Fog swirled about the legs of the soldiers.
“Those who are found in possession of the evil accoutrements of the game of baseball shall be executed on the spot,” said Miguel, “even if they are one of Dr. Noir’s pets.”
Julio decided that if they were really going to execute him, he would feign a faint and crumple to the cobblestones next to the fence. They would then have to stand over him in order to kill him, and might lack the nerve to do it. Even aggressive types like these, Julio knew, had a sense of the kill; they liked their victims alive and kicking. He discarded the idea of running for he would have to negotiate fifty yards of road with the moon, the light, and the whitewashed wall providing assistance to the soldiers, and illuminating his death.
Miguel Figueroa rolled the ball forward, it coasted to a stop against the wall, settling itself into a tiny depression.
“America will be angry,” said Julio. “They’ll overthrow Dr. Noir if you kill me, and if they overthrow Dr. Noir, you’ll find yourselves back in the hills, boiling beetles for soup, and eating roots and flower petals.”
“Dr. Noir wants an excuse to kill one of you,” said Miguel. “Why do you think he gave every Night Captain a baseball?”
Julio had no answer. He wondered if he could slide down the rough surface of the wall without lacerating himself.
“At the ready!” called Miguel Figueroa.
Julio took a deep breath as if he were getting ready to throw a crucial pitch, while as he did so, the air was awakened by the sound of bird wings.
A second later Miguel Figueroa let out a high, a surprised cry of pain as a heron, the sleek grey of fog, wings folded, pierced his back and chest like a stiletto. He pitched forward on his face on the cobblestones, the bird wavering like a spear in his back.
The other two soldiers turned their raised guns toward the source of the attack, one revolved in time to take his death in the chest rather than the back. The other caught his attacker by surprise and the heron pierced his left arm just above the elbow, fusing it to his body, causing his gun to discharge into night, toward the pale moon. A second shot ricocheted off the cobblestones, making a sound like a tight spring uncoiling, before another bird pierced his heart.
Julio breathed deeply of the sweet, bougainvillea-scented air. He stared up at the moon suspended in a puddle of fog. He could hear the flapping of gray wings in the night. He stood perfectly still until the flapping died away.
Real or imagined, he could see the lonely, longing face of Quita Garza, like a moon dog, wavering as if sketched by fireflies in the night sky.
Julio mouthed her name, saluted, his eyes wet with longing, his chest constricted with love.
He bent and retrieved the contraband baseball. Taking a deep breath he wound up and hurled the ball in a high arc, over the bougainvillea along the roadside, deep into the mango groves.
FIFTY-NINE
DR. LUCIUS NOIR
His secret police reported to Dr. Noir that Julio Pimental was back in Courteguay. Dr. Noir pondered for several days on whether or not to have Julio killed. He finally decided against it. In America Julio was a baseball superstar. There could well be political repercussions, lost foreign aid, withdrawn military advisors. Killing retired sports heroes was, if not considered acceptable, at least not likely to create an international incident. But, besides being a superstar in America, Julio Pimental was revered almost as a god in Courteguay. What was he to do? There was no undoing what he had done to that impudent little bitch Quita Garza. He should have disposed of her completely, “disappeared” had such an excellent ring to it. A grave somewhere in the mango orchards, a couple of peasants sworn to secrecy, bribed, or killed by one of his lieutenants. What was he to do if Julio kept snooping? He could let him find her in her rather delicate condition. It would be a warning not to attempt what Milan Garza had tried. Was Julio Pimental smart enough to take a warning?
SIXTY
THE GRINGO JOURNALIST
Excerpt from a tourist brochure advertising Courteguay, found among material left behind by a fly-by-night travel agency that went bankrupt in Shreveport, Louisiana, leaving travelers stranded at ports of call all around the world, including several in San Barnabas, Courteguay:
IN THE HARBOR OF SAN BARNABAS, the glamorous and ultramodern capital of Courteguay, stands a sixty-foot-tall statue of Sandor Boatly, the American who is credited with introducing baseball to Courteguay.
Boatly stands, a sling about his shoulder, his right arm extended, tossing toward downtown San Barnabas, instead of apple seeds, baseballs. Cleverly connected by virtually invisible wires the arc of baseballs appears to be crossing the gentle turquoise waters of the harbor, with their final destination being the Palace of Baseball Immortals next to the Capitol buildings.
If tourists are out early to the grounds of the Capitol, and are lucky, our renowned President, Juarez Blanco, will appear on the steps of the Capitol to personally tell of a time during the revolution, when the insurgents, lead by then General Blanco, were fighting the forces of since-deposed dictator Dr. Lucius Noir, when a bullet struck and shattered one of the baseballs being benevolently distributed by Sandor Boatly.
Both sides immediately displayed white flags. Each side sent forth their best stonemasons, and all fighting ceased while supplies of concrete and tools were secured.
During the break in the fighting troops on both sides renewed old friendships, in fact balls, bats, and gloves miraculously appeared, two teams were picked, and the players headed off the few blocks to the Jesus, Joseph, and Mary Celestial Baseball Palace for an impromptu game.
The two stonemasons worked to reconstruct and replace the damaged baseball, they also repaired chips to Boatly’s statue, many caused by ricocheting bullets, erased political graffiti, and repaired the work of a vandal who had used blue paint to cross Boatly’s eyes.
The brochure went on to explain how, after the statue was restored to its former beauty, after the baseball game at Jesus, Joseph and Mary Celestial Baseball Palace had been won 3-2 in eleven innings by the Insurgents, led by now President Blanco, who tripled in two runs and pitched an inning of scoreless relief, the troops returned to their own sides, regrouped, and continued the war until sundown.
SIXTY-ONE
THE GRINGO JOURNALIST
It was, of course, the Wizard who developed the idea of using genetic engineering to manufacture perfect baseball players.
“Every shortstop will hit .300 and cover more ground than the best who ever lived ever dreamed of. Every one of them will be able to do back flips.”
The idea had come to the Wizard full-blown, served to him like a delicately cooked pheasant on a polished silver platter. “All our exportable first basemen will be left-handed power hitters,” he went on. “The question is, if we supply the leagues with perfect specimens at each fielding position, do we then also supply pitchers?”
“Why not?” said Julio.
“Because our perfect infielders and outfielders will all be .300 hitters. A perfect pitcher cannot allow the opposition to bat .300 against him. We have a dilemma.”
“I had a dilemma once,” said Esteban, who had been sitting quietly, reading a theology book in Spanish. “It was in a hospital in Kansas City and was a somewhat painful and embarrassingly personal thing for medical personnel to do to a patient,” said Esteban slyly.
“Go back to your reading,” said the Wizard.
“It does not appear to be a dilemma to me,” said Julio, “we will supply players for only the positions of shortstop and second baseman. Nothing else.”
“An excellent idea,” said the Wizard.
“Should I have suffered the indignity of having such a procedure done to me, or should I have allowed myself to suffer through without medical attention?”
SIXTY-TWO
THE GRINGO JOURNALIST
The newspapers played the Moosey Battaglia Affair way out of proportion. Moosey Battaglia’s one claim to fame was that he once hit a home run t
o clinch yet another pennant for the Yankees. He was a journeyman first baseman who played in over 1,600 games in his sixteen-year career. He batted .282 lifetime, and on the year of his eligibility for the Hall of Fame garnered one single vote.
Moosey Battaglia’s only crime was that he had an uncle of questionable reputation, who had many connections with what the newspapers euphemistically called “known underworld figures.” The uncle, “Benny the Bat” Benvenuchi, got Moosey a job managing a dry cleaning plant in Bayonne, N.J., after Moosey retired from baseball. Moosey proved to be a capable manager; he also had a soft spot in his heart for down-and-out baseball players. He peopled his dry cleaning plant with ex-baseball players who had taken one too many curve balls without a batting helmet. He aided those who had problems with liquor or drugs; he found employment for some of the men who were cut out to do nothing but play baseball and who found themselves in total limbo once their careers were finished.
When Atlantic City suddenly became a center for legalized gambling, casinos sprouted out of the rubble of the boardwalk like magical flowers. Moosey’s uncle Benny the Bat was involved right up to his ten-dollar cigar. Moosey Battaglia was appointed personnel manager for a major casino. He brought with him all his hangers-on from the dry cleaning plant. Ex-major leaguers gave out change, were washroom attendants, bellhops, parking jockeys, cook’s helpers, and doormen. It was Moosey’s idea to install Esteban Pimental as Priest-in-Residence at the Golden Goose Casino and Show bar.
Moosey flew to Courteguay to talk with the Most Reverend Esteban Pimental, Bishop of Courteguay. Since the church was not recognized in Courteguay Esteban’s appointment had been made official by the Wizard, aka President for Life.
“Listen, Bishop Pimental,” said Moosey, “we’ll call it the Velvet Chapel. It will be located right off the main casino. You keep your own hours, but if you was to ask me 9:00 P.M. to 3:00 A.M. would be most felicitous.”
Most Reverend Esteban Pimental stared questioningly at Moosey Battaglia.
“I mean, I know it’s a comedown for you, Bishop. But wouldn’t you rather be a big frog in a little pond than a little frog in a big pond, if you get my drift?”
“Go on,” said Esteban.
“I mean, I’m in a position to hear rumors, if you know what I mean,” said Moosey. “The scam is that the government’s about to be overthrown again. The rumor is that in spite of your connections with this guy in the dunce cap and funny robe that they’re not going to just enclose the priests behind chain-link fence; they’ll be more likely to line you up against it, if you get my drift.”
“I get your drift,” said Esteban.
“I think a small sojourn in Atlantic City might be very beneficial to your health.”
“I will do my work from the other side of the fence, so to speak,” said Esteban.
In previous years such baseball immortals as Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays had been told to sever all present and future associations with baseball because they had taken executive positions with firms in some way involved in gambling.
Thus it created quite a stir when an enterprising investigative reporter for the St. Louis Sporting News wrote a story stating that not only was ex-major leaguer Moosey Battaglia employed by a casino, but he had brought along sixty-eight former big league players, who did everything from cut the lawns to plan the menus for the Golden Goose Casino and Show bar.
The baseball commissioner immediately issued an edict banning Moosey Battaglia and his sixty-eight compatriots from ever having any association with baseball other than watching games on television. On the list of suspended players was the Most Reverend Esteban Pimental, Bishop of Courteguay, Priest-in-Residence at the Velvet Chapel of the Golden Goose Casino and Show bar.
The Wizard, when he read the edict, banged his fist on the glass top of his 10×10 desk, more perturbed that Bishop Pimental’s full title had been printed, than by Esteban being banned for life from baseball. For a while that afternoon, the Wizard’s epaulets turned into small, flamingo-colored birds and fluttered wildly about his office.
SIXTY-THREE
JULIO PIMENTAL
Julio decided it was no longer safe to ride the bus, consequently it took a good part of the next day for him to walk, via back roads, to San Barnabas. He arrived at dusk, stood in the shadows staring across Bougainvillea Square at the Presidential Palace. He had no plan. He circled the palace a few more times, found a spot at the rear that was heavily treed and lightly guarded, where he inserted himself into a hedge of oleander and waited for total darkness.
He crept out of the oleander sometime after midnight and felt his way along the wall. He encountered a row of fifteen garages, each occupied by a luxury car, BMWS, Lincolns, Cadillacs, Maseratis. He entered one of the garages, crept to the back, and found to his surprise that a door into the palace was unlocked. He remembered that in time of revolution the government was usually overthrown elsewhere, allowing time for whoever was in power to make a graceful exit to the jungle, there to become the insurgents until the next turnover of power.
Inside, the palace was lit by gentle night-lights. Julio was somewhere in the kitchen storage areas. He found a set of service stairs and made his way down a level. Peeking around a corner he saw a guard holding some kind of automatic weapon standing at the top of yet another set of stairs. Suddenly, there were heavy footsteps behind him.
JULIO WAS CAUGHT. He began to raise his hands, knowing in his heart that the guard would fire anyway, also knowing that he had to run toward one guard in order to escape from another, run right into the path of an endless stream of bullets.
As Julio was preparing himself to die, the door behind the forward guard slammed open, sending the soldier sprawling down the steps, followed by a burst of gunfire loud as a cannon in the concrete hallway. A stocky figure strode through the door, bounding down the stairs in one leap and disarming the stunned guard, seconds later killing him with another burst of gunfire when the guard drew a machete and attempted to fight the intruder.
The armed stranger turned toward Julio. It was Esteban.
“How …?” said Julio.
“I am your brother. How else? When I found you gone I knew where you were going, as surely as I know what pitch you are going to throw, even though we’ve exchanged no signs.”
“But you are a pacifist,” said Julio pointing at the dead guard.
“You are my brother. Blood surpasses all ideologies.”
Julio and Esteban disappeared into the night and were several blocks away before the alarms sounded at the Presidential Palace. Apparently it was not unusual for the guards to fire an occasional burst from their submachine guns to alleviate the boredom.
“I have to go back,” Julio said. “He has Quita.”
“Are you certain?” Esteban replied.
“She went to the Hall of Baseball Immortals and never returned. What else could have happened to her?”
“A thousand things,” said Esteban. “But if you are certain she is inside the palace, then we will go back, but with a plan of action, perhaps with friends, all of us well armed.”
“The Wizard says Dr. Noir is a superstitious person, that though he hates the priests he is afraid to dispose of them all just in case there is something to what they stand for,” said Julio. “Dress me in your priestly costume and I will make inquiries, if the Wizard is right he won’t try to kill a fumbling priest, until it is too late.”
“You want to take a chance that the Wizard is right?”
Julio smiled. “I will trust whoever I have to trust in order to find Quita.”
“You will be a fumbling Cardinal, not the St. Louis variety,” said Esteban, making another of his infrequent jokes. “You will appear at an entry point from the Dominican Republic, stating that you wish an audience with Dr. Noir, only you will use all his titles including Electrifier of Souls and you will carry an emerald the size of a grape to show the Vatican’s goodwill toward Dr. Noir and his regime.”
SIXTY-FO
UR
THE WIZARD
In the jungle, quietness rises like mist in the final seconds of predawn. There had been a baseball diamond carved with machetes from the unforgiving foliage, but the battles between the Government and the Insurgents moved on, and nature would soon reclaim its own. However, as the first pink tendrils of dawn appeared, the silence is broken by the myriad sounds of baseball. First, the murmur of the crowd, a couple of hoarse whispers as a ball is thrown about the infield, thwacking resolutely into gloves; the crack of the bat as a ground ball is hit to an infielder, the exhalation of breath as the ball is fielded and fired toward first.
An umpire authoritatively calls, “Play ball!” The infield chatter increases as a batter scrapes the earth, digging in at the plate. There is the whir of a pitch, the whap of it striking the catcher’s mitt, the whiff of a bat striking nothing but air.
A mile away a sentry at the Insurgent camp hears the sounds transported through the fragrant air. His ears perk up like an animal’s. He wakes a compadre, they listen, they vanish into the greenery as if breathed in by nature. They creep toward the sounds as if their shoes were moss. They peek through flowering ginger plants into the clearing that is much lighter now, but stands stark and deserted.
“Who?” the first sentry mouths to his friend, question marks in his eyes.
“Ghosts,” the second man mouths back. He readies his weapon.
Understanding each other perfectly the duo begin to strafe the clearing, the sudden cacophony of sound carrying for miles, causing birds like flashes of colored scarves to rise out of the jungle. From miles away a mortar is fired from the Government camp toward the Insurgent military quarters.
The two men wait at the edge of the clearing. Silence settles down like disturbed water quieting itself. There is the crack of the bat, the excited babble of the crowd. But now the sounds appear to come from inside the jungle not from the field itself. The two men stand, strafe the jungle behind third base where the sound seems to come from. Silence falls again, the sounds begin again, only this time from behind the soldiers. They turn and fire; the sounds move to beyond centerfield. A voice calls clearly, “Slide! Slide!” there is a scuffling, another voice, “Out!” The gibbering crowd turns angry.
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