Strike Three You're Dead

by R. D. Rosen

  “My lips are sealed,” he said sourly.

  “The M.E.’s people say there was a slight bruise under Rudy’s eye, probably fresh, though God knows what ten hours in a whirlpool’ll do. He didn’t have a mouse when you saw him after the game, did he?”

  “No. I would’ve remembered it.”

  “So let’s say there was a struggle before someone beaned him with Battle’s bat. But we’re still nowhere unless we can figure out who wanted to pick a fight with him.”

  “Not Cleavon.”

  “If it was him, he’d have to be pretty stupid to use his own bat and then tell us he can’t find it. You know a sharp dresser named Ronnie Mateo?”

  “Funny you should ask. On the night Rudy was killed, he spoke to me for the first time.”

  “Did he say anything of lasting value?”

  “He tried to sell me some necklaces.”

  “Figures,” Linderman said. “I hope he didn’t make a sale.”

  “So you know something about Ronnie Mateo?”

  “We’ve become pretty well acquainted over the years.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You ever hear of Bunny Mateo?” Linderman asked.

  Harvey made the connection for the first time. “He’s a gangster.”

  “Correct. In Providence, Bunny’s the gangster. Now here’s your bonus question: What’s Ronnie’s relationship to him?”

  “I pass,” Harvey said.

  “Ronnie’s his half brother, and he’s sort of a simpleton. He’s the guy the other guys send out for espresso, get the idea?”

  “How dangerous is he?”

  “As far as we know, he’s not a leg-breaker. Shoplifting is more his speed.” Linderman sipped his beer again. “He’s the kind of guy we pick him up, we let him go, we pick him up, we let him go. He’s small time, and there’s never enough evidence to book him, anyway. He covers his tracks, or someone else covers them for him.”

  “You think Rudy was mixed up in gambling or something?”

  “I don’t think so. We checked around, and there’s been no funny betting action on Jewels games. Nothing in Vegas, either.” Linderman found a Marlboro, lit it, and just held it in his cupped hand. “Anyway, Harvey, you know as well as I do that a relief pitcher can’t throw a game. Think about it. A starting pitcher can do it; he’s scheduled to pitch, and he controls the game. But a reliever doesn’t know when or if he’s going to get in the game, so he can’t control it. If Ronnie Mateo’s in there somewhere, it’s not gambling. Which is why I want to ask you about typewriters.”

  “Typewriters?”

  “We found three IBM Selectrics in Rudy’s house. The kind of machines that certain people have a habit of removing from offices without permission and selling on the street for five or six bills a pop. Any reason you can think of why there were three typewriters in his place and three thousand dollars in his pocket?”

  “You said there was one thousand dollar bill.”

  “There were two more just like it in his pants pocket. We found them when we went through his clothes.”

  “Jesus,” Harvey said. He pulled the celery stalk out of his drink and snapped it between his teeth.

  “Three thousand bucks is a lot of money to be carrying around, even for one of you glamour boys. Now let’s say that the money is tied to the typewriters. What I can’t figure is why a guy pulling down big league money would want to get involved with a penny-ante operation in hot typewriters. What do you think?”

  Harvey shrugged. “What does Ronnie Mateo think?”

  “Thinking is not something he does real well. He says he doesn’t know anything about typewriters, doesn’t know anything about Cleavon Battle’s bat, doesn’t know anything about anything. Meanwhile, I’m holding nothing in my hand.” Linderman looked at his cigarette, which had yet to reach his mouth, and put it out. “Do you know anything about Rudy and Ronnie I need to know? Rudy and Ronnie—gee, sounds like a nightclub act.”

  “All I know is Rudy said Mateo once tried to sell him some color TVs.”

  “What was Rudy planning to do, open a department store?”

  “Tried to sell him. Ronnie tries to pitch everyone on the team. And you don’t know for sure where Rudy got those typewriters.”

  “I’m thinking your roommate didn’t live up to his end of some deal,” Linderman said.

  “You’re guessing.”

  “It’s more fun than waiting for the killer to come to your home and turn himself in.” Linderman cocked a forearm and glanced at his Timex. “What else? Was Rudy sleeping with any of the players’ wives or anything like that?”

  “You asked me that in the clubhouse.”

  “Is it a crime to repeat myself?”

  “You’re the one in law enforcement. But the answer is no, not that I know of.”

  “Then let me ask you about another nightclub act—Rudy, Harvey, and Mickey.”

  “Mickey Slavin?”

  “No. Mickey Mouse,” Linderman said. “I understand both of you were planking her.”

  “You understand wrong,” Harvey said, wincing at Linderman’s choice of words. “Who told you that?”

  “A teammate of yours, and which part do I understand wrong?”

  “Both parts. Rudy wasn’t ‘planking’ her, and I’m not either. We have a relationship.”

  “Oh, a relationship,” Linderman said. “Well, how come this teammate of yours told me that both you and Rudy were in her drawers?”

  “I did tell Bobby Wagner that, because I thought it was true once. I was wrong.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because Mickey told me two nights ago I was wrong.”

  Linderman fixed him with a weary look, giving Harvey time to realize he’d just admitted that he hadn’t learned the truth about it until after Rudy’s murder.

  “Okay, but give me a break,” Harvey said.

  “You can tell me if the two of you were fighting over the same broad, Harvey. I’ll find out, anyway.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that if Rudy had been sleeping with Mickey I would’ve killed him?”

  “I’m not telling you anything. I’m just asking.”

  “You’re out of your mind if you think I had anything to do with this. Is that why you got me here this morning?”

  “Now hold on—”

  “If I’m the best suspect you’ve come up with, I don’t know how the hell you’re ever going to find out who killed him.” Harvey downed the watery remains of his Bloody Mary and slammed the glass on the table.

  Linderman was busy tugging a few singles from his wallet to pay the bill. “Tell me,” he was saying as he searched his pockets for change, “does she look as good in bed as she does on television?”

  EARLY FRIDAY AFTERNOON, HARVEY watched from a window in the passenger waiting area as Rudy’s body was put on a flight to Milwaukee with his foster parents. By coincidence, the Milwaukee Brewers flew in at about the same hour for a four-game series with the Jewels.

  At seven that evening, when the Rankle Park lights went on, turning the grass a sudden green, the sea gulls that had been roosting on the struts of the huge light standards rose in waves and banked over the field. There were already twenty thousand fans in the stands, and more were arriving—groups of teenagers, solitary old men, girls in their boyfriends’ athletic jackets, kids clutching Korean-made gloves in one hand and their fathers in the other.

  “You don’t think all these folks came out just to see us play, do you?” Harvey said to Felix, who was holding a fungo bat in foul territory and watching the Brewers take B.P.

  “They came to see the team Rudy used to play for,” Felix said sadly. “Violence is a big draw, Professor. We may still be in sixth place, but we suddenly lead the league in murders.”

  Harvey tried to sort out the little that he knew. If Rudy had been in trouble with Ronnie Mateo, then the typewriters would have to have been part of a bigger racket; otherwise, why would someone with a six-figure
salary bother? And if Ronnie had been mixed up in Rudy’s death, would he have been hanging out at the team practice yesterday? If, as Linderman believed, Rudy wasn’t throwing games for gamblers, then what was he doing with all that money on him the night he was killed? Who was Valerie Carty? Could the killer have been someone on the team? He searched his memory for incidents and could only come up with one. In June, Rudy and Les Byers had quarreled over the last hamburger at a post-game meal. Rudy had playfully flicked a spoonful of ketchup at Les. Before the game on the following night, Rudy discovered that his favorite pair of spikes had been filled with ketchup, which prompted Rudy to shampoo Les’s hair with mayonnaise after the game, whereupon Les ambushed him with a mustard squirter. The Great Condiment War, as Harvey called it, was amicably settled after a final flurry of pickle relish, and if there had been something more behind it than conflicting claims to the last hamburger, Harvey did not know what it was.

  Of course, there was Steve Wilton, who was angry at everyone, but he was more likely to destroy himself. Marcus Marlette, one of Rudy’s bull pen colleagues, was a religious fanatic, a product of something called the Church of the Wisened Up, in Birmingham, Alabama, but apart from his habit of referring to his knuckle curve as “God’s pitch,” he seemed a personable young man. Harvey proceeded mentally down the roster and came up empty.

  Out in the stands, some fans were lowering a crudely lettered sign over the right field wall. “SO WHO DID IT?” it asked. Harvey hawked at the ground near his feet. This was Linderman’s job, anyway, not his. At least he had found a place for Wanda; Dunc had volunteered to take her home for his daughter.

  The dugout was quiet before the game. Rodney Salta and Chuck Manomaitis were up on the grass throwing easily to each other, but most of the players sat on the bench, working their chaws or bouncing baseballs off the top step.

  “All of a sudden, man, there seems to be a law around here against talking,” Les Byers said. His hand was deep in his pants trying to get his protective cup to sit right.

  Harvey didn’t answer. He thought Les was just trying to make it up to him for the scene in the clubhouse yesterday with Happy and Steve. The scoreboard in center flashed the Jewels’ starting lineup. He wondered if Rudy’s murderer was on it:

  Manomaitis SS .273

  Blissberg CF .309

  Battle IB .298

  Eppich C .270

  Stiles DH .257

  Wilton RF .264

  Rapp LF .255

  Byers 3B .231

  Salta 2B .219

  Van Auken (12-8) P

  “See?” Les said. “Even you aren’t talking, Professor.”

  “I’m willing to talk, Les. I just don’t have anything to say.”

  “You think someone up there knows something about it?” He thrust his chin out at the scoreboard.

  “I think if anyone up there does, going out there and playing ball tonight won’t be the easiest thing he’s ever done.”

  “Man, just to prove that I didn’t have nothing to do with this shit, I’m going out there tonight and bust some babies.” It was Les’s phrase for getting some base hits. “With my batting average, I better start busting some. But look at you, man, you doing okay.”

  “Yeah, I decided I’m not going to worry anymore about my hitch,” Harvey said, but became annoyed with himself for letting the conversation drift away from Rudy. “You know what Campy said to me? He told me that bad hitters have hitches; good hitters have rhythm.”

  Les laughed. “No, man, it’s my people have the rhythm. Your people got ’most everything else.”

  Felix trotted back from home plate after exchanging lineup cards with the Milwaukee manager, and the Jewels took the field, trying not to appear unaccustomed to the applause of some twenty-five thousand fans. Before the national anthem there was a moment of silence for Rudy, and then, for the first time in three days, Providence was playing baseball. By the time the Brewers’ second batter went to the plate, it was clear they were not playing it well. Les didn’t get his butt down on a ground ball, and it rolled between his legs. Dan Van Auken, one of the protons in Frances Shalhoub’s “nucleus,” threw a flat curve to Kevin McQuilken, who sailed it far into the bleachers. By the end of the first, it was 5-0, Milwaukee in front. By the bottom of the eighth, the Jewels were down 11-0, there were only about ten thousand left in the stands, and there was bickering in the dugout.

  “Why didn’t you come to third on the play?” Les was saying to Steve Wilton. They were bellying up to each other by the water cooler. “Man, you know Stuckey’s got no wheels left. We could’ve had him.”

  “No way,” Steve said. “We’re down by ten runs and you want me to gun down a guy who’s halfway to the bag by the time I’ve got my hands on the ball?”

  “Great winning attitude, man.”

  “You’re one to talk,” Steve yelled. Les had committed two errors already and gone hitless at the plate.

  “Back off, man.”

  “Hey, bag it, you guys,” Randy Eppich said.

  “Yeah, shut up, Steve,” Rodney Salta chipped in. “When you start to hitting the cutoff man, maybe then you have a right to be bitching.”

  “Rodney,” Steve said, “when you start lining yourself up with the bag like you’re supposed to, maybe I’ll think about it.”

  “C’mon,” Harvey said, “just cut it out.”

  “Well, well,” Steve said. “I figured we’d hear from you eventually, Professor.”

  “Steve,” a voice said from the end of the bench, and everyone turned toward Frances. “Why don’t you sit out the ninth? Rick? Where’s Stiles? Rick, you go to right field, and Happy, you DH next inning.”

  Steve picked up a batting helmet and flung it at the water cooler. It bounced off and spun slowly on its crown at Frances’s feet.

  “That’ll cost you, Steve,” Frances called after him as he stormed off to the runway leading back to the clubhouse.

  “Yeah, that’ll cost you,” Felix said next to her.

  The Jewels lost it a dozen to zip. Half an hour after the last out, Harvey was driving with Mickey to her place.

  “There was trouble in the dugout tonight,” he said.

  “It’s always that way with you guys,” she said, pulling a pack of Camel Lights out of her bag.

  “It’s worse now. And since when did you start smoking?”

  “I stopped before you met me. Rudy’s murder’s got me going again.” She lit a cigarette and blew a thin jet of smoke against the windshield. “Detective Linderman swung by to see me at work today. I never saw a man with so many Bic pens in one pocket.”

  “Well?” Harvey turned onto Washington Street. Even on a Friday evening, the city seemed barely alive.

  “I gathered he went over the same ground with you this morning. Boy, the typewriters and that three thousand dollars. It doesn’t sound like Rudy.” Then her voice grew edgy. “I also told him he was wrong about Rudy and me and that you’d been wrong about it, too, although I don’t know how that concerns Linderman. I appreciate your spreading lies around about Rudy and me.”

  “I didn’t spread lies. Bobby Wagner got it out of me in a bar one night on the road. I’m sorry, Mick. I feel worse since I found this yesterday.” He took the baseball card out of his wallet and handed it to Mickey. “Rudy kept it under the glass on top of his dresser.”

  She studied it with a half smile and turned it over. She took a last, petulant drag on her cigarette and snuffed it in the car ashtray. “I think I’d like to hold on to this,” she said and slipped the baseball card into her bag. “Sentimental value, if you don’t mind.”

  “You were right the other night; maybe if I’d been a better friend I’d know why he ended up in the whirlpool.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe there was nothing to know, or nothing that he ever would’ve told you, anyway.”

  Harvey turned on the car radio, punched a few buttons, then switched it off. “Mick, am I crazy to think the guys on the club should be reacting more to
Rudy’s murder? It’s weird. I’ve seen guys more shaken up when someone’s traded.”

  “Unless they’re really covering up for someone, it’s probably just that no one really liked him that much. Rudy could be a pain in the ass.”

  “We didn’t think so.”

  “Oh, I like pains in the ass,” Mickey said. “You, for instance.”

  Harvey pulled into the parking lot of the Beaumont West, twelve stories that were 70 percent glass, 30 percent poured concrete, and 100 percent ugly. The only ornament on it was a ring of widely spaced white lights that circled the building above the first floor and looked like after-dinner mints.

  “Let Linderman handle it,” Harvey said, mostly to himself.

  “I wanted to tell you something about Linderman,” Mickey said. She explained in the elevator on the way up to the tenth floor. One of her co-workers, a veteran reporter at the station named Judy Martinez, had taken Mickey aside after she had seen Linderman questioning her. In the late sixties, when she was a crime reporter for the Journal-Bulletin, Judy had covered the story of two Providence patrolmen charged with being the bagmen for a local book-making operation. One of them was Linderman. They were suspended without pay following an internal investigation. While the DA’s office prepared for trial, Linderman happened to learn through a friendly police informant that the son of the Providence deputy mayor was dealing hard drugs out of an East Side flat. The mayor himself was facing stiff opposition in his coming re-election bid. The DA, also a Democrat, had political ambitions of his own. And so it came to pass that a single late-night phone call hushed up the deputy mayor’s son’s East Side activities, caused the DA’s office to find insufficient evidence to prosecute Linderman, and restored Linderman to the force, this time wearing plain clothes in the Homicide Division.

  “That’s just great,” Harvey said as the brushed chrome elevator doors opened.

  “No, that’s just Providence,” Mickey said. “But it happened a long time ago. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything now.”

  “I always thought integrity was like virginity,” Harvey said as they got to her door.