Maddie suddenly recognized that
voice, too. It was Robbie Benton’s, and he sounded just as angry as
Jake, maybe even more so.

She frowned, clutching her bag tight against
her body. That didn’t make a lot of sense. Jake and Robbie were old
friends, and this was clearly no minor disagreement. Unable to
resist, she inched down the corridor, squeezing behind a concrete
support column. Of course she shouldn’t eavesdrop, but the raw
anger in the men’s voices spiked both her curiosity and her sense
of alarm. She didn’t know what she could do, but there was no damn
way she was leaving Jake alone in case the situation really went
south.

Seconds later, their words nearly stopped her
heart. Had she heard right? Robbie Benton gambling on baseball?
Betting on his
own team’s games
?

No wonder Jake sounded like he wanted to kill
the guy. For a player to engage in that kind of betting was the
worst possible offense. It ruined careers and a team’s reputation,
causing havoc from top to bottom in the organization and bringing
disrepute to the whole sport. There were few things a team’s
management hated more than illegal betting, and the consequences
for anyone involved were dire.

But things went from bad to worse when she
realized that not only was Jake going to help Robbie cover up his
problem, he was going to loan him the money to do so. She swayed,
light-headed, grabbing at the concrete column to steady herself. If
Jake wound up caught in the middle of this mess, his brilliant
career would be over in a heartbeat, his legacy tarnished for all
time. How could he be so stupid as to take such a risk, even for a
friend? No true friend would even ask it of him.