Pastime

by Robert B. Parker

Ebbets Field was small and idiosyncratic. It was a short 297 feet to the right-field screen. The base of the scoreboard in right was angular, and

  Carl Furillo, and Dixie Walker before him, had made an art of playing to odd caroms off it. There were advertising signs on the outfield walls. The fans were close to the field, and after a game they could stream across the outfield and exit through the gate in deep center field. The Cardinals were in, their gray road uniformstrimmed in red; Stan Musial and Red Schoendienst. We got seats behind first base while there was still batting practice to watch. I was old enough to drink in New York. In Boston I was still underage. We got two big paper cups of Schaefer beer and settled back.

  The beer was cold from the tap and fresh. I felt it seep through me the way spring rain invigorates a flower.

  In the bottom of the first inning Duke Snider did his little kick step and hit the ball into Bedford Avenue. My Uncle Bob and I toasted him with an other beer. My headache was going. The throbbing in my cheek diminished.

  Stan Musial. Duke Snider. Cold beer in the sunshine. Only yesterday, when the world was young.

  "I gotta rest," Gerry said.

  My focus swam back onto him. He had slumped to the ground, his back against a birch tree, his legs sprawled before him, his arms limp at his side. I realized I'd lost track of him entirely. I didn't remember walking the last half mile. I didn't remember coming down the side of this gully.

  I was lucky it was Gerry. The tracker would have brained me by now with a rock. I leaned against another birch trunk. If I sat down I wasn't sure I could get up.

  "Get up," I said. Time was not my friend. I didn't have much of it left.

  Gerry's head was sunk on his chest. He shook it silently.

  "Okay," I said. "See you around."

  My voice sounded like someone else's. Someone trying to sound perky. And failing. Pearl bounded over and jumped up to lap my face. She put one paw on my leg. I didn't scream. I held the tree with my left arm and fended her off with my right. I noticed that I was still holding the gun in my hand, but I'd let the hammer down. I didn't remember doing that. There was some nausea. It passed slowly, like a wave slowly easing back out to sea. When it was gone enough to move, I jerked my head at Pearl and started off.

  Gerry said, "Hey."

  I kept going.

  He labored to his feet, using the tree trunk. He was behind me now. I kept going. The gun in my right hand, hanging straight down, Pearl, ahead of me, nose to the forest floor, looking for groundhogs.

  "Wait up," Gerry gasped.

  It had become ludicrous. My hostage was chasing me. It was darkening and the drizzle had finally stopped when we reached the last rise and below us saw the traffic on the Pike. I took the leash from my pocket and whistled for Pearl. She dashed up and sat. She always dashed up and sat when she saw the leash. To her it meant a walk. Even when she was on a walk. I hooked the leash onto her collar. And we started down the slope. Pearl strained against the leash and my leg hurt exceptionally as I went downhill on it, bracing against Pearl's tug. To my right Gerry started to run toward the highway and fell and rolled noisily through the brush for maybethirty feet before he stopped and struggled up and kept moving.

  Most of the cars had their headlights on, though it wasn't really dark yet.

  And they paraded by swiftly and sporadically, a pageant of ordinariness, the people in them rushing to dinner, or a late meeting, unwounded, unfeverish, unarmed, dry, and at worst maybe a little stiff from their long commute.

  The chances of flagging a ride were negligible, but sooner or later a state cop would cruise by, and he'd stop. If he saw us. I looped Pearl's leash over my wrist so that if I passed out she wouldn't wander off into the traffic. Gerry was standing limply ten feet down the highway. He wasn't looking at me. His head was down. His eyes may have been closed; I couldn't see.

  "Walk away from me," I said. "That way. Keep going until you're out of sight. If I see you again I'll kill you."

  Gerry had no words. He simply turned in the direction I'd pointed and began to stumble along the highway, his head down, weaving as he walked, as if he were drunk. Pearl was close to my leg, shying closer every time a car passed, stirring the leaves and dust along the margin of the roadbed.

  I couldn't remember now who had won that baseball game. Cardinals or

  Dodgers? It had probably mattered greatly then; it mattered now not at all.

  I felt myself begin to dissolve. I frowned. I concentrated on looking up the Pike at the oncoming headlights. It would be harder to spot me if I keeled over. It would be harder to spot me as it got darker.

  I looked down the road after Gerry Broz. I couldn't see him. The turnpike curved fifty yards ahead and he was around the curve now. I holstered the

  Browning. Gerry wouldn't have the energy to circle back and jump me. Nor, probably, now that he was alone, the balls. I remembered that once; I had seen Jackie Robinson steal home. Pigeon-toed, elbows pumping, under the tag.

  He was dead now. Been dead a long time. Died a young man. He lit up the sky, my Uncle Bob used to say. The headlights blurred in the mist. Except there wasn't any mist. The rain had stopped an hour ago. The first time Robinson had taken the field, Red Barber had said in his soft Southern voice on the radio, He is very definitely brunette. One pair of the blurred headlights swept over me. A car swung up onto the shoulder. The door opened and Hawk got out.

  "You are very definitely brunette," I said.

  Then Hawk blurred too.

  I heard myself say, "Take the dog."

  And then I didn't hear anything. Or see anything, except darkness visible.

  CHAPTER 28

  SOMEONE said, "Where's the dog?" Somebody else said, "In the car with a soup bone."

  "On the leather seats?" someone said.

  "You bled all over them already," someone else said. "Figured it didn't matter anymore."

  My eyes opened. Hawk was standing at the foot of the bed, wearing a black leather jacket over a black turtleneck. He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the bed rail and I could see the butt of his gun under his arm where the jacket fell open.

  "How come you were out riding around on the Pike in western Mass?" I said.

  It had been me speaking all along, but I just realized it.

  "Paul told me what happened," Hawk said. "I looked at a map, figured you'd get in the woods and loop for the highway. What I woulda done."

  "So you been cruising it," I said.

  "Un huh. Lee exit to the New York line and back, two tanks of gas."

  "Paul's okay?"

  "He at your place. So's his momma and her honey."

  "My place?"

  "You not using it," Hawk said. "Had to stash them someplace."

  I shifted in the bed. There was an IV in the back of my left hand, held in place by tape. The tube ran to a drip bottle on a stand. My leg felt sore, but it wasn't throbbing anymore, and it didn't feel distended. I looked around the room. It was private. There was a silent television on a high shelf opposite, and the usual hospital apparatus on the walls, blood pressure gauges, and oxygen outlets, and spigots for purposes unclear to the lay public.

  "I'm in a hospital," I said.

  "Wow," Hawk said.

  "I'm a trained observer," I said. "Where?"

  "Pittsfield," Hawk said.

  "Susan?"

  "I called her," Hawk said. "She on the way, bringing you some clothes."

  I was wearing a hospital johnny. I glanced at the night table.

  "Wallet's in the nightstand," Hawk said. "Got your gun."

  "How am I?"

  "You not going to die, you not going to lose the leg, your personality not going to improve."

  "So, two out of three," I said.

  "Some people say none out of three," Hawk said. "Where's Gerry?"

  "Left him on the turnpike," I said. "Walking toward Stockbridge."

  "Want to tell me about it?" Hawk said.

  I did.

  "Been abou
t thirty hours," Hawk said. "Figure Gerry be home by now."

  I raised the sheet and looked at my leg. It was bandaged thickly, around the thigh. The part that showed looked a little bruised but not too puffy.

  "Cops been around?" I said.

  "Yeah. Hospital called them when they saw the gunshot wound. I told them you was out in the woods with the dog while I waiting in Stockbridge. When you didn't come back I went and found you."

  "They believe you?"

  ` No.

  "Don't blame them," I said.

  A thin-faced, dark-haired nurse came in.

  "Awake," she said.

  "Yes."

  She smiled without thinking about it and took out an electronic thermometer and took my temperature. She read it and nodded to herself and wrote something on her clipboard. She took my pulse, and my blood pressure, and noted those.

  "We hungry yet?" she said.

  "I am," I said. "How about you?"

  Another automatic smile. "I'll have them bring you something."

  She located a remote control unit attached to a cord on the bedside table.

  "Want to sit up?"

  "Sure."

  I noticed that during her time in the room she had not looked at Hawk. But she was aware of him. I could see the awareness in her shoulders and the way she held her neck. She showed me the remote.

  "We push this to sit up," she said. "And this turns on our television. And if we need a nurse we push this one."

  I said, "Are you going to get into bed with me? Or is this we stuff just a tease?"

  She looked blankly at me for a moment. Then she grinned.

  "Let's wait until your leg is better," she said.

  "That's what they all say."

  "Oh, I doubt that," she said. "My name is Felicia. You want me"-she grinned-"for medical reasons, press the button."

  She watched me while I raised the bed into a nearly sitting position. Then she turned to go. At the door she glanced back at Hawk. He smiled at her and she flushed and went out of the room. In maybe a minute she was back and with her came a young guy wearing a brown Sears and Roebuck suit. He was nearly bald, and what little was left he wore cut very short.

  "Officer deShayes wants to see you," she said, and whisked her white skirt back out the door without looking again at Hawk.

  DeShayes showed me a badge that said Pittsfield Police on it. Then he put the badge away and took out a small spiral notebook with a red cover.

  "Feeling okay?" he said.

  "On top of the world," I said.

  "Good," he said. "Good. Just some routine questions here. We always have to follow up on gunshot wounds, you know."

  "Yeah."

  He glanced once at Hawk, who had retired to an uncomfortable ~ chair under the television set and appeared to go to sleep. Now that I was sitting up,

  I could see that his jeans were black and he wore them tucked inside black cowboy boots.

  "Friend of yours?" deShayes said.

  "Darth Vader," I said.

  DeShayes nodded. "So how did you come by this gunshot wound?"

  "Self-inflicted," I said. "Accidental."

  "Un huh. Could you describe the events which caused you to perpetrate this self-inflicted wound?"

  "Sure. I was walking the dog, in the woods, and thought I'd take a little target practice. And accidentally shot myself."

  "And where is this dog now?"

  "In his car," I said, nodding at Hawk.

  "And the gun with which the wound was inflicted?"

  "He's got it," I said. Without opening his eyes Hawk produced my gun from inside his jacket and held it out toward deShayes. DeShayes took it and sniffed the barrel and popped out the magazine and cleared the round from the chamber. It flipped onto the bed near my hip. He thumbed the shells out of the magazine, onto the bed beside the first one.

  He nodded to himself, the way the nurse had after she'd taken my temperature.

  "You're from Boston?" deShayes said. He put the empty magazine back in my gun, put the gun on the night table, picked up the five shells, and dropped them into his suitcoat pocket.

  "Yes."

  "A private detective."

  "Yes."

  "Licensed to carry this gun?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you happen to have the license with you?" "In the wallet, in the drawer," I said.

  He reached into the drawer and took out my wallet and handed it to me.

  "Take out the gun permit please, and your ID." I did, and handed them to him. He looked them over carefully and made a couple of notes in his little spiral notebook with his blue Bic pen. Then he handed the stuff back to me.

  "Live in Boston?" he said.

  "Yes."

  "Where you staying out here?"

  "Just came out for the day," I said.

  "Why?"

  "Take the dog in the woods. She loves the woods."

  "Two-hour drive to walk the dog?"

  "She's a good dog," I said.

  He nodded. His face was blank.

  "That's a Browning, isn't it?" DeShayes nodded at the black automatic lying on the night table.

  "Yes."

  "Don't they usually hold thirteen rounds in the clip?"

  "Yeah."

  "There's only four rounds in your clip and one in the chamber."

  "I fired off eight rounds target shooting."

  "One of which hit you, according to the surgeon, in the back middle quadrant of your left thigh."

  "Embarrassing, isn't it."

  "Actually I think it's more than embarrassing, sir. I think it's bullshit," deShayes said.

  I didn't say anything. Hawk remained peaceful with his eyes closed. His legs straight out in front of him, crossed at the ankles.

  "How'd you get out here?" deShayes said.

  "Drove out, separate cars."

  "And where is your car now?"

  "Where I parked it, I hope. In the parking lot at the Red Lion."

  DeShayes made some more notes.

  "Stockbridge police found a car registered to you, this morning, parked in front of a house in town. Tires had been shot out, and most of the windows in the house had been shot out. They're still digging bullets out of the plaster."

  "Son of a gun," I said. "Somebody must have hot-wired it."

  "No sign of that," deShayes said.

  "Car thieves are getting very clever these days, aren't they?"

  DeShayes didn't comment. He wrote another thing in his little notebook.

  "You have anything to add?" he said.

  "You know what I know," I said.

  "Sure," deShayes said. "They tell me you'll be here awhile. If you decide to leave before I get back to you, give me a call." He handed me a card that read Detective Joseph E. deShayes.

  "What's the E for?" I said.

  "Make sure you check with me before you leave," deShayes said. "Got it?"

  "I think so," I said. "He can help me with the hard parts." I nodded at

  Hawk.

  DeShayes stood. He took my five cartridges out of his pocket and put them in an ashtray on the night table.

  "Be careful with these," he said.

  CHAPTER 29

  I dined on chicken broth and raspberry Jell-O, which was an improvement on acorns and chokecherries, but only a small one. After I ate I fell asleep and when I woke up Susan was there. She had on black jeans that fitted the form of her leg, and low-heeled boots that came above midcalf, and a white silk blouse which she wore with the top two buttons open. Her black hair was thick and shiny, and her eyes looked extra large and shadowed in the odd hospital lighting. Hawk was still in his chair. Susan had pulled a straight chair near the bed and sat in it. She was reading a copy of Metropolitan Home. Squinting a little, turning the magazine as she read, trying to catch the light. I lay quietly for a little while watching her.

  "Hey," I said.

  She raised her head from the magazine and smiled at me, and leaned forward and kissed me on the mout
h.

  "Hey," she said.

  I fumbled for the remote and found it and pushed the button and raised myself up in the bed.

  "How are you?" Susan said.

  "Fit as a fiddle and ready for love. I could jump over the moon up above."

  Susan smiled. "How nice," she said, "that your ordeal has not aged you."

  I put my hand out and she took it and we were quiet, holding hands.

  Felicia came back in. "Well," she said, "I see we're awake again."

  "Felicia identifies with me," I said to Susan.

  "Dr. Good will be in to see you in a little while."

  "Is his first name Feel?" I said.

  "No," Felicia said, "I think it's Jeffrey. He's the chief resident."

  Felicia took my temperature and my blood pressure and pulse. She had me lean forward while she smoothed the sheets and plumped the pillows. While this was going on a guy in a white coat came in with a stethoscope hanging loosely from his neck.

  "Hi," he said. "I'm Jeff Good. I was in the ER when you came in."

  I introduced Susan and started to introduce Hawk.

  "I met this gentleman when he brought you in," Dr. Good said. "A very strong guy, it would appear. He carried you in like you were a child."

  "He's childlike in many ways," Susan said.

  Dr. Good smiled without really paying much attention and pulled back the sheet to look at my leg. He touched it lightly here and there, nodding to himself. The place was full of people who nodded to themselves. Everybody knew stuff. Nobody was saying.

  "What's the diagnosis?" I said.

  "Blood loss and infection, both the result of a single gunshot wound in your left thigh. Exhaustion. We're pumping you full of antibiotics now, and

  I think we've got the infection under control. We gave you some blood already."

  "When can I go home?"

  Good shrugged. "Another day, probably, if your fever stays down, and you promise to see someone in Boston, and stay off the thing for a while."

  "Sure," I said.

  "Got everything you need?"

  "I could use something to eat besides chicken broth and Jell-O."

  "Is that what they're feeding you?" Good shook his head. He looked at

  Felicia, who stood worshipfully aside, gazing at him. "Can we get him a real meal?"