Mortal Stakes (3 page)

Older than the players, and bulkier.

“I think I’ll go up in the broadcast booth,” I said. “If Maynard turns on me and truths me to death, I want you to write my mom.”

Little didn’t even want to talk about it. He brought me up to the press entry, along the catwalk, under the roof toward Maynardville.

The broadcast booth was a warren of cable lash-up, television monitors, microphone cords, and one big color TV camera set up to point at a blank wall to the rear of the booth.

For live commercials, I assumed. Give Bucky Maynard a chance to tell it like it is about somebody’s bottled beer. There were two men in the booth already. One I recognized. Doc Wilson, who used to play first base for the Minnesota Twins and now did color commentary for the Sox games. He was a tall, angular man, with rimless glasses and short, wavy brown hair. He was sitting at the broadcast table, running through the stat book and drinking black coffee from a paper cup. The other man was young, maybe twenty-two, middle height and willowy with Dutch boy blond hair and an Oakland A’s mustache. He had on a white safari hat with a wide leopard-skin band, pilot’s sunglasses, a white silk shirt open to the waist, like Herb Jeffries, and white jeans tucked into the top of rust-colored Frye boots. There was a brass-studded rust-colored woven leather belt around his waist and a copper bracelet on his right wrist. He was slouched in a red canvas director’s chair with his feet up on the broadcast counter, reading a copy of the National Star and chewing gum.

Wilson looked up as we came in. “Hey, Jack, howsa kid?”

“Doc, say hello to Spenser, here. He’s a writer, doing a book on the Sox, and Bucky invited him up to the booth for a look-see.”

Wilson reached around, and we shook hands. “Good deal,” he said. “If Buck says go, it’s go. Anything I can help with, just give a holler.” The kid in the safari hat never looked up. He licked his thumb, turned a page of the Star, his jaws working smoothly, the muscles at the hinge swelling regularly as he chewed.

Little said, “This here’s Lester Floyd. Lester, this is Mr. Spenser.”

Lester gave a single upward jerk of his head, raised one finger without releasing the magazine, and kept reading.

I said, “What’s he do, sing ‘Flamingo’ at the station breaks?”

The kid looked up then. I couldn’t see his eyes behind the amber lenses of his aviator shades. He blew a large pink bubble, popped it with his teeth, and slowly chewed it back into his mouth.

Little said, “Lester is Bucky’s driver, Spenser. Spenser’s going to be doing a book on the Sox and on Bucky, Lester.”

Lester blew another big bubble and chewed it back in.

“He’s gonna be looking up his own asshole if he gets smart with me,” he said. There was a red flush on his cheekbones.

“Guess he doesn’t sing ‘Flamingo,”’ I said to Wilson.

“Aw now, Lester, Mr. Spenser’s just kidding around.”

Little did a small nervous shuffle step. Wilson was staring out at the diamond. Lester was working harder on the gum.

“And I’m telling him not to,” Lester said.

“Never mind, Lester.” The voice came from behind me.

It was Maynard. “Ah invited Mr. Spenser up here to listen to mah broadcast. He’s mah guest.”

“He said something smart about me singing, Bucky. I don’t like that sorta talk.”

“Ah know, Lester, ah don’t blame you. Mr. Spenser, Ah’d appreciate it if you was to apologize to Lester here. He’s a good boy, but he’s very emotional. He’s also got a black belt in tae kwon do. And ah wouldn’t want to get your writing hand all messed up before you even start.”

Waltzing with Lester in the broadcast booth wasn’t going to tell me anything about Marty Rabb. If he was any good, it might tell me something about me, but that wasn’t what I was getting paid for. Besides, I knew about me. And if I was a writer, I wasn’t supposed to be roughing it up with black belts. Maybe box with Jose Torres on a talk show, but brawling at a ball game… ? “I’m sorry, Lester,” I said. “Sometimes I try too hard to be funny.”

Lester popped his gum at me again and went back to the National Star. Maynard smiled with his mouth only and moved to a big upholstered swivel chair at the broadcast table. He sat down, put on big padded earphones, and spoke into the mike. The small monitor built into the table to his right had flickered into life and displayed a picture of the batter’s box below. There was a long mimeographed list in front of him on a clipboard, and he checked off the first two items as he spoke.

“Burt, ah want to open on Stabile warming up. Doc and me will do some business about the knuckler and how it flutters. Right?… Yup, soon’s you run the opening cartridge.”

Wilson looked over and said to me, “He’s talking to the people outside in the truck.” I nodded. Lester licked his thumb again and turned another page.

Little leaned over and whispered to me. “Gotta run, anything you need just let me know.” I nodded again, and Little tiptoed out like a man leaving church early.

Maynard said to the people in the truck, “Ah got nothing to do live up here, right?… well, ah don’t see nothing on the sheet… no, goddamn it, ah taped that yesterday afternoon… okay, well get it straight, boy.”

A cartoon picture of a slightly loutish-looking baseball player in a Red Sox uniform appeared on the monitor. Maynard said, “Twenty seconds,” to Wilson. Below and to our right along the first-base line a portly right-handed pitcher named Rick Stabile was warming up. He threw without effort, lobbing the ball toward the catcher.

Wilson said into his mike, “Good afternoon, everyone, from Fenway Park in Boston, where today the Red Sox go against the Yankees in the rubber game of a three-game series. This is Doc Wilson along with Bucky Maynard standing by to bring you all the action.”

A beer commercial appeared on the monitor screen, and Wilson leaned back. “You gonna pick it up on Stabile, Buck?”

Maynard said, “Check.” Wilson handed him the stat sheet and leaned forward as the beer company logo filled the monitor screen. Lester was finished with the tabloid and settled down into his chair and apparently went to sleep. He looked like a peaceful serpent. Tae kwon do? Never tried somebody that did that. I gave him a hard look. He was motionless; the breath from his nostrils ruffled his mustache gently. He was probably paralyzed with fear. Maynard said, “Howdy, all you Red Soxers, this is the old Buckaroo and you’re looking at Rick Stabile’s butterfly…”

By the sixth inning the game was gone for Boston.

Stabile’s knuckler had apparently deked when it should have dived, and the Yankees led 11 to 1. I made two trips, one for beer and hot dogs and one for peanuts. Lester slept, and Maynard and Wilson tried to talk some excitement into a laugher.

“Stabile’s got to get some of the lard off from around his middle, Doc.”

“Well, he’s a fine boy, Bucky, but he’s been playing a little heavy this year.”

“Tell it like it is, Doc. He came into spring training hog fat and he hasn’t lost it. He’s got the tools, but he’s gotta learn to back off from the table or he’ll eat himself right out of the league.” Maynard checked off an item on his log sheet.

“Here’s Graig Nettles, two for two today, including the downtowner in the first with Gotham on all the corners.”

I got up and headed out of the booth. Wilson winked at me as I left.

I stopped by at Little’s office to pick up the press kit on Marty Rabb and four others. Little’s gal had dentures.

STEAM FROM THE SHOWERS drifted into the locker room and made the air moist. The final score was 14 to 3 and no one was pouring champagne on anyone. I sat down beside Marty Rabb. He was bent over, unlacing his spikes. When he straightened, I said, “My name’s Spenser, I’m writing a book about the Sox, and I guess I oughta start with you.”

Rabb smiled and put out his hand. “Hi, glad to help.

How about you don’t mention today, though, huh?” He shook his head. He was well above my six feet one—all flat planes and sharp angles. His short brown hair grew down over his forehead in a wedge. His head was square and long, like a square-bladed garden spade. His cheekbones were high and prominent, making the cheeks slightly hollow beneath them.

I said, “Bucky Maynard tells me Stabile’s too fat and that’s why he’s having trouble.”

“You ever see Lolich or Wilbur Wood?” Rabb said.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve seen Maynard too.”

Rabb smiled. “Ricky doesn’t pitch with his stomach.

The ball wasn’t moving for him today, that’s all.”

“It was moving for you yesterday.”

“Yeah, I had it grooved yesterday.” Rabb undressed as he talked. He was long-muscled and bony, his body pale in contrast to the dark tan on his face, neck, and arms.

“Well,” I said, “I’m really more interested in the human side of the game, Marty. Could we get together tonight and talk a little?”

Rabb was naked now, standing with a towel over his shoulder. In fact, most of the people in the dressing room were naked. I felt like a streaker in a nudist colony.

“Yeah, sure. Ah, lemme see, no, we’re not doing anything tonight that I know of. Why don’t you come over to the apartment, meet my wife, maybe have a drink? That okay with you?”

“Fine, what time?”

“Well, the kid goes to bed about seven—about seven thirty. Wanna do that?”

“Yes. Where?”

“Church Park. You know where that is?”

“Yeah.”

“Apartment six twelve.”

I looked at my watch: 4:35. “That’s fine. I’ll be there.

Thanks very much.”

“See you.” Rabb headed for the showers. His body high and narrow, the left trapezius muscle overdeveloped, swelling out along the left side of his spine.

I left. Outside the dressing room there were two people sweeping. Other than that the place was empty. I walked up the ramp under the stands and looked out at the field. It was empty. I went down and hopped the railing of the box seats.

There was no sound. I walked over to home plate. The wall in left seemed an arm’s length away and 300 cubits high. The sun was still bright and at that time of day slanted in over the third-base stands, and the shadows of the light towers looked like giant renderings by Dali. A pigeon flew down from the center-field bleachers and pecked at the warning track. I walked out to the pitcher’s mound and stood with my right foot on the rubber, looking down into home plate. Traffic sounds drifted in from the city, but muffled. I put my right hand behind me and let it rest against my butt. Left hand relaxed on my left thigh. I squinted in toward the plate. Last of the ninth, two out, three on, Spenser checks the sign. One of the men who’d been sweeping came out of the passageway and yelled, “Hey, what the hell are you doing out there?”

“Striking out Tommy Henrich, you dumb bastard.

Don’t you know anything?”

“You ain’t supposed to be out there.”

“I know,” I said. “I never was.”

I walked back in through the stands and on out of the ball park. I looked at my watch. It was nearly five. I walked back down the Commonwealth Avenue mall to Massachusetts Avenue. If Commonwealth Ave is yin, then Mass Ave is yang.

Steak houses that no one you knew had gone to, office buildings with dirty windows, fast food, a palm reader, a massage parlor. I crossed Mass Ave and went into the Yorktown Tavern. It had plate glass windows and brown linoleum, a high tin ceiling painted white, booths along the left, a bar along the right. In the back corner was a color TV carrying a bowling game called Duckpins for Dollars. No one was watching.

All the barstools were taken, and most of the booths. No one was wearing a tie. No one was drinking a Harvey Wallbanger.

The house special was a shot and a beer.

In the last booth on the left, alone, was a guy named Seltzer who always reminded me of a seal. He was sleek and plumpish, thin through the chest, thicker through the hips.

His hair was shiny black, parted in the middle and slicked tight against his head. He had a thin mustache, a pointed nose, and a dark pinstriped suit that cost at least $300. His white shirt gleamed in contrast to the darkness of the suit and the dinginess of the bar. He was reading the Herald American. As I slid in opposite him, he turned the page and folded it neatly back. I could see the big diamond ring on his little finger and the diamond chips set in the massive silver cuff links. He smelled of cologne, and when he looked up at me and smiled, his white teeth were even, cap perfect in his small mouth.

I said, “Evening, Lennie.”

He said, “You know, Spenser, little things break your balls. You ever notice that? I mean I used to read the Record American, right? Nice little tabloid size, easy to handle. Then they buy up the Herald and go the big format and it’s like reading a freakin‘ road map. Now that busts my nuts, trying to fold this thing right. That kinda stuff bother you ever?”

“On slow days,” I said.

“Want a drink?”

“Yeah, I’ll have a brandy Alexander,” I said.

Seltzer laughed. “Hey, Frank.” He raised a finger at the bartender. “A shot and a beer, okay?”

The bartender brought them over, put the beer on a little paper coaster, and went back behind the bar. I drank the shot.

“Well,” I said, “if I had worms, I guess they’re taken care of.”

“Yeah, Frank don’t age that stuff all that long, does he?”

I sipped the beer. It was better than the whiskey.

“Lennie, I need to know something without letting it get around that I’m asking.” His skin was remarkable. Smooth and pale and unlined. The sun had rarely shone upon it. It made him look a lot younger than I knew he was.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sure, kid. I never saw any advantage talking about things for no good reason. What do you want to know?” He sipped some beer, holding the glass in the tips of his fingers with the little finger sticking out. When he put the glass down, he took the handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped his mouth carefully.

“I want to know if you’ve heard anything about Marty Rabb.”

Seltzer was very careful putting the handkerchief back in his pocket. He got the three points arranged and stood half up in the booth to look across the bar into the mirror and make sure they were right.