Mulholland Dive: Three Stories (4 page)

“Yes, I know who he is. I was here at the stadium in ’eighty-eight. He wasn’t so hot then.”

“The series? Did you see Gibson’s homer?”

“I was here.”

“So cool! So was I!”

Stilwell turned to look at him.

“You were here? Game one, ninth inning? You saw him hit it?”

The doubt was evident in his voice.

“I was here,” Harwick protested. “Best fucking sports moment I’ve ever seen.”

Stilwell just looked at him.

“What? I was here!”

“Sir?”

Stilwell turned back to the woman. She handed him a parking pass.

“That’s for lot seven. Park there and then go to the field-level gates and ask for Mr. Houghton. He’s in charge of security and he’ll determine if you can enter. Okay?”

“Thank you.”

As the Volvo went through the gate, it was hit with a volley of horns for good measure.

“So you’re a baseball fan,” Harwick said. “I didn’t know that.”

“You don’t know a lot about me.”

“Well, you went to the World Series. I think that makes you a fan.”

“I was a fan. Not anymore.”

Harwick was silent while he thought about that. Stilwell was busy looking for lot 7. They were on a road that circled the stadium, with the parking lots on either side denoted by large baseballs with numbers painted on them. The numbers weren’t in an order he understood.

“What happened?” Harwick finally asked.

“What do you mean, ‘What happened?’”

“They say baseball is a metaphor for life. If you fall out of love with baseball, you fall out of love with life.”

“Fuck that shit.”

Stilwell felt his face burning. Finally, he saw the baseball with the orange seven painted on it. A dull emptiness came into his chest as he looked at the number. An ache that he vanquished by speeding up to the lot entrance and handing the lot monitor his pass.

“Anywhere,” the monitor said. “But slow it down.”

Stilwell drove in, circled around, and took the space closest to the exit so they could get out quickly.

“If we catch up with Milky here, it’s going to be a goddamn nightmare following him out,” he said as he turned the car off.

“We’ll figure it out,” Harwick said. “So, what happened?”

Stilwell opened the door and was about to get out. Instead, he turned back to his partner.

“I lost my reason to love the game, okay? Let’s leave it at that.”

He was about to get out again, when Harwick stopped him once more.

“What happened? Tell me. We’re partners.”

Stilwell put both hands back on the wheel and looked straight ahead.

“I used to take my kid, all right? I used to take him all the time. Five years old and I took him to a World Series game. He saw Gibson’s homer, man. We were out there, right-field bleachers, back row. Only tickets I could get. That would be a story to tell when he grew up. A lot of people in this town lie about it, say they were here, say they saw it…”

He stopped there, but Harwick made no move to get out. He waited.

“But I lost him. My son. And without him…there wasn’t a reason to come back here.”

Without another word Stilwell got out and slammed the door behind him.

At the field-level gate they were met by Houghton, the skeptical security man.

“We’ve got Mark McGwire in town and everybody and their brother is coming out of the woodwork. I have to tell you guys, if this isn’t legit, I can’t let you in. Any other game, come on back and we’ll see what we can do. I’m LAPD retired and would love to—”

“That’s nice, Mr. Houghton, but let me tell you something,” Stilwell said. “We’re here to see a hitter, but his name isn’t McGwire. We’re trying to track a man who’s in town to kill somebody, not hit home runs. We don’t know where he is at the moment but we do know one thing. He’s got a ticket to this game. He might be here to make a connection and he might be here to kill somebody. We don’t know. But we’re not going to be able to find that out if we’re on the outside looking in. You understand our position now?”

Houghton nodded once under Stilwell’s intimidating stare.

“We’re going to have over fifty thousand people in here tonight,” he said. “How are you two going to—”

“Reserve level, section eleven, row K, seat one.”

“That’s his ticket?”

Stilwell nodded.

“And if you don’t mind,” Harwick said, “we’d like to get a trace on that ticket. See who bought it, if possible.”

Stilwell looked at Harwick and nodded. He hadn’t thought of that. It was a good idea.

“That will be no problem,” said Houghton, his voice taking on a tone of full cooperation. “Now, this seat location. How close do you need and want to get?”

“Just close enough to watch what he does, who he talks to,” Stilwell said. “Make a move if we have to.”

“This seat is just below the press box. I can put you in there and you can look right down on him.”

Stilwell shook his head.

“That won’t work. If he gets up and moves, we’re a level above him. We’ll lose him.”

“How about one in the press box and one below—mobile, moving about?”

Stilwell thought about this and looked at Harwick. Harwick nodded.

“Might work,” he said. “We got the radios.”

Stilwell looked at Houghton.

“Set it up.”

They were both in the front row of the press box looking down on Vachon’s seat and waiting for him to arrive before splitting up. But the seat was empty and the national anthem had already been sung. The Dodgers were taking the field. Kevin Brown was on the mound, promising a classic matchup between himself, a fastball pitcher, and McGwire, a purebred slugger.

“This is going to be good,” Harwick said.

“Just don’t forget why we’re here,” Stilwell replied.

The Cardinals went down one, two, three, and left McGwire waiting on deck. In the bottom half of the first the Dodgers did no better. No hits, no runs.

And no sign of Milky Vachon.

Houghton came down the stairs and told them the ticket Vachon was carrying had been sold as part of a block of seats to a ticket broker in Hollywood. They took the name of the broker and decided they would check it out in the morning.

As the second inning started, Stilwell sat with his arms folded on the front sill of the press box. It allowed a full view of the stadium. All he had to do was lower his eyes and he would see row K, seat one, of section eleven.

Harwick was leaning back in his seat. To Stilwell, he seemed as interested in watching the three rows of sportswriters and broadcasters as he was the baseball game. While the Dodgers were taking the field again, he spoke to Stilwell.

“Your son,” he said. “It was drugs, wasn’t it?”

Stilwell took a deep breath and let it out. He spoke without turning to Harwick.

“What do you want to know, Harwick?”

“We’re going to be partners. I just want to…understand. Some guys, something like that happens, they dive into the bottle. Some guys dive into the work. It’s pretty clear which kind you are. I heard you go after these guys, the Saints, with a vengeance, man. Was it meth? Was your kid on crank?”

Stilwell didn’t answer. He watched a man wearing a Dodgers baseball cap take the first seat in row K below. The hat was on backward, a white ponytail hanging from beneath the brim. It was Milky Vachon. He put a full beer down on the concrete step next to him and kept another in his hand. Seat number two was empty.

“Harwick,” Stilwell said. “We’re partners, but we’re not talking about my kid. You understand?”

“I’m just trying to—”

“Baseball is a metaphor for life, Harwick. Life is hardball. People hit home runs, people get thrown out. There’s the double play, the suicide squeeze, and everybody wants to get home safe. Some people go all the way to the ninth inning. Some people leave early to beat the traffic.”

Stilwell stood up and turned to his new partner.

“I checked you out, Harwick. You’re a beat-the-traffic guy. You weren’t here. In ’eighty-eight. I know. If you were here, you gave up on them and left before the ninth. I know.”

Harwick said nothing. He turned his eyes from Stilwell.

“Vachon’s down there,” Stilwell said. “I’m going down to keep watch. If he makes a move, I’ll tail. Keep your rover close.”

Stilwell walked up the steps and out of the press box.

McGwire struck out at the top of the second inning, and Brown easily retired the side. The Dodgers picked up three runs in the third off an error, a walk, and a home run with two outs.

All was quiet after that until the fifth, when McGwire opened the inning with a drive to the right-field wall. It drew fifty thousand people out of their seats. But the right fielder gloved it on the track, his body hitting hard into the wall pads.

Watching the trajectory of the ball reminded Stilwell of the night in ’88 when Kirk Gibson put a three-two pitch into the seats in the last of the ninth and won the first game of the series. It caused a monumental shift in momentum, and the Dodgers cruised the rest of the way. It was a moment that was cherished by so many for so long. A time in L.A. before the riots, before the earthquake, before O.J.

Before Stilwell’s son was lost.

Brown carried a perfect game into the seventh inning. The crowd became more attentive and noisier. There was a sense that something was going to happen.

Throughout the innings Stilwell moved his position several times, always staying close to Vachon and using the field glasses to watch him. The ex-convict did not move other than to stand up with everybody else for McGwire’s drive to the wall. He simply drank his two beers and watched the game. No one took the seat next to him, and he spoke to no one except a vendor who sold him peanuts in the fourth.

Vachon also made no move to look around himself. He kept his eyes on the game. And Stilwell began to wonder if Vachon was doing anything other than watching a baseball game. He thought about what Harwick had said about falling out of love with baseball. Maybe Vachon, five years in stir, was simply rekindling that love. Maybe he had missed baseball with the same intensity he had missed the taste of alcohol and the feel of a woman’s body.

Stilwell took the rover out of his pocket and clicked the mike button twice. Harwick’s voice came back quickly, his tone clipped and cold.

“Yeah.”

“After the eighth you better come down here so we can be ready when he leaves.”

“I’ll be down.”

“Out.”

He put the rover back on his belt under his jacket.

Brown let it get away from him in the seventh. St. Louis opened with two singles to right, spoiling the perfect game, the no-hitter, and putting the lead in jeopardy with McGwire on deck.

With the runners at the corners Brown walked the next batter, bringing McGwire to the plate with the bases loaded. The Cardinals would gain the lead and the momentum if he could put one over the wall.

Davey Johnson trotted out to the mound for a conference with his pitcher, but the manager appeared to give only a quick pep talk. He left Brown in place and headed back to the dugout, accompanied by a chorus of applause.

The crowd rose to its feet and quieted in anticipation of what would be the confrontation of the night. Stilwell’s rover clicked twice, and he pulled it out of his pocket.

“Yeah?”

“Do you believe this? We gotta send that guy Houghton a six-pack for this.”

Stilwell didn’t reply. His eyes were on Vachon, who had stepped away from his seat and was coming up the stairs to the concessions level.

“He’s moving.”

“What? He can’t be. How can he miss this?”

Stilwell turned his back and leaned against a concrete support column as Vachon emerged from the stairs and walked behind him.

When it was clear, Stilwell looked around and saw Vachon heading toward the lavatory, making his way past several men who were rushing out in time to see McGwire bat.

Stilwell raised his rover.

“He’s going to the bathroom just past the Krispy Kreme stand.”

“He’s had two beers. Maybe he’s just taking a leak. You want me down there?”

As Stilwell replied, a huge noise rose from the crowd and then quickly subsided. Stilwell kept his eyes on the entrance to the men’s room. When he was ten feet from it, a man emerged. Not Vachon. A large white man with a long dark beard and a shaved skull. He wore a tight T-shirt and his arms were fully wrapped in tattoos. Stilwell looked for the skull-with-halo insignia of the Road Saints but didn’t see it.

Still, it was enough to slow his step. The tattooed man turned to his right and kept walking. Harwick’s voice came from the rover.

“Say again. The crowd noise blocked you out.”

Stilwell raised the radio.

“I said, get down here.”

There was another short burst of crowd noise, but it was not sustained enough to indicate a hit or an out. Stilwell walked to the lavatory entrance. He thought about the man with the shaved skull, trying to place the face. Stilwell had left his photos in the rubber band on the Volvo’s visor.

It hit him then. Weapon transfer. Vachon had come to the game to get instructions and a weapon.

Stilwell raised the rover.

“I think he has a weapon. I’m going in.”

He put the rover back into his pocket, pulled his badge out of his shirt, and let it hang on his chest. He unholstered his .45 and stepped into the restroom.

It was a cavernous yellow-tiled room with stainless-steel urine troughs running down both sides until they reached opposing rows of toilet stalls. The place appeared empty but Stilwell knew it wasn’t.

“Sheriff’s Department. Step out with your hands visible.”

Nothing happened. No sound but the crowd noise from outside the room. Stilwell stepped farther in and began again, raising his voice this time. But the sudden echoing cacophony of the crowd rose like an approaching train and drowned his voice. The confrontation on the baseball diamond had been decided.

Stilwell moved past the urinals and stood between the rows of stalls. There were eight on each side. The far door on the left was closed. The rest stood half closed but still shielded the view into each stall.