I enjoyed the game. The batters all lacked patience, and the pitching lacked variation. There were infield fumbles and a couple of outfield dropped catches, but picking out the low points seemed rather unnecessary. For the most part there was good skill on show, and more importantly, everybody seemed to be having a good time.
I kept waiting for one of those parents, the kind who didn’t do enough with their own life and now tried to relive the opportunities not taken by yelling and screaming at their own children on sporting fields, berating officials for poor calls, for balls that were most definitely strikes and surely as obvious to anyone sitting far along the third-base line as it could be to an umpire right behind home plate. But no such parent appeared. Every batting hit was cheered, every strike applauded. It was, in the humble opinion of one former baseball-playing hack, the way the game was supposed to be played.
The kid I had my eye on turned out to be a pitcher. He had long limbs, good heat, and decent control. He had no real variations other than a slower lob, which was easy to pick and even easier to hit. I tried to throw my mind back to when I had really started to develop alternative pitches myself. It was probably around that age. When the kid threw his fastball, he tended to get strikes; when he threw anything else, he lost his control or got smacked through the infield or well out onto the plastic grass. I watched his technique, the way his arm went back and cocked, and the angle of his wrist. He had some skills, and there appeared to be a fair bit there to work with, but he was a long, long way from any kind of finished article.
He threw a batter out with a low-and-away pitch that had the batter swinging rather than leaving, and as he jogged from the field with his teammates, I cast my eye back in the direction of the woman who I assumed to be his mother.
She was gone. I wondered if she had stepped away to make a phone call, but people didn’t really seem to do that. People seemed to take phone calls as if the entire planet was one big phone booth and everyone else wanted to enjoy half the conversation with them. I figured it was possible that she could have stepped away to the hut where the snacks and drinks were being sold, or worst case, she had left the school altogether to run Saturday afternoon errands.
I cast my eye from side to side, from one end of the bleachers to the other, and then across to the bleachers on the third-base side. I saw no sign of her. Then I heard someone clear their throat in the row behind me, nice and close, as if they were leaning forward right near my ear to do it. I glanced up to give them an etiquette lesson and discovered the woman I had been watching sitting behind me.
“I know you’re not a parent,” she said. “So you better have a darn good reason for being here.”
She didn’t raise her voice, but the tone left no doubt that she was deadly serious.
I shook my head and did a tap dance inside my mind. “No,” I said, giving myself some thinking time. “I’m not a parent. I’m a scout.”
“You’re a scout?”
“That’s correct.”
“From where?”
“UNLV,” I said, referring to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
“Really?”
I nodded.
“So tell me, Mr. Baseball Scout. What exactly were you doing sitting outside my house this morning? And before you answer, I should warn you that I have a pistol in my handbag.”
I didn’t know if the line about the firearm was true, but this was the Wild West, so anything was possible. It didn’t matter either way. I knew when I was found out. My moving truck hadn’t been quite the camouflage I had hoped.
When I get found out in a lie, my golden rule is to pull hard on the wheel and jag right back in the opposite direction. I decided that was even more important when the possibility of gunplay was considered.
“I’m here about Ricky Spence,” I said.
The woman was no kind of poker player. Her chin dropped such that her mouth fell wide open, and the color drained so quickly from her face that I suspected her knees were purple.
“What about him?”
“So you know him.”
She took a breath and tried to gather herself. “I’ve heard of him.”
“Well, your husband is playing a very dangerous game.”
She frowned. “My husband?”
“Yes,” I said. “I had the pleasure of meeting with him yesterday.”
“I’m not married.”
“You’re saying that Zed Graham isn’t your husband?”
As quickly as the color left her face, it reappeared. She suddenly became flushed, and her eyes were pinched and angry. “What has he done?”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“He’s committing extortion.”
The frown deepened, as if she didn’t understand what I was talking about.
“Blackmail, to be more accurate,” I said.
I glanced back at the field. The kid that I assumed to be her boy was back on the mound. “Is he your kid? The pitcher?”
“Yes,” she said, with a good dose of trepidation in her voice.
“He looks good out there. A natural.”
I turned back to look at the woman and saw her slowly nod, as if she understood where I was going.
“What are you really doing here? What do you want?”
“The truth,” I said.
“Like, you’re a scout?”
I shrugged.
“Who do you work for?”
“An interested third party. Someone who wants to know exactly what happened and what didn’t happen.”
She glanced out toward the mound and stared into the ether for a while. I gave her the time. Learning that you are mixed up in a blackmail case is not always the easiest information to process. When she was ready, she brought her attention back to me.
“I don’t know what you think is happening,” she said. “But I’ve got no part in it.”
“Let’s hope the FBI agrees with you.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Like I said, the truth. About Modesto and Club Mediterrano. And about your son.”
“All right. I’ll talk to you, but we leave my son out of this.”
“If he’s not part of the story, then he’s not part of the story.”
“He doesn’t need to be,” she said. She glanced back out at the field once more and then back at me. “Should we go somewhere quieter? Do you want to get a coffee?”
“I don’t do coffee in the afternoon,” I said. “But this is a ballpark, so there’s a hot dog with my name on it.”
Chapter Fifteen
As we slipped down and out behind the bleachers, I introduced myself without offering a handshake.
“My name is Miami Jones,” I said.
“Lily Barkin.” She didn’t seem perturbed by the lack of handshake or fist bump. We ambled over to the concrete bunker that was set up as a snack bar, and I bought Lily a coffee and a Danish. I ordered a soda and a hot dog. It was a good hot dog. Not one of those tiny little things that they gobble down competitively out on Coney Island. This thing was easily a foot from end to end and wide like a baguette. It was a good long hot dog, very imposing. And very tasty.
We ambled away from the snack bar past a batting cage where some small children were emulating their older brothers and sisters out on the field. I assumed Lily knew where she was going, because we ended up on a park bench out past the right-field fence. We sat for a moment, her sipping hot coffee and me enjoying the emulsion of cheap meat and fat stuffed into a sugary roll.
“So what exactly has Zed been saying?” she asked me.
“He’s making claims that you had a relationship with Ricky Spence and suggesting that your boy is Ricky’s son.” I bit into my hot dog and then chewed furiously as I realized I hadn’t finished my thought. “I should add, he is implying that he’s your husband.”
“Well, first, Zed is not my husband. I’m a single mom, always have been.”
“That’s a tough gig,” I said.
“What do you know?”
“Not as much as you, I’m sure. But my mom passed away when I was a kid, and my dad tried the single-parent thing but wasn’t up to it. In my experience it’s a two-person job. Doing it alone is one of the most heroic feats I’ve ever seen.”
She nodded, as if she agreed with what I was saying, but the look on her face suggested she was yet to be convinced that I wasn’t feeding her a line.
“Look, my son has no part in this. He isn’t Ricky Spence’s kid.”
“Please don’t take offense, but are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” She made to take a bite of Danish but seemed to change her mind as it came toward her mouth, and she dropped it back to the napkin in her lap. “Zed is Travis’s father.”
“Travis is your son?”
“Yes. But Zed’s never been around, he’s never been interested. He’s never been much of anything. The moment he found out I was pregnant was the moment he left.”
Classy guy, I thought, but chose not to say.
“Does Travis know?”
“That his father is a deadbeat? Sure.”
“So what is Zed’s angle? If he’s never been part of your life, of Travis’s life, what’s he doing in it now? And what’s he playing at, blackmailing Ricky Spence?”
She sipped her coffee and watched the two teams on the field exchange places. She didn’t take her eyes off the field despite the fact that her son’s team was at bat, and she spoke softly.
“Because of my uncle.”
“Your uncle?”
She turned her eyes to me. “You sure you’re not helping Zed here?”
“Only to stay out of jail,” I said. “And I’m not sold on that just yet.” I pulled the card out of my wallet and handed it to her. “I’m a private investigator. From Miami. I happened to be in Phoenix where Ricky is doing spring training because my fiancée’s dad is in a hospice there. He’s dying. I should be with her now, but I’m here with you trying to figure out what the heck Zed Graham is up to and whether or not I should hang him out to dry. But here’s the thing. I know what it’s like to not have a father around. Not like you or your son, but in my own way. It’s no parade. My dad got lost after my mom died. He couldn’t care for himself, let alone care for me. At the time, it made me angry, and it made me want to leave. I got through it okay, I guess. In the end, kids are pretty resilient. But that doesn’t mean I would wish it on anyone. I don’t like to see that kind of thing happen to kids, you know?”
“I’m sorry about your wife’s dad.”
I hesitated. “She’s my fiancée, but yeah, I’m sorry about it, too. I only just got to know him.” I took a sip of my soda to stop myself from talking any further about something I didn’t comprehend completely. “So what about your uncle?”
“He’s my mom’s brother. He lives here in Vegas. Has since I was born. I never saw him a lot, you know, holidays and that sort of thing. But he always seemed like a nice guy, and, well, he’s the reason we moved here. After Travis was born, things were pretty hard back in Modesto. He came for a visit, and we had a chat about how I wanted to get out of the rundown apartment I lived in and how I wanted a better life for my boy. You know, not the king’s riches or anything. Just something better. Sidewalks and parks and friends to play with, away from the violence and drugs that seemed to be enveloping everybody I knew back then.” She sipped her coffee. “I was looking for something better, and he lent me the money to make it happen. To buy the house, the one you saw earlier.” She looked at me out of the corner of her eye as if me watching her house was still an unresolved issue between us. I figured that was fair play.
“So we moved out here when Travis finished elementary school, thanks to my uncle.”
“He sounds like a swell guy.”
“He was. He died not so long ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too. But the thing was, he never got married himself. He never had any kids. So unbeknown to me, he left his estate to me and Travis. Half to me, half to my son. But Travis’s is in a trust until he comes of age, until he turns twenty-one.”
“That was nice of him. Was it much?”
“The thing you gotta know about my uncle is he was a frugal guy. A man of simple needs, you might say. He drove an old beat-up pickup and lived in a house that really could’ve used a re-stucco. But he never went anywhere. He always said everything he wanted was within a decent walk of where he lived. He hung out at his local bar, and his only vice was golf. Even that was not at a fancy country club. He just played the local city links. Everyone assumed he had next to nothing. But when he lent me the money for the house, he confided in me that he had invested in some land years ago, on what was the outskirts of Las Vegas, and he sold one of the properties to offer me the deposit.”
Lily sipped her coffee again but made no move to take a bite of the Danish. She shook her head gently and offered a wry smile to no one in particular.
“Turns out, he basically owned the street he lived on. It wasn’t much, not Caesar’s Palace or the Bellagio, but he lived off the rent from the houses around him, and as Las Vegas grew, the properties all multiplied in value. So when he died, yes, it was a fair sum.”
“Okay,” I said. I finished my hot dog and wondered if it would be impolite to get a second. I figured from a professional point of view, now was not the time, so I took a sip of my soda instead. Lily glanced at me again.
“You don’t want to know how much?” she asked.
I shrugged. “No. Doesn’t seem especially relevant. Is it?”
Her inquisitive glance turned into a half smile, as if my indifference to the sum of money helped me pass some kind of test.
“No,” she said.
“But given recent events, it seems it’s a big enough sum to cause Zed to come sniffing around again,” I said.
“Exactly. As soon as he found out about the money, he drove out to see his son. As if all those years away and not being part of his life suddenly evaporated. But the thing is, I wasn’t against Zed being part of Travis’s life. He’d made his intentions pretty clear, as far as our relationship and his interest in being a parent was concerned. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t think Travis needed or wanted a father. I always hoped that Zed would come good and do the right thing.”
“But?”
“I never looked for child support or anything from him. Just a father. A boy needs a father, don’t you think? Even a deadbeat for a father is better than nothing.”
I wasn’t sold on that idea. I thought of my own dad, a man who had been as good a father as a kid could hope to have when I was young. Sure, he had his idiosyncrasies, and we didn’t always see eye to eye. But he loved his wife and he worked hard at his job, and although he wasn’t the most affectionate man, I never felt unloved. But then I had to combat a different version, the dad I got in middle and high school. The one who spent his days drinking away his pain without any consideration for his son. And I thought of Danielle’s father, a man so caught up in his own mind that he failed to understand the humanity that his family required of him. I figured that like most things in life, a good father was a great thing, but a bad one wasn’t missed.
“So what happened then?” I asked.
“When Zed learned about the trust from another family member, he tried worming his way into Travis’s life. But his son is a damn sight smarter than he is, and Travis wasn’t buying it. So Zed found a lawyer somewhere or other, who told him he had rights. He tried to argue that he should be a trustee on Travis’s account until Travis came of age.”
“Who is the trustee now?”
“I am,” she said.
“And you feel that Zed being a trustee would be a bad thing?”
“Have you met him?”
I nodded. “I see your point.”
“He’s never had any money in his life because he wastes everything he has. Even if he had been around, he would never have paid child support because he never had any
kind of money long enough to give it to anybody else. He only pays taxes because the government takes their cut first. He used to go to a check-cashing place on payday and then directly to a bar or racetrack. If he got his hands on Travis’s money, he’d spend it. There’d be a whole convoluted story that he’d come up with, but it’d be gone. I know it.”
“So what did you do?”
“I told him he had no rights because he wasn’t actually Travis’s father.”
“But that’s not true.”
Lily turned her eyes to the ground. “No. I was angry and I knew what he wanted, and I knew he didn’t care about Travis, so when he asked me who the father was, I told him.”
“You told him what?”
“I told him Travis’s father was Ricky Spence.”
Chapter Sixteen
At the change of innings we wandered from our bench beyond the outfield back toward the bleachers. We stepped up to the very back corner, the worst place to view the game but the furthest away from the rest of the crowd. Travis took the mound once again, and his performance stayed consistent. His heater was too much for most batters, but his variations were still all balls or home runs.
“So what happened after you told Zed about Ricky Spence?”
She gave a smile that had nothing to do with happiness. “You know, he didn’t even fight it. He didn’t even question it. He just assumed it was true. Maybe he had always wanted it to be true, I don’t know. But I guess he’d shirked his responsibilities for so long that maybe he had already convinced himself that he couldn’t really be a father.”
“He knew some pretty specific details,” I said. “About the night back in Modesto with Ricky Spence.”
“Yes. After I told him, he kind of asked me to prove it. I thought at the time maybe it was his version of disbelief. I know better now. But he asked me how and when and where. So I told him what I knew. I guess I based the lie on fact. That always makes it more convincing, doesn’t it?”
I shrugged. “But you’re absolutely sure it isn’t true? About Spence being the father, I mean.”
“No, it’s not true. The timing is wrong. Not by a long way, but enough. If Zed cared enough to even check, he would’ve figured that out for himself. But I’m sure he doesn’t even remember when we were together exactly.”
The Ninth Inning Page 11