Night Game (20 page)

A couple of days later, I had good reason to feel better, looking across the table at Dommy Avila’s smiling face. We were at Molly’s for a celebration of his release from jail. There were four pitchers of beer laid out down the long table, which was covered with newspapers to catch the debris from six heaping platters of shrimp.

It was June Hoving’s idea that we come here. I went to her house the day after Tracy was arrested to return Lucy’s picture and tell her about it. She had decided to go back to work, and said she wanted to see Dommy and apologize for the way he had been treated. She liked the idea of a party at her restaurant. He was Lucy’s friend, after all.

“Hey, Kate, no food like this in the jail, man,” Dommy said, his accent thick. “I was hungry in there.”

“Eat, Dommy, eat,” said Esther Hirsch, then laughed. “God, I sound like my mother.”

It was a large and raucous crowd. Cal was there with Beth, the Gardiners, Alex Jones, Tiny Washington, Eddie and Clarice Carter, Joe Kelsey, Atsuo Watanabe, Flakey Patterson, Bony Costello, and Jeff Glebe. Others had promised to join us later.

I had spent Friday writing two stories, one on Tracy and Stinger’s arrest and the other, longer, feature on Lucy. I hoped that I had done justice to her.

“You’re pretty quiet,” Jeff said.

“I’m just thinking that I wished I had known Lucy better,” I said. “I might have been able to prevent all of this.”

He cocked his eyebrow.

“You’re taking yourself too seriously again,” he said.

“Well, maybe if I had taken her more seriously, she wouldn’t have needed to find her approval through sex.”

“You really believe that?”

I shook my head.

“No, I don’t. But I wish I hadn’t just brushed her off all the time. I never looked beyond her clothes and hair and big tits. She was interesting, Jeff, really.”

“If you say so. But you’re being a drag on the party. Lighten up.”

He poured me a glass of beer.

“And that’s an order.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” I said. We clinked glasses. Avila reached across with his glass and joined us.

“To friends,” he said. “To my very good friend Kate.”

“And to you, Dommy. Welcome back.”

Glasses were raised all around the table.

“Hey, Kate,” Gloves yelled. “Did Dommy tell you what happened when he got to the ballpark after he got out of jail?”

“No,” I said. Dommy shook his head and laughed.

“Skipper made him stay an hour late running laps.”

“He say I am behind in my training,” Dommy said. “Yesterday, two hours he hit fungoes to me. But he no extra BP.”

Everybody laughed.

“Batting practice is fun, Dommy,” Joe Kelsey said. “You don’t get to have fun yet.”

“Man, he is one tough skipper,” Dommy said. “I think jail easier except the food, it was
bad
.”

He attacked the shrimps again. I turned to Cal, who was sitting on my left. Beth, on his other side, was laughing with Tiny Washington.

“Did you go see Hank on Friday?” I asked Cal.

“Yeah. He was in pretty rough shape. But he asked me to help him get into the dry-out clinic. He’s going to try to give up the booze.”

“And drugs?”

“Come on, he’ll never give up his weed. But that’s not what’s killing him.”

“So, did you have any luck with the clinic?”

“He’s there as we speak.”

“How can he afford it?”

“He can’t,” Cal said.

“So?”

“So, I can,” he shrugged. “I told him I’d give him a job when he gets out and he can pay me back.”

“Do you think he’ll stick it out?”

“I’m not counting on it,” he said. “But he’s never even got this far before. Who knows?”

“That’s very generous of you.”

“And of Beth,” he reminded me, taking her hand. She looked at him, surprised.

“I’m telling Kate about Hank,” he explained to her.

“There but for the grace of God,” she said.

“Yeah, there’s some of that,” he admitted. “I probably should have helped him out a lot sooner.”

“There’s lots of things we all should do that we don’t,” I said. “We can’t beat ourselves up over them.”

“No, I guess not. I don’t know how much my motivation for all of this has to do with what I now know about Lucy, and how much is just because I feel like Hank deserves a break, another chance.”

“It’s probably a bit of both,” I said. “But there’s nothing wrong with that. The important thing is that you are helping him.”

“I’m never going to tell him, you know.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

“It’s going to be tough to keep it to myself,” he said.

“The toughest,” I agreed. “Especially as you spend more time with him. Anyway, I hope he makes it. Maybe that talent hasn’t been completely lost after all.”

“Yeah, here’s hoping,” he said.

I excused myself and found the ladies’ room. Esther came in a few minutes later. We talked from adjoining cubicles.

“What’s new?” I asked.

“I had a call from a prospective client.” she said. “Tracy Swain.”

“You’re kidding! Are you defending her?”

“No, it would be a conflict of interest, much as I’d like to. I referred her to another good lawyer instead.”

“But she’s guilty.”

“Guilty of something, sure, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve a good defence. I don’t want to see her go down for first-degree murder. There’s capital punishment in Florida, remember.”

I flushed the toilet and went to the sink.

“I don’t know how you do your job,” I said. “Doesn’t it depress you?”

“Sometimes, Doesn’t yours?” She flushed. I waited.

“Yeah,” I said, after, “but the worst thing that can happen to the guys I deal with is they get sent to the minors.”

“There is that,” she said, coming out of her cubicle.

“What about Stinger? They let him out on bail.”

“It’s not as serious a charge.”

“He’s the real villain here,” I said.

“You could say that,” she agreed. “So what’s he doing?”

“The team has given him time off to deal with things. He has the kids, for one thing. Besides, who wants him around?”

“Do you think he’ll play again if he gets acquitted?”

“Is that likely to happen?”

“From what I hear, they haven’t got any hard evidence on him,” Esther said. “He could have been unaware of what she had done. Innocent until proven guilty, you know.”

“I can’t imagine him playing with the Titans again. But stranger things have happened in baseball.”

“But they’ll keep paying him, won’t they?”

“What, are you worried about your friend’s fees?”

“No,” she laughed. “I was just thinking how ironic it is. Here’s the one true bad guy in the whole thing, and he sits at home and gets paid, what, a thousand a day?”

“Stinger? No. He’s a million-a-year guy. I figured it out once. I think the figure turned out to be something like two thousand, seven hundred, and forty dollars a day, give or take some small change. That’s every day, Sundays and holidays included. Slightly less in leap year.”

“Beats working for a living,” she said.

“Well, he can certainly afford a lawyer.”

“Lucky for him,” she said, holding the door for me.

Esther went back to the table. I stopped at the bar.

“Hi, June, how are you doing?”

She smiled, looking surprisingly perked up.

“It’s good to be back at work,” she said. “And it’s good to see you guys having fun.”

“It’s not bothering you?”

“Dommy’s a nice kid. I always thought so. I’m glad it wasn’t him.”

“It’s a slow night. Do you want to come join us?”

She shook her head and brushed the hair off her forehead.

“I don’t think I’m quite ready for that,” she said. “But thanks. And I’d like to see you again before you go back.”

“I would, too. I’ll call.”

“Thanks,” she said. “And thanks for what you did. I appreciate it.”

I went back to the table and sat down. They were talking baseball. What else is new?

It was a good night. I left, a bit foggy, before the rest. I was heading towards my car when I heard a honk. It was Troy Barwell in his cruiser.

“I wouldn’t get in that car if I were you,” he said. “You’re in no condition. I’d have to arrest you.”

“You’re right, of course. But did you ever try to find a taxi around here?”

“I’m it,” he said. “Get in.”

I did.

“Good party?” he asked.

“The best,” I said.

We drove the few minutes to my hotel in silence. When I was getting out of the car he stopped me.

“I should apologize,” he said. “And thank you.”

“Oh, okay,” I said. “I didn’t mean to meddle in your business. I just had a story to write.”

I opened the door.

“Good night,” he said.

I paused, with my hand on the door, then closed it and leaned back into the window.

“Hey, we’re all on the same side,” I said. “Right, Detective Sergeant Teensy?”

He peeled away so fast he almost took my hand off. Suddenly, I felt like a million bucks.

Thanks are due to Ken Carson; Sergeant Rick McBride of the Dunedin, Florida, Police Department; Lee Davis Creal; Kate Lazier; Ellen Seligman; Linda Williams; Norma Wilkie; the Gordon Family Manuscript Reading Service; and to Paul Bennett, who saved me from The Grapefruit Dead.

Alison Gordon
is a Canadian journalist and writer. As the first woman on the baseball beat in the Major Leagues, Gordon was a trailblazer in the field of sports journalism, covering the Toronto Blue Jays for the
Toronto Star
for five years. Gordon is also the author of the Kate Henry mystery series, pitting the sleuthing talents of a baseball journalist against dangerous felons. The series includes the titles
The Dead Pull Hitter
,
Safe at Home
,
Night Game
,
Striking Out
, and
Prairie Hardball
.

Night Game © 1992 Alison Gordon

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EPub Edition XX 2014 ISBN: 9781443442466

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

Originally published by McClelland & Stewart Inc. in 1992. First published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. in this ePub edition in 2014.

This is a work of fiction. The events and characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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