by R. D. Rosen
Wagner stepped forward out of the shadows in the doorway. There was a slick of sweat over his handsome face, and he held the bat with both hands on the handle in front of him, low near the floor.
“I don’t care who it was anymore,” he said. “I don’t care if it was Ronnie Mateo or one of those other wops or—”
“It was Frances, Wags.”
“That so?” Wagner said without interest.
“She was the one who worked it out with Rudy.”
“That’s what you figure?”
“It’s what I know. She owns a fifth of the team, Wags. She has a real stake in it. That’s why—”
“I know all I want to know,” Wagner said, but he didn’t come any closer, and Harvey started talking.
“You can do what you want with me, but you ought to know why you’re doing it.” He was facing Wagner in the chair, his hands braced on the arms. “She sold her company in New York because she wanted to make a career out of this club. She wanted a winner, Wags, but unless your team plays in a big city with a baseball tradition and all that media money, there’s only one way, and that’s by being good. And you know, the only way to be good is to buy, beg, or steal the best ball players you can find. And then—then you got to hold on to them.”
“Keep talking, Professor. This is good.”
“You were the one she wanted to hold on to most of all, the one bona fide star we’ve got, the cover boy. You’re the guy who can put people in the seats, even in Providence. Only one problem, Wags: you were going to be a free agent after this season.” Harvey thought of Frances’s “nucleus”: Bobby Wagner was the only one in it she was going to lose. “To the Jewels,” he went on, wondering for how long Bobby planned to let him talk, “you could be the franchise, but you were at the end of your old Baltimore contract, and then your price was going up. If you had a good year this year, and even if you had just a fair year, you were going to be good for more money than this club could afford to pay you. See, Wags, the team’s done badly at the gate, and on top of that, Levy’s paying through the nose to the mob on the concession money. They might stretch their budget some to keep you, but no way were they going to be able to outbid Morrissey and the other high-rollers in the free agent market.”
Bobby stood ten feet away, grinding the bat handle in his hands. “Go on, Professor,” he said, as if extending a final courtesy. “We got a little more time.”
“So Frances needed you to build a winner, Wags. She always got her way before, and she was going to get it this time, too. She had to hold on to you, and to do that she had to make sure you had a bad year. She realized it was her only real chance. You’ve got to understand the way Frances looks at things, Wags. She believed that if you looked as if you were losing it, maybe the other owners would begin to smell a loser. Your value would go down, Wags, and the team would have a shot at you. She didn’t care about this season; we weren’t really going anywhere anyway. It was next year, and the years after that, she was building for. She just had to make sure that Bobby Wagner would be around to build with.”
Harvey’s own voice calmed him. As long as he talked, he could look Bobby in the eye. “So the first thing she did—those stories wherever we played this season, the ones about how your arm was hanging by a shred? Your arm’s fine. Your old manager didn’t trade you because of calcium deposits; he got rid of you because, number one, he never liked you much in the first place and, number two, he was going to lose you anyway to free agency, and this way at least he could trade you and get something for it. Ten-to-one, Frances was behind most of those stories in the papers. As an old public relation’s pro, she had the contacts and the know-how. It was just a way to get you some bad advertising. But the real bad advertising was that you were going to lose a lot more games than you should’ve. And Rudy was going to help you do it.”
“What’d she have on him?” Bobby said, his jaw working on the gum.
“Nothing, except they were sleeping together. He’d fallen in love, and Rudy wasn’t the smartest guy in the world to begin with.”
“I thought his taste ran to stewardesses.”
“Which is why he’d do anything for someone with Frances’s class,” Harvey said. “And she cared little enough about him to ask him to do anything. She threw in the cash, just to keep it business, which is how she likes to work. And she found a way into the dugout, where she could make sure the plan worked, where she could make absolutely sure Felix kept bringing Rudy in to relieve you.
“And she’s smart, Wags. She knows you’re a streak pitcher. Most of those streaks have been winning ones, but she knew that—when was it, Wags, three years ago?—she knew that even when you went something like twenty and thirteen that season, eight of those losses were in a row. She realized that you only knew how to win, not how to lose. She knew that if she got Rudy to throw a few games, you might do the rest of the damage yourself. That was one of the reasons your old manager didn’t like you, wasn’t it? You didn’t bounce back when you lost.
“And Rudy was only a decent relief pitcher, so he could come in and throw a few pitches just fast enough to cost you the game, and no one would ever think he was in the tank. But Frances didn’t know when to stop. She gave you a chance to prove you were a little smarter than she gave you credit for. She threw Rudy in the tank once too often, and you smelled it.”
Harvey watched the minute hand on the clock over Bobby’s shoulder twitch from 5:29 to 5:30.
“What do you care about any of it?” Bobby said evenly. “He was a punk, Professor. He was trash. Why didn’t you leave it alone? What did it matter to you?”
“It mattered.”
“I never did anything to him.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“He screwed with my career. He screwed with the biggest thing I’ve got.”
“Frances did, not Rudy. Frances did it to you.”
“And you were about to screw me even more, Professor.” Bobby came two steps closer and stopped, six feet away.
Harvey pushed away from the desk in his chair. “I didn’t know what I was going to find. I was just looking.”
“I wish I could help you, Professor.”
“Don’t be a fool. Put that bat down.”
“He hit me first.” Bobby’s voice was unnervingly soft. “He wouldn’t tell me. Then I found the money, and I couldn’t believe it. It was sitting in his pocket, and he still wouldn’t admit anything. He just sat in the whirlpool with that shit-eating grin and said he always carried a lot of cash. You get that, Professor? He always carried around a few big bills like that. That’s when it got serious.” He tapped the head of Harvey’s bat against the indoor-outdoor carpeting. “He got out of the whirlpool and shoved me.”
“Put the bat down, Wags.”
“I didn’t have the bat with me then.” Bobby appeared almost hypnotized. “Just wanted to talk it out. Then he came at me, and we mixed it up, and he shoved me against the bat rack and—”
“It’s going to be all right, Wags.” Harvey felt his heart pounding in his neck.
Bobby came forward another step. “It’s too late,” he said. “It’s much too late. I thought you’d understand about the rat. That was strike one.” He now held the bat in front of him horizontally, one hand on each end. “Then I left you a message in Yankee Stadium. Why didn’t you pay attention? Strike two, Professor.”
He slid the hand that was on the head of the bat down to join the other on the handle. “Now this.” He looked down at the thick book of statistics on Felix’s desk. “Now you know too much. And you know what they say. Strike three you’re dead.”
“Goddamn it, you—”
Bobby swung the bat back over his head like an ax and brought it down.
Harvey grabbed the statistics book just in time and held it up with both hands in front of his face, twisting his head as far to the side as he could. The force of the bat flattened the book against his shoulder and carried Bobby’s body forward on top of Harvey.
Before Bobby could recover his balance, Harvey speared him in the groin with an outstretched leg, leaped from the chair, and dashed for Felix’s door. He ran across the locker room toward the runway that led to the dugout.
The metal door swung outward, and Harvey jumped down the three cement steps to the runway. Ahead of him, a square of morning light showed the dugout and a section of the left field stands against pink sky.
Bobby came down the steps after him. For an instant, Harvey thought about running up onto the field, but it was Bobby’s running shoes against his penny loafers, Bobby’s bat against his bare hands. Halfway down the runway, Harvey took a left and pushed open the door to the unused network of tunnels that ran under the stands. He kicked off his loafers in stride and took off into the darkness.
THE FLOOR OF THE tunnel was damp, and Harvey’s socks were soaked through within a few steps. The tunnel was about six feet wide, dark green walls with rashes of rust, but then the light from the runway faded, and Harvey was running in total darkness. Behind him, Wagner’s shoes slapped soddenly, too infrequently to be a run.
“Take your time, Professor. There’s nowhere to go.” The voice surrounded him.
Harvey slowed, lowering his feet into the cool puddles on the cold concrete. He reached out with his right hand, felt for the oily wall, and followed its gentle curve. They were behind home plate somewhere, and the tunnel followed the contour of the stands. He had never been in the catacombs. He knew there were connecting tunnels, but couldn’t be sure they weren’t dead ends. The main tunnel had to feed out somewhere, probably near the visitors’ clubhouse under the stands on the third base line. That still wouldn’t do him any good; the door to the clubhouse would be locked from the outside. He had been stupid not to run onto the field when he had the chance; there, at least, he could have seen what his chances were.
With his left hand, he reached out for the other wall, hoping to find an alcove, a doorway, anything. The tunnel wasn’t narrow enough for him to feel both walls at the same time. For all he knew, he had already missed a connecting tunnel. Maybe he could crouch down against one side of the tunnel and hope that Wagner would walk right past him. Then he could run back to the clubhouse and out to the street.
His foot came down on a piece of paper.
“There you are,” Wagner’s voice said close behind him, and Harvey broke into a run again, dragging a hand along the wall.
“He was just a punk, Professor. He never belonged in the big leagues.” The voice was soft and deep as it reverberated down the passage. “Your roomie was a nothing.”
After every two slaps of Wagner’s feet came a harder noise, the bat tapping against the concrete.
Abruptly, there was no wall at Harvey’s right hand. He moved quickly into the opening and saw a hairline of light ahead. After ten or twelve yards, he found a doorknob that turned, but not easily; it felt as if it would squeak if he twisted it too far. He leaned against the corner of the passageway and caught his breath in a series of silent heaves. He heard Wagner walk past the opening, his bat clicking.
The door probably connected the catacombs to the near end of the visitors’ dugout. In that case, the central tunnel would have to end soon, where it met the runway that ran from the far end of the dugout to the clubhouse. Seventy maybe eighty feet. Wagner would know shortly that he had lost Harvey.
Wagner’s footfalls suddenly became faster and louder Harvey turned the doorknob and pulled on the heavy door. It let out a thin screech. Light flooded the passageway. Harvey found himself where he had expected, at the end of the dugout between the end of the bench and the water cooler against the wall. Just below eye level was Rankle Park’s grass. The sky was as soft as tissue, infused with pink over the stands.
Harvey leaped onto the end of the bench by the door and pressed himself against the back wall of the dugout. Wagner appeared suddenly, carelessly, in the doorway. He took a step toward the dugout steps, where he stopped, like a man whose peripheral vision was burdened. He turned and raised the bat. Harvey jumped off the bench and grabbed the shaft of the bat with both hands and brought his knee up into Wagner’s gut. Wagner vomited air and doubled over. When he straightened up, Harvey had the bat and was standing on the grass at the lip of the dugout.
“You tried to kill me, you bastard.” Harvey, panting, held the bat over his head.
Below him, Wagner clasped his hands over his stomach. His black hair was matted in wild curls on his forehead. “What happens now, Professor?” he said between gasps.
“Just go home.”
“There’s nothing in it for me.”
“There’s nothing in it for you here.”
“There’s you, Professor.”
“The bat’s mine now,” Harvey said, but Wagner had seen the ball bag near his feet. It was the size of a bowling ball bag, made of canvas, and it was filled with baseballs for batting practice. The Yankees must have left it in the dugout after Saturday’s game. Wagner picked it up in his left hand, reached in for a baseball with his right, and started up the steps.
“I used to be pretty good at this,” Wagner said, squeezing the ball.
Harvey retreated a few steps, waving his bat. “You’re crazy, Wags,” he screamed. “I’ll hurt you if I have to.”
“You just had your chance.”
Harvey backpedaled on the grass in foul territory. “I’ll hurt you.”
“No, you won’t.” Wagner bounced the baseball lightly in his right hand. “I’ll take this bag of balls against your bat.”
Harvey turned and ran toward the infield. From a distance of sixty feet, six inches, any major league pitcher could nail a target the size of a human head; Bobby Wagner could put it right on your ear. There were two ways to go after a batter. If you only wanted to scare him, you aimed the ball directly at his head, because he would instinctively fall away from the pitch. But if you really wanted to hurt him, you would throw your best fastball a foot or so behind his head, and he would fall back into it. As Harvey ran, he saw it happening again and again—the batter involuntarily throwing himself, as if magnetized, into the path of a perfectly aimed beanball. If the batter was lucky enough to get his batting helmet between his cranium and the ball, he’d be able to get up and play ball again. If he wasn’t, it was a most unpleasant way to end a baseball career.
Harvey was not wearing a batting helmet. Of course, he was a moving target. But then, he only had thirty feet on Wagner, and Wagner had a bag full of baseballs. Harvey bobbed and weaved as he ran to give Wagner less to throw at.
He was about to look back to see where Wagner was when the first ball combed his hair above his left ear. He heard it sizzle as it flew by and rolled out to right field. Now he looked back and saw Wagner forty feet behind him, running, dipping into the bag for another ball. Harvey veered right. Wagner had to stop to throw again, and by the time he released the ball, Harvey was sixty feet away, near second base.
The ball struck him in the meat of his deltoid behind his left shoulder, and his entire arm went numb. He stumbled forward, managing to keep his balance, and switched the bat to his right hand. He cut to his right, toward the Jewels’ dugout along the first base line. It gave Wagner the angle on him, but he had to chance it now; his best hope was to make the dugout, then the runway, the clubhouse, the street, his car. The electric tingling in his left arm was going away, and it hurt like a bitch; as he ran, he carried it dead at his side. The ninety feet between second base and the foul line had never been so endless. As he tore across the infield, he could see Wagner winding up out of his right eye.
He turned his head, and the ball was coming at it, bearing down, a ninety-five-mile-an-hour Bobby Wagner rising fastball. For a split second that went on too long, Harvey felt transfixed, almost attracted to the ball. He had seen the pitch countless times before, under better circumstances, when Wagner was with Baltimore—the red seams reduced to streaks in the blur of the backspin, less than half a second from mound to plate, the ball taking off in the last
twenty feet.
This time the ball was rising toward his head. In that split second, Harvey felt that he and the ball were fated to meet. That was the thing about a good beanball, not a brushback pitch but one meant to change your idea of batting forever: it seemed to pursue you.
Harvey fell forward onto the damp infield grass, and the ball whistled furiously over him. It caromed off the top concrete edge of the dugout and bounced ineffectually into right. He clambered to his feet. There were still forty feet between him and the dugout. He couldn’t find enough traction in his socks, and the dugout was not getting any closer.
He was ten feet from the top step of the dugout when the back of his right thigh exploded in pain. His leg gave, and he crumpled to the ground. He heard Wagner breathing coarsely behind him. Harvey tried to get up, but the feeling had gone out of his leg, and he fell back on his seat.
Wagner had caught him just above the back of the knee, and as Harvey clutched his leg in pain, he wondered why Bobby had not simply gone for his head again; it would have been quicker. He was just toying with him now.
Wagner walked slowly toward him off the mound, the ball bag dangling from his left hand. His right hand was caressing another baseball. He came in short heavy strides, looking right at Harvey, and stopped past the first base line, twenty feet away. The two of them were surrounded by thirty-seven thousand empty seats. Harvey did not even try to get up. He still had the bat, though, and from a sitting position, he wound up awkwardly and heaved it at Wagner. It missed him by three feet and skidded along the grass.
The pitcher looked at him. “Nice try, Professor.”
“Please,” Harvey said.
“It wouldn’t take much from here, would it?” Wagner said. “What do you think—one pitch, maybe two?”
“Please,” Harvey said again.
“They’d never know it was me.”
“Of course they would,” Harvey panted. “I’ve told Linderman everything I know. I’ve told Mickey. Don’t be stupid.” Propelling himself with one hand, he inched helplessly away from Wagner. “If you kill me, it’ll be murder. It’s only manslaughter now. You didn’t mean to kill Rudy. Anyway, it was the whirlpool that finished him, not you. He provoked you, didn’t he? It’s manslaughter, but if you kill me, they’ll really put you away.”