Queens Noir (10 page)

I had hooked him just in time. The subway car was beginning to get crowded as more people going to Shea got on at
Queensboro Plaza. He could have easily moved away from
me to grab one of the metal railings in front of the benches of
filled seats. Despite the crush of Mets fans and homebound workers boarding the car, we were still standing together like
two buddies having a night out at the ballpark.

"So, your dad take you to Fenway during the glory days of
Yaz?"

He flinched at the question. I thought I'd overplayed my
hand and lost him. I hoped that the look on his face was just
the result of a sudden burst of sunshine hitting his eyes. "No.
My father never took me to a ballgame. I don't think I ever saw
a baseball game when I was growing up. My college roommate
freshman year dragged me to Fenway with some of his friends
because he thought I studied too much. It was love at first sight,
the minute I stepped into the ballpark. After the first pitch I
knew that I belonged right there. I never liked the taste of beer
but must have had five that day. I loved the cheering and yelling of the crowd. I loved the hustle and grace of the players on
the field. When we left and the Sox had beat Baltimore 5 to 4,
I was hoarse and my hands were sore from clapping. I went to
dozens of games before I graduated. I read the Globe and Herald
sports pages religiously and any baseball history or biography
voraciously. All these years I've been true to the Boston Red
Sox. I never get to see the team live enough, working here.
Now I have one of those cable packages that allows me to see
almost every game, but it's not the same as being in Fenway."

I gave him a name and told him that I worked on Wall
Street selling mutual funds to retail brokers. I knew enough
details about this kind of job that I could BS my way through
a conversation if he wanted to talk about work. I know a little about a lot of things so that I can talk to almost anybody
about anything, a talent I find useful in my line of work. It
would have given us something else in common, though I was
certain we wouldn't be talking shop for the rest of the ride.
Only baseball.

"I'm Jack Buckner," he said, mentioning he worked for an
elite, privately held Wall Street firm that only handled oldmoney clients whose net worth was a minimum eight figures.
He did not mention that it was his friend's family firm.

"Any relation to Bill? A cousin maybe, returning to the
scene of the crime after so many years? Bill Buckner ... letting the world championship roll between his legs during the
legendary Game 6 of the '86 World Series."

"Billy. Buck. Did. Not. Lose. The. World. Series." Jack
emphasized each word. I'm certain that he would have poked
me in the chest on the beat of each syllable if the train had not
roared past a local station with enough speed to cause him to
keep both hands on the pole.

I have seen criminal defense attorneys sum up before juries in high-stakes trials with flair and with eloquence. Imagine Darrow in his heyday. Think Cutler and Gotti. Remember
Cochran arguing on behalf of that piece of crap? None of them
showed the passion that Jack did defending Bill Buckner. Hell,
years later, all I remembered was the tenth inning. Jack could
practically tell you the entire game pitch by pitch.

"First of all, McNamara should never have taken Clemens out in the seventh with a one-run lead," he began. "He
claimed Clemens asked to be taken out because he had a blister on his finger. This man will be the AL Cy Young winner
and the league's MVP You keep him in unless he needs immediate surgery on his pitching arm in the dugout. Besides,
Clemens said that he never asked to be taken out, but only
after McNamara was fired. In my opinion, Clemens was very
honorable because he didn't undermine McNamara's authority in the clubhouse by contradicting him. When I look at
how he has pitched since leaving Boston, the awards and the
rings, I cannot believe that he quit. However, I confess that I have a soft spot for the Rocket. The Sox quit on him. He did
not quit on Boston."

He went on about some Italian relief pitcher named Calvin letting the tying run score in the eighth. Never met too
many guys from Mulberry Street named Calvin. But then
again, I thought Rudolph was a name for only Nazis and reindeers before Giuliani came along.

Jack was analyzing and dissecting the plays in the tenth
inning when the 7 passed Fisk Avenue. So intent on making
his points, he didn't see the joke of talking about the 1986
Series above a street that shared the name of the great Sox
catcher. "Bob Stanley had already tied the game on a wild
pitch, so the damage was done before Wilson ever hit the ball
toward Billy. At that point, Buckner should never have been
in the game. Because his ankles were bad, McNamara had
taken him out of every other post-season game in the late
innings and put in Dave Stapleton for defense. What was he
thinking? It was not as if Billy's bat would be missed. He went
0-for-5 in Game 6. Nevertheless, I firmly believe that even if
Billy makes that play, Wilson beats him to the bag. Billy was
too beat up and Wilson was too fast ... And, of course," Jack
added as we were about to leave the Woodside stop, "there
was still Game 7. You can't blame Billy Buck for what happened in Game 7. They would have been the champions if
they'd won that game." He paused for a breath and checked
his watch when the conductor announced that the train was
being held in the station.

While Jack had been commandeering facts and stats to
make his point, I noticed that each platform for the local stops
along this stretch of the 7 line had stained-glass windows. I
could not make out the designs as the train raced by, but I was
sure that they were not pictures of the Stations of the Cross. We even passed a giant red neon cross on top of a Korean
church of some Protestant denomination. With each word out
of Jack's mouth, I kept thinking about that movie with Susan
Sarandon and how she belonged to the Church of Baseball.
Jack was certainly a member of that congregation.

When the train finally left the station, Jack said, "Buckner
was the butt of a lot of jokes afterwards. But my sympathies
were later with Donnie Moore."

The name rang a bell but I couldn't place it.

"He was the other goat of 1986. He was the relief pitcher
for the Angels, who were one strike away from winning the
American League pennant when Moore gave up a home run
to Dave Henderson that tied the game. The Angels lost that
game in the eleventh inning. They lost the next two games
and the pennant. At the time I was, of course, very happy
that Boston was going to the World Series. However, Moore
was never the same pitcher due to physical ailments. He was
hounded out of Anaheim by boorish fans and a mean-spirited
front office in the middle of the 1988 season. About a year
later, he shoots his wife in front of his own children and kills
himself with a bullet to the head."

With a sigh, Jack continued, "Anyway, I couldn't believe
that when Moore's suicide became public, a reporter called
Buckner to ask whether he considered killing himself after the
1986 Series. Billy said, `Of course not. It's only a game.' I can
never decide whether that's a cheery or depressing thought."

"Depends on the day, my friend," I said. He went quiet as
the train pulled into Junction Boulevard and 103rd Street.

I tried to keep the conversation casual for the rest of the
ride, just bar talk between strangers, but I could tell that Jack's
thoughts were drifting away again. He agreed with a curt "yes"
that the Zambrano-for-Kazmir trade was the biggest heist since Lufthansa. I asked him who he was going to the game
with, when the windows of the subway suddenly darkened.
Trees densely filled with leaves surrounded the car, blocking
the sunlight. It was as if, for a minute or two, the subway had
left the trestles above Roosevelt Avenue and plunged into a
forest. Just as suddenly, the train emerged from the tree cover
and Shea, all blue, gray, and orange, appeared in front of a
slowly setting sun, a stunning joyful sight. I never got an answer to the question, only a curious stare.

Even before the subway came to a full stop at the Willets
Point station, the chants of "Let's Go Mets!" could be heard.
When the doors opened, everyone in the car poured out onto
the elevated platform and made their way to one of the metal
stairways, freshly painted a puke-green color. I was right behind Jack as we left the car. As distant and formal as when I
first addressed him, he turned and said, "Nice speaking with
you. Enjoy the game." He headed off toward the stairs and
began to blend into the crowd, anxious to meet his friend.

I yelled at him over the head of a father holding the hand
of his young son: "Jack, wait up! Let me give you my card and
I definitely want to get yours."

He reluctantly stopped, letting people pass him to get to
the staircase. We stood by a large green garbage can so we
would be out of the way. He pulled a thin gold case out of his
pocket to take out a creme-colored business card. I fumbled
with a frayed leather case that dropped between my feet. I
squatted down to pick it up, watching Jack stare at the diminishing crowd on the platform and impatiently tapping the
business card against his thigh. I also removed the ice pick
that was taped to the inside of my right calf and concealed it
under my sleeve. The platform was now empty except for the
stragglers at the top of the staircases. A quick glance across the tracks at the Manhattan-bound platform found only a teenaged
couple too busy making out to notice a pair of middle-aged guys
exchanging business cards.

Jack again said goodbye and turned to walk away. But he
stopped beside one of the black wooden benches on the platform when he saw that the name of his boss, the name of his
friend's father, was printed on the business card I had given
him.

I could imagine the confused look on his face as the handle of the ice pick slipped down into my hand. I focused on
my target. There is a small indentation at the base of the skull,
just below the Velcro strap of a baseball cap and aligned, in
this case, with a cartoon pair of red socks. A blade thrust into
this depression will sever the spinal cord from the brain. Your
muscles go limp so you cannot run away. You cannot breathe
so you cannot cry for help. You go into shock as your blood
pressure drops to nothing. You become unconscious with
barely another thought. Death is almost immediate if an expert wields the ice pick. I am an expert.

I caught him as he began to fall like a puppet whose
strings had been cut. I placed him on the black bench, arranging the body so that the Mets fans exiting the next
trains would think that he was just waiting to board. I took
his wallet, card case, and BlackBerry so that the cops would
have the always popular and distracting motive of robbery to
think about. I put the Post from my back pocket in his lap so
that Jack appeared to be reading the sports page with Pedro
on the cover. I left the ice pick there with no prints and no
trail back to me. I was halfway down the stairs before the
next train pulled in.

When I came up on the Manhattan side of the platform,
the young couple were still at it hot and heavy and wouldn't have noticed me if I had shot Jack with a .45. Standing in the
evening breeze, I could see the body on the bench. The latest
trainload of fans was hurrying down the puke-green stairs to
get to the game. No one was giving him a second look. The
starting lineups were about to be announced.

Jack's mistake was thinking with the head between his
legs, not the one on his shoulders. People with assets worth in
excess of eight figures don't care who or what you fuck so long
as you are discreet. When the details of your sex life appear
on the disapproving lips of some dried-up matron whose name
is in the Social Register, or in a blind item in a sordid tabloid
gossip page, those people might take their assets to another
investment boutique. But that's just money. There is always
more money to be made somewhere.

It becomes trouble when whispers and innuendos reach
the ears of your boss. It becomes real trouble when, after a
little snooping and a little window peeping, he learns you are
screwing his college freshman son. It becomes big trouble
when you tell your boss that you are the only thing that keeps
his firm from being a comical relic on The Street and that, if
he continues to interfere in your personal life, you will take
his business and his son. Blood and money are very personal.
That's when, through a middleman or a cutout or a guy who
knows a guy, I get a call.

But who knows? Maybe it wasn't a mistake to fall for the
kid. If they had baseball in common, that would have been
plenty for Jack. His error was not how he used his mouth with
the kid, but opening his mouth to the father. It was the blow-up,
not the blowjobs. My mother often said: Be careful because a
big mouth will always get you in trouble.

A Manhattan-bound local pulled in and I got on. Below
me, a young man waited outside of Shea Stadium with two tickets for tonight's game that wouldn't be used. Probably
wearing a brand new Boston Red Sox baseball cap.

Jenny put a Guinness in front of me while NY1 played on the
plasma screen over the wooden bar at my local Woodside pub.
I could see some reporter standing with Shea in the background, but with the sound low and the jukebox blaring Bono,
I couldn't hear anything. Because it was the top of the hour, I
figured he was not reporting on the outcome of the game.

"Can you believe it?" Jenny said. "They had this story on
before. Some poor guy is going to a ballgame and gets stabbed
to death. You can't ride the subway anymore without some
wacko trying to kill you with a knife. First that kid from Texas
gets stabbed in the chest. And I get the creeps just thinking
about that poor guy and the handsaw. I'm taking buses everywhere from now on."