Mortal Stakes (7 page)

“Okay.”

I got up and went to the door. Linda Rabb came with me. The kid came right behind her, close to her leg but no longer hanging on. As I left, I pointed my finger at him, from the hip, and brought my thumb down like the hammer of a pistol. He looked at me silently and made no response. On the other hand, he didn’t run and hide. Always had a way with kids. The Dr. Spock of the gumshoes.

Outside on Mass Ave, I looked at my watch: 11:35. An hour and a half to kill. I went around the corner to the Y on Huntington Ave where I am a member and got in a full workout on the Universal, including an extra set of bench presses and two extra sets of wrist rolls. By the time I got showered and dressed my pulse rate was back down under 100 and my breathing was almost under control. At 1:15 I was back at Linda Rabb’s door. She answered the first ring.

“Marty’s at school, Mr. Spenser. We can talk openly,” she said.

THE COFFEE AND MUFFINS were gone. Linda Rabb said, Has it been raining somewhere? Your hair’s wet.“

”Shower,“ I said. ”I went over to the Y and worked out.“

”Oh, how nice.“

”Sound mind in a healthy body and all that.“

”Could you show me some identification, Mr. Spenser?“

I got out the photostat of my license in its little plastic case and handed it to her. Also my driver’s license. She looked at them both and gave them back.

”I guess you really are a detective.“

”Thanks,“ I said, ”I need reassurance sometimes.“

”Just what do you know, Mr. Spenser?“

”I’ve been to Redford, Illinois, I’ve talked with Sheriff Donaldson and with your mother and father. I know you got busted there in ‘sixty-six for possession of marijuana. I know you ran away with a guy named Tony Reece and that you haven’t been back. I know you went to New York, that you lived in a rooming house on Thirteenth Street in the East Village, that you were hustling for a living first for old Tony, then for a pimp named Violet. I know you moved uptown, went to work for Patricia Utley, made one pornographic movie, fell in love with one of your customers, and left to get married in the winter of nineteen seventy, wearing a lovely fur-collared tweed coat. I’ve been to New York, I’ve talked with Violet and with Patricia Utley, I preferred Mrs. Utley.“

”Yes,“ Linda Rabb said without any expression, ”I did too. Did you see me in the movie?“

”Yeah.“

She was looking past me out the window. ”Did you enjoy it?“

”I think you’re very pretty.“

She kept staring out the window. There wasn’t anything to see except the dome of the Christian Science Mother Church. I was quiet.

”What do you want?“ she said finally.

”I don’t know yet. I told you what I know; now I’ll tell you what I think. I think the client you married was Marty. I think someone got hold of Suburban Fancy that knows you and is blackmailing you and Marty, and that Marty is modifying some of the games he pitches so that whoever is blackmailing you can bet right and make a bundle.“

Again silence and the stare. I thought about moving in front of the window to intercept it.

”If I hadn’t made the film,“ she said. ”It was just a break, in a way, from turning tricks with strangers. I mean there was every kind of sex in it, but it was just acting. It was always just acting, but in the movie it was supposed to be acting and the guy was acting and there were people you knew around. You didn’t have to go alone to a strange hotel room and make conversation with someone you didn’t know and wonder if he might be freaky, you know? I mean, some of them are freaky. Christ, you don’t know.“ She shifted her stare from the window to me. I wanted to look out the window.

”One film,“ she said. ”One goddamned film for good money under first-class conditions and no S and M or group sex, and right after that I met Marty.“

”In New York?“

”Yes, they were in town to play the Yankees, and one of the other players set it up. Mrs. Utley sent three of us over to the hotel. It was Marty’s first time with a whore.“ The word came out harsh and her stare was heavy on me. ”He was always very straight.“

More silence.

”He was a little drunk and laughing and making suggestive remarks, but as soon as we were alone, he got embarrassed. I had to lead him through it. And afterward we had some food sent up and ate a late supper and watched an old movie on TV. I still remember it. It was a Jimmy Stewart western called Broken Arrow. He kissed me good-bye when I left, and he was embarrassed to death to pay me.“

”And you saw him again?“

”Yes, I called him at his hotel the next day. It was raining and the game with the Yankees was canceled. So we went to the Museum of Natural History.“

”How about the other two players that night? Didn’t they recognize you?“

”No, I had on a blond wig and different makeup. They didn’t pay much attention to me anyway. Nobody looks at a whore. When I met Marty the next day, he didn’t even recognize me at first.“

”When did you get married?“

”When we said, except that we changed it. Marty and I worked out the story about me being from Arlington Heights and meeting in Chicago and all. I’d been to Chicago a couple of times and knew my way around okay if anyone wanted to ask about it. And Marty and I went out there before we were married and went to Comiskey Park, or whatever it’s called now, and around Chicago so my story would sound okay.“

”Where’d you get Arlington Heights?“

”Picked it out on a map.“

We looked at each other. I could hear the faint hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen. And somewhere down the corridor a door opened and closed.

”That goddamned movie,“ she said. ”When the letter came, I wanted to confess, but Marty wouldn’t let me.“

”What letter?“

”The first blackmail letter.“

”Do you know who sent it?“

”No.“

”I assume you don’t have it.“

”No.“

”What did it say?“

”It said—I can remember it almost exactly—it was to Marty and it said, ’I have a copy of a movie called Suburban Fancy. If you don’t lose your next ball game, I’ll release it to the media.‘“

I WENT OVER to Fenway and watched the Sox get ready for an afternoon game. I talked for a half hour with Holly West and a half hour with Alex Montoya to keep up my investigative-writer image, but I wondered how long that would last. Doerr knew I was there, which meant probably that someone there knew I was not a writer. Which also meant that there was a connection between Doerr and the Sox, a connection Doerr wanted to protect. He’d made an error coming to see me. But it’s the kind of error guys like Doerr are always making. They get so used to having everyone say yes to them that they forget about the chance that someone will say no. People with a lot of power get like that. They think they’re omnipotent.

They screw up. Doerr was so surprised that I told him and Wally to take a walk that he didn’t know what else to do, so he took a walk. But the cat was now out of the valise. I had a feeling I might hear from Doerr again. It was not a soothing feeling.

I was leaning against the railing of the box seats by the Red Sox dugout, watching batting practice, when Billy Carter said, “Hey, Spenser, want to take a few cuts?”

I did, but I couldn’t take my coat off and show the gun.

And I didn’t want to swing with my coat on. I didn’t need any handicaps. I shook my head.

“Why not? Sully’s just lobbing them up,” Carter said.

“I promised my mom when I took up the violin I’d never play baseball again.”

“Violin? Are you shitting? You don’t look like no violinist to me. How much you weigh?”

“One ninety-five, one ninety-seven, around there.”

“Yeah? You work out or anything?”

“I lift a little. Run some.”

“Yeah. I thought you did something. You didn’t get that neck from playing no fiddle. What can you bench?”

“Two fifty.”

“How many reps?”

“Fifteen.”

“Hey, man, we oughta set up an arm wrestle between you and Holly. Wouldn’t that be hot shit if you beat him?

Man, Holly would turn blue if a goddamned writer beat him arm wrestling.”

“Who’s pitching today?” I asked.

“Marty,” Carter said. “Who busted up your nose?”

“It’s a long list,” I said. “I used to fight once. How’s Marty to catch?”

“A tit,” Carter said. One of the coaches was hitting fungoes to the outfield from a circle to the right of the batting cage. The ball parabolaed out in what seemed slow motion against the high tangible sky. “A real tit. You just sit back there and put your glove on the back of the plate and Marty hits it. And you can call the game. You give a sign, Marty nods, and the pitch comes right there. He never shakes you off.”

“Everything works, huh?”

“Yeah, I mean he’s got the fast ball, slider, a big curve, and a change off all of them. And he can put them all up a gnat’s ass at sixty feet six, you know. I mean, he’s a tit to catch. If I could catch him every day, and the other guys didn’t throw curves, I could be Hall of Fame, baby. Cooperstown.”

“When do you think you’ll catch a game, Billy?”

“Soon as Holly gets so he can’t walk. Around there.

Whoops… here comes the song of the South, old hush puppy.

Bucky Maynard had come out from under the stands and was behind the batting cage. With him was Lester, resplendent in a buckskin hunting shirt and a black cowboy hat with big silver conches on the band around the crown. Maynard had swapped his red-checked shirt for a white one with green ferns on it. His arms in the short sleeves were pink with sunburn. He had the look of someone who didn’t tan.

”You don’t seem too fond of Maynard,“ I said.

”Me? I love every ounce of his cuddly little lard-assed self.“

”Okay to quote you?“ I wanted to see Carter’s reaction.

”Jesus, no. If sowbelly gets on your ass, you’ll find yourself warming up relievers in the Sally League. No shit, Spenser, I think he’s got more influence around here than Farrell.“

”How come?“

”I don’t know. I mean, the freakin’ fans love him. They think he’s giving them the real scoop, you know, all the hot gossip about the big-league stars, facts you don’t get on the bubble-gum card.“

”Is he?“

”No, not really. He’s just nasty. If he hears any gossip, he spreads it. The goddamned yahoos eat it up. Tell-it-like-it-is Bucky. Shit.“

”What’s the real story on the lizard that trails behind him?“

”Lester?“

”Yeah.“

Carter shrugged. ”I dunno, he drives Bucky around.

He keeps people away from him. He’s some kind of karate freak or whatever.“

”Tae kwon do,“ I said. ”It’s Korean karate.“

”Yeah, whatever. I wouldn’t mess much with him either. I guess he’s a real bastard. I hear he did a real tune on some guy out in Anaheim. The guy was giving Maynard some crap in the hotel bar out there and Lester the Fester damn near killed him. Hey, I gotta take some swings. Catch you later.“

Carter headed for the batting cage. Clyde Sullivan, the pitching coach, was pitching batting practice, and when Carter stepped in, he turned and waved the outfielders in.

”Up yours, Sully,“ Carter said. Maynard left the batting cage and strolled over toward me. Lester moved along bonelessly behind him.

”How you doing, Mr. Spenser?“ Maynard said.

”Fine,“ I said. ”And yourself?“

”Oh, passable, for an older gentleman. That Carter’s funny as a crutch, ain’t he?“

I nodded ”Ah just wish his arm was as good as his mouth,“ Maynard said. ”He can’t throw past the pitcher’s mound.“

”How’s his bat?“

Maynard smiled. It was not a radiant smile; the lips pulled down over the teeth so that the smile was a toothless crescent in his red face with neither warmth nor humor suggested. ”He’s all right if the ball comes straight. Except the ball don’t never come straight a course.“

”Nice kid, though,“ I said. Lester had hooked both elbows over the railings and was standing with one booted foot against the wall and one foot flat on the ground. Gary Cooper. He spit a large amount of brown saliva toward the batter’s cage, and I realized he was chewing tobacco. When he got into an outfit, he went all the way.

”Maybe,“ Maynard said, ”but ah wouldn’t pay much mind to what he says. He likes to run his mouth.“

”Don’t we all,“ I said. ”Hell, writers and broadcasters get paid for it.“

”Ah get paid for reporting what happens, Carter tends to make stuff up. There’s a difference.“

Maynard looked quite steadily at me, and I had the feeling we were talking about serious stuff. Lester spit another dollop of tobacco juice.

”Okay by me,“ I said. ”I’m just here listening and thinking. I’m not making any judgments yet.“

”What might you be making judgments about, Spenser?“

”What to include, what to leave out, what seems to be the truth, what seems to be fertilizer. Why do you ask?“

”Just interested. Ah like to know a man, and one way is to know how he does his job. Ah’m just lookin‘ into how you do yours.“

”Fair enough,“ I said. ”I’ll be looking into how you do yours in a bit.“ Veiled innuendo, that’s the ticket, Spenser.

Subtle.

”Long as you don’t interfere, ah’ll be happy to help.

Who’d you say was your publisher?“

”Subsidy,“ I said. ”Subsidy Press, in New York.“

Maynard looked at his watch. It was one of those that you press a button and the time is given as a digital readout.

”Well, time for the Old Buckaroo to get on up to the booth.

Nice talking to you, Spenser.“

He waddled off, his feet splayed, the toes pointing out at forty-five-degree angles. Lester unhinged and slouched after him, eyes alert under the hatbrim for lurking rustlers.

There never was a man like Shane. Tomorrow he’d probably be D’Artagnan.

There’d been some fencing going on there, more than there should have been. It was nearly one. I went down into the locker room and used the phone on Farrell’s desk to call Brenda Loring at work.

”I have for you, my dear, a proposition,“ I said.

”I know,“ she said. ”You make it every time I see you.“

”Not that proposition,“ I said. ”I have an additional one, though that previously referred to above should not be considered thereby inoperative.“