by April Smith
Agents.
At first glance the kitchen looks the same. Spotless counters. Refrigerator door covered with zoo animal magnets. Lingering scent of microwaved pasta in an exciting tomato sauce. A built-in wide-screen TV playing as always in an adjoining family room. The two-hundred-gallon fish tank, big as a sofa, empty. And seated at the familiar round table where they have shared nachos and carrot sticks and Brad Parker’s career scrapbook in three volumes, are the young pitcher himself, Pepper and Lang, all staring at Cassidy with hands folded on the bleached oak like penitent third graders.
A can of diet soda is waiting.
Cassidy sits at her place with a smile.
“So, Brad, how’re you feeling? How’s the arm?”
Before he can answer the father interjects, “Warren’s here. You should meet Warren.”
“Great. Who’s Warren?”
“Warren’s in the backyard, honey,” Pepper warns, as if Warren were a large and dangerous dog.
And he may well be because nobody is making a move to actually get Warren, in fact they are huddled together to block Cassidy’s view. She has to lean way over to snake a look through the sliding glass to the yard, barren and fried in the desert heat. A pleated shade is lowered halfway down. All she can see below it are two pacing legs. Bare stocky masculine legs in shorts, no socks, gold metallic loafers. And swinging just below the knees, unmistakably, a Louis Vuitton briefcase.
Cassidy brings a clear-eyed blue stare back to the table.
“Who is Warren?” she repeats evenly.
“A friend of the family.”
Cassidy: “He’s an agent.”
Embarrassed silence.
“Guys, I know I’ve been away, but I thought we were working this out together.”
“We are, dear,” the mom says anxiously, not the type who would ever want to upset another woman. To her face.
“You realize if Brad employs an agent we can’t give him a college scholarship as a signing bonus. That’s league rules.”
“Warren is only an advisor,” Pepper insists.
“Kind of a coach,” adds Brad, obviously rehearsed.
Lang is wearing a sports shirt with leaping swordfish.
“What if I said our friend out there is a neighbor?” he suggests. “A neighbor who has an opinion? Heck, everybody on the block’s got an idea of what we should do.”
“And what does your ‘friend’ say?”
“In today’s world? A hundred fifty thousand dollars.”
Despite the bravado, Lang Parker cannot help sneaking an uneasy look at his wife.
Cassidy says, “We’ve been over the numbers. You know that’s not reality for a fifth rounder. With or without an agent. We agreed on fifty-five.”
“I dunno,” muses the dad, trying for sly. “A kid this talented?”
He puts a thick arm around his son who slides down the chair trying to hide beneath a Lakers cap, lanky legs with no place to go.
“What is that, a new look?” Cassidy asks of a tiny blond thatch under the boy’s chin.
“Yeah,” he mumbles, blushing.
Cassidy throws him an affectionate glance, remembering their many talks on many soggy fields when he so earnestly expressed the desire to become a professional ballplayer. Now he can’t even meet her eyes. On the mound Brad Parker is a tiger, but put him in a room with his parents and he turns into a pile of strained bananas. Well, who doesn’t.
Still, she will fight before she’ll lose him to some wannabe who saw the kid listed in Baseball America and took the first flight out of Orlando, smelling vulnerability like stale milk.
“I want to be honest with you,” Cassidy says at last, resting strong tan forearms on the table. “I like Brad. I liked him two years ago and I like him today—”
“We like you, too,” interrupts Lang Parker. “And we’re sold on the Dodger organization. Brad wants to play ball. College can wait.”
“Then let’s do it.”
Cassidy reaches for the $55,000 contract inside the backpack at the same time Lang goes for the handle on the sliding glass door.
“Warren’s just going to sit in.”
Instead of the contract, Cassidy pulls out a business card and writes down Travis Conners’ name and phone extension.
“Why don’t you have Warren call my supervisor?”
Groans of dismay and Pepper fluttering her hands.
“Please,” she cries, “we didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“It’s not about my feelings,” says Cassidy pleasantly. “It’s about getting the best deal for Brad. I understand.”
“You can talk to Warren,” the dad says, fingering the card nervously, “just as good as the front office. We have no problem with that.”
“I have a problem. Because all of a sudden you’re not talking to me.”
As Cassidy stands and slips on sunglasses her eye is caught by the huge empty tank. It has been there as long as she’s been coming out here—eight feet of glass still wrapped in cardboard, books on raising tropical fish piled up in the bottom. Maybe that is the clue she has missed about this family: oversized ambitions. Unfulfillable dreams. Passing them on to the boy.
“Don’t go,” says Brad, uncertain.
“Tell your agent to take a hike.”
Silence. The guy’s not going anywhere. Not even out of the backyard.
“I could easily talk to Warren,” Cassidy explains gently, “but it’s not the same as talking to you. I care about you. I spent two years watching you develop. You and your family mean something to me. What I love is finding a kid and having my own communication and making the sign. That’s being a scout. Guys like him”—she indicates the pacing legs—“take all the fun out of it.”
She shakes Brad’s hand and wishes him luck and tells him that he’s one terrific kid.
Then she is back on the freeway, heading west.
She gets as far as Corona before she has to pull over and cry. These crying jags have happened a lot in the weeks since Nora’s death and Joe’s disappearance, often several times a day. Anything can trigger them—music, a memory. The crying is helpless, deep and convulsive. She has lost interest in food and wakes up in the morning with an empty stomach and dry heaves. Yet she goes about her business, looking bright to the world. Maybe it is baseball, she has thought. Wasn’t it a commissioner of the sport himself who said, “Baseball always breaks your heart”?
Or maybe it is thinking about the haphazard way it all unfolded that makes her feel sick: Monroe seeing her with the owner of the Gran Caribe at the stadium, his predator instincts aroused. Following the three of them in the Range Rover. Witnessing the accident, hiding out in the folds of the storm. Reporting to his uncle, who must have been pleased. Transport the body. Stage the videotape. And get your ass on a plane for LA.
Cassidy discovers she has stopped the Explorer in the parking lot of a children’s furniture store near the freeway. She rolls the windows all the way down to take in the motionless fat desert air, and unfolds the letter she received from Joe several days before, postmarked Santo Domingo and worked as smooth from rereading as those original ransom notes.
Dear Cassidy,
Yesterday I went like a thief in the night to St. Sophia’s to pray.
Cassidy, you have to go there. It is beautiful. The inside is inlaid with 24 carat gold. Ornate beyond your wildest imagination. You would get a kick out of the chandeliers. And a huge Jesus looking down at you from a dome … I can’t begin to describe it.
For me there is such emotion in those vaulted archways, so many family occasions. Last night I sat there alone and saw my father as he was years ago, strutting ahead of my mother like always. It was Holy Thursday, very solemn, but you knew what he had on his mind. He wanted to look good. Be seen. Be proud. He’s short in stature but cocky, king of the world when he wears his blue blazer, when he’s being Greek, with that dignified white mustache and balding head held high. Every day of Holy Week, we had to go. I had to h
ave perfect behavior because all the big shots were there, the doctors and bankers and every Greek actor in Hollywood.
I remember one Holy Week it rained like hell and everybody put their umbrellas outside, hundreds of wet umbrellas, different shapes and sizes and colors, leaning against the church door. All I could think about during the endless chanting and the incense and the standing up and sitting down was that our umbrella would get stolen.
Forgive this rambling. I’m on a plane but it’s night and I can’t see anything out the window. There is so much I want to say but this is coming out like a dog howling at the moon. When this is over I will be back, and will say those things, and live them, and make you believe how much I love you. I’m lonely in my soul. I want you with me now. I miss your wryness and your laughter. We should be sitting here together, on our way to someplace wonderful, drinking champagne.
Cassidy, I know you think I’m a coward. I’m a coward because I ran away from the accident. I’m a coward because I did not appear at my daughter’s funeral. I’m a coward because I’m not with you now, begging your forgiveness. Everything I did, I did for a reason. The reason was you. Please let me explain.
Alberto and I traded driving all night, depending on who was least drunk or who wanted to show off. When we hit her, it was me. I saw her for a split second in the headlights, walking by the side of the road carrying a bag of oranges! By the time I knew they were oranges, it was too late. I got out. I made Alberto stay in the car. You were out of it, thank God. I took the flashlight and walked all the way back to where she was. Her skull was fractured open. She wasn’t breathing. Cassidy, I saw her brain. What would you do? We were in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a hurricane. She was dead. I had to make a decision. The decision I made was to take appropriate action to protect everyone in the car.
Yes, it was selfish, too. I had a life and a history and a community, a family, business partners, lawyers, the biggest project in the history of Los Angeles … But nothing would have given that young woman her life back. Nothing good would have come of going to the Dominican police. Nothing good, for any of us.
The last six months have been a form of mental torture. The dead corpse stayed in my head. Bad dreams and sleeping pills and walking around in a daze just trying to keep it together. Then the nightmare really began, when the blackmail notes started coming. Nora never knew, but for a while I had a bodyguard watch her and the baby. What can I tell you? I was afraid. I thought I could fix it with money.
I wanted this to go away and leave us alone. I fell in love with you. My love is ruthless, it always has been. I wanted you and screw everything and everyone else. I’ve had the image of you and me walking a tightrope. The problem is, we’re walking toward each other. Then what? Somebody falls.
Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me.
Nora. Nora. Nora. Nora. Nora. Nora.
I sat in St. Sophia’s and I thought I would explode—with what, I can’t even name. When you lose a child your world ends. I couldn’t be there to bury her because they would have arrested me, and there is something more I have to do, so I will eat this suffering. And eat it. Swallow it down. I had no idea what she was pulling in the Gran Caribe. How could we have seen each other every day and I never knew? She shows up at the motel and assassinates Monroe and then she tells me. I wasn’t all that surprised. It wasn’t all that different from the kind of outrageous, self-destructive crap she used to get into. But when she said that she’d been dealing with this total piece of shit, the General, I thought, Jesus, she really hates me.
I’m in the fires of hell, Cassidy. I don’t know how to pray. I sit on the board and give money, but last night I prayed with all my being, Let the fire bring purity, please let my suffering be acceptable to God, may He use my suffering to free Nora’s soul like a dove.
I tried to cover up the accident, for you. For us. The reason I’m going down there now is for you. I tried to confess all this to Harvey, my best friend Harvey, and what does he say? “Don’t tell me! I don’t want to know!” So I’m hoping you will listen and forgive me. When I land in Santo Domingo I am going to turn myself over to the American Embassy. I’m going to tell them I caused the death of a Dominican citizen and take full responsibility. Then I’m going to give them the disks I copied off Nora’s computer that document the General’s criminal activities running drug money through the Gran Caribe. I’m going to testify against the bastard who made my daughter turn away from me, made her lie to me. I’m going mano a mano with the son of a bitch in open court. This is what I learned from my father. He suffered in order to provide for us. He was treated, basically, like the slime in the pipes that he fixed. But he taught me, Dare to be proud. Approach life with confidence and you will get what you want. Never compromise. Never walk away. Fight the bullies. Break their balls.
I’ve just been thinking of us on Santorini. They have such beautiful sunsets there. I saw you in a taverna on the water—your hair, your smile—and for a minute I had peace.
In that magnificent church I questioned, and God answered. Now I know that He has given me the power to bring one man to justice. I pray that this will save my soul.
I love you.
Forgive me.
Joe
34
Who can say which God is in charge of these things?
Is it Ti-Jean Dantò, the Haitian trickster spirit?
Or Kalfou, vodou divinity of the crossroads?
Long ago at the beginning of eternity, somebody decided which way the earth would turn, which would determine, for the rest of time, the way a left-handed pitcher’s curveball breaks on a right-handed batter.
Several days later, on the drive to the stadium, Cassidy finds herself meditating on these events: how it was ordained that Dodger left-hander Mark Guthrie would come up against the Padres’ Tony Gwynn; that Guthrie would throw a curve which seemed to drop uncannily to meet the bat; that Gywnn would rip a long hard drive to deep left center where Curtis and Hollandsworth, charging for it in the outfield, would crash.
Resulting in torn ligaments and a fractured right thumb.
Which, several weeks later, would cause the phone to ring in San Antonio Municipal Stadium, informing the general manager of the Missions that Alberto Cruz was being recalled to Los Angeles.
The earth moves to the right, Pedro says, quoting Julio Bibison. When a lefty throws, it is against the rotation of the world.
That must be it. That must be why, maintaining a one-game margin in first place and hurtling toward the end of the season, the Dodgers called Alberto Cruz up to the forty-man roster.
It could be his speed.
Or his bat.
Or Kalfou, the Legba of Petwo, lifting her dress to show lace panties, reminding us of the mystery between visible and invisible worlds.
1:10 p.m.
Guys are dribbling into the players’ lounge to get ready to work out for tonight’s game against San Francisco. Cassidy is there to catch Alberto before his first major league appearance. It is early enough so the door to the locker room is still open. Doc Ramsey comes through, pulling a laundry basket on wheels.
“Throw-it-in-the-basket-and-we-will-launder-it-and-put-it-back-in-your-locker!” He swoops a T-shirt off the floor. “What’ve they got, soup for brains?”
There are bubbling punch and lemonade machines, deep aluminum trays filled with cold cuts and salads, a pot of chili going and one of seafood stew, and on an upper shelf above the spread, twenty round jars in a row stuffed with every beloved brand-name cookie and candy you can remember from childhood, all in the service of big leaguers’ little-boy gimmes.
As Cassidy is stretching for the Oreos, teasing them off the shelf, a big arm reaches over her head and a giant hand palms the jar, taking it down and handing it to her.
“Looks like you need rescuing,” Travis says.
“You got my message about Brad Parker?”
“What’s up?”
>
“I didn’t sign him.”
“You promised Raymond signability was excellent.”
“It was. Until they went with an agent.”
“Who’s the agent?”
“Warren something. I don’t know. Didn’t ask.”
“You didn’t even ask?”
“I was no longer being effective. I told the family to call you.”
Travis flicks an Oreo into his mouth. Whole. Not pleased.
“The family got seduced,” Cassidy goes on. “Now they want a hundred fifty thousand dollars.”
“Horseshit.”
“That’s what I say.”
She can see Travis pull up the Brad Parker file in his mind. It is a talent they share: to see hundreds of kids in a season and be able to recall the entire scouting report on each one with the speed of a Pentium chip.
“Parker’s got a real good arm and a real good idea how to pitch,” Travis says. “But no way will Raymond overpay.”
“Doesn’t need to.”
“That’s right.”
“I feel bad for the kid,” she says.
“I feel bad for you.”
Travis gives a soulful look and immediately Cassidy becomes suspicious.
“Why me?”
“You spend two years romancing this kid, then he leaves the dance.”
“The dad was romancing us, coming along with this line of horseshit.”
“I just don’t get why this keeps happening. Losing a guy on the sign.”
Travis shrugs and freezes in an attitude of wonder, eyes popped, fingers splayed.
Cassidy says, “I haven’t lost the one that counts,” as Alberto Cruz, wearing blue warm-ups, equipment bag slung over a shoulder, enters the lounge, his long lolling stride having taken on a newly confident hip-hop attitude.
Travis eyes him darkly.
“They sure forgave a lot with that kid.”
“They’ll forgive a lot for talent.”
Cassidy steps close and taps a silver button on the cowboy shirt.