by Tim Dorsey
Serge pursed his lips. “I don’t know. There’s an old Buick with a Vermont plate parked over there in the dirt . . . Let’s take a look around the property . . . Mr. Lee! . . .”
They rounded the corner of the house, where a second Indian mound rose from the other side of the backyard. In the middle of the lawn stood a tall, thin man with a head of wild white hair shooting out from under a cap. The man didn’t notice Serge and Coleman because he was concentrating. He had a baseball in one hand. The other hand gripped the bat on his shoulder. He tossed the ball, and smashed it with the Louisville Slugger, sending the ball straight up high into the blue yonder. Then he dropped the bat and picked up a glove on the ground at his feet. He circled around under the falling ball, and just before it got to him, he quickly swung the glove for a perfect behind-the-back basket catch.
That’s when he finally saw his two visitors. “Can I help you?”
“Hope so,” said Serge. “And that was a nifty trick.”
The man shrugged. “Something I’ve done since I was a kid, when I want to play baseball but there’s nobody to play with . . . So are you friends of Randy?”
“Randy who?”
“White, the writer. This used to be his home. Actually, he still owns it, but now he lives on Sanibel and lets me stay here in the winter.”
Serge snapped his fingers. “That’s how I know this place. I’ve seen photos of White’s house online.”
The man got down on his knees and began pulling weeds from a small garden of Thai basil. “So if you’re not friends of Randy, why are you here?”
“Are you Mr. Lee?”
“Yes.”
“William Francis Lee?”
“You got him.”
“We’re related. Distant cousins. If you need proof, the corkboard is in the car. I’m on an ancestry jag, and you popped up in the results from a DNA service.” He extended a hand downward to shake. “Name’s Storms. Serge Storms.”
“Nice to meet you,” said the man. “Not sure about the relative thing, but I’m fascinated by history and research like that.”
“Don’t even get me started on history. The stories I could tell you . . .” Serge’s words slowly dribbled off. He looked at the man’s Red Sox cap as a growing wave of recognition washed over him. “Wait . . . just . . . a . . . second! . . . The ‘William Francis’ from the ancestry people threw me off . . . You wouldn’t happen to be Bill Lee? Bill Spaceman Lee?”
A grin. “That’s what they’ve been calling me for a while now.”
Serge was actually jumping without realizing. “Coleman, do you have any idea who we’ve just stumbled across?”
Coleman was jumping, too. “I know! I know! I can’t believe I’m meeting him!”
Serge stopped jumping. “Coleman, sometimes you surprise me. You actually know about the Spaceman?”
“Absolutely!” said Coleman.
“I didn’t know you were a baseball fan.”
“What are you talking about?” said Coleman. “He was on the cover of High Times!”
“Coleman, this is the famous Major League Baseball pitcher: all-star game, World Series, you name it.”
“Who cares if he played baseball?” said Coleman. “He was in High Times. That’s bigger.”
“No, it’s not,” said Serge. “He won a mind-numbing fifty-one games over a three-year span and was renowned for his three-dimensional-chess-like ability to outwit opposing batters with a ridiculous assortment of pitches including his trademark Spaceball or Leephus—which is a contraction of Lee and Eephus, the famous old 1940s high-arcing surprise pitch. A sportscaster once remarked, ‘He’s thrown everything up there but the rosin bag!’ In 1979, the Sporting News even named him left-hander of the year.”
Coleman shook his head. “High Times.”
Serge turned. “Bill, help me here.”
“I was in High Times.” A big laugh. “Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn fined me for saying I smoked marijuana. I told him I never said that. He said, then what did you say? I told him I sprinkled it on my pancakes because it made me impervious to automobile exhaust when I jogged through downtown Boston. Still fined me.”
“Mr. Lee . . .” Serge pointed at Coleman rolling a joint. “You realize you’re only encouraging him.”
“I somehow get the feeling he doesn’t need encouraging,” said Lee.
“You are indeed wise.” Serge pointed at the baseball on the ground. “I know we just met, but could I possibly ask you a favor?”
“Sure,” said Bill. “I’d be more than happy to autograph it for you.”
“No, I don’t want you to sign it,” said Serge. “I want you to throw it.”
“You what?”
“I want to play catch.”
They scrounged up a spare glove for Serge and paced off the regulation pitcher’s mound distance of sixty feet, six inches.
After warming up, Serge held out his glove for a real pitch. “Okay, don’t burn me out.”
“I won’t.” Bill demonstrated his grip on the ball. “Two-seam curve, low and away.”
The ball did exactly as described, and Serge didn’t need to catch it as much as just hold the glove, and the pitch buried itself deep in the webbing.
“My turn,” said Serge. “Remember your teammate Luis Tiant? What an insane windup! He’d turn his back completely on the batter with a leg kick toward the outfield, then after a series of gyrations, he’d whip the ball home. Here’s my impression of Luis Tiant!”
Serge spun through a menu of spasms before twirling and releasing the pitch with all his might.
Bill looked high in the sky as the ball sailed over the Indian mound and crashed unseen into trees on the other side. “I’ll get another ball.”
Lee displayed his grip again. “Slider. Watch the laces corkscrew toward you.”
The ball spun on an unexpected axis and lodged tight in Serge’s glove. “All right. I know what I did wrong. Luis Tiant again! . . .”
The ball flew over the Indian mound.
“I’ll get another ball,” said Bill. “Actually I’d better get a few.”
Fifteen minutes later. “I hope you take requests,” said Serge. “I’ll die a happy man if you could throw me the ol’ ‘Leephus’ pitch.”
Bill grinned. “Been a while, but okay, here it comes.”
The windup looked normal, but the ball was released in a high, slow arc that would cross the strike zone at a steep downward angle, leaving batters cross-eyed and stupid.
Serge snatched it with his glove. “That was outrageous!” He hocked in his throwing hand. “And now here’s my Gaylord Perry illegal spitball . . .”
They watched his throw fly deep into the trees.
“We are now officially out of baseballs,” said Lee, taking off the cap and wiping his forehead. “Want to come on the porch and have a beer?”
“Yes!” Coleman took off running for the screen door.
They sat in the warm sunlight of the rustic wooden screened porch overlooking Pine Island Sound.
“So,” said Serge. “What’s the Spaceman been up to down here? It must be something radical!”
“Living off the grid and in the moment.”
“How do you do that?”
“Gardening.”
“That doesn’t sound radical.”
“But it is,” said Lee. “You saw me weeding the basil, plus I’ve got potatoes, collard greens, avocados, black-eyed peas, mangoes, Key lime. It’s like meditation. Growing your own food somehow plugs you into the spiritual current of life.”
Coleman fired up a fatty and exhaled a big hit. “Far out.”
“Coleman!” snapped Serge. “One of the rules of being a proper houseguest is to not immediately start doing crimes. It might even be the top rule.”
“You do it all the time. And leave blood all over stuff.”
Serge chuckled at the ballplayer. “He’s just jabbering.”
Coleman held another toke and offered the joint to the player.
“I’d be honored. High Times.”
Lee waved it off. “Despite my rep, those were younger days, back in the mist.”
Serge opened a notebook and clicked a pen. “Do you mind? Just a few questions?”
“Fire away.”
“I’m tracing my family tree and got that hit on you I mentioned earlier. Tell me about your family. Or rather our family.”
“Well, it’s a baseball family,” said Lee. “My grandfather played semi-pro in the Pacific Coast League, but the real athletes in my family were the women.”
Serge scribbled furiously. “You don’t say.”
“Remember the movie A League of Their Own with Tom Hanks and Madonna? In real life, that was the team my aunt Annabelle played for, throwing the league’s first-ever perfect game in 1944 and a no-hitter the following year. She had a wicked knuckleball. She’s the one who taught me how to pitch.”
“No shit?”
“My grandmother also played, and at age forty-seven broke her leg sliding into second base,” said Lee. “If you were in my family, you played baseball until you couldn’t.”
“What about heirlooms?” said Serge. “Anything I can touch to get a cosmic vibe about my kin.”
“Hmmm, there is one thing. It’s in my trunk. Don’t know how much help it will be.”
Serge followed him down the driveway. Lee popped the lid and dug around the bottom of the trunk before pulling out an ancient baseball glove. “I take this with me everywhere. My dad gave it to me when I started playing.”
He handed it to Serge, who noticed ink on the various leather fingers. “What’s with all this writing?”
“My dad’s advice to me as a boy.”
Serge looked back down and read the inscriptions: “Be smooth,” “Keep the ball down,” “Don’t alibi,” “Hustle.”
“Definitely getting a vibe.” Serge handed the glove back. “Which reminds me. Any relatives you think might be a serial killer?”
“What?”
“Oh, this is the coolest part!” Serge smiled wide and clapped his hands. “Besides learning all kinds of mind-blowing stuff about my heritage, I’m also on the trail of a deranged psychopath. Didn’t know it when I started, but this third cousin in Tarpon Springs told me she was visited by state agents who got a DNA hit on her and were trying to construct a family tree. What else could it be?”
“A lot of things,” said Lee.
Serge vigorously shook his head. “I know how cops think because, well, I have to. It’s an off-the-grid thing with me, too.”
Lee shrugged. “So where are you from, anyway?”
“Riviera Beach.”
Lee’s eyes popped. “You’ve got to be kidding!”
“Why?”
“I love Riviera Beach!” said Lee. “After the Red Sox traded me to the Expos in 1979, spring training was in West Palm Beach, and I would ride my bike and jog all over the place. Used to take the Blue Heron Bridge out to Singer Island and fish from the jetty by the pump house because all kinds of outrageous fish come through that inlet from the Atlantic. These Vietnamese guys were always there, giving me tips. And I used to eat at this soul food place on Tamarind Avenue with Andre Dawson. But best of all, there was this famous barbecue joint where I’d order before games and pick it up afterward because the lines were sometimes hours long. Not fancy at all, just a little shack on Dixie Highway, but the food! The cornbread! Except for the life of me I can’t remember the name. What was it?”
“You must be talking about Tom’s Place,” said Serge. “Always long waits, and celebrities like Aretha Franklin and Burt Reynolds a common sight.”
Lee snapped his fingers. “That’s right! Tom’s Place.” He whistled. “Heard it closed down decades ago. A shame. But great while it lasted.”
“Then you might need to hold on to your hat,” said Serge.
“Why?”
“Tom’s was such a beloved local institution in the seventies and eighties that people kept talking about the memories long after it boarded up,” said Serge. “The accolades continued, with residents stopping to thank the former owners in public, until it reached such critical mass that they decided to resume the tradition. It just reopened a couple years ago in Boynton Beach.”
“Don’t be messing with me,” said Lee.
“This can mean only one thing.” Serge grinned mischievously. “An off-the-grid road trip.”
The ballplayer hopped to his feet. “Let’s roll!”
“Like right now? So fast?”
“I live in the moment,” said Lee.
The 1970 Cobra pulled out of the driveway and turned south, just as a Crown Vic with blackwall tires passed them going the opposite way.
The other car pulled up the driveway, and two state agents got out. Heather knocked on the wooden screen door and waited. No answer. She double-checked the address against her spreadsheet. Yep, right place. She peeked inside and turned to her partner, Archibald. “I don’t think he’s home.” Then she looked down at his hands. “Why’d you bring a baseball and pen with you?”
“For an autograph.”
“Arch, we’re working,” said Heather. “That’s so far from professional.”
He blushed. “But it’s the Spaceman.”
Chapter 19
West Palm Beach
It began as any other day at the courthouse. A group of attorneys clustered in the hall.
Sparrow shook his head at the opposing counsel. “We strongly believe our client would be better served taking it to the jury.”
“Okay, okay,” said one of the attorneys for an insurance company. “Our final offer not to go to trial: seventeen million.”
Sparrow smiled. “That’s more like it.” They shook hands and parted.
A cell phone rang. Sparrow fished it out of his pocket. “Hello?”
There was no opening politeness. Nathan quickly pulled the phone away from his head as a string of shouted profanities made others in the hall turn around.
“Mr. Grayson, please calm down.”
“I told you I wasn’t finished with you, you fuck-stick,” said the Senate candidate. “You think you can let me be secretly filmed at your house, and there won’t be repercussions?”
“Mr. Grayson, you really need to take it easy.”
“It’s about to start raining shit,” said Grayson. “I know where your daughter works! I have friends!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Sparrow.
“You’ll soon find out!”
Click.
The attorney stared oddly at the phone before returning it to his pocket.
An hour later, another catered lunch in a conference room on the top floor of a gleaming office tower in downtown West Palm. This time, pan-seared pompano.
“Seventeen million,” said Reinhold, shaking his head as he took a bite. “We must have really rattled them.”
“I’ve already set up the press conference,” said Nash. “We’ll need to eat a little faster than usual because I’ve timed it to lead into the evening news—”
A cell phone rang. The trio all began checking the pockets of their jackets hanging over the backs of their chairs, because they all had the same ring tone, the catchy jingle from their TV commercials.
“That’s me,” said Sparrow, looking at the display but not recognizing the number. He put it to his ear. “Hello?”
“Dad, it’s your daughter.”
Sparrow wasn’t expecting that. He didn’t know whether they were estranged or not because he never tried to make contact. “Uh, hi, Boo-Boo, how are you doing?”
“Dad, nobody’s called me that since you and Mom split up.”
“You’ll always be my little girl.”
“Don’t act like everything’s normal,” said the daughter. “After waiting and waiting to hear from you while I was growing up, I finally swore I’d never speak to you again. But this is an emergency.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just had a very strange meet
ing,” said the daughter. “I don’t know what to make of this. It’s my job.”
Sparrow immediately un-reclined. “What about your job?”
“They won’t tell me. Just that I’m on paid leave. And they said not to tell anyone it’s a paid leave. Then my supervisor apologized.”
“Did he tell you anything else?”
“Yeah, that he wasn’t allowed to tell me anything else. But he said if I had any more questions, I might want to call my father . . . Dad, what’s going on?”
“Do you mind if I get back to you? I need to make a few calls and look into this.”
“Whatever.”
The call ended and the partners were staring.
“What was that about?” Reinhold asked with a full mouth.
“Unbelievable!” said Sparrow. “Grayson just won’t let this go.”
“Grayson’s a twit.” Nash forked another bite. “He couldn’t find his own dick without his staff.”
“At least he gets our legislation passed,” said Reinhold.
Sparrow stared at the silent phone he had placed on the conference table. “Guys, would you mind if I had the room? I need to make some calls.”
“No problem,” said Nash.
“Family’s everything.” Reinhold stood and grabbed the jacket off the back of his chair. “Take care of whatever this is with your daughter.”
They left and closed the door, and Sparrow grabbed his phone. Truth is, he wasn’t as concerned about his daughter as much as Grayson’s affront to his own pride. A half hour and several calls later, the attorney wrapped up another fruitless conversation. “Okay, well thank you for your time anyway.”
Sparrow hadn’t expected this, either. Over the years, he’d built up a vast network of friends and contacts, the kind who trade favors. So it was no small surprise that his currency wasn’t accepted this time around. He stared up at the ceiling. He realized he’d never really studied the track lighting before. His eyes returned to table level, and he dialed again.
“Boo-Boo, it’s me.”
“Stop it!”
“Listen, for your own good I can’t really tell you what’s going on.”
“It’s politics, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Sparrow. “They told me it’s only a temporary arrangement. And they promised you’ll keep drawing salary. This will blow over before you know it. Just cash your checks and enjoy the free time. You deserve it.”