by Bill Syken
Freddie sullenly kicks at the turf with his white Converse low-tops. The shoes are new, so he is trying his best to pick up a grass stain.
“Someone at the funeral told me that Tanner went down to Alabama twice to visit Samuel before the draft,” I say. “Is that right?”
“Yes,” he says. “He took the family plane both times. Wanted to be all cloak-and-dagger about it, so no one would see him in the airport.”
I scan the field, searching for Tanner. He is a good fifty yards away, monitoring the quarterbacks.
I decide to reveal to Freddie what I heard about Tanner and Selia Sault. I have been wanting to tell someone.
Freddie blinks his eyes in disbelief and says, “Wow.” After a further pause: “Good for him. Is she hot?”
I am confiding in an idiot. “She’s nineteen,” I say.
“So … yes? Are there pictures of her online, you think?” He is already reaching for his iPhone.
I shake my head and walk away a few steps, even though I have nowhere to go.
“Holy shit!” Freddie shouts, one hand pointing at me, the other hand over his mouth. “You think Tanner did it!”
I whirl around and look about to see if anyone has heard this cry, but no heads are turned. I walk back to Freddie, if only to lower the volume of his babbling. “What’s your theory, Hangman?” he says. “She was going to move up here with Samuel and get up in Tanner’s business, so he commits drive-by murder to keep her down in Alabama. Do you actually believe that?”
“No,” I snarl. “And shut up.” I am actually feeling guilty, now, for having ratted Tanner out. Not that he doesn’t deserve grief, but I would hate for the story to come back to me. “Don’t tell anyone I told you this,” I say. “Please.”
“I don’t know, Hangman,” Freddie teases. “You seem to be asking an awful lot. What do you ever do for me?”
“Just don’t say anything.”
Freddie shrugs his shoulders, smirks at me, and walks away. He strolls up the sideline and settles next to Clint Udall, who is watching the drills attentively. Freddie begins talking animatedly at our general manager, and Udall nods, occasionally saying a few words in response, all the while keeping his eyes on the action. Freddie glances back at me and grins. He knows I am watching him, and he is messing with me. At least, that is what I hope he is doing.
CHAPTER 20
IT IS THE night before the last day of minicamp, the night before my last chance to demonstrate to the Sentinels that I am the calm, centered, businesslike veteran they want as their punter.
It is the veteran’s voice that whispers to me, telling me to stay home and rest. It tells me not to pick up that phone.
“Hello. Melody?”
“Nick?” she says.
“Yup, it’s me. I know I said I would call when minicamp was over, but I feel like doing something tonight. You free?”
“I am,” she says brightly. “Just here at home.”
“Perfect,” I say. “Can I swing by?”
“Umm … sure,” she says. “Are we going out somewhere?”
“That would be the civil thing to do, I suppose.”
In the early dusk of one of the longest nights of the year, I climb into my Audi and drive north. One nice thing about Melody’s grimly quiet neighborhood—no shortage of street parking. On her block it’s just my car and the same new red F-150 that was there before. I press her doorbell, a pale orange circle, and don’t hear any sound, so I knock my knuckles against the door’s worn metal frame.
Melody answers quickly, as if she was waiting by the door. Her smile broadens when she sees me. She has a band in her hair, made from a glittery dark green thread that accentuates the color of her eyes. She is dressed in jeans and a dark blue top with a ruffled neckline that plunges deeply, exposing enough curvature to immediately give the evening a PG-13 rating.
“You look nice,” I say. I wonder if I should shelve my questions and make this the kind of date Melody thinks it is.
“Come inside for a moment,” she says. “I have someone who wants to meet you.”
In the narrow space that is their living room, a scrawny man in his forties sits on the worn arm of a floral-pattern sofa. He has unkempt long brown hair with streaks of gray, and he is wearing a Sentinels T-shirt whose shade of brown is slightly off, suggesting the shirt is an unlicensed knockoff. He has the same pale coloring as Melody, and he shares her green eyes as well.
“This is my uncle,” Melody says. “Vaughn.”
Uncle—good. Though Vaughn’s smile is unsettling, both for its nervous enthusiasm and because his teeth remind me of a poorly hammered garden fence. His bloodshot gaze corroborates the scent of marijuana about him.
“I’m a big fan, man,” he says, his voice both raspy and boyish.
He comes forward to shake my hand. I squeeze firmly and find that Vaughn has the grip of an old rag doll.
“That hit you put on Dez Wheeler in the Atlanta game last year, that was awesome,” he says with a breathless smile. “That has to be the coolest punter highlight ever.”
“Thank you so much,” I say. “That’s very kind of you.”
“Look at you, Nick,” Melody says, playfully tapping my elbow. “Mr. Superstar.”
“Have a good time, you two,” Vaughn says, seeing us to the door.
I drive out of Melody’s neighborhood, back toward the Interstate. Melody rolls down her window and lets the breeze tousle her hair. “So where we going?”
“How about the Winking Oyster?” I ask.
She clucks her tongue a few times. “If you want to go to a strip club,” she says, “I know a couple in town that are pretty good.”
Really? I have never done that on a date before. I have a hunch Melody would be the right girl to try it with.
“Let’s just go to Penn’s Landing,” I say.
“Sure,” she says. She sounds cheery, expectant. “Is there a bar down there or something?”
“We could just go for a walk by the river.”
“A walk by the river,” she repeats delightedly, in a soft sing-song voice. “I knew you were the romantic type.”
Soon we are there. The Penn’s Landing waterfront has a maritime museum and a few historical sailing ships that visitors can tour during the day. During the winter, the city sets up a skating rink here, and in the summer it hosts concerts and ethnic festivals on the weekends. Tonight, though, the only noise is coming from the one restaurant in this stretch, which is on a retrofitted historic boat. From its large outdoor deck, I hear the boisterous sounds of young people enjoying the night. I would bet half those people haven’t even figured out what they want to do with their lives. I feel a generation older than they are.
I lead Melody along a brick walkway that juts out into the Delaware River and then turns right and runs parallel to the shoreline. The walkway goes a couple hundred yards down the river until it dead ends. The view ahead is of a large condominium, built on the water, whose shape is supposed to resemble a clipper ship. A large banner with a phone number advertises vacancies.
We reach the end of the walkway. I push myself up to sit on the low concrete railing, and Melody pushes herself up, too, sitting alongside me, her bare arm flush against mine. In the glow of the walkway lights, her lips look particularly pillowy.
She places her hand on my left thigh.
“Wow,” she says, sounding genuinely surprised. “I don’t think I’ve ever said this to a man before, but nice legs.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I’ve done a few thousand squats a week for the past half decade. I’m glad I have something to show for it.”
Her hand is now massaging my thigh—after we have been here for all of one minute.
“I suppose you heard about Jai being arrested?” I ask.
“I did,” Melody says, without any enthusiasm for the topic. “Crazy, huh?”
“Very crazy,” I say. “Especially since he didn’t do it.”
“You still think he’s innocent?”
she says, her massage slowing. “Even with the rifle they found?”
“I think he’s being framed,” I say. “What do you think?”
She purrs and raises her hand to my chest. “Do we really have to talk about this?”
I remove her hand. She sits upright.
“Here’s another subject to talk about,” I say. “What exactly did you do at the Winking Oyster?”
“I was a bartender,” she says sourly. “I told you that the other day. What’s up with you?”
“I ran a search on the Winking Oyster and I came across this story about how it had been closed down by the police,” I say. “I was just wondering, were you part of the drug business there? Or the prostitution?”
She pushes herself off the rail and straightens her shirt.
“I don’t like you looking into me,” she says, her back to me. “Maybe you should just take me home.”
I don’t move and after a couple of seconds of silence she stomps down the brick walkway, without looking back. I slip off the rail and catch up to her.
“If you think you’re better than me, I’ve got news for you,” Melody says, quickening her pace. “You’re not.”
“I don’t care about the Winking Oyster,” I say. “That’s your business. But you need to tell me what you know about the shooting.”
“I don’t know anything about it,” she snaps, glaring at me. But she also stops walking.
“Samuel was killed after leaving Stark’s. Jai was framed while he was eating there. You were there both nights. You’re telling me you can run your little misdemeanor ring or whatever you called it, but you’re in the dark about this big thing that happened in your own shop?”
“I only know what I read in the papers,” she says acidly, folding her arms and looking off to the side.
She’s holding something back. I can feel it.
“Please, Melody,” I say. “My agent was shot, one of my teammates is dead, another is in jail. I don’t want to make trouble for you. I’m just trying to figure out what happened.”
She places her hands on her hips and bites her lip. “You made $970,000 last year, right?”
So while I was reading about her strip club, she was looking up my salary. What a modern romance.
“You have it right,” I say. “To the dollar.”
“If I tell you something that helps you, I want money. A lot of it.”
Money, of course. It’s disappointing to hear her say it, but I don’t really care. Because if she has information that she thinks is worth selling, then the police have indeed arrested the wrong man.
“I’ll take care of you,” I say. “If what you have to say is worth it.”
“And you have to promise you won’t make me go to the police,” she says, eyes brimming with anger.
“Why no police?”
“Because I don’t like the police, and I don’t trust them,” she says firmly.
“But a man’s life…”
“No,” she says. “No, no, no.”
She glares at me, arms folded.
“Okay, I get it,” I say. “Just tell me what you know.”
She breathes in deeply. “I don’t think JC did it either.”
I feel a rush of excitement. “Who did?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “But I don’t think it’s JC.”
“Why?” I ask quickly.
“The night Samuel was killed, early in the shift, this guy comes into the restaurant, and he’s hanging around the bar,” Melody says. “He calls me over and when I try to take his order, he offers me five dollars to call him if Samuel Sault comes into the bar. I tell him it’s going to cost him fifty, just to throw a number out there, try to get him to up his offer. But he agrees to fifty. I called him before I even put in your order. But he didn’t come back the whole night, not even after you all left. I would bet if someone followed you from the restaurant and it wasn’t JC, it was him.”
“What was his name?”
She pulls her green band from her hair and studies it, as if something is wrong with it. “He never gave it to me. He was kind of weird looking. He was older, and black. He was wearing a sports jacket, but it was frayed at the collar. If I had to bet, I would guess he was a bum that someone paid to be his front man. But whoever this bum is working for, I would bet that’s the killer.”
My initial excitement dissipates. With Philadelphia’s shamefully large street population, the man that Melody is describing would be impossible to find. And what she is saying, even if true, doesn’t provide me with any proof. It’s just a story, vague and secondhand.
“What about the night Jai was arrested?” I ask. “Did the guy ask you to call him again?”
Melody searches for a moment before answering, “No, but everyone knows when JC is coming in. He always tweets it, in exchange for a forty percent discount off his tab.”
I would have to review the bill from the night of Jai’s arrest. After he and Cheat were dragged out, I ended up paying, and I don’t remember seeing any discount.
“Do you have the guy’s phone number?”
Melody fished around in her bag, but then stopped and shook her head.
“I have it on my phone, but I just remembered, it wouldn’t do you any good,” she says. “I tried calling the night after the shooting, but the number was already dead. It must have been one of those prepaid burner phones. You know what those are?”
Yes, I did, from having watched The Wire. And last year a member of the league’s players association, advocating for health benefits for retired players, actually made a comparison between football players and burner phones—how both are used for a while and then tossed aside—in an interview that was widely read among people who care about such things. My mother had forwarded me the story.
Now that Melody has shared her information, I am befuddled. She has confirmed my instincts and suggested an alternate theory, but she hasn’t given me anything I can use—no decisive piece of evidence I can hand over to Rizotti to let him know there’s another track to explore.
“Please, you have to go to the police,” I tell her. “If you have some charge hanging over your head because of the Winking Oyster, I’m sure they will let it go if you help them with this.”
“Oh, really?” she says, an eyebrow dubiously cocked. “First of all, the police have their guy. I don’t think they’ll be all that eager to reopen the case. Second of all, I don’t think punters have the power to speak for the district attorney. And third of all, JC can afford a good lawyer. I’m not going to go to prison so I can save that loudmouth some money on attorney’s fees.”
I am regretting my promise to Melody about not taking her to the police. But I said what I said, and I keep my promises. And furthermore, I cannot guarantee that her arguments are off base.
But what is interesting is that when I suggested that Melody might be avoiding the police because of what she did at the Winking Oyster, she rolled with that suggestion in a way that implies I was right. Perhaps she is a parole violator, or maybe even a felon on the run.
I pull out my wallet and hand her all the hundreds I have on me.
“Is that all I get?” she says, thumbing through the bills. I have given her about a thousand bucks, maybe a little less.
“Yup,” I say. “Be happy with that.”
We walk back to the car. Every time we pass a happy couple holding hands or giggling, we sink deeper into an uneasy silence. On the ride home, to break the quiet, I ask Melody why she lives with her uncle.
She doesn’t answer for about ten seconds, but then grudgingly allows, “Vaughn’s the closest thing I have to a father these days.”
“What happened to your parents?”
She folds her arms. “Really wanna know? You’re not going to use it against me?”
“Yes.”
She sighs, and begins. “First, there’s my mom. She skipped out when I was two. Then there’s my dad. He’s in prison.”
“For what?”
<
br /> She hesitates.
“The thing you need to understand about my dad is,” she says, “he’s the sweetest man I’ve ever known. He taught me guitar. When I was a little kid we’d spend our Saturday nights practicing in the den. One year we won a red ribbon at the county fair for best duet.”
She sounds genuinely warmed when she talks about this memory, but my stomach can’t help but knot, waiting to hear what her doting father did to be locked up.
“One day he and I were coming home from the supermarket,” she says. “The market was only a couple miles away, so we’d walk. It gave us something to do, and we’d save on gas money. So we are walking and this kid drives by. He’s talking on his cell phone, and his side mirror hits me in the elbow. I fall to the ground, groceries are everywhere, I’m screaming. And the kid gets out of the car to see if I’m okay. He still has his cell phone in his hand. And my dad snaps. He didn’t get that it was just the mirror that hit me. He chops the kid in the throat. And the kid dies.”
“He dies?” I say, aghast. “From one hit?”
“It landed in exactly the wrong place, and crushed the kid’s throat,” she says. “Just plain bad luck. I’d never seen my dad hit anyone, ever. But he throws one chop and the whole world changes. It’s like he is struck by lightning. It’s like we all were.”
“That’s unbelievable,” I say.
“The worst part was,” Melody says softly, “my dad was given a public defender who was so dumb he couldn’t even beat me in checkers. My dad ended up getting fifteen years.”
“Did your mom ever hear about what happened?”
Melody looks away. “I don’t know,” she says. “Wherever my mom ended up, she must have forgot to send postcards. That’s okay, people say that Daddy always knew better how to handle me anyway. Although they also tell me I’m a lot like her. I don’t know what that means.”
I think I do.
* * *
When we pull up to the house, I tell her I’m sorry.
“I’ll be fine,” she says. “You take care of yourself. Eat a whoopie pie every now and then.” And she leaned forward and kisses me on the mouth, and I let the kiss hang for a while. It’s an escape to an alternate reality where neither of us have the problems we have and this was just a plain old date.