This Dark Road to Mercy: A Novel

by Cash, Wiley

  I held the ball in front of me with both hands and stared down the cage at the catcher on the rubber curtain, and then I turned my left shoulder toward him and raised my right leg just like I’d seen John Smoltz do a hundred times. I threw the ball as hard as I could, and it smacked against the rubber about three feet to the left of the catcher’s head. I looked at the screen to see how fast I’d thrown it: thirty-six.

  “All right!” Wade said. He clapped, and when I turned and looked at him he had his hand raised like he was waiting on me to give him a high five. I reached out and smacked his palm, and I felt my face getting hot and I knew it was turning red, but I couldn’t help smiling. Ruby raised her hand for a high five too, and I smacked her palm just like I’d smacked Wade’s. I bent down and picked up another ball, and when I stood up straight I could feel Wade standing right behind me.

  “Just focus on that mitt. Just imagine the ball going right into it.” He leaned over me and put his hands on my wrists, and he raised both my hands up to my chest. “Now, when you bring your knee up, make sure your left shoulder is pointing toward the catcher.” I stared at the catcher’s glove and imagined the ball smacking right into it. When I turned my shoulders to begin my pitch I realized that Wade had stepped away from me. I brought my knee up just like I had before, but this time I kept my eyes on the mitt and turned my left shoulder in like Wade had told me to. I threw the ball as hard as I could, and this time it smacked the catcher right in his mask. The screen said forty-two. I heard Wade clapping behind me.

  “Right in there,” he said. “If he took it in the mask it’s his fault.” I didn’t look back at him this time because I was smiling for real, and I didn’t want him to see it. I bent down and picked up the last baseball. When I stood up straight I heard another voice behind me.

  “Look out!” the voice said. “You can’t touch this!” I turned and saw the four kids who’d sat behind me in the haunted house. One of the girls was still holding her big stuffed teddy bear, but the tall boy must’ve finished his lemonade because he had his hands in his pockets. The shorter boy standing beside him laughed, and then they gave each other some kind of handshake that ended with them bumping fists. The girls just stood there staring at me like they didn’t recognize me from earlier in the night.

  I looked down at Ruby; she’d turned around and was looking at them too. When I looked over at Wade I saw that he was staring at the boys with a crazy smile on his face like he thought what they’d said was funny.

  “Y’all play ball?” he asked. I couldn’t believe he’d even talk to them, much less try to make friends with them. He had to know they were making fun of us: the way we were dressed, the way we looked.

  I turned back to the cage and stared at the catcher’s mitt, trying to concentrate on it—trying to picture the ball smacking right up against it—but the longer I stared at it the more I felt like I might start crying. Instead I threw the ball as hard as I could. I didn’t care if it was a strike or not; I just wanted it to hurt whatever it hit. It smacked the curtain about three feet to the left of the catcher again, but this time the screen said forty-five. I turned around to make sure Wade had seen it, but he hadn’t even been watching me. He’d walked over to the two boys and was talking to them.

  “Are you serious?” the tall boy asked. He looked at the shorter boy standing next to him and smiled. He looked back at Wade. “All right,” he said. I looked down at Ruby. She’d been watching me the whole time like she was waiting to see how hard I was going to throw the next pitch.

  “Come on,” she said. She pointed to the forty-five that was still on the screen. “You can throw harder than that,” she said.

  “I don’t want to pitch anymore,” I said. I handed the two balls to Ruby and stepped back.

  “You sure?” she asked. I nodded my head. She walked into the cage and stopped at about the same spot where she’d thrown her first five pitches. I turned to my left and faced the beach, and I stood there wishing I could look right through the building across the street so I could see the ocean instead of being able to just barely hear it. Ruby’s first pitch smacked against the curtain, and then a few seconds later I heard the second. I didn’t hear Wade say a word to her once she finished, and I knew he hadn’t been watching her either.

  But I turned around as soon as I heard what Wade said next. “Me and my buddy here are going ten more.” Wade held out a five-dollar bill to the fat man on the stool. He took it and fished out his roll of dollars again and started unfastening the rubber band. The tall boy had left his friends and was standing beside Wade in front of the cage. He looked nervous to be standing so close to Wade, but he smiled like he was trying to hide it.

  “Come on, Evan,” the other boy said, clapping his hands. He and the two girls were standing in the same spot. The girls looked like they didn’t know quite what to make of what was happening. I didn’t know what to make of it either. Wade gathered up the three baseballs and sat them down by Evan’s feet, and then he picked up one and handed it to him.

  “All right,” Wade said. “Five pitches apiece.” He raised his hand and pointed at the two girls. “And whoever throws the hardest gets to take that teddy bear home.” Now I knew why one of the girls didn’t look as excited as her friend and the boy who was standing beside them.

  “This is all you, Evan,” the boy said. “You got this.” Evan rolled the baseball around in his hand, and then he turned his cap around to face forward. He squeezed the baseball with both hands like he was trying to make it smaller, and then he moved his head in a circle and rolled his shoulders forward and backward. Then he just stood and stared at the curtain where the catcher squatted with his raised mitt. It wasn’t until he brought the ball to his chest and cupped his left hand to hide his grip that I knew for certain that he’d thrown a pitch before. My heart sank into my stomach, and I think it might’ve sunk even lower after I heard the ball smack that rubber curtain. I looked at the screen: it said sixty-nine.

  “There it is,” the short boy said. “That’s what I’m talking about.” Even the girls seemed interested, and they took a step toward the cage to get a better look.

  The fat man leaned forward on his stool and took a look at the screen and snorted out a laugh. Then he sat up straight and crossed his arms. “That’s the fastest I’ve seen tonight,” he said, looking at Wade like he was letting him know he didn’t have a chance against this kid. I looked at Wade too, and then I looked at Evan where he was squeezing another ball with both hands, just like he’d done to the first one. He was bigger than Wade, and he actually looked like an athlete; Wade was at least twenty years older and looked like a skinny man with a belly who’d probably never played a single sport in his entire life. Now that he was clean-shaven I could see where the skin sagged under his chin, and I wondered how his body could seem so skinny and soft at the same time.

  Evan went through his windup just like he had before, and this pitch smacked the curtain even louder, and it hit the catcher right in the chest. Seventy-one flashed on the screen. He stepped back and looked at Wade, but Wade just stared at the spot where the ball had hit.

  “That was a nice pitch,” he said. “You’ve got a good arm.” Evan smiled like he’d already won the bet, and every one of us knew he was right. His next three pitches were just as fast. The last one hit the catcher in the mask and came in at seventy-four. The short boy laughed after he saw where the ball hit the curtain. He and Evan gave each other a high five, and the girl who’d ridden through the haunted house with him went over and put her arm through Evan’s.

  I watched them celebrate, but then something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye; it was Wade. He was walking back and forth on the sidewalk, swinging both his arms like helicopter blades. The group of teenagers noticed it too. They stopped talking and watched him.

  “What the hell?” Evan said. They all laughed. I looked down at Ruby; she was staring at Wade too. He walked up to the cage and stopped and stared down at the catcher, an
d then he bent down and picked up one of the baseballs. He rolled it around in his left hand, and then he squeezed it between both hands just like Evan had done. He stood up straight and let his hands hang at his sides, the ball cupped in his left hand. I’d never thought about him being left-handed until then. He brought it up to his chest and cupped his right hand to hide the ball, and then he just froze.

  He stood there like a scarecrow in a cartoon, and he looked like a scarecrow too; his shirt and his shorts suddenly looked like they were a size too big for him. The sound of the traffic and the voices of people on the street got quieter the longer he stood there until the only sound was the giggling of the two boys where they stood over on his right side. I couldn’t take my eyes off Wade.

  When he started his windup, he looked down at the sidewalk in front of him and brought his right knee up so high that I thought it would touch his forehead, and when he threw himself into the pitch I swear you could see his arms and his legs come loose from his body and freeze in the air for just a second before reattaching themselves. And I swear I heard something too: a sound like an ironing board unfolding or an old, squeaky gate being opened and slammed shut. But looking at it all, I couldn’t tell if Wade’s pitch was going to drop at his feet or bust through the curtain and fly down the street into the night.

  As soon as the ball hit the curtain above the catcher’s right shoulder I knew it hadn’t been thrown as hard as any of Evan’s pitches. And I was right; the screen said sixty-four. I saw it before Wade did because he was bent at the waist and staring at the ground like he couldn’t stand up straight because he’d given that pitch all he had. The two boys saw the screen too. Evan just smiled, but the other boy clapped his hands like he was cheering on a batter that wasn’t there. “That’s all he’s got, baby,” he said. “That’s all he’s got.”

  Wade stood up straight and massaged his left shoulder with his right hand, and then he shook his left arm like it’d gone to sleep and he was trying to wake it up.

  “We can go on home,” the short boy said. “This guy’s done.” Ruby had been watching Wade, but now she whipped her head around and stared at the boys.

  “No,” she said. “He’s got four more. Y’all have to wait.” The two boys seemed just as surprised by what Ruby had said to them as I was, and they stood there and stared at her until she turned back around.

  “He’s got four more,” the short boy said, making his voice high and squeaky. Ruby acted like she didn’t hear him; she just stared at Wade. Sweat ran down his forehead from his hair, and he narrowed his eyes and wiped it away with his right hand. He looked exhausted after only throwing that one pitch. I wanted to tell him to stop, that he was too old and out of shape to be messing with kids half his age, that most grown men didn’t get a kick out of challenging high schoolers in pitching contests, that he was embarrassing me more than he already had. But then he turned his head and looked at me, and when he did I saw that he wasn’t having fun, that he hadn’t thrown that pitch to try to impress those two boys or show off in front of me or Ruby. He’d thrown it because he knew those two boys were laughing at me, at us. It was the first time in my life that I felt like Wade wanted to be my dad.

  “Focus on the catcher’s mitt,” I said. “And bring your shoulder in so it’s pointing at him.” He smiled and nodded his head.

  “You got it now,” he said. “I’m just getting warmed up.” Wade went through his windup a second time: the same scarecrow pose, the high knee, the crazy sound I thought I heard again. The ball hit the curtain right on the catcher’s mitt, and this time the screen said seventy.

  “Yes!” Ruby said. The fat man on the stool raised his eyebrows and folded his arms across his chest again. He looked over at the two boys like he expected them to say something, but they didn’t. Wade turned back and stared down the cage at the catcher like he was thinking about his next pitch.

  “Bring the heat,” I said. “Come on, Dad.” He didn’t look at me, but he smiled when he heard me call him that, and then he wiped the sweat off his forehead. I looked over at the two boys and saw that neither one of them was smiling anymore. Evan had his hands in his pockets, and the short boy had his arms folded across his chest, and his hips were rocking from side to side like he had to go to the bathroom.

  Wade bent down and picked up another ball and went into his windup again, but this time it looked different, smoother, more like the pitchers you see on TV in the major leagues or on posters and baseball cards. It was the first time I could remember thinking of Wade as a baseball player instead of someone who just talked about playing baseball.

  And I was right to think that, and I was right to think that pitch would be his best. I don’t know if it was a strike or a ball because I was staring at the screen, but I heard the pitch snap against the rubber curtain, and then I watched the screen light up and say seventy-eight.

  Ruby saw it too, and she jumped into the air and ran toward Wade, but he stepped right around her on his way to the two boys. He reached out with both hands and snatched the teddy bear away from the girl, and he turned and handed it to Ruby so hard it almost knocked her over. He faced the two boys. “Y’all have a good night,” he said. “Don’t get in no trouble.”

  Me and Ruby and Wade were already laughing by the time the taxi pulled away from the Pavilion. It felt like a movie, like we were leaving the scene of a crime after robbing a bank or holding up a gas station, and we didn’t care one bit if anybody’d seen us because we knew we were going to get away with it.

  My chin rested on the teddy bear’s head, and I closed my eyes and buried my face in its fur. I could smell the perfume of the girl who’d been carrying it, and I could smell something else too—something sugary and sour—and I knew it was the lemonade that boy had been spitting into my hair. I prayed that those kids wouldn’t call the police or tell their parents about what Wade had done to them. And then I remembered that I’d gone and done that very same thing by calling Marcus. I closed my eyes even tighter and squeezed that bear as hard as I could. I wasn’t as ready to go home as I thought I was, but that didn’t make no difference. We were already on television by the time we got back to our room.

  Brady Weller

  C H A P T E R 13

  On Wednesday, I met Sandy at a new place called Pepé Frijoles for lunch. While I waited for him I stood in the heat out in the parking lot, leaning against the hood of my car and staring up at the restaurant’s sign on Garrison Boulevard. A cartoon Mexican wearing a poncho and sombrero smiled down at me like an idiot.

  Sandy pulled up beside me in the old Ford Taurus. When he got out I saw that he’d already loosened his tie and left his blazer draped across the passenger seat. His shirt was dark with sweat.

  “The a/c out again?” I asked.

  “Again? When’s the damn thing ever worked?”

  He had a manila envelope in his hand. I nodded toward it. “Is that for me?”

  “Depends,” he said. “You buying lunch?”

  We found a booth in the back away from other people in the restaurant. Through the window, a couple of guys shot basketball across the street at Lineberger Park, wavy lines of heat coming up from the asphalt. Our waitress brought two waters and a basket of nacho chips and a little bowl of salsa. Sandy ordered a sweet tea. I opened my menu and looked up at him. “So, what’s in the envelope?”

  “A present for you,” he said.

  He opened it and pulled out a card made of construction paper; it looked like something a kid might’ve drawn in school. “You shouldn’t have,” I said.

  “I didn’t,” he said. “Easter did.”

  I dipped a chip in the salsa and popped it into my mouth, and then I took the card from his hands.

  “Jesus,” he said. “Would you at least act like it’s evidence?” He gave me a rubber glove. I used it to hold the card between my thumb and finger.

  “Is that Sosa?” I asked.

  “It looks like him,” he said.

  I opened the card
and read it out loud. “ ‘Dear Marcus: I’m sorry. Can we talk tonight? Love, Easter, your girlfriend (I hope!).’ ” I looked up at Sandy. “So what?” I said. “It’s a love letter.”

  “Look on the back,” he said. I turned the card over and saw a phone number written in pencil. “Easter’s boyfriend wrote that.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “Yeah, ‘boyfriend,’ ” he said. “Your Easter’s all grown up. The kid said the number was on the back of the perp’s shirt when he left with the girls.”

  “How’d he see it?”

  “He said he was walking by the house.”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  “He wouldn’t cop to it, but he was sneaking over there; his prints were all over the window.” I opened the card again and saw where Easter had written Can we talk tonight? It looked like she’d invited him.

  “How’d you find this kid?” I asked.

  “That’s the interesting part,” he said. “We didn’t. His dad called us. Turns out Easter called Marcus last night from Myrtle Beach.”

  “Did she say who she’s with?”

  “Wade Chesterfield,” Sandy said. “And this morning Marcus was able to identify him as the one who took the girls.”

  “Just like we thought.”

  “Just like we thought,” he said. “Looks to me like he wants his girls back and didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Looks to me like he’s breaking the law.”

  Sandy shrugged his shoulders. “It’s nothing we haven’t seen before.”

  “Did y’all send anybody down to Myrtle last night?”

  “No,” he said. “Sergeant’s not pulling anybody off this missing money. We called the Myrtle Beach PD. They put out an alert last night and got it on TV. They’re looking into it.”