Penalty Shot

by Paul Bishop

  Penalty Shot

  AN IAN CHAPEL MYSTERY

  Paul Bishop

  Penalty Shot

  AN IAN CHAPEL MYSTERY

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2019 (as revised) Paul Bishop

  Wolfpack Publishing

  6032 Wheat Penny Avenue

  Las Vegas, NV 89122

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, other than brief quotes for reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-64119-596-6

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-64119-597-3

  Contents

  Get your FREE copy of The Chicago Punch: A Short Story

  Author’s Foreword

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  A Look at: Lie Catchers

  Books By Paul Bishop

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  About the Author

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  Author’s Foreword

  I’ve loved soccer all my life. Immigrating from England to the sunshine of the California coast when I was eight turned out to be a good thing, but it did put a crimp in my plans to play for the English National team.

  As a teen, I rode my bike ten miles each way to practice with a club team. But soccer in America in the ‘70s was the proverbial red-headed stepchild and being able to play at an international level was simply the stuff of my daydreams.

  When I wrote Penalty Shot in 1990, professional soccer in America had almost ceased to exist. In 1967, the floundering United Soccer Association and the equally challenged North American Soccer League merged to form the National Professional Soccer League, which sputtered along until its ignominious collapse in1985.

  From 1985 to 1993 and the founding of the currently thriving Major League Soccer, the only professional league in America was the American Indoor Soccer League founded in 1978.

  It was into this world—a world in which soccer might easily have disappeared completely from the American landscape—I injected Penalty Shot’s damaged hero, Ian Chapel—once a top-flight English goalkeeper who lost an eye to an opponent’s cleats in and international match. Chapel is forced to face his demons to see if a one-eyed goalkeeper could play at the dubious professional level demanded by American indoor soccer. Could he also save American soccer from total demise?

  There was precedence for Chapel’s playing transition. The legendary Gordon Banks, goalkeeper for the 1966 World Cup winning English National Team, saw his career end when he lost an eye in a 1972 car crash. Despite this disability, Banks was the first major signing for the Fort Lauderdale Strikers of the North American Soccer League in 1977. He went on to become the top keeper in the league.

  Inspired by the real-life exploits of Gordon Banks, Ian Chapel became my literary conduit to the lost dreams of soccer glory still playing out in my head.

  Paul Bishop

  Penalty Shot

  Prologue

  England 1988

  “Come on, England! Get off your dead legs and run!"

  It was a typically miserable English crowd and a typically miserable English afternoon. The rain had turned the usually immaculate Wembley Stadium football pitch into a muddy quagmire. Almost all traces of the field's chalked markings were obliterated, and the players' uniforms were so mud encrusted it was hard to tell one side from the other.

  With my weight balanced forward on the balls of my feet, I waited to defend England's goal against the onslaught of the West German offense. Hardy Kruger, the West German center forward, had neatly sidestepped Robby Hunt's ill-timed sliding tackle and was cutting through the mud toward me. The threat had the partisan crowd roaring in dismay.

  The second half of the game was aging rapidly. The score was still a goose-egg apiece, but it wasn't from lack of trying on the part of the West Germans. They had dominated the play since the opening whistle, keeping me diving to stop shots. I was wet, tired, and freezing cold. My legs were beginning to tremble with effort. If the pressure continued, it was only a matter of time until a shot slipped past me. But not this time. I could turn the bastards back one more time. I was not going to let them score. Not this time.

  As Kruger continued his run, the crowd noise rose higher in anticipation. The game was an international match, part of the tournament process which would culminate at the World Cup in Italy two years down the road. Because of the importance of the game, even the rotten weather had not stopped the English fans from turning out in force. Cheering and jeering, they ate fish and chips and prayed some soccer hooligan didn't blindly chuck a five-pound sledgehammer into the crowd for the fun of it.

  To cut down Kruger's shooting angle, I moved toward the right goalpost. Immersed in a muddy puddle, my feet made sucking sounds as I moved. My limbs felt heavy and lethargic. Instinct told me I should move out to challenge Kruger, but I held my position as the wide periphery of my vision picked up Kurt Wagstaff, the West German left winger, racing to give Kruger support.

  There is a soccer tradition stating goalkeepers and left wingers are insane. But while I might have a screw or two loose, Wagstaff had a complete hardware store shaking around in his head. He was positively certifiable in his determination to score. Modern playing tactics had made left wingers an endangered species, but Wagstaff kept the breed alive with his hard-driving style of play. He was always a dangerous scoring threat and was possessed by a demented frustration when he failed to do so. The longer a game went on without him scoring, the harder he pushed.

  I held my ground, unwilling to commit between Kruger and Wagstaff. Finally, Lampy Norbert, our center half, came to my rescue. He belted over on legs like the long stilts and forced Kruger down into the corner of the penalty area.

  "Stay on him!" I screamed at Lampy.

  The play had drawn me over to the right goalpost, so it was a nasty shock when Lampy slipped in the mud and Kruger deftly lobbed the ball in a high arc across the goal mouth. Out of position, I scrambled crabwise, knowing instinctively Wagstaff would be behind me, his head rising to meet the ball. A split second later there was the solid thud of forehead meeting ball leather and Wagstaff sent a head shot streaking for the lower left corner of the net.

  Physically I was spent, but my mind saw every nuance of the game in clear slow motion. Reactions and muscle memory took control and snapped my body backward across the face of the goal like a shot rubber band.

  My arms and legs were fully extended, my hands straining for the touch of rounded leather. Right then, living totally in the moment, I knew the true joy of my chosen profession. It was an exhila
ration beyond the highest level of consciousness. I was perfectly performing something for which I had been destined since the spark of my conception. I watched the ball as it bounced once in front of the goal line, and then my fists punched it around the outside of the goalpost for the save.

  My body slammed to the ground, blasting the air out of my lungs. I thought I had died. There was no noise. No feeling. Nothing except a fulfilled oblivion, which lasted until the stunned crowd erupted into a tangible force of cheers and screams.

  I was trying breathe when Lampy Norbert's long arms wrapped around my chest and pulled me to my feet. The muddy field gave up my six-foot-three-inch, one-hundred-and-ninety-pound frame with a noise like water disappearing down a drain.

  "Fantastic, Ian!" Lampy yelled in my ear while pounding me on the back.

  I forced breath past Lampy's iron embrace. I grinned sheepishly as I was swamped by the rest of the team.

  "Chapel! Chapel! Chapel!" The crowd was chanting my name before breaking into the slow traditional chorus of, "ENG-LAND, ENG-LAND, ENG-LAND," as they waved banners, scarves, and flags, and went berserk tooting long plastic horns and twirling gigantic noise-ratchets.

  Hardy Kruger stood in shock on the spot from where he'd crossed the ball over my head. On the other side of the goal, Wagstaff was slumped on his knees in the mud. His hands were curled into tight fists, the knuckles showing white even through the covering grime. Maniacal hatred burned from eyes set deep in his Germanic features. The stare singed my retinas before he turned his face away. I ignored him and returned my attention to the field.

  Rain continued to pour as play resumed, but the momentum of the game had changed. Our offense discovered new life, and the West German goalie found himself busy. But, instead of being relieved, I was unreasonably agitated. Adrenaline tingled like a live wire across my fingertips. I envied Wagstaff who was all over the field, playing like a demon.

  He was a one-man wrecking crew, intercepting passes with reckless sliding tackles. I lusted after his freedom. I was confined to the boundaries of the penalty area, waiting for the game to come to me, while Wagstaff was making or chasing the play at his own instigation. He electrified the crowd. Every time he touched the ball, they leapt to their feet.

  I shout directions at my fullbacks, but every time they stymied Wagstaff, I felt a disappointment. There had been a gauntlet thrown—Wagstaff's unstoppable desire to score matched against my immovable determination to stop him. After my miraculous save, the confrontation was inevitable. Wagstaff knew it. I knew it. The other players were aware it was coming. And the crowd demanded it.

  Tension coiled until Wagstaff beat an offside trap and sprinted toward a long pass with an open field in front of him. Robby Hunt was chasing but had no chance to stop him fairly. In desperation, Robby threw a vicious sliding tackle, bringing Wagstaff down from behind in the penalty area.

  It had been a professional foul, one purposely done to avoid a sure scoring situation. It drew an immediate whistle as Wagstaff sprawled across the muddy turf. The referee pointed toward the penalty spot. Arguments erupted as Robby was red-carded for dangerous play and ejected from the game, an unknowing instrument of fate.

  The whole game was down to a face-off between Wagstaff and me. The referee shooed the other players out of the penalty box before pacing twelve yards out from the center of the goal line and plopping the ball down in the muck.

  I set myself and cleared my mind. Wagstaff slightly adjusted the position of the ball, then moved back into position for his approach. I couldn't move my feet until Wagstaff made contact with the ball—a rule which made stopping the shot difficult to impossible. Anticipation was the only edge I had against a player of Wagstaff's caliber.

  The West German wouldn't try anything fancy. The conditions had deteriorated too far for showing off. I was in the way of the ball reaching the back of the net. Wagstaff was determined to score. I was determined to stop him.

  The referee blew his whistle, and Wagstaff moved toward the ball. He didn't attempt to throw me off with a body sway or misdirection. Instead, he came straight at the ball with deadly intent.

  A split second before he kicked the ball, I knew exactly what was coming. The shot came at me like a bullet train, the ball punching into my chest with such force I felt a rib break. If it hadn't been for the tick of precognition which braced me forward, I would have been knocked backward into the goal.

  The season before, the power of Wagstaff's shots had exploded a poorly stitched ball against a goalpost. Now, the similar shock waves from his shot devastated my chest cavity. I watched helplessly as the ball rebounded back into play. The penalty shot had not been an attempt to score, but a personal punishment. If the ball had driven me far enough back into the goal to score, the humiliation would have been total. But Wagstaff had not depended on it, knowing he could easily put the rebound in the net.

  I forced myself to move. It was like wading through quicksand. Red haze filled my vision, the roar of the crowd a muted throb at the back of my brain. Everything was moving at half speed as Wagstaff jumped toward the ball. He was sure of his victory, the shot a direct strike.

  From somewhere beyond reason, I knew I could stop the ball. I dove blindly toward it even as Wagstaff's foot slashed forward with terrifying power. The tips of my gnarled fingers touched the rough surface of the ball, but my arms refused to respond and gather it into me.

  Sliding through the mud on a collision course, I saw Wagstaff's shooting foot infinitesimally change targets to collided with my face.

  Chapter 1

  England 199O

  My brother Gerald stuck his head around my office door and spotted me rubbing my fingers under the black eye-patch where my right eye had once been.

  "Caught you," he said with a grin.

  "Get stuffed!"

  "The doctors say a missing eye can’t cause Ghost Limb Syndrome."

  "Sod the doctors," I said.

  Gerald stepped into the office. "Have you seen this?" he asked. He handed me a copy of London's Daily Mirror folded to the sports page.

  With my good eye, I glanced at the three-paragraph filler circled with red pen. I often wondered why I thought of my remaining eye as good, as if the other had been plucked out for being bad.

  "Bloody hell," I said.

  The small headline proclaimed, Ravens Goal Keeper Pasqual Maddox Found Murdered in Los Angeles.

  "First I've heard of it." I read the rest of the short article. "I didn't even know Pasqual was playing again. Who in the world are the Ravens?"

  Six years ago, Pasqual Maddox was the best goalkeeper in Italy, but he'd been caught in a match-fixing scandal. The entire structure of soccer in Italy was rocked. Two Italian goalkeepers received lifetime bans. Pasqual received a five-year ban. But in a profession where you are old at thirty, five years were effectively a professional life ban.

  Gerald lifted up his glasses and rubbed his own eyes.

  It was contagious, like yawning.

  "After your injury, when you refused to read the sports news," he said, "Maddox's playing ban was lifted. He was living in Los Angeles and signed on to play with the Ravens, an expansion team in the American Indoor Soccer League."

  "Indoor soccer? Why would Pasqual play in America? They hate soccer there."

  “They don’t hate it, but they certainly don’t care about it.

  "Italy wouldn't take him back?" I asked.

  "Not a chance."

  I tapped the article. "He was probably too slow to play top level after the ban. But his murder should rate more than three paragraphs. Did the LA papers carry a bigger splash?"

  "You have to be more important than pro wrestlers or roller derby prima donnas to get a splash in L.A.”

  "Cynical, but true."

  The article in the Mirror was too short to do credit to Pasqual's colorful history. It was confined to the facts of his death. His body had been discovered in an alcove behind the Acropolis sports arena by two street people look
ing for shelter. He'd been beaten and his wallet was missing. The street people called an ambulance, but Maddox died on the way to the hospital without recovering consciousness. The coroner determined Pasqual had been kicked to death by two or more assailants. The police believed the murder to be related to a string of vicious muggings plaguing the area. No arrests had been made. News reporting at its worst.

  "Did you know Maddox?" Gerald asked.

  I looked up at him in distraction. "Only in passing. We weren't friends." Both times I'd spent time with Pascal, I'd found him to be a conceited prick. The fact his English was indecipherable had a lot to do with my impression.

  Gerald pulled a pipe from his sweater pocket and began to fill it. "Do you think any of the Italian sports magazines will pick this up?"

  "The entire country holds a grudge against those involved in the match fixing. The Italian press isn't going to glorify Maddox. It would be putting their dirty laundry back on the clothesline."

  Gerald was hovering as if expecting something more from me.

  I tried to anticipate him. "You want us to run something on Pasqual?"

  "I'm only the publisher of Sporting Press." His reaction was slightly overdone. "You're the editor. Maybe we could do an issue on the American soccer scene as a companion to the special issues we did on Germany and Brazil." He was being evasive.