A Trace of Revenge

by Lyle Howard

  ***

  In his skybox, Peter Mason found himself trying to maintain his composure and make light of the commotion on the field. He managed to joke that the teenager was probably the only person in the crowd that liked the team’s name. His guests chuckled uneasily.

  Mason casually waved his finger summoning Gerald Banks to join him at the window. “Make this go away,” he whispered. Banks nodded and exited the suite.

  Four luxury suites away, Nicholas Coltello found it all very amusing. Anything that threw a monkey-wrench into the festivities and made Peter Mason look bad was alright with him. He was yelling for the kid to run like he was watching a horse race.

  Anthony Magnetti just sat in the dugout making small talk with the third base coach, totally unaware that he was the catalyst of this entire incident. Once Matt was on the field, every guard that was available took to the grass. It was like watching an old episode of Benny Hill. Twenty guards were chasing after a screaming teenager around the infield and then into the outfield. Even the sound technician got into the act and pulled up Benny Hill’s theme song; “Yakety-Sax” and began blasting it onto the field.

  The players moved out of the way, not wanting to get hurt. The crowd would cheer every time a guard would fall over or trip chasing the teenager. Exhausted, Matt didn’t know how much longer he could keep running. He wasn’t getting any closer to the dugout; in fact, they were chasing him into the outfield.

  Matt could see the players standing at the railing of the Jengu’s dugout; they were all pointing and laughing at him. Tears began to stream down his face as his legs began to buckle. There was no one to help him. He had found the man that had killed his family, but there was nothing he could do about it. With his lungs feeling like they were going to burst and his chest heaving, Matt finally collapsed in center-field. Within seconds, his hands were cuffed behind his back, and he was being carried off. He looked to his right toward the Jengu’s dugout. The killer was wiping off his cleats and heading back into the locker room.

  The crowd was standing and screaming as they hauled Matt away. He looked up into the right-field bleachers, but he couldn’t make out Simone or anyone in her family. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she had left.

  As he was escorted to a waiting patrol car, someone reached in and put Matt’s cap back on his head. He didn’t see who it was and hadn’t even noticed that it had fallen off during the scuffle. The media followed him down the tunnel snapping his picture as he was put into the back seat of the cruiser. He would make the front page of tomorrow’s sports section.

  Matt turned his head and gazed out the rear window of the patrol car as the ballpark grew smaller in the distance. Beyond the group of photographers, a lone figure stood outlined by the sunlight. He thought it might be the same good Samaritan who replaced his hat, but that really wasn’t important. God had given him this power for a reason, he thought. Now Matt knew its purpose. He would not rest until he brought his parents’ murderer to justice.

  36

  It was a rarity whenever Toby Bilston found himself speechless. Sitting next to his son Benjamin, he stared dumbfounded at the video screen in left-center field. The frantic saxophone music was blaring over the stadium’s sound system, and the crowd was enjoying every moment of the chaos playing itself out beyond the clay diamond.

  Benjamin’s body began to noticeably shudder as he tried to make sense out of what he was seeing. In his precise way of looking at the world, he was expecting to see a baseball game, and this wasn’t supposed to be part of the experience. He knew the crowd would stand for the national anthem, he understood that, but this was not right. He had overcome his fear of the sounds produced by fireworks and had primed himself just in case there might be some. His father had tried to reassure him that whatever happened, he would be right there by his side and that always made him feel safe.

  Toby dropped his handful of peanuts and covered his mouth with his hand. This couldn’t be happening. No way was Matthew Walker out on the field running from a troop of security guards. He recognized him immediately when the camera zoomed in on the panicked teen. What the hell was he doing?

  “What is that kid doing out there, dad?” Benjamin asked. “Was this supposed to happen? You didn’t tell me anything about this.”

  Toby put his hand on his son’s shoulder to calm him down, even though it was he who needed the reassuring. “I don’t know, son. Nothing to worry about. Just a kid trying to get attention.”

  Benjamin’s face turned sad. “Everyone is starting to yell at him. Are they mad at him?”

  Toby pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed Lauren King’s number. “No, they’re not mad at him, son. He’s just acting very stupid.” He replied, overemphasizing the last two words of his sentence.

  Toby listened as the phone rang, sticking a finger in his free ear to block out the sound of the crowd. Don’t go to voicemail, dammit!

  Lauren picked up on the fifth ring. “Toby where are you?”

  “Where are you?” He asked.

  “I’m at the stadium. I just got here.”

  Toby was still having a hard time over the crowd noise. “Can you meet me at the entrance to section two-thirty-eight?”

  “You’re at the ballgame?”

  Toby stood up and walked behind his son’s wheelchair and unlocked the brakes. “I’m here with Ben. You need to meet me now.”

  Lauren was standing at the entrance to section three-forty-two one deck above and the last section in right field. “I promised Matthew Walker I would join him and his girlfriend’s family. Let me just tell them I’m here first.”

  “No time,” Toby barked into the phone. “Matt Walker isn’t there.”

  Lauren looked at the phone quizzically. “How do you know they’re not here?”

  “Now, Detective,” and the phone call ended.

  Toby leaned over his son’s shoulder and spoke into his ear. “Lauren is here, Benjamin. Do you want to go and say hello to her?” He asked, playing on the boy’s adolescent crush.

  Benjamin’s face lit up. If it was a choice between seeing Lauren or sitting through all of this sensory overload, the decision was evident as he began to excitedly pat the padded arms of his chair.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Toby said, as he backed his son away from the railing.

  37

  Lauren just had to take one quick look at the field and the crowd before she met Toby. She checked her ticket stub to confirm that she was in the right place and headed up the tunnel and into the bright sunlight. The noise grew louder as Lauren walked up the ramp but the afternoon sun was so intense it nearly blinded her. She accidentally bumped into a man who was heading in the opposite direction with his family. He was protecting his daughter while the girl sobbed hysterically with her face buried in his chest. For an instant, she thought to ask if everything was alright, but they moved past her quickly and vanished into the crowd still bustling about on the third level.

  The game was just getting underway, and Lauren chastised herself for being late and missing the opening festivities. She took another look at her ticket and matched the numbers with the row and seat where she expected to see Matt and his girlfriend’s family. She thought it would be impolite if she didn’t at least introduce herself before excusing herself to meet up with Toby.

  Something wasn’t right. Lauren checked the section, row and seat numbers on her stub for a third time, noting the correct section number posted on the railing at the end of the tunnel. She appeared to be in the right place, but something was off. The six seats in the front row were empty. She walked down the steps and stared down the row. “Excuse me,” she asked a young woman who appeared to be wearing all the makeup she owned. “I’m supposed to meet some friends here. Have you seen anyone in those seats?” She pointed.

  The woman flipped her lustrous black hair over her shoulder and placed the
five-dollar beer she was drinking on the floor next to her seat. She was wearing a Chicago Cubs t-shirt and had a Cubs logo painted on her left cheek just below her eye. “You mean the crazy family?”

  “Excuse me?” Lauren asked, confused.

  The woman shrugged her head toward the tunnel. “The rest of them just left the normal way.”

  Lauren assumed the half empty glass on the ground couldn’t have been the woman’s first or even eighth beer. “I don’t understand. What do you mean the normal way?”

  “The deaf people,” she said, mimicking inappropriately with her fingers. “They just left.”

  The girl’s boyfriend stood up much to the outrage of the fans whose view was suddenly blocked. He had a yellow “P” painted on his cheek representing the Pittsburgh Pirates. Lauren wondered how they would ever make it as a couple. “Come on, lady! The game’s about to start. You just missed them. If you hurry, you can probably still catch them outside.”

  “Down in front!” Someone hollered from the bleachers above them.

  Lauren looked out at the field and back at the empty seats. The last thing she wanted was to cause a commotion. “Thank you,” she said, appreciatively.

  In less than five minutes Lauren had met up with Toby and his son. She bent over and gave Benjamin a gentle peck on his cheek. The teen smiled and blushed. “I didn’t know you were coming to the game,” she said.

  “I thought Benjamin might enjoy it,” Toby replied, as he ran his hand through his son’s hair. “And then all hell broke loose.”

  “What happened?”

  “Matt Walker is what happened.”

  Lauren was more baffled than ever. “I was just up at their seats, and they weren’t there. Someone told me that they had all left.”

  Toby began to roll his son toward the elevator. “You’re not going to believe it.”

  “Tell me,” Lauren begged, as she flanked Benjamin.

  “I’m sitting with Ben and watching the team’s take fielding practice before the game and the next thing I know, a guy is sliding down the right-field foul pole and running out onto the diamond. The crowd is going crazy, and they’re showing him on the big screen trying to outrun the security team. “

  “You’re kidding me. What does it have to do with Matt Walker though?”

  Toby stopped pushing momentarily. “Really? How did you ever earn a gold shield?”

  Lauren grimaced. “You’ve lost me.”

  Toby sarcastically spoke slower. “It was Matt Walker!”

  “ Who was?”

  Toby suddenly felt like Lou Costello. “The guy on the field! Matt Walker was the one on the field running from security.”

  Lauren shook her head. “No. It couldn’t be. You must have been mistaken. Why would Matt Walker run out onto the field?”

  “Well, I doubt he was doing it to raise deaf awareness.”

  Benjamin giggled. “That’s funny, dad.”

  “That might explain why his girlfriend and her family left the ballpark,” Lauren added.

  It was between innings as they continued on toward the elevator. The mezzanine was filling up with fans who were taking bathroom breaks and loading up on refreshments. Toby weaved his son slowly through the crowd. “Normally, I wouldn’t have thought twice about this, but after what I witnessed yesterday in his living room, you’ve got to figure something must have set him off.”

  They reached the elevator and waited. “A unit probably took Matt to our station. East Bay Street is the closest precinct to the ballpark,” Toby said. “I want you to head over there and make sure they don’t enter him into the system. I have to take Benjamin home, and then I’ll meet you there.”

  Lauren took hold of the handles of the wheelchair. “Let me drive Benjamin home. You understand sign language and can pull more strings than I can. I’ll catch up with you at the station as soon as possible.”

  The door to the elevator opened, and Lauren pushed Benjamin inside as Toby reached over and pressed the button for the ground floor. “This is gonna take an awful lot of bullshitting,” he said, taking in a heavy sigh.

  “And you’re just the guy to do it,” Lauren smirked, as the door slid closed.

  38

  Captain Roy Sowell waited impatiently in the backseat of Peter Mason’s limousine parked across the street from the ballpark. He had just finished reading the file they’d left for him when he looked out through the darkly tinted side window as a teenage boy in a pea green army jacket was hustled into a waiting police car. Pulling out his Swiss Army knife, Sowell cleaned his nails as the cruiser pulled away. Wondering what the boy had done to get arrested drew his attention away from what he was doing, and the knife dug deeply under his index finger’s nail. He sucked at the bitter red liquid until the bleeding stopped.

  Although the windows were rolled up and the air conditioner was running, Sowell could hear the thunder of ovation coming from inside the ballpark. Leaning forward, he turned on the television and poured himself two fingers of single malt from the fully equipped bar. It burned Sowell’s throat. The cancer was spreading, and now he could feel it in his esophagus. When it reached his voice box and vocal cords, he would no longer have the ability to speak. He had considered learning sign language, but why? He had nothing of importance left to say.

  A vendor who had been selling buttons next to the car walked over and pressed his face up against the window to see inside. The man was unshaven and grubby in his appearance. Sowell reached over and rolled down the window immediately smelling alcohol on the man’s breath. “Can I help you?”

  The old man jumped back, his Jengu’s cap almost falling off his head. “Jeez Louise, you scared me, mister. I couldn’t tell if anyone was inside.” He said poking his face inside the limo. “My god, you’ve got all the comforts of home in there.”

  Sowell began to feel a little self-conscious. “Is there something you wanted?”

  “Sorry friend, I just wanted to see inside, that’s all.”

  “Well, now you’ve seen it. So beat it before I call a cop!”

  “Well, up yours, pal!” The vendor stammered as he stumbled away.

  The car gave Sowell the feeling of living in a cocoon as he rolled the window back up. It was a feeling Peter Mason must have felt every day of his life. “No dirt under his nails,” Sowell muttered.

  Pouring another drink, he looked at his watch; the game should be underway already. How much longer did he have to sit here? At first he was curious when Mason reached out to him, but now he was feeling like a second-class citizen. He had been getting ready to leave for Andros island to live out his days in the surfside house he had bought with the blood money Mason had paid him. No matter how peaceful his exile, no matter how blue the sky, or green the ocean, Sowell still spent every waking hour in self-inflicted darkness. The guilt ate away at him faster than his cancer ever could. The disease was his penance and the beach house the irony. Don’t anyone ever tell you that there is no higher power; Sowell knew there was, and it was one sadistic son of a bitch.

  The basketball playoffs were on the television, so he pointed the remote and shut it off. Watching sports bothered him lately; all the athletes were too healthy and filled with vitality. Seeing teams work together reminded him of the comradery of his old crew—now lifeless, bloated corpses serving as fish food at the bottom of the ocean. The thought of them made him reach for his third refill.

  The limo door opened and sunlight and the smell of hot dogs and popcorn flooded into the car. While they could never calm the Captain’s relentless anguish, they did offer a temporary distraction. Gerald Banks climbed in across from Sowell and sat down. He was grinning like he had just found out his best friend’s secret.

  “Why did you bring me here?” Sowell asked. “Our business is finished.”

  Banks unbuttoned his jacket and loosened the knot in his tie. “Things ch
ange.”

  Sowell shook his head. “Not as far as I’m concerned. I did what I had to, and now I’m done.”

  Banks sat back and studied the Captain for a few seconds. He had the leathery skin of someone who either smoked too much or spent too much time in the sun. His hair was full but nearly white. He had the look of someone who was ill but tried not to show it. “We need you to pilot the Hydra. Are you up to it?”

  Sowell looked into his empty glass. “Did you not hear me? I’m retired.”

  Banks drummed his fingers on his knee. “You put a down payment on a place on

  Andros Island. I can have that mortgage paid off before I leave this limo.”

  Sowell’s eyes narrowed. “How do you do that?”

  “Do what? Pay off your house?”

  “No. Play God with someone’s life? How do you do that?”

  Banks shrugged. “I’m not playing God, Captain. I just made you a very generous offer, that’s all.”

  Sowell could feel his teeth clenching. “Because of your boss, I will die a traitor to the country I pledged to serve and protect. I have to live with that. I have to live with the memories of that horrific night when your boss personally killed my crew. And he’s got the balls to ask me for more? I wouldn’t piss on Peter Mason if he were on fire!”

  “Just one last favor,” Banks said, reaching for a glass and the bottle of whiskey. “Then you can live out your life as a rich man, sipping boat drinks and searching for sand dollars.”

  The two men sat across from one another trying to sum the other up. “Why should I?” Sowell asked.

  “Because we need you.”

  “So I have a choice?”

  Banks stared into his glass wishing he had some ice. “Yes, you have a choice. Live out whatever time you have left in the peaceful seclusion of your Caribbean island, or await your execution for treason in Guantanamo Bay. You decide.”