Mortal Stakes

by Robert B. Parker

  Rabb smiled and put out his hand. “Hi, glad to help.

  How about you don’t mention today, though, huh?” He shook his head. He was well above my six feet one—all flat planes and sharp angles. His short brown hair grew down over his forehead in a wedge. His head was square and long, like a square-bladed garden spade. His cheekbones were high and prominent, making the cheeks slightly hollow beneath them.

  I said, “Bucky Maynard tells me Stabile’s too fat and that’s why he’s having trouble.”

  “You ever see Lolich or Wilbur Wood?” Rabb said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ve seen Maynard too.”

  Rabb smiled. “Ricky doesn’t pitch with his stomach.

  The ball wasn’t moving for him today, that’s all.”

  “It was moving for you yesterday.”

  “Yeah, I had it grooved yesterday.” Rabb undressed as he talked. He was long-muscled and bony, his body pale in contrast to the dark tan on his face, neck, and arms.

  “Well,” I said, “I’m really more interested in the human side of the game, Marty. Could we get together tonight and talk a little?”

  Rabb was naked now, standing with a towel over his shoulder. In fact, most of the people in the dressing room were naked. I felt like a streaker in a nudist colony.

  “Yeah, sure. Ah, lemme see, no, we’re not doing anything tonight that I know of. Why don’t you come over to the apartment, meet my wife, maybe have a drink? That okay with you?”

  “Fine, what time?”

  “Well, the kid goes to bed about seven—about seven thirty. Wanna do that?”

  “Yes. Where?”

  “Church Park. You know where that is?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Apartment six twelve.”

  I looked at my watch: 4:35. “That’s fine. I’ll be there.

  Thanks very much.”

  “See you.” Rabb headed for the showers. His body high and narrow, the left trapezius muscle overdeveloped, swelling out along the left side of his spine.

  I left. Outside the dressing room there were two people sweeping. Other than that the place was empty. I walked up the ramp under the stands and looked out at the field. It was empty. I went down and hopped the railing of the box seats.

  There was no sound. I walked over to home plate. The wall in left seemed an arm’s length away and 300 cubits high. The sun was still bright and at that time of day slanted in over the third-base stands, and the shadows of the light towers looked like giant renderings by Dali. A pigeon flew down from the center-field bleachers and pecked at the warning track. I walked out to the pitcher’s mound and stood with my right foot on the rubber, looking down into home plate. Traffic sounds drifted in from the city, but muffled. I put my right hand behind me and let it rest against my butt. Left hand relaxed on my left thigh. I squinted in toward the plate. Last of the ninth, two out, three on, Spenser checks the sign. One of the men who’d been sweeping came out of the passageway and yelled, “Hey, what the hell are you doing out there?”

  “Striking out Tommy Henrich, you dumb bastard.

  Don’t you know anything?”

  “You ain’t supposed to be out there.”

  “I know,” I said. “I never was.”

  I walked back in through the stands and on out of the ball park. I looked at my watch. It was nearly five. I walked back down the Commonwealth Avenue mall to Massachusetts Avenue. If Commonwealth Ave is yin, then Mass Ave is yang.

  Steak houses that no one you knew had gone to, office buildings with dirty windows, fast food, a palm reader, a massage parlor. I crossed Mass Ave and went into the Yorktown Tavern. It had plate glass windows and brown linoleum, a high tin ceiling painted white, booths along the left, a bar along the right. In the back corner was a color TV carrying a bowling game called Duckpins for Dollars. No one was watching.

  All the barstools were taken, and most of the booths. No one was wearing a tie. No one was drinking a Harvey Wallbanger.

  The house special was a shot and a beer.

  In the last booth on the left, alone, was a guy named Seltzer who always reminded me of a seal. He was sleek and plumpish, thin through the chest, thicker through the hips.

  His hair was shiny black, parted in the middle and slicked tight against his head. He had a thin mustache, a pointed nose, and a dark pinstriped suit that cost at least $300. His white shirt gleamed in contrast to the darkness of the suit and the dinginess of the bar. He was reading the Herald American. As I slid in opposite him, he turned the page and folded it neatly back. I could see the big diamond ring on his little finger and the diamond chips set in the massive silver cuff links. He smelled of cologne, and when he looked up at me and smiled, his white teeth were even, cap perfect in his small mouth.

  I said, “Evening, Lennie.”

  He said, “You know, Spenser, little things break your balls. You ever notice that? I mean I used to read the Record American, right? Nice little tabloid size, easy to handle. Then they buy up the Herald and go the big format and it’s like reading a freakin‘ road map. Now that busts my nuts, trying to fold this thing right. That kinda stuff bother you ever?”

  “On slow days,” I said.

  “Want a drink?”

  “Yeah, I’ll have a brandy Alexander,” I said.

  Seltzer laughed. “Hey, Frank.” He raised a finger at the bartender. “A shot and a beer, okay?”

  The bartender brought them over, put the beer on a little paper coaster, and went back behind the bar. I drank the shot.

  “Well,” I said, “if I had worms, I guess they’re taken care of.”

  “Yeah, Frank don’t age that stuff all that long, does he?”

  I sipped the beer. It was better than the whiskey.

  “Lennie, I need to know something without letting it get around that I’m asking.” His skin was remarkable. Smooth and pale and unlined. The sun had rarely shone upon it. It made him look a lot younger than I knew he was.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Sure, kid. I never saw any advantage talking about things for no good reason. What do you want to know?” He sipped some beer, holding the glass in the tips of his fingers with the little finger sticking out. When he put the glass down, he took the handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped his mouth carefully.

  “I want to know if you’ve heard anything about Marty Rabb.”

  Seltzer was very careful putting the handkerchief back in his pocket. He got the three points arranged and stood half up in the booth to look across the bar into the mirror and make sure they were right.

  “Like what?” he said.

  “Like anything at all.”

  “You mean, does he occasionally place a wager? That kind of thing?”

  “That, or anything else.”

  “Well, he never placed a bet with me,” Seltzer said, “but I heard something peculiar about him. The odds seem to shift a little when he pitches. I mean, there’s some funny money placed when he’s scheduled to go. Nothing big, nothing I’d even think about if somebody like you didn’t come around and ask about him.”

  “You think he’s in the satchel?”

  “Rabb? Hell, no, Spenser. Nothing that strong. There’s just a whisper, just a ruffle, that not everything is entirely jake. I wouldn’t hesitate taking money when Rabb’s pitching.

  I don’t know anyone that would. It’s just…” He shrugged and spread his hands out palms up. “Want another drink?”

  I shook my head. “The last one took the enamel off my front teeth,” I said.

  “Aw, Spenser.” Seltzer shook his head. “You’re going soft. I remember twenty years ago you was fighting prelims in the Arena, you thought that stuff was imported from France.”

  “In those days I don’t remember you dressing like George Brent either,” I said.

  Seltzer nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “things change. Now instead of a newspaper, they give you a freaking road map.

  You know?”

  I left him refolding his paper and went to get
something to eat. The bar whiskey was thrashing about in my stomach, and I thought maybe I could smother it with something.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I HAD TWO CHEESEBURGERS and a chocolate shake at an antique brick McDonald’s on Huntington, just down from Symphony Hall. The food throttled the whiskey okay, but I was furtive coming out. If anyone saw me, I could never eat at LockeOber’s again. The guilty part was I liked the cheeseburgers.

  It was a little after six and I had some time to kill.

  There seemed to be more of it and harder to kill as I got older.

  I strolled back down Mass Ave toward the river. The college kids were out on the esplanade in large numbers, and the air was colorful with Frisbees and sweet with the smell of grass. I sat on a bench near the Mass Ave Bridge and looked at the river and watched a boy and girl share a bottle of Ripple.

  Sailboats veered and drifted on the river, and an occasional powerboat left a rolling wake upstream. Across the river MIT loomed like a concrete temple to the Great God Brown. A sixfoot black girl with red hot pants and platform sandals went by with a Lhasa apso on a short leash. I watched her out of sight around the bend westbound.

  At seven fifteen I strolled back up Mass Ave toward Church Park. Church Park is a large, gray, cement urban development associated with the Christian Science church complex across the street. It replaced a large number of shabby brick buildings with a very long twelve-story cement one that had stores on the bottom floor and apartments above. The doorman made me wait while he called up.

  When I came out of the elevator, Marty Rabb was at his door, looking down the corridor at me. There was something surrealistic about the way his head appeared to violate the fearful symmetry of the hall.

  “Down this way, Spenser,” he said. “Glad to see you.”

  The front door opened into the living room. To the right a bedroom, straight ahead a small kitchen. To the left the living room opened out toward the street and looked out at the dome of the Mother Church of Christ Scientist across the street. Traffic sound drifted up through the open windows. The living room was done in wall-to-wall beige carpet; the walls were eggshell white. There were framed mementos of Rabb’s career scattered on the walls. The furniture was in browns and beiges, and the tone was modern. On the glasstopped coffee table near the couch were a tray of raw vegetables and a bowl of sour cream dip.

  “Honey, this is Mr. Spenser that’s writing the book,” Rabb said. “Spenser, this is my wife, Linda.”

  We shook hands. She was small and black-haired. Her features were small and close together, and her eyes dominated her face. They were very round and dark, with long lashes. Her black hair was long down her back and pulled back at the nape of her neck with a dark wooden clip. She had on a salmon pink sleeveless shell and white jeans. Her makeup was so understated that at first I thought she wore none.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Spenser. Why don’t you have a seat here on the couch? It’s closest to the dip.” She smiled, and her teeth were small and rather sharp.

  I said, “Thank you.”

  “Would you like a hard drink, Mr. Spenser, or beer?“Rabb said. “I got some nice ale from Canada, Labatt Fifty, you ever try it?”

  “Tried and approved,” I said. “I’ll take the ale.”

  “Honey?”

  “You know what I’d love, that we haven’t had in a while, a Margarita. Have we got the stuff to make a Margarita, Marty?”

  “Yeah, sure. We got about everything.”

  “Okay, and put a lot of salt on the rim,” she said.

  She sat on one of the big armchairs opposite the couch, kicked her sandals off, and tucked her feet up under her. “Tell me about this book you’re writing, Mr. Spenser.”

  “Well, Mrs. Rabb—”

  “Linda.”

  “Okay, Linda. I suppose you’d say it’s along the lines of several others, looking at baseball as the institutionalized expression of human personality.” She nodded and I wondered why. I didn’t know what the hell I’d just said.

  “Isn’t that interesting,” she said.

  “I like to see sports as a kind of metaphor for human life, contained by rules, patterned by tradition.” I was hot now, and rolling. Rabb came back with the Margarita in a lowball glass and the ale in Tiffany-designed goblets that said COCA-COLA. I thought Linda Rabb looked relieved. Maybe I wouldn’t switch to the talk show circuit yet. Rabb passed out the drinks.

  “What’s patterned by tradition, Mr. Spenser?” he said.

  “Sports. It’s a way of imposing order on disorder.”

  Rabb nodded. “Yeah, right, that’s certainly true,” he said. He didn’t know what the hell I had just said either. He drank some of the ale and put some dry-roasted cashews in his mouth, holding a handful and popping them in serially.

  “But I’m here to talk about you, Marty, and Linda too.

  What is your feeling about the game?”

  Rabb said, “I love it,” at the same time that Linda said, “Marty loves it.” They laughed.

  “I’d play it for nothing,” Rabb said. “Since I could walk, I been playing, and I want to do it all my life.”

  “Why?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Rabb said. “I never gave it any thought. When I was about five my father bought me a Frankie Gustine autograph glove. I can still remember it. It was too big for me and he had to buy me one of those little cheap ones made in Taiwan, you know, with a couple of little laces for webbing? And I used to oil that damn Frankie Gustine glove and bang my fist in the pocket and rub some more oil until I was about ten and I was big enough to play with it.

  I still got it somewhere.”

  “Play other sports?” I didn’t know where I was going, but I was used to that.

  “Oh yeah, matter of fact, I went to college on a basketball scholarship. Got drafted by the Lakers in the fifth round, but I never thought about doing anything else but baseball when I got out.”

  “Did you meet Linda in college?”

  “No.”

  “How about you, Linda, how do you feel about baseball?”

  “I never cared about it till I met Marty. I don’t like the traveling part of it. Marty’s away about eighty games a season. But other than that I think it’s fine. Marty loves it. It makes him happy.”

  “Where’d you two meet?” I asked.

  “It’s there in the biog sheet, isn’t it?” Rabb said.

  “Yeah, I suppose so. But we both know about PR material.”

  Rabb said, “Yeah.”

  “Well, let’s do this. Let’s run through the press kit and maybe elaborate a little.” Linda Rabb nodded.

  Rabb said, “It’s all in there.”

  “You were born in Lafayette, Indiana, in nineteen forty-four.” Rabb nodded. “Went to Marquette, graduated nineteen sixty-five. Signed with the Sox that year, pitched a year in Charleston and a year at Pawtucket. Came up in nineteen sixty-eight. Been here ever since.”

  Rabb said, “That’s about it.”

  I said, “Where’d you meet Linda?”

  “Chicago,” Rabb said. “At a White Sox game. She asked for my autograph, and I said, yeah, but she had to go out with me. She did. And bingo.”

  I look at my biog sheet. “That would have been in nineteen seventy?”

  “Right.” My glass was empty, and Rabb got up to refill it. I noticed his was less than half gone.

  “We were married about six months later in Chicago.”

  Linda Rabb smiled. “In the off-season.”

  “Best thing I ever did,” Rabb said, and gave me a new bottle of ale. I poured it into the glass, ate some peanuts, and drank some ale.

  “You from Chicago, Linda?”

  “No, Arlington Heights, a little bit away from Chicago.”

  “What was your maiden name?”

  Rabb said, “Oh for crissake, Spenser, why do you want to know that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “You ever see one of those machines that grades apples, or ora
nges, or eggs, that sort of thing, by size? They dump all sizes in the hopper and the machine lets the various sizes drop into the right holes as it works down. That’s how I am. I just ask questions and let it all go into the hopper and then sort it out later.”

  “Well, you’re not sorting eggs now, for crissake.”

  “Oh, Marty, let him do his job. My maiden name was Hawkins, Mr. Spenser.”

  “Okay, Marty, let’s go back to why you love baseball,” I said. “I mean, think about it a little. Isn’t it a game for kids? I mean, who finally cares whether a team beats another team?”

  It sounded like the kind of thing a writer would ask, and I wanted to get them talking. Much of what I do depends on knowing who I’m doing it with.

  “Oh, Christ, I don’t know, Spenser. I mean, what isn’t a game for kids, you know? How about writing stories, is that something for grown-ups? It’s something to do. I’m good at it, I like it, and I know the rules. You’re one of twenty-five guys all working for something bigger than they are, and at the end of the year you know whether or not you got it. If you didn’t get it, then you can start over next year. If you did, then you got a chance to do it again. Some old-timey ballplayer said something about you have to have a lot of little boy in you to play this game, but you gotta be a man too.”

  “Roy Campanella,” I said.

  “Yeah, right, Campanella. Anyway, it’s a nice clean kind of work. You’re important to a lot of kids. You got a chance to influence kids’ lives maybe, by being an example to them. It’s a lot better than selling cigarettes or making napalm. It’s what I do, you know?”

  “What about when you get too old?”

  “Maybe I can coach. I’d be a good pitching coach.

  Maybe manage. Maybe do color. I’ll stay around the game one way or another.”

  “What if you can’t?”

  “I’ll still have Linda and the boy.”

  “And when the boy grows up?”

  “I’ll still have Linda.”

  I was getting caught up in the part. I’d started to lose track. I was interested. Maybe some of the questions were about me.

  “Maybe I better finish up my Labatt Fifty and go home,” I said. “I’ve taken enough of your time.”