Strike Three, You're Dead

by Josh Berk

  “Um, so you’ve said,” Maria said. She seemed to be grinning just a tiny bit. Other Mike was winning her over. He always does.…

  “Of course me and Len are huge fans,” Mike said. “What are you talking about?!”

  “You don’t even know what’s going on at the Franklin Mall this weekend?” she said. “Qué lástima.” Now she was just trying to make him angry. It worked.

  He kicked the back of the couch and spat out, “There’s a sale on bikinis? Why would we care what’s going on at the mall?”

  “You jerk,” Maria said, crossing her arms. “Now I’m not going to tell you.”

  It was sort of crazy how well she fit into our group. I mean, yeah, she was making Mike angry and giving Other Mike grief, but that’s why it seemed right.

  “Come on, tell us!” we all said at once.

  “Fine,” she said. “There’s a baseball card show at Franklin Mall this week. The Phils have a day off, and every year they have a player come to sign autographs. You’ll never guess who is signing this year.”

  “I’m guessing it’s not Pete Rose,” I said.

  “There’s a baseball player named Pete Rose?” Other Mike said, laughing. “Ha-ha. Not a very tough-sounding name! An athlete named after a flower?!” He then started talking in a goofy high-pitched voice. “Oh, how do you do today, sir? My name is Pete Rose. And, hello, I’m Danny Daffodil.”

  “Not Rose,” Maria said, not quite getting that I was joking. “It’s none other than the famous one: Ramon Famosa.” She paused for a moment. The Mikes paused too. Briefly, there was silence.

  “Air hands,” Other Mike said under his breath.

  “Sweet,” Mike said. “You think the Don will be there too?”

  “I think so,” Maria said. “I mean, he’s gotta be. He’s always with Famosa when Famosa is in public.”

  “Okay, so this is cool, but what do we do?” I asked. I mean, somebody had to ask. What are we going to do? Bring the video camera to Franklin Mall and show Don Guardo the tape?

  “I say we bring the video camera to Franklin Mall and show Don Guardo the tape,” Maria said.

  “Just make sure you start it up at the right point,” Mike said. “If Famosa sees you singing ‘Fistful of Dollars,’ he’ll probably die laughing.”

  “Then we’ll have two dead Phils on our hands, Lenny,” Maria said. “We do not need that.” She high-fived Mike. Great. Now they were best friends, at my expense.

  “This is all very funny,” I said. “But how are we going to get over there? If you think I’m riding on my handlebars across the highway to Franklin Mall, you’re out of your minds.”

  Just then I heard the whoosh of the refrigerator opening and the clink of ice in a glass. Courtney. “What’s that?” she said. “You guys need a ride to Franklin Mall? I could probably take you.”

  “What the heck?” I muttered. Courtney never once offered to do anything for me all summer and now she’s offering to take us to the mall?

  “I needed to go anyway,” she said. “There’s a sale on bikinis.”

  The four-headed Lenny-Mike-Maria-Mike-Brahma-monster declared in one loud voice an emphatic “Ha!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  We had almost a week to wait until our big chance to confront Famosa at the mall. We spent the time wisely. I read a series of history books about the Crimean War and learned Portuguese. Mike mastered Bach on the piano. Other Mike trained for a triathlon. Just kidding. We spent it farting around on the computer and watching baseball.

  Bedrosian’s Beard had become less exciting since we now knew the real identity of PhilzFan1, but we still enjoyed checking in. There continued to be a lot of chatter about RJ’s death, of course. It seemed like most people were coming to the conclusion that it was a freak accident. They were ready to get back to normal. The discussion returned to the usual stuff—balls and strikes, home runs and strikeouts. I wasn’t so ready to move on. I was sure there was something fishy about the way RJ died, and I was sure I was going to find out what.

  We were really excited about the chance to confront Famosa—if that was his real name—in person. Saying “If that is his real name” became a running joke with me and the Mikes. Any time someone said “Ramona Famosa,” we immediately added “If that is his real name.” We’d even started saying it at all sorts of other weird times. Once Mike made a comment about his mom, and Other Mike said, “Mom. Pssh. If that is her real name.” That’s when we knew we needed to get out of the house.

  Finally, it was time to head to the Franklin Mall. It was Friday. We had made plans with Maria so she could come too. Mr. Bonzer brought her to my house, which was a little weird. We were all farting around in my driveway when Bonzer’s bright red car rounded the corner, tires squealing. He was a speed-demon librarian, I guess.

  “Hey, Maria,” we said in unison. Then we didn’t know what else to say.

  “Hey,” she said. “Catch the game last night?”

  “You know it,” I said. It had been a good one. The Phils won, 10–2, over the Marlins. Their hot-hitting outfielder, Rafael Boyar, hit two home runs.

  “Boyar looked pretty good,” Mike said. He pronounced it “Boy-er,” so of course Maria had to correct him.

  “Boy-arr,” she said, rolling the r in her mouth like the revving engine of Bonzer’s car.

  “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

  “No, you said, ‘Boyer.’ ” She said it in a very flat voice that actually did sort of sound like Mike. I giggled. Mike scowled. Maria continued, “He’s Dominican. I know how to say his name.”

  “Wow,” I said, trying to change the subject. “There are so many great Dominican ballplayers. Why is that?”

  “Just something in the water, I guess,” she said.

  “Huh,” I said. “I wonder what’s in the water in Schwenkfelder, Pennsylvania.”

  “Dork juice, I’d guess.”

  “Hey!”

  “Just kidding, just kidding. You dorks are okay.”

  “Thanks?”

  Then Courtney came out from the house, dressed for the mall. It was slightly strange to see her doing anything other than tanning, but honestly, her shopping clothes were not all that different from a bikini.

  “Shotgun!” Maria yelled, claiming the front seat. This meant that me and the Mikes had to squeeze into the back of Courtney’s tiny car. It was a Mazda or something, a bright blue vehicle hardly bigger than your little finger. Okay, maybe more like a midsized shopping cart. It fit Courtney, but squeezing in the back sucked, especially because somehow I got stuck in the middle and Courtney wasn’t exactly a careful driver. She floored it around corners, giving the Mikes every opportunity to jab their elbows into my ribs. The music choice was pretty awful too, a loud, throbbing dance song where a lady or maybe a robot (or maybe a lady robot) was shouting. Sounded like something about fruit roll-ups and tube socks. Annoying.

  “Can you put on WPP?” I asked, in between having my ribs pulverized by the Mikes.

  “Ha-ha,” Other Mike said. “Pee-pee.”

  “Shut up, Mike,” I said. “It’s the sports radio station.”

  “I know what it is,” Courtney said.

  “You listen to sports radio?” I asked, a little impressed.

  “Sure,” she said with a shrug. “Sometimes.”

  She turned the song off (thankfully) and let us listen to DJ Billy, the Philly Hillbilly. His loud, unfriendly voice filled the small car. He, for one, hadn’t moved past wondering what had happened to R. J. Weathers. He was still fired up about it. I liked that.

  “Something rotten happened on our ball field,” he said. “This young pitcher was not killed by his own hand. He was not felled by the hand of fate. This was no accident, my friends. This was something far more sinister. Maybe the team doesn’t want to admit it. Maybe Major League Baseball doesn’t want to admit it. Maybe the city of Philadelphia doesn’t want to admit it. Maybe the cops don’t want to admit it. Maybe the whole world doesn’t want to admit it.
But this, sports fans, was murder. And, no, I don’t normally buy into conspiracy theories. I don’t believe that the government is controlling us through fluoride in our water. I don’t think our digital TVs have tiny cameras so Big Brother can spy on us. I don’t think that Connelly’s Steaks’ cheesesteaks are made from addictive substances—it’s just that those steaks are so good! And I don’t believe that an outraged fan from hundreds of feet away could have somehow killed R. J. Weathers. But I do believe that he was killed. And I believe, sports fans, that it was an inside job.”

  “Ew, can I turn this off?” Courtney said. “I like sports radio sometimes, but this guy creeps me out. And I hate how he calls everyone ‘sports fans.’ That was such a stupid thing to say. And, like, a totally obvious advertisement for Connelly’s. But man, it totally worked, because now I really want to stop at Connelly’s on the way home.”

  “What’s wrong with that, sports fan?” Mike said.

  “Oh, don’t you start,” Courtney said.

  “Sports fan,” Other Mike said, laughing, elbowing me in the ribs.

  “Yeah!” I said. “Don’t turn it off. He might be creepy, but I like him. That speech gave me something.”

  “What?” Maria asked.

  “A clue.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I admit it—me and the Mikes were making fun of Maria (and Courtney) for loving the mall, but Franklin Mall turned out to be sort of awesome. Okay, it totally ruled. There were a few malls closer, which is why I guess my parents never took me to Franklin. Also, Dad hates malls. “I have found that one’s happiness is in inverse proportion to the amount of time one spends in shopping malls,” he said. He’s always saying stuff like that. He hates baseball and shopping malls? I suspect that he is not really American, possibly French, definitely weird.

  Franklin Mall was really great, especially the food court. Me and the Mikes spent, like, an hour choosing what to buy but ended up just getting soft pretzels, which was what I knew I wanted all along anyway. Courtney left us, not surprisingly, to go shop for bikinis. We took our pretzels and went to get in line for Famosa’s autograph. The line was pretty long, even though we were early and Famosa (if that was his real name) was, as I mentioned before, not a really great catcher. He was leading the league in passed balls and mustache wax and not much else.

  Being in the line wasn’t bad, though. I mean, normally I hate lines, but being surrounded by a bunch of Phillies/Famosa fans was nice. I felt at home there, you know? It was pleasant. Relaxing. Even though we were about to confront Famosa for being a fake and possibly a murderer. And that weird feeling of being watched that Other Mike kept talking about. But besides that: peaceful.

  A very old man stood in front of us in line. He was dressed like he was going to church, with a tie and shiny shoes and everything. There was a red Phillies cap on his head, and when he turned around, I could see he looked happy. His face was a mass of wobbly wrinkles, but his eyes were bright and cheery and his mouth formed a crooked smile. He nodded toward the red caps we all wore (minus Other Mike, who just had a messy bird’s nest on his head) and smiled.

  “You kids big fans?” the oldster asked in a voice like a creaky door.

  “Yes, sir!” Mike and I said in unison.

  “Not really,” Other Mike said. “Uh, sir.” Then he whispered to us, “Why are we calling him ‘sir’? Is he famous or something?”

  “Not that I know of,” I said. “He just looks like the kind of guy you call ‘sir.’ ”

  “I’m half deaf, but I can hear you,” the man said. “You’re really bad at whispering.” He chuckled into his hand, then began to cough. “And, no, I’m not famous or nothing. Only if you could be famous for being a fan.”

  “You’re a big fan?” I asked.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. I laughed. “My wife always accused me of loving the Phils more than her,” he said.

  “That’s sort of messed up,” Other Mike said.

  “No,” he said, drawing out the o like a song. “I suppose it’s a fairly accurate assessment of the situation. Nothing against my wife, of course.”

  “Of course,” I said. I didn’t know what he meant.

  “I’ve been a fan through some pretty lean years. There were some great years too, don’t get me wrong. The nineteen fifty Whiz Kids. Bubba Church was injured, but we held on. Lost to the Yankees in the Series, though. I grew up when all we had was radio. There wasn’t—and there isn’t—anything on God’s green earth nearly as beautiful as the soft whoosh you hear when you turn on the radio and know the crowd is there, cheering at the ballpark.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I didn’t know who Bubba Church was or what the guy was talking about really. “Are you a fan of Famosa?”

  “He’s okay. I have lots of autographs. I get one almost every year. Stan Lopata, Eddie Waitkus, Jim Konstanty. The vonderful Von Hayes.”

  Man, he was referencing some obscure Phils.

  “You can go ahead of me, though, if you like,” he said. “I’m retired. Got all day.”

  “Thanks, sir!” I said. “If you have time, may I suggest a pretzel.”

  “I think you better go before us,” Mike said, breaking in.

  “Why’s that?”

  “I have a feeling that after we’re done, this whole thing might be done.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll see.”

  And I feared that he would see. I still had no idea how this was going to go down. We had to confront Famosa, and Don Guardo maybe, but in what way? We hadn’t really solidified a plan. Maria seemed to know what she was doing, and she was the one carrying the video camera, but I wasn’t so sure. There wasn’t much more time to think about it, though, because the crowd broke into a roar. Famosa had arrived. He was escorted onto a little stage in the middle of the mall—I think it was where the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus sat. But without oversized eggs or reindeer. There was just Ramon Famosa (if that was his real name) and his father/brother—or whatever Don Guardo actually was. Bodyguard? Trained ninja assassin? Air hands inventor?

  In person, Famosa did seem almost as unreal as Santa Claus. He had that huge, curly mustache, and he looked absolutely enormous. He must have been six and a half feet tall, and you could see his muscles ripple even though he was wearing a suit. He also looked sort of tired, with visible lines around his eyes.

  “Man, he’s huge,” Other Mike said. “But we can take him.” Gotta love Other Mike’s confidence. Did he really think we were going to fight Famosa?

  The line moved quickly, since most people didn’t bother to try to talk to Famosa. It actually seemed like a pretty good deal, tricking everyone into believing you didn’t speak their language. Most people would leave you alone. I decided I would try that the next time Dad asked me to mow the lawn. “No speako the English,” I’d say. Yeah. That’d fix his wagon.

  Finally, it was our turn to get Famosa’s autograph. And maybe a lot more. As we approached the stage, Maria rushed at Famosa. I quickly followed, the Mikes right behind me. Maria started speaking furiously, and I understood “Hola, Señor Famosa,” which she said with a polite smile, but that was it. Then it was just a quickly flowing river of words I could not understand for the life of me. Famosa (if that was his real name) didn’t seem upset or anything. It didn’t seem like she was blowing his cover and revealing him to be a murderer.

  He just stared ahead, blinking and smiling. His mustache twitched. His eyes danced. He was either completely innocent or, in fact, a highly trained spy, totally resistant to the fierce questions flying at him. At least the questions sounded fierce. She could have been just complimenting his mustache for all I knew. Oh, how I wished I could understand what she was saying! Why did Señora Cohan have to be so boring?

  Don Guardo did look sort of upset, though. More than sort of upset. He looked furious. He chomped his unlit cigar and stared at Maria with burning eyes. He kept folding and unfolding his arms, then trying to shoo Maria away like she was an annoying l
ittle bug.

  Finally, Maria finished her speech, concluding with the unlikely phrase “¡Tango elf Konstanty!” It might not have been exactly that. Maybe I was just thinking about the old pitcher Jim Konstanty because the elderly guy with the church shoes had been talking about him. Certainly the part about “tango elf” was probably just in my mind. No time for that! Things were getting exciting. Maria whipped out my video camera from her bag and held it under Famosa’s sneering nose. She pressed the Play button with a dramatic gesture. Thankfully, it did not play the part of the video where I was rapping or dancing. But it did play the shaky footage I had recorded of Don Guardo, laughing into his cell phone about how he wasn’t really busy.

  Maria crossed her arms, satisfied, like she had solved the whole thing. Like she had just served up the final evidence on a silver platter. Famosa looked at her and shrugged. Then he responded. In English.

  “Man, so what?” he said.

  I suddenly became aware of all the other people in the mall, their voices buzzing like bees. And I definitely became aware of all the fans standing behind us in line, irritated that we were taking so long. The mall security guards looked ready to push Maria out of the way. Fortunately, they did not realize that one of the boys standing behind Maria Bonzer was a man of action. Unfortunately, that man was Other Mike.

  Other Mike jumped up onto the stage in front of Ramon Famosa and launched into what he would later describe as “my own take on the famous ‘for the honor of Mizlon’ speech.”

  This is what Other Mike said, pacing around the stage like a professor giving a lecture: “We all know what’s going on here, Mr. Ramon Famosa—if that is your real name, which I am sure it’s not. You wanted to escape the sea—I mean, Cuba—but could not do so under your own name. You fell in love with a mermaid, and that mermaid was America. And to love a mermaid meant defying your father. It meant taking an assumed identity. It meant that you are really not Ramon Famosa, it means that you are the warlock known as Mizlon! I mean, um, that last part, I meant to say … You know what I mean.” He shrugged.