Smith's Monthly #21

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  I stood and faced Edward as the green, red, and yellow lights flickered on, casting an odd rainbow on the floor and nearby booth. “I know you won’t believe me, so just listen. This jukebox can take you back to that memory of Shoeless Joe.”

  Edward laughed. “I don’t need a machine to do that. It is with me every day.”

  “It will actually take you there. Maybe this time you can leave the bat.”

  Edward looked at me for a moment, then snorted. “Right.” He picked up his drink and downed it. Then reached into his pocket for his wallet. “I think I had better be getting home. Music there to face for sure.”

  “I told you that you wouldn’t believe me. So just humor me. Play one song. Do that and the drinks and lunch are on me. I’ll even supply the quarter.” I held up a quarter for him to see.

  He looked around at the empty bar. Then, after a long moment, he shrugged. “Stout, people said you were a strange bird. Now I guess I know why.” He moved over to the jukebox, taking the quarter from me as he did.

  “There are a number of big band tunes on there. Pick the one that reminds you the most of that moment you took the bat.”

  “Will do,” he said, shaking his head.

  I watched him as he looked over the selection, then dropped the quarter into the slot and punched the buttons. The jukebox clanked and then the sound of a small motor came from inside, followed by a bunch of clicks.

  Now I felt as if I wanted to throw up. What happened if he changed something really major? Something that cost a lot of lives. Every damn time I plugged in the jukebox that fear hit me like a hammer.

  I took a deep breath, placed both hands on the bar in front of me and faced him. He was a friend. He deserved the chance. “Just think about that moment in Joe’s house,” I told him. “And remember while you are there that you only have the length of the song that is playing. Not one moment longer.”

  “Sure,” he said. “And then...”

  The song started and Edward faded from the bar and was gone.

  I took a deep breath and moved over to the well as the Jimmy Dorsey Band filled the room with the sounds of the past. I really wanted to break another one of my rules.

  I needed a drink.

  FIVE

  Big band music played softly from an old record player in the cluttered dining room. The house smelled musty and closed in, with a faint medicine smell that seemed to coat everything. A big, overstuffed couch with doilies on the arms filled one wall. Glass cabinets with old trophies and pictures filled another. Outside, it was a cold December day in South Carolina.

  In front of the glass case was a round umbrella stand. In that stand were five baseball bats, including a black one. Edward stared at that bat for a moment, not really understanding what it was, then glanced around the living room.

  “Wow, Stout. You can really pull off an illusion.” As he said it he realized his voice didn’t sound right. It seemed too high and a different pitch to his ears. He glanced down at his younger body, the heavy coat, the boots, and the memories came flooding back. The memories of coming into Shoeless Joe’s house with Coach and Dave and Johnny just a few minutes before. Yet those memories were overlaid by the forty years of the future and the very real memory of just getting fired from a job he really loved.

  “Stout! How...”

  The sound of laughing came from the back room over the top of the music. Stout had been right. Somehow he was here, yet he wasn’t. He couldn’t be. He was married, with two kids forty years in the future. He reached out and touched the arm of the couch. It felt real.

  He looked around again, then moved over and pulled out the black bat. It was heavy and a little cold to his touch. The grip was rough with the old tape and felt almost sticky. Black Betsy. Joe’s favorite bat.

  He remembered looking at it forty years ago and then slipping it up inside his big coat and going out the front door. He had stashed the bat in a large bush and then waited for Coach and the others to come out. They had ribbed him a little about not going in to see Shoeless Joe, but not much. Mostly they just talked about how exciting it was to meet Shoeless Joe and how he couldn’t have really thrown the series. He had gone back that night and picked up the bat. He still had it up in the attic forty years later.

  Young Edward turned the bat over in his hands and looked at the initials S.J. carved in the handle. Many a night over the next few years he would hold that bat and run his fingers over those initials. He did so again, his young self treasuring the feel, his older self hating it. The two emotions battling inside his head and stomach.

  The fight lasted for only a moment, but it seemed much longer. Finally the forty year-old memories won and he dropped the bat back into the umbrella stand.

  It was as if the weight of an entire life lifted from his shoulders. “Thanks, Stout,” he said to the air. He took a deep breath and let it out. It was time to face a few more things. The song was still playing, so with one last look at Black Betsy, he turned and headed for the back room.

  Shoeless Joe’s bedroom was filled with a huge dresser and a big, old, metal bed. The drapes were open to the gray December day. Joe was propped up on pillows and he was laughing. To Edward he looked like a skeleton, with large ears, an even bigger nose, and eyes that seemed to sparkle.

  As Edward entered Joe looked over and nodded.

  “Glad you came in,” Coach said, and motioned for Edward to move up beside the bed. “Edward, this is Shoeless Joe Jackson. Mr. Jackson, this is Edward Toole, one of my better players.” Joe smiled and stuck out his hand. Edward shook it. Joe’s grip was strong, but the skin was dry and rough.

  The older Edward wanted to scream and shout for joy. He was actually meeting Shoeless Joe Jackson. Actually shaking his hand. But his fifteen year-old self was too embarrassed to talk. This time the young self won.

  “Nice meeting you, Edward,” Joe said. His voice was deep and powerful and surprised Edward, coming from the thin body.

  “Nice meeting you, sir.” Edward stammered.

  Joe smiled as if he understood. And just maybe he did, because for a moment he looked into Edward’s eyes. Then Joe’s smile slowly turned to a frown, he shook his head and looked around. “I suppose you all are wondering the same question that everyone wonders. Did I really throw the series?”

  “Sir,” Coach said, “I made the boys promise to not ask about that.”

  Joe waved a large, thin hand in dismissal. “That’s all right. After thirty years I have sort of got used to it.”

  In the other room the song was almost finished.

  Joe looked directly at Edward. “Sometimes you make good choices and sometimes you make bad ones. Just like in a ball game. And with every play you must live with the choice. Sometimes only to the end of the inning. Sometimes for much longer. You understand me?” He was asking Edward directly.

  Both young- and old-Edward could do nothing but nod.

  The song had very few seconds left.

  “I made a bad choice and it cost me,” Joe said. “But I tried from that day forward to make good choices. And I kept on living. Just like in a game you must keep on playing, no matter what the mistake. What I learned is that you don’t ever give up.”

  Edward nodded. “Thank you, sir.” And Edward’s older self added, “More than you will ever know.”

  The song ended and forty years of future memories slipped from the young Edward as Shoeless Joe nodded and smiled.

  SIX

  The last notes of the big band song echoed around the Garden Lounge.

  Edward did not reappear.

  I let go of the warm chrome of the jukebox where I had been holding on to make sure I remembered Edward. He didn’t come back so he had changed his past somehow. He probably didn’t take the bat this time, and that had changed his present in some way. Now maybe he hadn’t got fired. Or maybe he had never taken the job with the computer company in the first place, or he had never become a lawyer.

  Anything could have happened, and
I would not have even remembered him being in the bar this afternoon if I hadn’t been holding onto the jukebox when the song ended. My memories would have switched over to this new world’s. But by touching the jukebox I could remember the old world. And Edward.

  I couldn’t resist the temptation to go to the phone book and see if Edward’s name was still in there. It was, only it also had an office number with it besides his home phone. It looked as if he had hung out his own shingle in this world. I hoped that meant he was happier. I unplugged the jukebox, finished my drink, and went back to cleaning up from lunch rush. If he didn’t show up after five I would check around. Until then there wasn’t anything I could do but wait.

  SEVEN

  At seven minutes after five Edward walked through the door. He looked the same, except that he wasn’t wearing a suit. Instead he had on a casual dress sweater and golf slacks. He smiled and waved as he came through the door, and I waved back and started to make his normal drink.

  There were about twenty of the regulars in the Garden, and he stopped for a moment to talk to a few of them at the first table. So by the time he was on the only empty stool to the right of the waitress station, I had the drink in front of him.

  “Quick as always, Stout,” he said. Then he held up the glass with the bourbon and a twist and looked at it. “But what’s this. You forget after all these years that I drink Vodka tonics?”

  A couple of the others at the bar laughed and I laughed right along with them as I took the drink back from him. “Just not with it today,” I said, trying to act as normal as I could, even though my heart was pounding as if I had just run a hard five miles. I had about six hundred questions I wanted to ask him. Yet I knew he wouldn’t understand a one of them.

  I fixed him a new drink and slid it in front of him. He held it up and looked at me. “To Shoeless Joe Jackson,” he said, making a toasting motion, then sipping his drink.

  “Shoeless Joe?” I asked, somehow keeping my voice from shaking. “Wasn’t he the one they made the movie about?”

  Edward laughed. “You know, Stout, you have said that same thing every year. It’s December 5th, forty years from the day Shoeless Joe Jackson died. Don’t you remember we toast him every year on this date? He was the greatest left fielder to ever play the game.” He paused for a moment, smiling to himself.

  “Oh, God,” one of the regulars down the bar said, shaking his head. “Here we go again.”

  Edward just kept on smiling. “You know,” he said. “I met Shoeless Joe once.”

  In the first installments, Seattle Police Detectives Bonnie and Craig, while taking a late night walk on a Scottsdale Arizona golf course happen to overhear a conversation between two men plotting to kill a United States Senator.

  At the same time, a young golf professional’s wife is kidnapped. Scheduled to play with the Senator, he must do what they ask or his wife will die.

  Bonnie and Craig get the FBI and local police involved. Everything is set and they play with the Senator to help protect him.

  Nothing goes wrong, but that night, they see the two men again who they had overheard.

  AN EASY SHOT

  Part 4 of 8

  CHAPTER TEN

  Saturday, April 8th

  10:19 p.m.

  CHARLES ROBINS MOVED out onto his patio toward the man standing there. Never had the man returned in the middle of an assignment before. And never had the man called him on his personal, unlisted number to set up a meeting so late.

  Charles had paced for the last two hours, waiting, coming up with a dozen things that could have gone wrong. Clearly the Senator had not met with his accident yet, so something had. The question was what?

  And how serious was the problem?

  Finally the man in the dark suit had appeared on the patio, smoking as always.

  “So what has gone wrong?” Charles demanded.

  “You tell me,” the man said, his voice low and very mean. “The Senator has clearly been tipped that something might happen to him this weekend. Both the Scottsdale authorities and the FBI are staying very close to him. And he is playing with two cops from Seattle.”

  Charles felt as if someone had punched him in the stomach. “How? I said nothing to anyone but you.”

  “Are you sure?” the man asked, his voice seemingly on the edge of anger, barely controlled. His eyes were like two black holes in the darkness, unblinking and deadly.

  “Of course I’m sure,” Charles said, disgusted. “If Senator Knight makes that vote on Monday, I’m as good as broke and in prison. It would only be a matter of time. So why the hell would I tell anyone I’m trying to stop him?”

  “Well, they have discovered the threat to the Senator in some fashion,” the man said.

  “But can you still do what needs to be done?”

  The man nodded. “The Senator can still meet his date with an accident. But it will cost you a great deal more than before. And this will be our last meeting ever.”

  “How much more?” Charles demanded. The man’s fee hadn’t been small before this set-back.

  The man laughed. “This is not a negotiation.” He handed Charles a slip of paper.

  Charles did not even give the man the satisfaction of looking down at the note.

  “If the first amount specified is not in that off-shore numbered account by ten in the morning, the Senator will make his plane to Washington just fine.”

  “And if I put the money in the account and you do not carry through on your end of the deal?” Charles demanded, getting angrier and angrier.

  “Then you do not have to pay the second, larger payment specified.”

  That made Charles glance down at the paper, but he could not read it in the dim light.

  “And trust me,” the man said, “if I carry through with my end of this and you do not pay the second amount, you will meet an accident far worse than what waits for the Senator. And far more painful.”

  “You are threatening me?” Charles demanded, stepping toward the man. Charles could not remember ever being so angry as to want to hit someone. But right now he was.

  The man stood his ground, his dark eyes intense, his posture relaxed. “Of course I am.”

  Charles just stared at the man. This man was blackmailing him and there was nothing at all he could do about it. Charles was going to lose everything and the man knew it and was using that fact to extract everything he could.

  “Think it over,” the man said.

  “How do I know you didn’t make up this entire story about the FBI knowing there is a threat to the Senator?”

  “You don’t,” the man said. “But it is the truth and there is no way to prove it to you.”

  Charles stared at the man. More than likely this guy had just been waiting for the right assignment from Charles to pull this blackmail stunt and then vanish. More than likely the man had done the same to other clients in the past and gotten away with it.

  Well, he was going to get away with it again. Charles was desperate. Senator Knight had to be kept from that vote on Monday. There was no other choice.

  “All right,” Charles said. “The money will be in the account in the morning.”

  “It has been nice doing business with you,” the man said, turning from Charles and starting across the patio.

  “Just make sure it’s done,” Charles said.

  “Oh, I will be successful,” the man said without looking back. “You just make sure the payments are made and we can both live happily ever after.”

  With that the man walked down the path away from the patio and vanished into the night.

  Charles turned and moved back into the light so that he could read the amounts on the paper. His stomach clamped up like the guy had punched him. $250,000 by ten in the morning. $750,000 within twelve hours of completion.

  “Damn, damn, damn,” he said, glancing around to see if the man was still in sight. That was a vast amount of money, yet possible. And the man he called Bill knew it. Its remo
val from his corporate accounts was going to be hard to hide, but better taking a chance with some missing money than having Knight vote on Monday.

  He turned and headed for the office he kept here in his home. It was far past the time he would normally be in bed, but he knew without a doubt there would be no sleeping tonight. He had to figure a way to cover his tracks with the money.

  And then spend the rest of the night worrying about the thousand things that might go wrong.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Saturday, April 8th

  11:30 p.m.

  DANNY OPENED THE door for the man and stepped back into his hotel room. All day he had been simply walking through the motions. He had managed to play decent golf, but that had been mostly because he hadn’t cared. He kept thinking about his wife. He couldn’t imagine what they were doing to her, and yet he couldn’t think of anything at all to do. If he told someone, they would kill her, he had no doubt. And he couldn’t live with that.

  But he was also starting to wonder if he could live with the Senator getting hurt.

  “Nice to see you not bein’ guarded, kid,” the man said. “Lot of cops around here. You have anything to do with that?’

  Danny suddenly felt his stomach clamp down into a tight knot. “No!” he said as firmly as he could. “I didn’t say a word to anyone.”

  The guy nodded. “You sure about that?”

  “You said you’d kill my wife,” Danny said, staring into the dark eyes of the man. “Why would I chance that?”

  The guy looked at him for a minute, then nodded. “Smart kid. I believe you. Besides, we’ve been keepin’ an eye on you and I doubt you had a chance to tell anyone.”

  Danny felt the relief flood over him. “Can I talk to Steph?”