Dying to Play

by Mark Zubro

  At the motel I got ice from the machine and wrapped it in a towel and brought it to the room.

  Czobel examined his cuts in the bathroom mirror and washed the blood out of his hair and off his face.

  The bottle had caught him a blow above the ear. None of the cuts looked deep.

  He asked, “Is there glass in the wound?”

  I moved his soft blond hair.

  “I think it just glanced off, but you hit the ground pretty hard. There could be microscopic shards of just about anything in there.”

  “You have antiseptic?”

  Duncan, in his mind-numbingly efficient way, among other things, always packs me a medical kit. I could probably do brain surgery with what he packs in an eight inch high, four inch wide, and two inch deep toilet kit. He says I’m a menace to myself. Then he crams even more stuff into all the little pockets inside my duffel bag in. I checked once. Not one of the medical items was past its expiration date. All those items had come in handy more times than I’d care to admit.

  I got some fix-it-all salve out.

  “Could you?” he asked.

  He held his hair out of the way while I applied the ointment. While I worked I said, “This is partly my fault. When I stopped him, the bottle flew.” My salve ministrations caused him to draw in a short breath. “Sorry.”

  He smiled, “You’re doing fine.” His body flexed toward me. “Don’t apologize. I’m okay.” He paused a beat. “I saw you talking to Donny Campbell.”

  “He was filling me in on the team.”

  “I wouldn’t mind messing with him a little.” Czobel pressed against me. “Or you.”

  I continued applying salve. He winced again but didn’t pull away. I said, “What happened at the hospital?”

  “They tried everything, but I think Skeen was dead when he hit the ground. He never moved.”

  I said, “Must have been a heart attack or maybe a stroke, either one odd in a guy so young.”

  “Nobody said. I heard rumors starting already. All of us in the press were on our cell phones. They’re going to try and say it’s drugs.”

  “But that trial cleared him.”

  “Hah!”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Why hah?”

  He placed a fingertip in the center of my chest. I watched as he let it take a slow journey across my abs. “I don’t know you quite that well yet.” He put his hand on my arm.

  I said, “I’m nearly done.”

  “I know.” He leaned closer.

  His hand grazed my leg and moved up toward my crotch. Czobel was certainly a hot man, and perhaps he had information I could use.

  I bent my head down. His lips met mine. The kiss was as warm as a surfer, after a day in the sun. One of his hands reached the front of my shorts, the other went around the back of my head. Our tongues entwined. I began to pull him closer. He yelped. He’d accidentally put weight on his ankle.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  I got him onto the bed, took the towel with the ice and draped it around his ankle. I nestled ice and ankle among pillows so they’d stay put.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  I lay on my side, propped myself on my left elbow, traced my fingertips over his perfect pecs, and asked, “So Skeen was using drugs?”

  His voice sounded soft, lazy, and wary. “Of course. The idiot’s lawyers screwed up the original prosecution and then he barely won the libel case.”

  “And yet he concealed it.”

  “Lance Armstrong isn’t the only one who can figure out how to beat the system for years. The news I’ve got is that investigators from baseball are due here in town.”

  “Why?”

  “That isn’t clear. Knecht is hated and has problems. Skeen was here and not clean. Baseball purists think he’s been part of tarnishing the game. Apologists say he hasn’t been banned, and he’s never tested positive. Remember how some pitchers tried to bean him when all this first started to come out.”

  As he spoke, his left hand roved from my right ear and down to the cleft in my chin.

  Czobel said, “I do know there is a culture of drugs around here. Like most small towns, it’s got its meth industry. I’ve been trying to follow leads on that and not getting far. I was told to see Old Charlie Hopper. Hopper says he’s done nothing wrong and has high-powered lawyers ready to help him. There’s an awful lot of talk, but not a lot of convincing evidence.”

  “Who’s Old Charlie Hopper and why were you told to see him?”

  “He’s the local eccentric and maker of a vast array of elixirs and potions.”

  “Legal or illegal?” I asked.

  “I don’t know yet.” He nestled his head farther into my shoulder then said, “Skeen’s star has faded. Still, for some he’s a rich guy they want to be around, but they don’t like him.”

  “Are the other guys on the team under suspicion for drug use?”

  “I’ve got nothing on that so far. I suspect a whole lot of people on the team and in town for that matter are using Old Charlie Hopper’s drugs. I sent a sample to a lab. I’m waiting for the results on what’s in them.” His hands did a gentle dance over my abs. It was distracting but not quite distracting enough for me to stop him while he continued talking. “There’s all kinds of stuff on the shelves of drugstores in town, even the Pitstop Truckstop. All Hopper’s compounds are in little green bottles with a crowd of smiling woodland creatures on the label on the front.”

  My hand glided through the blond fur on Czobel’s chest. “Have you talked to Murray?” I asked.

  “Murray’s a sweet kid, but he doesn’t have a clue.”

  “Anybody particular Skeen was friendly with in town?”

  He said, “Deborah, the waitress at Millie’s. She only works mornings. Their relationship is supposed to be a secret.”

  “Why?”

  “She told me he likes her, respects her.”

  “Wasn’t Tyler married?”

  “His wife’s not here. She’s with the kids in some mansion in New York.”

  We leaned closer into each other and kissed. I made sure not to dislodge the ice around his ankle. I could ask questions later.

  Murray was wrong about two out of three things about Czobel. He was neither cold nor mean, at least not for the next hour and a half.

  Czobel lay in my arms after his third orgasm. His breathing was soft. As sweat gathered on our flesh in the feeble air-conditioning, we drifted off to sleep.

  TUESDAY 7:30 A.M.

  I awakened far too early. I’d been dreaming of Donny Campbell. I like my guys masculine, and he was all that. He seemed right for relationship material, and he looked like hot sex. Maybe after the case was over.

  I noted the air-conditioning puffing uselessly. Then I remembered Czobel. It took little more than a few seconds’ glance around to ascertain that he was not in the room. Then I heard the shower start. I put on shorts. He exited the bathroom a few minutes later. He gave me a peck on the cheek, threw his clothes on, gave me a big smile, and limped out with a simple, “See you later.”

  Some of my dates work out like that.

  Who was using who? I had no answer and maybe a little more information and maybe a way to get a little more. But why the hell had he left with little more than goodbye?

  I showered and felt more awake.

  I used my cell phone to call Duncan back in Chicago. He asked, “Are we investigating the murder or the threats or both?”

  “Both.”

  I gave him details. I could hear him typing as I talked, the usual anecdotal record. At one point he said, “A blond, surfer stud you rescued at three in the morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s it?”

  My instant of hesitation did me in. Duncan said, “You know what happens to people you have relations with?”

  “I didn’t say I had…”

  He interrupted. “They die.”

  “They do not die. They just never work out.”

  “But this one lef
t and barely said goodbye? Or even thank you? What was that about?”

  I was wondering that myself. “I have no idea.”

  “You want me to keep a corpse count among your conquests?”

  Duncan had a sick sense of humor.

  “No. Has Georgia called from Paris?” I asked.

  Georgia De’Jungle, “That’s Georgia De’Jungle with an E,” she always added, was monitoring charges against an American cyclist in the Tour de France. The American’s wealthy father was paying us to disprove the rumor of his son using drugs to enhance his performance in the race. Georgia was the most accomplished drag queen on the North American continent. Her ability to disguise herself was unknown. That’s how good she was. If she was legendary or unrivaled, that would mean people would know what she was up to. She owned two cars I knew about, a dark gray Hummer H2 and a black 1952 Volkswagen Beetle. She drove other cars in her disguise work, but I never asked where she got them, and she never told.

  I paid her handsomely to take care of some of the most delicate work for the firm. The cyclist’s father came to me because I’d handled international cases before. If Georgia needed help, she would ask for it. At one point she had threatened to seduce all the riders in the tournament. She thought they were hot. I was in no position to dispute her observation and would have been happy to study the problem up close. I didn’t doubt that she could seduce almost anyone she wanted, if she put her mind to it. If a Tour cyclist wanted to show up uninvited at my door, I’d be happy to consider making an exception to my rule on surprise visitors.

  I asked, “Is the cyclist doing drugs or not?”

  “She thinks not, but she needs to be sure. I also got a report from Jerry.” In the past six months Jerry Hakon had infiltrated several terrorist organizations, any one of which, if they found out what he was doing, would hunt him down and kill him. The last one he’d worked, in Bulgaria, had planned to execute him for screwing the male Muslim leader of the group. He’d escaped, but not before most of the organizers of the terrorist cell had blown themselves up with a bomb they were working on.

  Jerry was on assignment in Montana. He and operatives from other organizations had been temporarily sub-contracted out to a consortium of wealthy gay Europeans to infiltrate anti-gay hate groups around the world. Jerry was very good, very hot, and capable of being very lethal. His favorite sport was competitive tree climbing, which I’d actually seen on cable television once. It didn’t do to make fun of Jerry or what he was doing or his favorite pastimes.

  The report Duncan was referring to had come in over the Internet with a Bombay, India, address. I never asked how Jerry made connections around the world. He was young. He was good. He was faithful. He was discreet. He was an employee and out of bounds for a relationship interest. I’d met him in the deepest dungeon of the most dangerous gay leather bar in Australia. At the time he’d been fisting the star of Australia’s World Cup soccer team.

  Duncan read the report out loud. Mostly it consisted of Jerry sneering at the Montana crowd as bitter, pathetic creeps, marching around the woods trying to make themselves feel better.

  I said, “I hope he’s not underestimating them.”

  Duncan said, “The last thing he wrote says ‘tell the boss that I’m not underestimating them’.”

  “If he needs anything, call me immediately.”

  “I don’t ever remember Jerry needing anything. Do you want me up there with you?”

  “For now, no.”

  “Caesar is fine. He likes Andy.”

  “Good.” Besides driving my car back the other day, I guessed Andy must be a fairly new live-in person for Duncan.

  In a pair of black cargo pants and a form-fitting, dark gray T-shirt I wandered to the motel office. The guy with the gut was still at the desk. He was very possibly smoking the very same cigarette. He squinted at me through the haze. A coffee pot steamed on the counter next to a stack of Styrofoam cups. I turned to it.

  He said, “Better coffee down the street at Millie’s.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I ambled down the street. Rush hour in Butterfield didn’t look a lot different than the middle of the night. A few more cars were parked outside Millie’s. At a vending machine, I purchased a local paper.

  I strolled in. The menus were covered in plastic and grease. The booths were dark and gray. The bar area was unlit and uninhabited. Someone had put a television on the counter. I sat on one of the stools. The place looked to be part bar, part restaurant, part coffee shop, and all unkempt.

  Several of the locals, including the waitress and a guy in a cook’s hat, were clustered around the television, tuned to CNN. They had cable, which was more than my motel room did. I’d tried the television when I checked in and got a couple local stations, lots of preachers, and tons of infomercials.

  The reporter on CNN was talking about Tyler Skeen and the great tragedy of his death. There were friends of Skeen from the big club talking about how sad they were and what a great guy he was, mixed with shots of Skeen hitting home runs in the World Series and snabbing line drives at third base.

  The waitress spotted me and wandered over. She was pleasant looking, but in her mid-forties so not the waitress I was looking for. I ordered coffee, listened to the talk, and read the local paper. Marty Murray had gotten a front page by-line above the fold.

  I wanted to spend some time this morning talking to people and gathering information. Duncan had checked the list Knecht had given me the morning before and filled in all necessary data on addresses or phone numbers Knecht didn’t have.

  TUESDAY 8:30 A.M.

  I finished my coffee and went back to the motel to get my car. I had a mid-morning breakfast meeting with Jamie McDaniels. Donny Campbell had sent me a text that it was all set up. We met at Devon’s Diner on the outskirts of Barakat, several farming communities north of Butterfield.

  McDaniels wore bleached white khaki shorts, a dark blue T-shirt, running shoes, no socks. He had tight muscles in a very Randy Johnson sort of way that I forced myself not to examine. I said, “Congratulations. You pitched a great game last night.”

  He replied with a simple, “Thanks.” We ordered breakfast, talked a little baseball, mentioned a few hitters he’d faced.

  Finally, I said, “I need to ask a few questions.”

  McDaniels said, “Donny said I should trust you. He didn’t explain much.” He had a hatchet face and a high, reedy voice, hairy arms, and a worried frown. “You’re going to be playing for the team?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you’re some kind of undercover investigator?”

  I said, “You’ve been getting threats lately.”

  “Yeah. Not the same ones the others have gotten. These are real specific. I’m supposed to throw games. That reporter, Murray, asked me something about it. I don’t know how he found out. I bet he was fishing. I denied knowing anything.”

  Murray had mentioned he was getting his data from reporters from around the league. He didn’t say which ones.

  Our food came, and we ate as we talked. I asked, “You have any notion who might want you to throw games?”

  “No. I’m just a guy. I want to get to the major leagues. I work hard. I was the star of my high school team in Grants, New Mexico. I always dreamed of just getting this far. I want to go as far as I can. Diet, exercise, practice. That’s all I do. Every day. Diet, exercise, practice. That’s all I’ve done since eighth grade.”

  “That must get pretty tough, discouraging.”

  “No, I love it. As long as it gets me to the majors. I listened to all my coaches and managers from when I was ten. Instead of playing video games, I spent my time studying how-to-play-baseball videos. Some of the pitching ones I watched hundreds of times. A few of my coaches actually knew something helpful. They always claim they need to teach me fundamentals. What the hell do they think I’ve been doing since I was ten? Every one of them, including the current idiot, Trader Smith, thinks they know it all and t
hat I’m just a stupid kid. I know how to get what I want. I just need to be good enough, and I’m good enough now.”

  “Why won’t they let you into the majors?” I asked.

  “Fucking seasoning. They all say the same god damn thing. I need more seasoning, like I’m some kind of piece of meat getting basted.”

  “You’ve gotten threats.”

  “They started the first day of the season.”

  “Written or verbal?”

  “Most came on the phone. I didn’t save any of the written ones. First, I figured it was some bullshit crank.”

  “What did they say?”

  “I’d be dead if I didn’t go easy on certain players on certain teams.”

  I said, “Those don’t sound like the threats that Knecht told me about.”

  “They aren’t. I’ve never gotten the ‘you will be hurt’ or ‘get out of town’ threats. I sometimes think Knecht is crying wolf about them. I think he tries to use it to get sympathy from people.”

  “Your teammates have gotten them.”

  “Knecht would be the one who would have access to put the threats in the places they’ve been found.”

  “You think he’s that kind of guy?” I asked.

  “I think he’s greedy and would do anything to advance what he wants. Do I think he’d sabotage his own operation? I think anything is possible with somebody as driven as he is.”

  “What did you do about the threats to yourself?”

  “I didn’t report them to Knecht or Smith. Our manager is just as useless as the owner. I confronted the players they mentioned.”

  “That was gutsy.”

  “No, it wasn’t. I wanted to know what the hell was going on. I wanted to know why I was supposed to sacrifice my career for theirs.”

  “What did they say?” I asked.

  “They all denied any knowledge of it. There was nothing I could do. Nobody admitted getting any of the same kind of threats. After a while I decided it had to be some crank. Even at this level, you get the crazies coming out.”

  “What did the voice on the phone sound like?”

  “Real deep voice, but kind of distorted. Sort of like one from a computer.”