Green Monster

by Rick Shefchik

  Sam gave Bruce another hard push backward toward the couch, and he fell into it, not putting up a struggle. He looked up at Sam, Heather, and Frankie, who stood around him in a semicircle, glancing quickly back and forth from one to the other. His hand slowly went up to the top of his head, pulled the hairnet off and threw it on the floor. A lazy grin spread across his face, and he started to laugh.

  “Took you guys long enough,” Bruce said, like a teenager who’d been caught making prank phone calls.

  The interior of the main floor was designed as a great room, with a large fireplace between the living and dining areas. The walls were decorated with framed posters of Fenway Park and the Green Monster, and portraits of famous Red Sox players: Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Carlton Fisk, Roger Clemens. The biggest portrait of all hung on the wall above the couch in the great room: a young, trim Babe Ruth, standing in front of a row of empty bleachers, his hands on his hips, RED SOX arched across the front of his pure white jersey. The Babe’s soft, small-brimmed ballcap was tilted over his left eye; his face had not totally filled out yet, but the wide nose and broad upper lip were unmistakable. The Babe was staring hard at something slightly to the right of the camera, as though he saw his future coming—the brief ascendancy in Fenway, followed by glory with the Yankees as the Red Sox crumbled—and didn’t know exactly what to make of it. His pensive gaze dominated the room, making Sam want to turn and look over his own shoulder to see what the Babe was staring at.

  So this was it—the house that Ruth built, so to speak.

  “One more day, and Dad would have sent the money,” Bruce said. “It’s Heather, right? He was going to pay up, wasn’t he?”

  “Probably,” Heather said. She looked at the slim, fey man on the couch with a mixture of amazement and repulsion.

  “Where’s Elena Miranda?” Sam said. He took a half step closer to Bruce, in case he doubted Sam’s willingness to get rough with him again. But Bruce kept grinning, almost as though he was hoping for more.

  “Oh, she’s in good hands, but I don’t know how much longer,” Bruce said.

  “If she dies, you will, too,” Sam said. “Kidnapping is a capital offense.”

  “I know,” Bruce said. Then, as if answering a test question: “The death penalty for kidnapping was reinstated in 1994. Big whoop. I guess this means you’re willing to have this whole story become public. Dad will love that.”

  His smirk vanished, and he glared at Heather. She did not back down from him, but instead shook her head slowly in utter contempt.

  “Just tell us where Mrs. Miranda is,” Heather said. “If she dies, Alberto won’t have any reason to keep quiet. But if we can get her back alive, nobody has to know about this.”

  Bruce put his hand over his mouth and made a show of yawning.

  “C’mon, Brucie, the game’s over,” Sam said. “Your only way out of this is to tell us where Elena is.”

  “She’s in a shanty in Caracas, right under the cops’ noses. At least she was. But I told my man down there to move her yesterday. I’m not sure where she is now.”

  “Who’s your man?”

  “A deputy police chief named Guillermo Llenas. They call him Jefe.”

  “So, if we find Jefe, we find Elena.”

  “Yes, but you’ve got a little problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If anything goes wrong, he’s supposed to kill her.”

  “So call him and tell him your dad paid up,” Heather said.

  “It won’t matter,” Bruce said. He looked at Sam with satisfaction in his smile. “He’s supposed to kill her if Dad pays, too.”

  Heather let out an exasperated groan. There didn’t seem to be any way out; the story was going to hit the papers as soon as Elena Miranda’s body was found. Sam understood the public-relations nightmare she was looking at. He could see the words in enormous type on the front pages of the Globe and the Herald: “Kidnap,” “Red Sox,” “Murder,” “Extortion,” “Steroids,” “Blackmail,” “Organized Crime,” “World Series,” and worst of all, “Fix.” The reporters would be digging through the details for months, every new revelation leading the local newscasts. Eventually, after the criminal charges, lawsuits, and trials ended, and after all the books were written, the truth might eventually sink in with the public. Until then, the Red Sox, Cardinals, all of Major League Baseball—and Lucky Louie—would have the stench of scandal clinging to them.

  “Call Jefe,” Sam said to Bruce. He took his gun out of his holster and held it with the barrel pointing to the ceiling. “Call him and tell him the whole deal is off. Let her go. Get out while there’s still a chance to save yourselves from prison, or the electric chair.”

  “He’ll know it’s a bust, you bonehead,” Bruce said. “The second he gets a call from me telling him to let her go, he’ll kill her. Kidnapping is a death-penalty offense in Venezuela, too—doesn’t matter what happens to the victim. He might as well kill her—if she’s alive, she can identify him.”

  Sam and Heather locked eyes, hitting on the same thought simultaneously. They didn’t dare call the Caracas police, because at least one of the cops was in on the kidnapping. There could be more cops involved, and they would have no idea which ones they could trust. Elena’s only chance was for them to go to Venezuela and find her.

  It was nearly ten p.m.—there might still be time to get on a plane.

  “I’ll call the airport and see if they can get us two seats to Caracas tonight,” Heather said.

  Heather already had her phone out of her purse and was punching 411 on to her keypad.

  “Make it three,” Sam said.

  Heather stopped and looked quizzically at Sam.

  “Three seats?”

  “We don’t know squat about Venezuela, and we have no way of finding this guy, Guillermo Llenas,” Sam said. “But we know somebody who does.”

  Heather smiled and sat down at the dining table to make the calls.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Sam paced the living room, trying to focus on what they could do when they got to Caracas. But he kept glancing at the smirking face of Bruce Kenwood, sitting comfortably on the couch in his designer shorts and print blouse. There was a hint of foundation on his face, a touch of blush, a tasteful stroke or two of mascara and eye-shadow, and a light application of rose-colored lipstick. Frankie, meanwhile, was seated across from Heather at the dining table, his jacket draped over a chair, clenching and unclenching his right fist and rubbing his left hand over the ugly dried bullet hole in his arm. He kept glancing out the window.

  A more unlikely pair of conspirators, Sam had never seen—the foppish preppie cross-dresser and the vain, ambitious hustler with B-movie looks whose only talent was violence. It was surprising enough that they’d ever met—but to almost pull off a $50,000,000 extortion plot, right under the noses of both the mob and Major League Baseball…

  “Why the women’s clothes, Bruce?” Sam said.

  “After I faked that sailing accident, I needed a new name. I figured, why not be a woman? I have to say, I’ve enjoyed it.”

  “So you’re a transvestite?”

  “To tell you the truth, Skarda, I don’t know what the fuck I am. I used to think I might be bi. Then I was somebody’s bitch in prison. And now—well, let me put it this way: You and Heather both look pretty good to me. She is good, isn’t she?”

  “Shut your mouth.”

  “Touchy, aren’t we? Think Dad knows you’re screwing his girlfriend? Aren’t there any ethics in your business?”

  “I didn’t know she was his girlfriend,” Sam said. “How did you know?”

  “Lucky guess. I know Dad. He dumped Mom for an office bimbo who looked like Heather.”

  Sam glanced at Heather, who had her phone to her ear and didn’t react to Bruce’s comment. Maybe she was tough enough to withstand the leers and wisecracks she’d face when she married Kenwood. She was certainly calm enough now, t
aking the insults of her would-be stepson without flinching. If Sam had been in her place, he’d have kicked Bruce in the balls. But Heather was made of some tough stuff; along with her training in risk management, marketing, mergers, acquisitions, and balance sheets, she’d prepared herself for being hated.

  “So who was your inside source? Paul O’Brien?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He told you they hired me?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What’s his cut?”

  “A million.”

  “What were you trying to accomplish?” Sam asked. He’d figured out the who and the how, but the why still didn’t make any sense. “Wasn’t there any other way to get some of your old man’s cash?”

  “Not this much,” Bruce said. He crossed his legs and looked at a pack of cigarettes on an end table next to the couch. “Mind if I smoke?”

  “No—in fact, I’d like to be there to watch you fry,” Sam said.

  “I meant a cigarette, asshole,” Bruce said. He reached over for his pack of Marlboros. Every East Coast college man Sam ever knew smoked Marlboros.

  “So why the elaborate plot?” Sam persisted.

  “Look, it wasn’t about money,” Bruce said. He lit his smoke and inhaled. “Not to me.”

  “It was to me,” Frankie said.

  Bruce waved his hand with the cigarette at Frankie and rolled his eyes.

  “I wanted to embarrass my father,” Bruce said to Sam. “Even a low-grade intellect like you ought to be able to figure that out. He divorced my mother, married that gold-digging bitch, and suddenly nothing I did was good enough for them.

  “You know, my dad basically forced me to become a Red Sox fan when I was a kid. He made me play Little League. He took me to dozens of games at Fenway every summer. He quizzed me on the box scores at breakfast every morning.

  “At first I hated all of it—I couldn’t hit and I couldn’t throw. Even the fat kids in school ran faster than me. Dad called me a sissy. He was disgusted that I didn’t like to play baseball. But after I read a book about Babe Ruth, it all took hold. His father abandoned him at that orphanage. I identified with him.”

  “Sorry, Bruce, but I don’t see it,” Sam said. “Babe Ruth was a throwaway kid from the Baltimore slums, and you’re the son of one of the richest men in America.”

  “You don’t get it, because you’re like everybody else—an ignorant moron. After my father divorced Mom and married Katherine, he exiled me to prep school. I was 12 years old. He never visited. He was—oh, let me think, what was the excuse? Wait, I’ve got it—‘too busy.’

  “The Babe was never too busy to do something for a kid. He was just a big kid himself. He never judged anybody, even though they always judged him. Once I got the Babe, I started to get the game. I read everything I could about the Red Sox, and all the stupid mistakes they’ve made—starting with selling the Babe to New York.

  “Look around at this place. It’s my fucking shrine to the most inept team in baseball history. Ted Williams—greatest hitter since the Babe, never won a World Series. Carl Yastrzemski—played twenty-three years, all with the Sox, won a triple crown, but never won a Series. Carlton Fisk—hit one of the most famous homers in World Series history, but the Sox didn’t win, and then they lost him when they forgot to mail his fucking contract. Roger Clemens—maybe the best pitcher of the past century, six Cy Youngs, but never won a Series in Boston.

  “There should even be a picture of Willie Mays. Did you know they gave him a tryout, but didn’t sign him because he was black?”

  Sam nodded. It was a familiar story.

  “I was like every fan in New England,” Bruce said. “I grow up thinking that I could have done better running the team—and then my Dad buys them. I’m in heaven, right? By then, I knew so much about baseball I could have run any department in the organization. But I got in some trouble in college, and that gave my dad and my stepmom all the excuse they needed. They didn’t want me anywhere near the team. So I said, fuck them, I’ll make it on my own.”

  “And how’d that work out for you?” Sam said.

  “You apparently know all about me—you tell me.”

  “You get popped for tax evasion, you go to prison, the Sox finally win the World Series, your dad is the hero of New England, and you’re no part of it.”

  Bruce nodded, but didn’t look up.

  “So you decided to take a big bite out of your dad’s bank account, and spoil his greatest achievement. If it all becomes public, so much the better. Am I close?”

  “If you say so.”

  Heather got up from the table, holding her cell phone at her side and said, “Sam, I can get three on the 2:15 a.m. flight to Caracas. It gets there at 2:45 tomorrow afternoon. Alberto will meet us at the airport. But there’s a problem. Do you have your passport?”

  “Yes. I bring it with me whenever I leave town. Habit.”

  “Well, I didn’t bring mine.”

  “Then it looks like you stay here. Alberto and I can handle this.”

  “No fucking way. Alberto won’t go without me.”

  “Then we do have a problem.”

  Sam stared at the ceiling, trying to think of someone he knew who could expedite a passport clearance for Heather. Passports were administered by the U.S. State Department. Maybe someone with the Minneapolis bureau of the FBI? No—Sam didn’t have a pal in that office, and even if someone there could eventually get through to a State Department official at this time of night, it would take too long. Someone from Augusta National? He knew of at least one former secretary of state who was a member there. But Sam would have to go through David Porter to contact him; he didn’t have Porter’s number, and had no way to know where he might be tonight.

  Augusta reminded him of Caroline. Caroline worked for Citizenship and Immigration Services, which used to be the INS. Last Sam knew, the INS was part of the State Department. Maybe…

  He punched Caroline’s number on his speed dial, and heard her sleepy voice. It was getting late in Tucson, too.

  “Sam? I was about to go to bed.”

  “Alone, I hope.”

  “No, with David Letterman. You don’t usually call this time of night. What’s up?”

  “Caroline, I need a huge favor, and I’m in a hurry. I’m working a case in L.A., and we need to get on a plane tonight for Caracas.”

  “We?”

  “My…uh…client. Trouble is, she doesn’t have her passport with her. We flew out here from Boston.”

  “That’s tough,” Caroline said. She didn’t sound the least bit sympathetic.

  “Do you have any contacts in the State Department? She’s got a passport. She just doesn’t have it with her. There’s got to be a way to get her on the plane.”

  “Why does it have to be tonight?” Caroline said. “You could have somebody overnight her passport, and fly out Saturday.”

  “Too late,” Sam said. “A woman will be dead by then.”

  “Then maybe the police ought to be handling this one,” Caroline said. There was an edge in her voice that reminded Sam why he and Caroline were giving each other space. The daughter of a career military man, Caroline understood cops and soldiers all too well. She’d been determined to not get involved with a man like her father, who felt it was his duty to risk his life. Sam knew this was exactly the kind of phone call Caroline didn’t want to get from him.

  “Caroline, please,” Sam said. “I have to keep the cops out of this. It can’t become public. I can explain why later, but for now, if there’s a phone call you can make, I’m asking you to make it.”

  “I don’t know, Sam,” Caroline said. “It’s late. And we’re not part of the State Department anymore. We’re Homeland Security now.”

  “Call your boss. He must know somebody at State. Whatever it takes. We’ve got to get on that plane.”

  “Can’t you go alone?”

  “I’d love to, but…it’s compli
cated. I can’t prevent a murder if we don’t both get to Venezuela.”

  Caroline was silent for a moment. Sam didn’t blame her a bit for hesitating. He was asking her to put her own credibility on the line for him, when he couldn’t even tell her what the case was about. He also might be asking her to do the impossible.

  “What’s her name?” Caroline finally asked.

  “Heather Canby. She lives in Boston.”

  “I need her full name, address, birth date, and Social Security number. And I need the airline and flight number.”

  “I’ll get it. Thanks, Caroline.”

  Sam got the information from Heather and relayed it to Caroline, who repeated it back to Sam—making a special point to emphasize the year Heather was born. Sam let it go. Caroline said she was pretty sure her boss could get through to an undersecretary at the State Department.

  “Don’t take any stupid risks—please, Sam.”

  “I won’t,” he said. He glanced at Heather, and then felt an overwhelming urge to tell Caroline he loved her. But it wasn’t the right time.

  After hanging up, he told Heather they were leaving for the airport.

  “What about me?” Frankie said.

  “We’ll take you with us. After we get to the airport, you’re on your own.”

  “And me?” Bruce said.

  “Frankly, my dear…”

  Sam heard a car pulling up to the curb outside the house. He looked out the window and saw that the car’s headlights were off. He quickly crossed the room and flipped a light switch. The overhead light fixture went out, but a floor lamp near the window remained lit. Heather went to the side of the window, reached over and turned it out while Sam crouched next to the couch. The house was now in darkness, and Sam could make out the car in front of the house.

  “It’s the Chrysler 300 from the park,” he said to Heather. “The rear window has plastic taped over it. They must have changed the tires.”

  “How did they find us?” Heather said quietly.