Green Monster (16 page)

Sam had been there before, and while he much preferred the gritty quirkiness of Fenway Park, he could understand why the Dodgers drew more than three million people per season, even when the team was having an off-year. Dodger Stadium was a pleasure pavilion in Lotus Land.

Fenway Park had a few celebrity fans, but nothing to compare to the Dodgers. Over the years, actors, singers, and comedians—Doris Day, Milton Berle, Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Linda Ronstadt, Keanu Reeves, David Hasselhoff—had made it their business to be seen and perform at Dodger games.

Sid Mink wasn't your standard celebrity; the TV cameras weren't going to linger on Mink while Vin Scully told some amusing tales about how he'd muscled his way into L.A.'s drugs, gambling, and prostitution trades. Mink didn't go to Dodger games for the attention it might bring. He just happened to like baseball. And he liked people who bet on baseball.

But he didn't particularly care for people he didn't know. When Phil Minervino called underboss Bernie Tosta, and Tosta called Mink to tell him to expect a visit in his field box by a guy named Sam Skarda, Mink was irritated. Why couldn't he simply watch the ballgame in peace? The season would be over soon, the track would be open again—he'd rather talk there. The ballpark was where he went to forget about business. Now he'd have to bring an extra man with him to the game—some dumb chump who didn't know an infield fly from a fielder's choice, and couldn't care less.

The stadium lights were on, the sky was a flaming orange to the west, and the temperature was still in the mid-80s when Sam located Mink's box seats—great seats, just a few rows up from the Dodger dugout on the third base side. Sam had insisted that Heather not be with him when he sat and talked to the mobster; somebody might recognize her, maybe even take a picture of her with Mink. It would be disastrous if a Red Sox official were seen conversing with a known racketeer at a major league ballpark. He promised he'd tell her everything that was said, and Heather reluctantly agreed to stay in her seat, a section above and to the left of Mink's box.

“Sid Mink?” Sam said to the three men seated in the four-seat box.

“Could be,” said the biggest one. He turned his head slightly, but didn't look at Sam.

“Sam Skarda.” Sam offered his hand.

Mink briefly took Sam's hand, as though it were a summons. Sam slid into the vacant seat next to him.

There wasn't much room. Mink was as round as an overstuffed leaf bag, spilling over into the vacant seat where Sam squeezed in, and onto the bodyguard sitting on his opposite side. He wore a blue Dodger cap pulled down low over his eyes, an open-collared short-sleeved silk shirt, polyester slacks, and had a blue satin Dodger jacket the size of a small tent draped over the back of what appeared to be a larger than standard seat. He had curly gray sideburns and bushy eyebrows, and his smooth, Southern California tanned skin seemed stretched too tightly across his chubby face, like a balloon about to burst.

As with Miranda, Sam decided to confront Mink directly. They were out in the open; even the two broad-shouldered, short-haired men sitting to Mink's left would have to think twice about trying to get rough with him—which would definitely be to Sam's advantage, since he'd left his gun in the car.

“I'm not wired,” Sam said. “Pat me down if you want. I'm a private detective. The last thing my client needs is to get the cops involved.”

Mink nodded to the bodyguard seated next to him.

“You heard the man, Joey Icebox.”

Joey Icebox was a round-faced, dull-eyed man who was so thick through the chest and torso that his jacket seemed to be stuffed with insulation. He stood up, squirmed into the narrow space in front of Sam, and ran his hands up and down Sam's legs and torso so unobtrusively that the fans sitting around them might have thought he was just trying to get past Sam and go up the aisle for a beer. The bodyguard finished and sat down between Mink and the other bodyguard, a gawky, slender man with a prominent nose and the kind of Caesar-style haircut George Clooney used to wear, though he looked nothing like George Clooney.

“Are you Babe Ruth?” Sam asked Mink.

Mink now turned to look at Sam directly. At first his expression was one of irritation, but then it turned to mirth.

“Christ, I wish,” he said, laughing loudly and turning to look at the bodyguard on his left. “You hear that, Joey? Leon? This asshole wants to know if I'm Babe Ruth.”

Mink's two companions laughed with him, then Mink returned his gaze to Sam.

“Wrong guy, pal. I'm Willie Mays. Don't I look like Willie Mays?”

“Yeah, Willie Mays,” Joey Icebox said, laughing at his boss' joke. “'Cept, he turned white.”

“Why do you waste my time with stupid shit like that?” Mink said to Sam. “I came here to watch the fuckin' ballgame. Get lost.”

The two bodyguards started to get up to enforce Mink's invitation, but Sam remained seated.

“I think you'll want to hear this,” Sam said. “It's about fixing ballgames.”

Mink put his hand out to stop his boys.

“Make it quick. If I'm not interested by the time the next guy comes to the plate, Joey and Leon will walk you to your car.”

Sam took a look around, partly to make sure no one in the adjoining seats was paying attention to them, but also to assess the reality of Mink's threat. It wouldn't be smart for one of Mink's boys to rough him up in front of 45,000 witnesses.

The Dodgers were batting in the bottom of the third, and the lead-off hitter had just singled to left. The crowd was making noise, while the p.a. system played the “Charge!” bugle call. It was safe to talk, but Sam kept his voice low to make sure he wouldn't be heard by anyone else over the steady buzz of the crowd around them.

“I work for the Red Sox. Somebody calling himself Babe Ruth wants $50,000,000 from Lou Kenwood, or a player will go public that he fixed the Cardinals-Red Sox World Series.”

Mink snorted with disgust.

“That's bullshit.”

“Total fuckin' bullshit,” echoed Joey, who had leaned over to get an earful.

“Why tell me?” Mink said. “I got nothin' to do with crap like that.”

“I think Alberto Miranda is the guy Babe Ruth is talking about. And they say anything that goes on in this town, you know about it.”

“That's right,” Mink said. “I do.”

Mink turned and raised one of his bushy eyebrows at Joey, who seemed to be his second-in-command. Sam couldn't read the gangster well enough to know whether he was telling the truth about not being involved, but Sam knew he definitely had Mink's interest. The second Dodger hitter had popped out, and a new batter was digging in at the plate. Mink made no effort to have Sam removed from his seat.

“Kenwood's thinking of paying,” Sam said.

“Why the fuck would he do that?” Mink said. “Lemme tell ya, I watched those games, and there was no fix. The Cards played like shit, everybody knows that, but it was straight up.”

“How do you know?”

“I see fifty-sixty games a year from this seat. The Dodgers even widened this one for me. I know baseball. If there was something funny goin' on, I'd know.”

“True or not, somebody's shaking down the Red Sox. You know what would happen if a rumor got out about that Series being fixed.”

“If Lucky Louie wants to throw his money away, it's no skin off my ass.”

But Mink's eyelids were twitching as he stared off into center field. Like any baseball fan, it wasn't lost on him that the public needed to believe in the integrity of the sport. And like anyone who made money from gambling, he knew it would be just as bad for his income as it would be for Lou Kenwood's if fans lost that belief. Besides, if it was somebody in L.A. making $50,000,000 on this scam, they'd be strong enough to come after him next.

On the field, the Dodgers had a runner on second with two out, and Alberto Miranda stepping to the plate. The buzz in the ballpark rose as the big right-handed hitter dug in. He looked god-like from this vantage point, a supremely well-proportioned warrior tightly packed into his dazzling home white uniform. The pitcher for the Padres appeared nervous, taking a long time between pitches as he repeatedly glanced over his shoulder to keep the runner close to the bag at second. The pink tint in the western sky was muted now, painting the blues, oranges, and yellows of the three main seating decks in even deeper shades. It was an idyllic place to be discussing the ugliness of cheating and blackmail.

“Baseball's a beautiful game—Skarda, is it?” Mink said. He jabbed his index finger into Sam's upper arm, then pointed to the field. “It takes most of these guys four or five years in the minors just to learn enough to stay up here. If a pitcher figures out how to throw a ninety-four-mile-per-hour split-finger pitch just off the black, he'll make millions. And the hitter who learns to lay off that pitch, get ahead in the count and drive the ball into the gap makes millions, too. The stands are filled with people who believe that what they're watching is something so good, so perfect, and so fuckin' hard to do, that it's worth spending fifty bucks for a good seat to watch these guys do it.

“Only some fuckin' punk would tamper with that,” Mink said. “Nobody with any class would try to pull this shit.”

Mink looked genuinely angry now. Did he suspect someone? A rival gangster? Sam wasn't sure how hard to push for names, but as long as he had Mink's attention, he might as well play off the man's aggravation—and the alleged inferiority complex of the L.A. mob—to see what he could get.

“I heard you were the guy who could help us out,” Sam said.

“Yeah? Who told you that?”

“Cops, reporters, bookies. Lots of people.”

“What do they say about me?”

Mink was too eager. Why should he care what people were saying about him? All that “Mickey Mouse Mafia” stuff must make Mink and his outfit insecure about their own status. It was time for Sam to pour on the bullshit.

“You run a tight ship,” Sam said. “You don't take shit from anybody. Everybody fears you—the cops, the unions, the Hollywood studios…”

“They got that right,” Mink said. “Nobody fucks with me.”

He pulled out a cigar and started chewing on the end, but didn't light it. There were NO SMOKING signs scattered around the ballpark, just like at Fenway. Sam assumed Dodger Stadium had put their signs up first. And Mink, despite being a professional lawbreaker, showed no inclination to flout the stadium's smoking rules.

“I've got three days left to find out who's behind this,” Sam said. “The payment's due on Friday.”

“How's Kenwood supposed to pay off fifty million bucks—offshore bank account?”

“That's right.”

“There are ways to find out who owns those accounts.”

“I know, but Lou still has to keep this quiet, even if he figures out who Babe Ruth is.”

“This kind of thing is no fuckin' good for anyone,” Mink said. “I make plenty of money on suckers who want to bet on ballgames. I don't need this shit.”

He turned to Joey and said something to him in a low voice that Sam couldn't make out. He leaned a little closer, but just then Miranda smashed a curve ball into right-center field, and the runner on second scored standing up when the first baseman cut off the throw to the plate. The crowd roared its appreciation. Dodgers 1, Padres 0.

“Gimme your phone number,” Mink said to Sam over the crowd noise.

Sam recited his number while Joey punched it into his cell phone.

“I'm on this,” Mink said. “When I got something, I'll call you.”

“Clock's ticking,” Sam said.

“Hey,” Mink said, grabbing Sam's jacket. “I told you, I'm on it. Now get outta here.”

Sam returned to the seat where Heather was waiting for him, and told her that Mink was going to help them find Babe Ruth. Heather was not impressed.

“He's probably just blowing you off,” she said. “We're running out of time.”

“Don't worry—Mink's humiliated. His authority has been challenged. He's highly motivated.”

Sam pulled out his cell phone and dialed Russ Daly. He got the answering machine and told the columnist he had one more question to ask. A few minutes later, Sam's phone rang.

“Daly,” the raspy-voiced columnist said. “You're lucky I'm such a lovable, caring guy. After last night, I should get a restraining order against you.”

“That's hilarious,” Sam said. “Hey, I just talked to Sid Mink.”

“You get his autograph?”

“He says he's not involved, but he thinks he might know who is.”

“Is he going to let you in on it?”

“He said he'd call.”

“They always say that. Then you wait around, pass up calls from other mobsters, and end up missing the big dance.”

Daly was right. Sam couldn't wait around hoping that an L.A. drug lord would decide to help him find Babe Ruth. He had to get moving. At least he was sure of one thing: Whoever was trying to kill him, it wasn't Mink. Sam wasn't even sure Mink could pull off a hit if he tried.

He looked over at Heather, who was nibbling from a box of popcorn and brushing stray kernels off her denim mini-skirt. He still wasn't sure he could trust her. She could be playing all sides of this game, with the intent of being the last one standing when the Kenwood fortune changed hands. All the more reason to find Babe Ruth—now.

“Where does Miranda work out?” Sam asked Daly.

“At the stadium, like everybody else.”

“No, I mean off-season—weight-training. He must go to a gym.”

“Oh, that—there's a gym in Glendale that a lot of the local jocks go to, called Roy Laswell's.”

“Any rumors of steroids being distributed there?”

Daly snorted.

“You know a gym that doesn't have steroid rumors?”