Sam wrote the seat numbers down, thanked Minervino and hung up. He hadn’t thought it would be that easy. Apparently the mob scene was a little more laid back in L.A. than it was back east.
***
Sam was awakened by a knock on his hotel room door at ten a.m. He glanced out the window—the sun was already starting to burn through the coastline haze, and the shadow of the ten-story hotel stretched across the sand to the edge of the ocean. He had no reason to get up, and the fact was, after finishing off a couple of Scotches from the mini-bar and listening to Sade on his iPod before going to bed the night before, he didn’t much feel like getting up. But he got up.
Heather was standing in the hall, wearing the white terrycloth robe, when he opened the door.
“Too early for a swim,” Sam said, turning back toward the king-sized bed, intending to crawl back in till the cobwebs cleared.
“I don’t want to swim.”
He turned around to look at her again. She walked into his room, closed the door, untied the cloth belt that held the robe together, and pulled it open. This time, no string bikini.
“I feel so pale,” she said. “See? My tan lines are gone.”
She was right. Her splendid body had only the slightest trace of an old swimsuit line—one that must have been daring even for her, as the suggestion of darker skin ended just a millimeter or so above her pinkish-brown nipples. Suddenly, Sam wasn’t feeling so groggy.
“Did you talk to Lou last night?” he asked.
“He’d gone to bed.”
“Did the Sox win?” He was staring at her breasts, and didn’t care whether the Sox won, but he wanted to slow things down.
“They beat the Jays 3-0. Let’s celebrate.”
She walked over to him, lifted the shoulders of her robe and pulled them aside, letting it drop to the floor. Then she tried to back Sam toward the bed, but he held his ground. Now that he knew Heather was going to marry Kenwood, he had made up his mind to end the sex between them.
Heather noticed the bullet wounds left by the gunshot he’d taken almost three years ago. In the sunlight coming through the balcony door, the scar tissue over the entry and exit wounds had a light purple hue. It wasn’t nearly so ugly as it used to be. His knee swelled up sometimes when he’d been walking for several hours, losing most of its definition; by morning it usually resumed its normal size. Heather bent down, put her hand on one of the scars, and ran her index finger along its length. Sam sat on the edge of the bed.
“Does that hurt?” she asked.
“No. When it hurts, it’s inside. It wakes me up sometimes.”
“Is it ever going to be—you know, normal?”
“Not until I get a replacement. I lost too much cartilage.”
“Who shot you?”
“Bad guy. He’s dead now.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No. Somebody else did.”
Heather’s phone rang in the pocket of her robe, which was still lying on the floor. She reached down to get it, looked at the incoming number, and said, “It’s Lou.”
Sam lay back against the headboard while Heather sat with her naked back to him and went over recent developments: They’d made contact with Alberto Miranda through Russ Daly, the Times columnist; she thought Daly could be trusted, though she didn’t much like him. As for Miranda, he denied everything, but both she and Sam thought he was hiding something. There’d been a little incident at the night club where they met him last night, and he’d turned out to be a pretty good guy. She might be able to get him to talk.
“You want to talk to Sam? He’s right here,” Heather said. She handed Sam the phone.
“Time’s running out, Sam,” Lou said. “I’m supposed to wire the money in three days.”
Heather had crawled between Sam’s legs and begun to slide up and down against him.
“I know, Lou. We’re going as fast as we can here.”
Heather smiled and increased her tempo.
“You think Miranda’s the key to this thing?” Kenwood asked.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.” Heather was slowly advancing northward, her breasts grazing his chest.
“I don’t like you talking to Daly,” Kenwood said. “He’s nationally syndicated. He’s on ESPN all the time. This could be all over the country by tomorrow.”
Heather was now breathing in his ear, and she’d taken his free hand and placed it on her right breast.
“I trust Daly completely, Lou,” Sam said. He was fighting for control. “He could have screwed me over in Augusta, but he kept his word. He was the only way we could get to Miranda.”
Heather had her full weight on Sam now, and put her mouth on his while Kenwood said: “Everything going okay between you and Heather?”
“Fine,” Sam managed to say after pulling his lips from hers.
“I know having her around might make it more difficult for you to do your job, but I feel a lot more connected and informed if she’s right there with you.”
“Connected—right,” Sam said. He clenched his teeth. “Heather’s right here. She wants to talk to you again.”
He handed the phone to Heather, who pushed her hair out of her face and covered her mouth with her hand while she laughed quietly. Then she lay back on the bed and said, “We’re working very well together, Lou. I don’t think Sam has any complaints.”
She told Kenwood she’d call him later that day, and closed the phone.
“That was a very disrespectful way to treat your fiancé,” Sam said.
“Oh, come on.” Heather still sounded playful. “He gets what he needs from me.”
“But you don’t get what you need from him?”
“No, he’s great—really. But I don’t think he expects me to be totally satisfied by a man who’s fifty years older than I am.”
“I’ll bet he does.”
“Well, then he’s…unrealistic.”
Sam got up off the bed and put his pants on.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Sorry, but I’ve got work to do. Besides, I’m sure I’m no Alberto Miranda.”
Heather ignored the remark.
“You know, there’s a piano in the lobby bar,” she said. “Why don’t you play me a song the next time we’re down there?”
“If there’s time,” Sam said.
In fact, he had no intention of playing a song for Heather. He knew what happened whenever he played piano or guitar for a woman. There was something almost unfair about it, as though he somehow magically became Billy Joel, or Bruce Springsteen, or Harry Connick, Jr., or whoever their favorite singer was. Sam had no qualms about using that effect to his advantage, but only when he wanted the relationship to go somewhere. He realized he had been betraying his client, and that led to thoughts about how Caroline would react if she knew. Heather saw no moral dilemma, but that didn’t absolve Sam—or make it any easier to break it off with her, either. If he gave up the sex, he wasn’t all that sure he would like what was left between them.
“I’ve got some calls to make,” Sam said. “Then we’re going to Dodger Stadium tonight to meet Sid Mink.”
“Oh? Is he expecting us?”
“My guess is yes.”
Heather went down to the pool while Sam called Doug Stensrud at the Minneapolis Police Department. His old chief of detectives was at his desk when Sam’s call went through.
“Hey, I haven’t heard from you since your retirement bash,” Stensrud said. “What’s new?”
Stensrud had been Sam’s first partner when he joined the force, but after Doug got promoted, he and Sam had developed a more formal relationship. Stensrud had taken it personally when Sam decided not to return to his job in the detective bureau.
“Not much,” Sam said. “How’s my replacement working out?”
“Fantastic,” Stensrud said. “He’s cleared four unsolved cases in two months. A real go-getter.”
“You’re lying,” Sam said. “If I couldn’t solve them, they stay unsolved.”
“What do you want me to do, beg you to come back?” Stensrud said. “We’re doing fine without you. Hope you’re not getting any bedroom windows slammed on your fingers.”
“Not yet,” Sam said. “I could use a favor, though.”
“I was waiting for this,” Stensrud said.
“Could you just run a couple of names through the NCIC computer for me?”
“All you ex-cops think you can use our resources any time you want. Remember, Sam, the national computer system is supported by public dollars. You have your clients, and I have mine—the taxpayers.”
“By the book these days, huh, Doug?” Sam asked.
“Yep—ever since you took all that training we gave you and walked out the door with it,” Stensrud said. “And don’t try to get around me by going to one of your buddies. We don’t have time to do fishing expeditions for you.”
“Well, gee, thanks for your time, Doug.”
“Hey, stop by and see me some time. We’ll go have a beer. Relive old times.”
“Like this one?”
Sam hung up. Then he called Marcus Hargrove.
Hargrove’s answering machine said he was away from his desk, which was usually the case. Marcus didn’t spend much time in the office. Sam left a message asking Marcus to call him. He’d tried the front door, but Doug Stensrud was being a prick. Sam knew he could count on his fellow band member to help get background information on Paul O’Brien, whether Stensrud approved of it or not.
With several hours to kill, Sam decided to find out more about the black sheep of the Kenwood family. Sam called the concierge and asked where he could find the nearest public library. Told that the main branch of the Santa Monica library was just five blocks from the hotel, he walked there and spent several hours going through the L.A. Times index, looking for references to Bruce Kenwood. He found two stories: a four-year-old brief about a fire at a warehouse, owned by a Bruce Kenwood, and a story a year later about a Bruce Kenwood who was lost and presumed drowned in a sailing accident off Catalina Island. It wasn’t clear if it was the same Bruce Kenwood in both stories, and neither story tied him to the Kenwood family in Boston. Sam ran a computer search for “Bruce Kenwood and Los Angeles,” but found no matches. He returned to the hotel, told Heather about his fruitless efforts, and they had an early dinner before leaving for the Dodger game.
They took the Santa Monica Freeway downtown, then joined up with the Pasadena Freeway, which took them northward toward the mountains. Within minutes they were part of the crawling backup of traffic trying to get to Dodger Stadium.
The stadium was built on the former site of a Chicano hillside neightborhood called Chavez Ravine, a few miles north of downtown. The ballpark opened for business in 1962, four seasons after the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. It took that long for the city to work out the political difficulties of commandeering the land and converting it from a condemned neighborhood to a baseball showplace. With its 56,000 seats over six spectator levels, muted pastel décor, a 300-acre footprint with 21 terraced parking lots and 3,400 trees, the San Gabriel Mountains to the north and the skyscrapers of Los Angeles to the south, Dodger Stadium was almost the anti-Fenway—even though it was now one of the oldest ballparks in baseball. Generations of baseball fans could immediately identify the chevron-shaped roofing that shaded the top seats of the outfield bleachers, with solitary palm trees waving beyond the fence.
Sam had been there before, and while he much preferred the gritty quirkiness of Fenway Park, he could understand why the Dodgers drew more than three million people per season, even when the team was having an off-year. Dodger Stadium was a pleasure pavilion in Lotus Land.
Fenway Park had a few celebrity fans, but nothing to compare to the Dodgers. Over the years, actors, singers, and comedians—Doris Day, Milton Berle, Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Linda Ronstadt, Keanu Reeves, David Hasselhoff—had made it their business to be seen and perform at Dodger games.
Sid Mink wasn’t your standard celebrity; the TV cameras weren’t going to linger on Mink while Vin Scully told some amusing tales about how he’d muscled his way into L.A.’s drugs, gambling, and prostitution trades. Mink didn’t go to Dodger games for the attention it might bring. He just happened to like baseball. And he liked people who bet on baseball.
But he didn’t particularly care for people he didn’t know. When Phil Minervino called underboss Bernie Tosta, and Tosta called Mink to tell him to expect a visit in his field box by a guy named Sam Skarda, Mink was irritated. Why couldn’t he simply watch the ballgame in peace? The season would be over soon, the track would be open again—he’d rather talk there. The ballpark was where he went to forget about business. Now he’d have to bring an extra man with him to the game—some dumb chump who didn’t know an infield fly from a fielder’s choice, and couldn’t care less.
The stadium lights were on, the sky was a flaming orange to the west, and the temperature was still in the mid-80s when Sam located Mink’s box seats—great seats, just a few rows up from the Dodger dugout on the third base side. Sam had insisted that Heather not be with him when he sat and talked to the mobster; somebody might recognize her, maybe even take a picture of her with Mink. It would be disastrous if a Red Sox official were seen conversing with a known racketeer at a major league ballpark. He promised he’d tell her everything that was said, and Heather reluctantly agreed to stay in her seat, a section above and to the left of Mink’s box.
“Sid Mink?” Sam said to the three men seated in the four-seat box.
“Could be,” said the biggest one. He turned his head slightly, but didn’t look at Sam.
“Sam Skarda.” Sam offered his hand.
Mink briefly took Sam’s hand, as though it were a summons. Sam slid into the vacant seat next to him.
There wasn’t much room. Mink was as round as an overstuffed leaf bag, spilling over into the vacant seat where Sam squeezed in, and onto the bodyguard sitting on his opposite side. He wore a blue Dodger cap pulled down low over his eyes, an open-collared short-sleeved silk shirt, polyester slacks, and had a blue satin Dodger jacket the size of a small tent draped over the back of what appeared to be a larger than standard seat. He had curly gray sideburns and bushy eyebrows, and his smooth, Southern California tanned skin seemed stretched too tightly across his chubby face, like a balloon about to burst.
As with Miranda, Sam decided to confront Mink directly. They were out in the open; even the two broad-shouldered, short-haired men sitting to Mink’s left would have to think twice about trying to get rough with him—which would definitely be to Sam’s advantage, since he’d left his gun in the car.
“I’m not wired,” Sam said. “Pat me down if you want. I’m a private detective. The last thing my client needs is to get the cops involved.”
Mink nodded to the bodyguard seated next to him.
“You heard the man, Joey Icebox.”
Joey Icebox was a round-faced, dull-eyed man who was so thick through the chest and torso that his jacket seemed to be stuffed with insulation. He stood up, squirmed into the narrow space in front of Sam, and ran his hands up and down Sam’s legs and torso so unobtrusively that the fans sitting around them might have thought he was just trying to get past Sam and go up the aisle for a beer. The bodyguard finished and sat down between Mink and the other bodyguard, a gawky, slender man with a prominent nose and the kind of Caesar-style haircut George Clooney used to wear, though he looked nothing like George Clooney.
“Are you Babe Ruth?” Sam asked Mink.
Mink now turned to look at Sam directly. At first his expression was one of irritation, but then it turned to mirth.
“Christ, I wish,” he said, laughing loudly and turning to look at the bodyguard on his left. “You hear that, Joey? Leon? This asshole wants to know if I’m Babe Ruth.”
Mink’s two companions laughed with him, then Min
k returned his gaze to Sam.
“Wrong guy, pal. I’m Willie Mays. Don’t I look like Willie Mays?”
“Yeah, Willie Mays,” Joey Icebox said, laughing at his boss’ joke. “’Cept, he turned white.”
“Why do you waste my time with stupid shit like that?” Mink said to Sam. “I came here to watch the fuckin’ ballgame. Get lost.”
The two bodyguards started to get up to enforce Mink’s invitation, but Sam remained seated.
“I think you’ll want to hear this,” Sam said. “It’s about fixing ballgames.”
Mink put his hand out to stop his boys.
“Make it quick. If I’m not interested by the time the next guy comes to the plate, Joey and Leon will walk you to your car.”
Sam took a look around, partly to make sure no one in the adjoining seats was paying attention to them, but also to assess the reality of Mink’s threat. It wouldn’t be smart for one of Mink’s boys to rough him up in front of 45,000 witnesses.
The Dodgers were batting in the bottom of the third, and the lead-off hitter had just singled to left. The crowd was making noise, while the p.a. system played the “Charge!” bugle call. It was safe to talk, but Sam kept his voice low to make sure he wouldn’t be heard by anyone else over the steady buzz of the crowd around them.
“I work for the Red Sox. Somebody calling himself Babe Ruth wants $50,000,000 from Lou Kenwood, or a player will go public that he fixed the Cardinals-Red Sox World Series.”
Mink snorted with disgust.
“That’s bullshit.”
“Total fuckin’ bullshit,” echoed Joey, who had leaned over to get an earful.
“Why tell me?” Mink said. “I got nothin’ to do with crap like that.”
“I think Alberto Miranda is the guy Babe Ruth is talking about. And they say anything that goes on in this town, you know about it.”
“That’s right,” Mink said. “I do.”
Mink turned and raised one of his bushy eyebrows at Joey, who seemed to be his second-in-command. Sam couldn’t read the gangster well enough to know whether he was telling the truth about not being involved, but Sam knew he definitely had Mink’s interest. The second Dodger hitter had popped out, and a new batter was digging in at the plate. Mink made no effort to have Sam removed from his seat.
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