Due Diligence

by Michael A. Kahn

  He gave me a salute. “Yes, b’wana.”

  The first batter was a hot-tempered male outfielder. He swung for the fences and topped it instead, hitting a weak roller back to the pitcher’s mound. I fielded it cleanly and easily threw him out. He slammed down his hat, kicked at the dirt, and shouted obscenities all the way back to the bench.

  “Yo!” Benny shouted at their players. “Increase his medication.”

  Several of them glared at Benny, and I silently groaned. We surely didn’t need to provoke them.

  The batting order, as required by league rules, alternated male and female. A short, compact woman stepped up to the plate and stroked the first pitch to left for a single. She was forced at second on a fielder’s choice ground ball to third base. The next batter hit a clean single to center, and there were runners on first and second.

  I stepped off the mound to slow down the pace. Looking around, I saw David Marcus in the distance walking toward the field. My initial delight faded when I realized that he was wearing a white dress shirt, black baggy slacks, and dress shoes. His hands were empty—no baseball glove. Fighting my disappointment, I forced a cheerful wave. He waved back and quickened his pace, which only seemed to accentuate his limp.

  I stepped back on the mound and focused on the next batter, a lean, intense left-hander with short blond hair and a flushed face. He cranked the first pitch foul down the right field line. That got Benny’s attention, which was fortunate, because on the next pitch he hit a screamer right at Benny’s head. Benny ducked out of the way but was able to knock down the ball with his glove. He picked up the ball and trotted over to first base for the third out.

  David was waiting when I reached the sidelines. “Where’ve you been?” I asked him, trying to keep the edge out of my voice.

  “I apologize, Rachel. I should have called. One of the residents at the Jewish Center for the Aged died on Saturday. Her funeral was this afternoon. I came here as soon as it ended.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, suddenly feeling frivolous standing there in my softball outfit.

  He unbuttoned his cuffs. “Think I can borrow a glove?” He rolled up his sleeves. “I didn’t realize until this morning that I don’t have one anymore.”

  I found an old softball glove at the bottom of the equipment bag. It was small, beat-up and blue, but David didn’t seem to mind. I introduced him to Benny, who offered to warm him up on the sidelines. Since I wasn’t likely to bat that inning, I jogged across the field to the coach’s box near third base. As I clapped in encouragement to our lead-off batter, I furtively glanced over to where David and Benny were playing catch. Over the course of the inning, I was relieved to see that David’s throws and catches, initially awkward, were becoming more graceful.

  We scored a run in the bottom of the fifth. In the top of the sixth I inserted David into the lineup at the bottom of the order and put him in right field, which seemed as close to being out of harm’s way as one could get.

  Neither side got a hit or a run in the sixth inning, and we took the field in the seventh and final inning still trailing by two runs. Their first batter—the huge woman catcher—hit a lazy fly ball to center field for the first out. The second batter grounded out to short. The next batter hit a slow roller between third and the pitcher’s mound. I charged over, scooped it up barehanded, spun toward first, and fired a line drive five feet above Benny’s outstretched glove. The runner took second on the error as Benny retrieved my throw. I stomped back to the mound, furious with myself.

  “Shake it off, Daisy,” Benny said as he tossed me the ball. “We’ll get the next one.”

  Stepping in the batter’s box was their first baseman, a tall, brawny guy who had already hit two line-drive doubles. I turned toward the outfield and motioned them back. I looked over at David out in right field, with his white dress shirt and street shoes and battered blue glove, and said a silent thanks that the batter was right-handed. But the batter must have spotted David, because he shifted his stance and lined the first pitch foul down the right field line. I glanced back at David, who nodded and took two more steps to the right. With growing concern, I turned to the batter, who was digging in at the plate and waggling his bat in a menacing fashion. His teammates were shouting encouragement.

  “Please, God,” I said under my breath as I threw the next pitch, aiming inside, hoping to force him to hit to left.

  No such luck. He stepped back and lashed a line drive just over Benny’s head and into the right field corner.

  “Oh, no,” I moaned, turning to watch. In my peripheral vision I saw the runner from second dashing toward third.

  I was surprised to see that David had gotten a good jump on the ball, street clothes, limp and all. He reached it on the third bounce, just as the runner was rounding third and heading home on what should have been a routine, run-scoring double. David fielded the ball cleanly, pivoted, and threw home.

  It wasn’t until the umpire shouted “Out!” that any of us were able to grasp the sheer glory of David’s play. In baseball jargon, he threw a frozen rope. In plain English, he hurled the ball on a line drive from deep right field all the way to home plate. Our amazed catcher caught the ball on the fly just to the third base side of home, where an equally amazed runner ran into the tag for the final out of the inning.

  David received several congratulatory whacks on the back from our players and a kiss from me, but the celebration quickly faded as we returned to reality. It was out last time at bat, and we were still two runs behind.

  Our first batter flied out to left field. I was up second and reached base on a throwing error. Our hopes started to build when Benny followed with a clean single to center field. I hollered encouragement from second base, but our next batter popped out to third base. We were down to our last out, still trailing by two. I watched nervously as David Marcus limped to the plate, pausing to tap the bat against the heels of his street shoes.

  “Come on, David!” I called.

  He assumed a batting stance that hardly looked intimidating. Indeed, it was remarkable how relaxed his stance looked: bat held low, wrists at about waist level, elbows not cocked. And yet, I realized after a moment, it was a stance that I had seen used before, most recently by the Cardinals third baseman Todd Zeile. “Please,” I said under my breath.

  David swung and missed the first pitch. The momentum of his swing and the slickness of his shoes made him spin and lose his balance. He staggered back two steps. Several of the fielders started laughing.

  “Don’t hurt yourself, Chester,” shouted their cretinous first baseman.

  David got under the next pitch and popped a fly ball into foul territory beyond third base. The third baseman, shortstop and left fielder all gave chase, but the ball drifted out of play into a row of high bushes.

  “One more strike,” yelled the second baseman as the players returned to their positions. They were pumped, sensing victory.

  “Wait for your pitch, David,” Benny shouted and looked over at me with a grin. Raising his eyebrows in appreciation, he put his fists together as if he were holding a bat and waggled his wrists.

  I took a deep breath and nodded guardedly. Although the last foul hadn’t been much of a hit, I had noticed—and so had Benny—that David was generating an awful lot of bat speed in his relaxed batting stance. All the whiplike motion and power in his swing was coming from his wrists. If he could time the pitch, he ought to get a hit.

  I exhaled slowly, tensely, as I watched David step back into the batter’s box. He fouled off two more pitches, both to the third base side, each harder than the one before it. The players on the other team were hollering for the kill, apparently oblivious to what David appeared to be doing at the plate. Although I couldn’t tell for sure, it seemed as if he were intentionally fouling off pitches, as if he were taking a strange, high-risk version of batting practice in the bottom of the last innin
g. I glanced over at Benny on first base. He shrugged. David fouled off another pitch, again to the third base side. I studied him at the plate. As he got back into his batting stance, I noticed that this time he had shifted his feet slightly toward the right.

  This is the one, I said to myself as I got ready to run.

  The pitcher tossed the ball to the plate in a high underhanded arc. David followed it with his eyes, his legs bending slightly as the ball approached, his bat pulling back a little, his entire body seeming to coil just a bit. And then, like an eastern diamondback striking, he attacked.

  ***

  Benny looked around the table with a big grin. “I’ve got it. We’ll name ourselves the House of David.”

  David chuckled and shook his head as he put down his mug of root beer and picked up another fried onion ring. “My playing days are over.”

  “Over?” Benny said as he lifted his bottle of Budweiser. “Rebbe, you hit the living shit out of that ball.” He took a swig of beer. “We’re talking tape measure city. You cranked it, man.” He sat back and belched.

  “Oh, Benny,” I said, grossed out.

  “Excuse me, Daisy,” he said in a lilting voice.

  “Drop the Daisy, Goldberg,” I said.

  Benny Goldberg was fat and crude and gluttonous and vulgar. He was also brilliant and funny and thoughtful and savagely loyal. I loved him like the brother I never had, although I must admit that he in no way resembled the brother of my childhood daydreams.

  David’s towering home run had ended the game in classic style, and the three of us went out for an early dinner at Seamus McDaniel’s, a terrific Irish pub on Tamm Avenue in Dogtown. Benny had pressed David for details on his baseball background, since it was clear that he’d played some serious ball in his past. David was reluctant to talk about it, but finally admitted that he had played at San Diego State, had been drafted by the Reds, and had worked his way up to their Triple A team before his career ended in a terrible automobile crash that permanently crippled his right leg. Up until then, baseball had been his sole obsession. Severed from his moorings by the accident, he had drifted for years, holding various jobs, until he decided to study for the rabbinate. I knew there was much more to the post-baseball, pre-rabbi part of the story, but David was clearly uncomfortable talking about it, especially in a rowdy tavern. We didn’t press him.

  The waitress brought our dinners and set down another round of drinks—a longneck bottle of Bud for Benny, a Bass Ale on tap for me, a mug of root beer for David. As I thought back to our night at the Cardinals game, I realized that David had ordered only soft drinks that evening, too.

  “Bruce Rosenthal’s funeral is tomorrow,” David said, poking at his salad.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Columbus, Ohio. That’s his hometown.”

  “Are you going?” I asked.

  David shook his head.

  “Who are you guys talking about?” Benny asked.

  I explained.

  “A trash compactor?” Benny said. “Jesus, who the hell did that to him?”

  “We don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “According to David, he was awfully nervous about something he was working on. I assume that’s what he wanted to talk to me about.”

  “I did some snooping around on Friday,” David said.

  “Oh?” I said, surprised. “Find anything?”

  “Not really,” he answered. “I spoke with the homicide detective on the case. The St. Louis one, that is. There’s apparently a jurisdictional dispute—the crime was committed in St. Louis, but the body was found in Illinois, so both have opened an investigation. Anyway, the St. Louis homicide investigation is still in the early stages. They’ve talked to Bruce’s mother and sister in Columbus, but neither knows a thing. Bruce wasn’t close to his family.”

  “Did he have a girlfriend?” I asked.

  David shook his head. “I don’t think so. From what I’ve been able to gather, Bruce’s sexual preferences went in other directions.”

  “Gay?” I asked.

  “More than just gay,” David said. “Apparently, Bruce frequented leather bars. He liked it rough. The detective said that, according to a few of Bruce’s coworkers, he occasionally showed up at work with some pretty nasty looking bruises. About a year ago he came to work with a black eye and his arm in a cast. He refused to tell anyone how it happened and apparently never filed a medical claim through the office.”

  “Any chance that one of Bruce’s boyfriends got angry,” Benny said, “and decided to dump him…literally?”

  “Possible,” David said, “but not likely.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Bruce lived in the downstairs apartment of a duplex,” David explained. “According to the detective, Bruce’s entire apartment had been searched thoroughly long before the police got there. Very thoroughly. Mattress slashed, wallpaper ripped down. The place was trashed.”

  Benny nodded. “That sounds like more than just an old boyfriend looking for love letters.”

  “Do the police know what the searchers were looking for?” I asked.

  “No,” David said. “Nor whether they found it. The police assume that the break-in is tied to the homicide, but beyond that they’re completely baffled.”

  “You said this guy lived in a duplex, right?” Benny asked. “What about his upstairs neighbors?”

  “No help there,” David said. “Two airline stewardesses. According to the police, they didn’t see or hear anything unusual, but they haven’t been around much. Both of them were out of town during most of last week.”

  “From what Bruce told you,” I mused, “this probably had something to do with his work.”

  “That’s what I told the police detective,” David said. “He was planning to talk to one of the managing partners later on Friday. I’ve already made an appointment for tomorrow morning.”

  “An appointment?” I said. “Where?”

  “Smilow and Sullivan.”

  “Is that where he worked?” Benny asked.

  David nodded. “It’s an engineering consulting firm. I’m meeting with Mr. Sullivan.”

  “Why?” I asked quietly.

  David looked at me with sad eyes. “Because I need to. Whatever Bruce came across, whatever was bothering him, was obviously far more significant than I thought at the time.”

  “More than anyone thought,” I said, “me included. You can’t blame yourself for his death, David.”

  “I’m not, Rachel.” He paused and then smiled sheepishly. “And don’t worry, I’m not becoming a rabbi detective. I’ll leave that to the mystery writers.” The smile faded. “But I was Bruce’s rabbi. He came to me with a concern. Whatever the police ultimately discover, I owe it to Bruce to at least make a few inquiries to try to find out what was troubling him.”

  “Let me warn you,” I told him, “I’ve been there before, trying to put that kind of puzzle back together. It can be awfully frustrating.”

  David nodded. “I realize that. But I have to try. I’ve got a little to go on. He sent me some sort of list of names.”

  “Who did?”

  “Bruce. Around the time I told him to contact you. He said he wanted me to keep the original. I’m embarrassed to say I forgot about it until yesterday.”

  “Whose names?” I asked, intrigued.

  David shrugged. “I have no idea. I found the list at home yesterday.”

  “I’d like to see it,” I said.

  As we were leaving Seamus McDaniel’s, Benny asked whether we wanted to join him down at Mississippi Nights on the Landing to hear a blues band that had been one of my favorites back when I lived in Chicago.

  “Rats,” I said, groaning. “I’d love to, but I’ve got a function tonight.” I looked at David. “You should go, David. They’re great. They used to play one Sunday
a month at Biddy Mulligan’s, which is this blues bar a few blocks from my old apartment in Chicago.”

  “I wish I could,” he said, “but I’ve agreed to help out at a fundraiser tonight.”

  “Oh?” I said curiously. “It’s not the Armstrong fundraiser, is it?”

  He looked surprised. “Actually, yes.”

  I laughed. “Me, too.”

  “Oh, brother.” Benny groaned. “Two Armstrong groupies? Folks, it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee.”

  “Benny,” I said with exasperation, “sometimes I can’t believe you. Douglas Armstrong is good on every issue that counts, and he’s been out there in front on most of them.”

  Benny looked at David and me. He smiled in resignation. “Now it all comes clear. You two are perfect for each other: a pair of mushy-headed, bleeding-hearted, tree-hugging, NPR-addicted, Sandinista-loving liberals.” He placed his hand over his chest in mock rapture. “Is Saint Armstrong planning to announce his presidential candidacy tonight? Oh be still my heart.”

  I looked at David and sighed. “Benny’s idea of a perfect presidential candidate is Vlad the Impaler.”

  “Now, now,” Benny said, waggling his finger at me, “better heads on a stick than heads in the sand.”

  “Listen,” I said, putting my arm around his ample waist, “while you’re down at Mississippi Nights grooving on the music and plotting the return to power of your political mentor, Baby Doc Duvalier, don’t forget your commitment for Tuesday night.”

  He paused, trying to mask the fact that he was drawing a complete blank. “I’m being committed?”

  “The sooner the better. But until that blessed day arrives, you and I are supposed to be judges Tuesday night for Jennifer’s government class.” My niece Jennifer is in eighth grade at Ladue Junior High. Her government teacher was having his class stage a mock criminal trial in the County Courts Building, and Benny and I had agreed to act as judges. I raised my eyebrows sternly. “Remember, Uncle Benny?”

  Benny snapped his fingers casually. “Of course I do. I thought you meant something else. I wouldn’t forget that. Tell you what, I’ll pick you up at six and we can prepare for the case over supper.” He turned to David and put out his hand. “Well, rebbe, as the great Hasidic sage, Israel Baal Shem Tov, once said under remarkably similar circumstances, ‘Awesome homer, dude.’”