“Can they make the claim that this refusal to reinstate him was personal?” Karp asked.
“I suppose they can say that,” O’Toole agreed. “And I’ll admit that I wasn’t unhappy to have a reason to remove him from the team. The guy’s a racist and a real cancer in the locker room. The only two recruits—and there were six—invited to this party were the two white kids. All the others were black and Hispanic. I think Rufus intended a different kind of recruiting for his friends with the Aryan church down the road.”
“A racist, huh?” Marlene said. “I’m sure his attitude didn’t go over too well with the brothers on the team.”
“No, it didn’t, nor with me, or for that matter with the other white players, who get along with all the guys,” O’Toole responded. “But Rufus knew better than to say anything out loud; otherwise, he might have had a ‘slipped-and-fell’ accident in the showers. But his attitude made it obvious. He got the locker as far from the other players as possible. Came in early to dress. Showered after they left. Rarely said a word to anybody but me and never attended team functions. Then he started openly hanging out with the neo-Nazi/Aryan types.”
“Sounds like you have a pretty tight case for ‘conduct detrimental to the team’ even without the recruiting party,” Karp conceded.
“Yeah, I tried to nail him a couple of times even before all of this went down,” O’Toole said. “But Huttington and Barnhill wouldn’t go up against Big John.”
“Can he play baseball?” Karp asked.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Marlene said. “The guy’s a Nazi rapist lunatic.”
“Because they might try to claim that Rufus was an all-star player but was being unfairly held to a higher standard than black players. If the guy can’t play ball, all the more reason it’s up to a coach’s discretion whether to keep him on the bench, or get rid of him, especially if he’s disruptive.”
“Very mediocre—slow, average arm, can’t hit a changeup, and wouldn’t have made this team if I’d been coaching when he started,” O’Toole said. “I inherited him from the coach before me, and I think the old coach pretty much had to take him on because of Big John.”
“Who is this Big John character? He sounds like something out of a redneck comic book,” Marlene said.
O’Toole chuckled. “You’re not too far off. As the name implies, he’s a big fella…six foot five maybe, maybe three hundred pounds. Was a Division II all-American right guard for the University of Northwest Idaho, a regular hometown hero. He even got drafted by the Oakland Raiders but got cut in preseason and never played another down. He’s done all right for himself, though, and every year he writes a fifty-thousand-dollar check to the university sports department and that much again to the university’s general kitty.”
“What’s he like?” Marlene said.
“Sort of what you’d expect,” O’Toole said. “Gone to seed a bit. Hair is thinning. Big paunch and lots of spider veins in his face from all the drinking. On wife number three. Number one was Rufus’s mom, a cheerleader he met during that one season in Oakland. She was dumb as a stick, I hear, but smart enough to abandon them both when Rufus was a couple of years old. Number two just disappeared one night; he claimed she ran off with an old boyfriend, but no one has heard from her since. As for Big John, he wears size sixteen anaconda-skin cowboy boots and a big black Stetson that makes him seem even larger than he already is. Comes off in his car commercials like a loud buffoon. You know the type, ‘Come on down to good ol’ Big John’s car lot and he’ll make you a SUPER I’VE GOT TO BE CRAZY deal!’ And his face is on most of the real estate signs in the area. He even sold the land that had been in his family for a couple of generations to the Unified Church of Racists and Morons I told you about—claimed he didn’t know who the buyer was until it was too late. The place even came with an operating gravel pit that sells sand and gravel to the state highway department, which is apparently how our favorite Nazis make a living.”
“I take it he couldn’t be overtly racist and stay in business,” Marlene said. “What’s he say about his son’s associations?”
“Not much,” O’Toole said. “Calls it ‘a stage’ his boy is going through…sort of like puberty, only nastier. His little Rufus is just reacting, he says, to the perception that I was prejudiced in favor of black players. Rufus is the victim of discrimination, wouldn’t you know. He’ll tell you he doesn’t agree with his son’s ‘politics,’ which is what he calls racism. But by God, he stands by the boy’s right to say and do as he pleases…as long as he isn’t breaking the law.”
“So you booted his kid off the team,” Karp said, “and Daddy’s putting pressure on the administration to get him back on. How does that boil down to you getting suspended by the university and then kicked out of coaching by the American Collegiate Athletic Association?”
“When it became obvious that I wasn’t going to let Rufus back on the team, the university attorney, Barnhill, came to talk to me ‘as a friend,’” O’Toole replied. “He said that the Porters were going to sue the school and the university. He said that Rufus had also filed a complaint with the university and the ACAA saying that I was the one who encouraged him to take the recruits to the party. I was the one, according to Rufus, who actually sponsored the party, paid for the booze and the strippers. Barnhill said he thought he could make the lawsuit and the complaint go away if I would let Rufus back on the team. ‘It’s only for his last season,’ he said. ‘Then he’ll be gone.’ But I refused. A week later, Barnhill arrived with campus security and told me I had to report to Huttington’s office. They escorted me from the floor in front of all of my players, who didn’t know what was going on or there would have been a riot. When I got to Huttington’s office, it was me, him, and Barnhill, a really slimy character, even for a lawyer…just kidding…”
Karp smiled and held up a hand. “No offense taken. Sometimes stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason.”
“Thanks. Anyway, Barnhill is a golfing buddy and hunting partner with Big John, so I knew that this wasn’t going to be pleasant. And it wasn’t. They said I was suspended while the ACAA investigated Rufus’s allegations and pending any disciplinary action. Barnhill suggested that I find a lawyer. Needless to say, I was struck dumber than a post. They were throwing me under the bus.”
As O’Toole spoke, Karp stood up. His wounded leg tended to ache if he sat in one place too long, but he thought best on his feet. “One thing I don’t get is, if the object is to placate Big John and get his son on the team, why not just fire you?”
“Well, a year ago, when we almost made the College World Series, and before any of this went down,” O’Toole replied, “they gave me a five-year contract extension with fifteen-percent increases every year and a double buyout clause if they wanted to terminate me for anything other than cause. Being suspended by the ACAA qualifies as cause, by the way. The university, meaning Huttington, was also worried about the public fallout of firing me. Most folks were behind me; if they’d just fired me based on a flimsy accusation that I was plying eighteen-year-old recruits with sex and booze, Huttington and Barnhill, and probably even Big John Porter, would have been ridden out of town on a rail. I go to church with these people. They know me. But if the ACAA suspended me and I couldn’t coach, well, the university would be off the hook.”
“So, Mikey, tell me about the ACAA hearing and where you’re going with this lawsuit,” Karp said.
“I better let my buddy Richie fill you in on the legal stuff,” O’Toole replied, and looked over at Meyers, who had been silent for the past few minutes with good reason: he was fast asleep with his chin on his chest.
Marlene got up and walked over to the young attorney and removed the empty bottle of beer from his hand. “It’s late,” she said. “This can wait until tomorrow.”
“Marlene’s right,” Karp said. “It’s way past my bedtime, and we’ll want clearer heads for this tomorrow.”
“What time?” O’Toole
asked.
“Well, it’s Saturday, and I’m taking the boys to basketball practice in the morning and then to the synagogue in the afternoon,” Karp replied. “I teach a bar mitzvah class, plus they’re making up for some missed Hebrew lessons. Why don’t you and Richie sleep in as long as you like and then do a little sightseeing; we can meet back here, say around six o’clock. Marlene has promised to whip up some of her world-famous sausage and peppers and gnocchi with marinara sauce. Then we can discuss the lawsuit.”
“Sounds like a plan, a delicious plan,” O’Toole said, then poked his sleeping friend with a finger.
Meyers’s eyes flew open and he looked around like a confused owl. “Oh, gee, sorry,” he apologized. “Can’t believe I did that.”
“That’s all right,” Marlene replied. “Travel can be tiring. Let me show you guys to your room.”
Karp watched the two visitors follow Marlene down the hallway. Looking down, he noticed Gilgamesh was looking at him. “What do you say, boy, you smell a rat?” he asked.
“Woof,” the dog replied.
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Karp agreed. “But I guess we’ll know more about that tomorrow.”
9
STANDING OUTSIDE A FORMER TENEMENT BUILDING IN THE East Village, Lucy Karp jumped at the sudden shriek of a passing ambulance’s siren. Easy, girl, you’d think you hadn’t grown up in the heart of Manhattan, she chided herself. Sirens were your lullabies and yellow cab horns your wake-up calls.
Then again, she had reason to be a little jumpy. Less than twelve hours earlier, in her room at the Sagebrush Inn, Espey Jaxon had given her fifteen minutes to pack a few items and then they headed out the door, which had made Ned a very unhappy, and horny, cowboy. She’d promised to make it up to him, but he’d stomped off.
In a field behind the inn, a black helicopter had been waiting to whisk them to the Taos County airport, where an unmarked black—what else, she thought—jet waited on the tarmac with its engines already turning. They’d arrived at Fort Dix army base in New Jersey in the early morning. Given the hour, Jaxon suggested that they grab some sleep in a small apartment complex on the base.
The sky was just beginning to get less dark in the east when Jaxon knocked on the door of the room she was staying in. When she was dressed, he escorted her to a reception area and asked her to wait while he went off “to make a couple of calls.”
Jaxon seemed agitated and distant when he returned. But he quickly buried whatever was bothering him and took her to breakfast in the same apartment complex, where he ate quickly without talking, lost in his own thoughts.
There were only a few other people in the dining room, most of whom sat alone or in small groups, none of them interacting with anybody else outside of their comrades. “What is this place and who are these people?” Lucy asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Jaxon replied, looking up from his coffee. “It’s the sort of place where nobody questions anybody else about who they are or what they’re doing. Which is convenient at the moment because I’m officially not here and neither are you.”
After breakfast, Jaxon led her to a small office and pointed to the telephone. “It’s a safe phone,” he said. “Cell phones can be monitored. Is it too early to call your friend now?”
Lucy looked at the clock on the wall: 7:00 a.m. “No time like the present,” she said. “He doesn’t sleep much.” She quickly dialed a number and waited for the answer.
“Hi, Cian, it’s Lucy,” she said. She listened for a moment, then giggled. “Never say that around my boyfriend, even if it’s Irish Gaelic. He has a terrible temper and if he saw me blush, he’d know you were up to no good. Hey, I know it’s early, but would you mind if I dropped by? I have something I’d like your help with. What? No, Cian, I do not need any help with that, thank you very much. Good, see you then, and is it okay if I bring a friend? No, he, not she, is not an attractive female. Besides, how could you even suggest that you’d have eyes for anyone but me? Uh-huh, okay, I’ll accept your apology this time, but don’t let it happen again.”
Jaxon had followed the conversation with an amused look. Lucy grinned back at him, happy that his scowl was gone. “If you’re ready to go, Uncle Espey, I’d like to make this quick. I have a handsome young cowboy to get back to in New Mexico.”
An hour later, Lucy calmed herself after the ambulance passed and walked down the worn steps leading to the cellar of the former tenement on East Fourth Street. She arrived at the bottom with Jaxon behind her and pressed the buzzer beneath a small sign that read: Celtic Bookworks, Go mbeannai Dia duit.
May God bless you, Lucy translated in her head, and quietly responded, “Gurab amhlaidh duit. The same to you.”
A shadow appeared behind the peephole. As several bolts clicked and slid open, Lucy was tempted to start humming the Mission Impossible theme music. Maybe Tom Cruise will open the door; even if some others think he’s gone off the deep end, he’s still cute.
Instead, an enormously fat man of about fifty with gray mutton-chop sideburns and wearing a stained wool caftan appeared when the door opened. He squinted at her like an overweight mole from behind thick square-rimmed glasses that rested on top of a small upturned nose. But he was smiling broadly as he fumbled for the key that would open the security gate between him and his visitors.
“My dear Lucy, dear child, do come in,” he gushed, unlocking the gate and pushing it open. “How very nice to see you again. You look absolutely wonderful. Apparently your new life in the desert has suited you well. I do believe your breasts are larger.”
Lucy stepped forward to give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek that made him smile all the wider, showing tobacco-stained teeth. “Ciamar a tha thu, Cian?”
“Tha mi gu math, tapadh leibh/leat,” the fat man replied. “Ciamar a thu sibh/thu fhèin?”
“Glè mhath!”
Lucy turned back to Jaxon, who was standing behind her looking perplexed. “Cian Magee, this is federal agent Espey Jaxon, an old family friend as well as a true gais cioch,” she said.
Jaxon reached around and shook Magee’s meaty hand. “I have no idea what you two are saying, but pleased to meet you,” he said.
“Sorry, it’s just the sort of showing off we language geeks do whenever we see each other,” Lucy apologized. “I was speaking Scottish Gaelic. Let’s see, I started by asking him how he was doing. He replied that he was ‘Well, thank you,’ and asked how I was. I told him ‘Very well.’ ‘Glè mhath!’”
“The dirty little minx also tossed a changeup at me,” Magee said with a wink. “She switched to Irish Gaelic when she referred to you as a ‘true gais cioch,’ that is, a true warrior. But I didn’t fall off the potato truck yesterday, a ghra mo chroi.”
“So which is it, Cian?” Lucy laughed. “A dirty little minx or ‘love of my heart’?”
“I didn’t know they were mutually exclusive,” Magee said, chuckling. “But come in, come in. Do be careful that my books don’t collapse on you or you may not be found until I do my spring cleaning.”
“You? Spring cleaning? What year?” Lucy laughed.
“Now, now, I cleaned up the place not more than six or seven months ago,” Magee replied. “You’ll have to forgive the mess, Agent Jaxon, this hovel serves as both my place of business and my swinging bachelor’s pad. But I believe that disorganization is the sign of a fertile mind.” He turned and waddled deeper into the passageway of the bookstore-slash-apartment.
Somehow he eased his bulk past precariously perched piles of dusty books—some with bits of papers protruding from their pages, and many of which supported old food wrappers or un-washed plates with a fork or spoon stuck to the surface—and into the main room. It resembled a cave, but made of books and papers. The only natural light came from a small garden-level window to the side of the front door where they’d entered, and another just like it around the corner in the “living room.” Otherwise, illumination was provided by an odd assortment of lamps.
Magee stooped, gathered a load of books from the seat of another overstuffed and much-patched chair, and plopped them on top of the larger desk, scattering papers, pens, and food wrappers. He then picked up a leaning pile of books from a tall stool and, after looking around for a place to deposit them, gave up and dumped them on the floor.
“Sit, please,” he said. “I think it’s reasonably safe.” Clearly exhausted by his efforts, he padded over to the La-Z-Boy and sank into its groaning interior.
Looking around, Jaxon saw that there was another, smaller room, set off from the main area by a gauze curtain, beyond which he could make out a messy bed and a small table on which sat a microwave. Behind the La-Z-Boy he noted a half-open door that he guessed led to the bathroom. The place smelled of old, mildewy books and ancient dust, as well as stale sweat and cooking odors. However, the odor wasn’t overpowering, thanks in large part to the sidewalk-level windows that were propped open despite the outside temperatures.
“So Cian’s an unusual name,” Jaxon noted. “Is it a Gaelic version of Sean?”
“Similar anyway,” Lucy answered for her friend. “It means ‘ancient, or enduring’ in Irish Gaelic. And actually Magee is an Anglicized version of Mag Aoidh, which means ‘fire.’ So we’re sitting in the presence of Enduring, or Ancient, Fire.”
Magee blushed and mumbled something about names not meaning much. But Jaxon could tell that he was pleased by Lucy’s translations.
On the way over, Lucy had filled Jaxon in on the reasons that her friend and fellow “language geek” Cian Magee didn’t get out much. “If at all,” she’d added. “He suffers from a few phobias, including agoraphobia, the fear of open spaces, which combined with an intense fear of situations from which escape might be difficult—in his case, a fear of crowds—doesn’t lend itself to an active lifestyle outside his apartment. Apparently when he was younger, and much before I met him, it wasn’t as bad. He tended to go from his parents’ home straight to quiet, cocoonlike places, such as the library and small bookstores, especially at odd hours when there wouldn’t be many other people around. But at least he got out some. Now, I don’t know if he’s left the apartment for months. He lives off a partial disability check and what little he brings in at the bookstore, and has everything delivered—food, books, all his necessities. Thank God for the internet, the occasional customer, and a few loyal friends, or he’d have almost no communication with the outside world. However, he is well respected as an expert in Celtic culture and languages, so he is contacted from time to time by other researchers, which gives him something to do.”
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