Strike Three You're Dead (15 page)

“I’m not interested in telling Felix, or anybody else, for that matter. You can hump whoever you want, Frances. I just want to know who killed Rudy.”

“I wish I knew, too,” she said and paused a long time. Then she asked, “How do you think I felt when he was murdered? There was no one to talk about it with. So now there’s you, but you don’t want to hear about it.”

“Not the lurid details, anyway. I want to hear about who could’ve killed him.”

“I’m not very happy,” she suddenly announced, squeezing the bridge of her nose.

“Save that for your shrink, too. You can’t spend time in bed with a guy like Rudy and not have some idea about what’s going on in his life. About what danger he’s in.”

“Yes, you can. Just as you could sleep in the same hotel room with Rudy for four months on the road and not know what you’d like to know. Or do you know?”

“If I did, Frances, I wouldn’t have come to your room in the first place. And I still think you’re holding out on me.”

“If I find anything out,” she said, touching Harvey’s nose with her finger, “you’ll be the first to know.”

“You’re still a liar,” Harvey said.

W
HEN HE REACHED HIS
room, the phone was ringing. It was his brother Norm, who knew the name and telephone number of every hotel where the team stayed. “Where you been?” he said.

“Out.”

“I hope she was Jewish,” Norm said.

“That’s great, Norm. What’s up?”

“Speaking of great, Harv, you guys sure looked sharp out there tonight. I’m glad you all saved your best game for national TV.”

“Well, look, we’re not exactly—”

“I didn’t know whether I was watching a game or a game show. You know, like
What’s My Line?
The panel would’ve had a hard time guessing you guys are baseball players.”

“Good, Norm—”

“I mean, I thought they were going to call it on account of ineptitude.”

“Norm, why don’t you try standing in there against Andersen when his curve’s working?”

“I tell you, I wouldn’t mind batting against Bobby Wagner. Jesus, what’s wrong with the guy? It’s hard to believe he almost won the Cy Young twice. He looks like he ought to win the Cy
Old
award.”

“Let me know when the routine’s over, Norm.”

“Take it easy, Harv. It’s just the coke kicking in.”

“You? Coke? My own flesh and blood?”

“C’mon. You guys know all about coke.”

“But English professors?”

“Sure. Harv, I got another statistic for you.”

“The league ought to hire you, Norm. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t get paid for all the time you waste. What is it?”

“Did you know that in night games this season you’ve hit three-forty-three, but you’ve only hit two-thirty-nine in day games? You’d win the batting title if you only played at night.”

“I’ll see if I can get the commissioner to reschedule the rest of our games.”

“All right, I won’t keep you. Let’s get together when you guys play Chicago.”

“When’s that?”

“C’mon, Harv, it’s
your
schedule. Night games on the twenty-fifth and twenty-seventh and a twi-night double-header on Wednesday the twenty-sixth. But watch out: the White Sox haven’t dropped both ends of a doubleheader all season. Now, if they only played twin bills, they’d be in first place in the Western Division. I’ll buy you dinner at Berghoff’s.”

“You’re on. How are Linda and the kid?”

“Fine. Linda sends her love and wants to know when you’re going to get married. Nicky’s favorite Jewel is Cleavon Battle. He’s got six of his cards. I tried to get him to collect yours, but the kid won’t listen to reason.”

When he hung up, Harvey studied Boston’s dark skyline out the window, then ordered up some shrimp cocktail from room service and called Mickey.

“I hate to admit it,” she said to him, “but I miss you.”

“That’s the best thing anyone’s said to me in two days.”

“I should hope so. What’s the worst?”

“At the moment, it’s a four-way tie between Ronnie Mateo, Linderman, Bobby Wagner, and Frances Shalhoub. They’ve all told me with varying degrees of menace to stop sticking my head in the Rudy business. Somebody put a dead rat in my locker yesterday. Having great time. Wish you were here.”

“You might’ve been a tad more circumspect with Lassiter.”

“Okay, okay, I learned my lesson. Anyway, Mick, I know something new. I think I know who Rudy was in love with, but I don’t know what it means. Ready?”

“Set.”

“Frances Shalhoub.”

Harvey listened to Mickey’s breathing for five seconds. “How do you know?” she said.

“You know the nightgown in Rudy’s place? The label said it came from a place called The Bare Essentials in White Plains, New York. Tonight I discovered that Frances has a nightgown from said boutique.” Harvey had failed to foresee the implications of that remark, and stopped.

“I’m only a little more interested in this information than I am in how you came by it,” Mickey said.

“Right,” Harvey said. “Well, it’s like this,” he began and finished at the point where Frances emerged from the bedroom in her lingerie.

“I see. And you got close enough to read the label?” Mickey said. “Or did you simply tell Frances that you’re a connoisseur of nightgown labels and would she mind if you had a little peek?”

“Let’s just say that I was the victim of a vicious assault that momentarily left me in a position to read it. I ran screaming from her chamber almost immediately thereafter.”

“I see,” she said. “Well, she does have a good body for a woman her age. But, of course, you didn’t notice her body.”

“How could I? The nightgown was a floor-length flannel job with a hood. Now look, it took me a while to get it out of her, but she finally admitted to having had a short fling with Rudy. She said she didn’t want to say so because of Felix, but I don’t know whether to believe her. She said she didn’t know anything about Rudy—that is, about what kind of trouble he was in. Maybe she’s hiding something, maybe she’s protecting somebody; but on the other hand, her behavior was perfectly logical for a manager’s wife who was cheating with a relief pitcher. In the same way, if Frances is the one Rudy was in love with—if theirs was the relationship he said was doomed—then maybe all he meant by that was that Frances was already married. To his boss, no less. Then again, Rudy wasn’t the sort of guy to let a detail like a husband get in the way of an affair. Unless he really loved her, of course.”

“But Frances is in a different class than Rudy, in every sense.”

“She knew that, but I doubt if Rudy did. He wasn’t exactly into class consciousness. Anyway, maybe she did love him. Rudy had his charms, which even you’ll admit. After all those years with Felix, Rudy might’ve been just the stud an aging beauty like Frances was looking for. Or there might’ve been something else going on. But if so, Frances isn’t saying, and if she isn’t saying, maybe it does have to do with Rudy’s death. Am I going in circles or what?”

“Rhomboids,” Mickey said.

“Okay, we’ve got Frances plus Ronnie Mateo plus three typewriters plus Cleavon’s bat plus—plus, wait, the shrimp cocktail.”

“What’s that have to do with it?”

“Hold on a sec. My shrimp cocktail’s at the door.” Harvey got up, signed for the shrimp, and tipped the waiter three singles. “Can you believe this?” he said when he picked up the phone. “Eight bucks for four Gulf shrimp. And they’re mealy.”

“Do me a favor, Bliss. Don’t get wrapped up in this thing.”

Harvey finished chewing. “First you tell me I don’t care enough. Now I’m not supposed to get involved. It’s one thing for Ronnie Mateo to twist my arm, but it’s something else for you to—Mick, something very weird was going on in Rudy’s life.”

“I’m not telling you to forget it, but you could get hurt.”

“We’re talking about Rudy, Mick. Two weekends ago, the three of us were eating johnnycakes in Newport.”

“I know. But I don’t want you to get into trouble. Remember, you’re not a free agent anymore.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I own part of your contract now, Bliss.”

“Oh, yeah?” He ate the second shrimp and fell back on the bed. “As long as I get to renegotiate it after the season.”

“And what does that mean?” she said.

“It means we could always make the terms more binding.”

“Now you hold on a second, Blissberg. You know I’m just a rookie in the game of love.”

“You’re a bonus baby where I’m concerned.”

There was a pause. “I’ve run out of metaphors,” Mickey said.

“Have a shrimp.”

“I got a call from New York today.”

“ABC?”

“They want me down there for a second interview.”

“You think they might offer you something soon?”

“That’s between God and Roone Arledge.”

On Tuesday morning, Harvey walked through Back Bay to the Ritz for French toast and coffee and learned from the
Boston Globe
sports section that he was now batting .302 and had dropped to the tenth spot in the American League batting race. He skipped the account of last night’s loss and skimmed a short feature on Bobby Wagner headlined, “Will the Real Bobby Wagner Please Stand Up?” It was another in a flurry of articles that seemed to appear in every city on the road, all of them provoked by Wagner’s indifferent record. He was now 8 and 16, pitching in the shadow of lesser men like Van Auken and Crop. The
Globe
article was largely a review of his often brilliant career in Baltimore, plus a few standard paragraphs about the current season, buttressed by familiar comments from players and coaches around the league. One quote came from an unnamed source on the Jewels: “His arm’s shot. He’s been pitching on sheer guts.”

Harvey studied the box scores over more coffee and had an idea. He turned the page to see where Minnesota, Rudy’s old team, was playing that day. When he got back to his room at noon, he picked up the phone and called Jimmy Skeete, the Minnesota Twins’ catcher, at the team’s hotel in Oakland.

“I wake you?” Harvey asked.

“No, it’s all right,” Jimmy said. “I’ve been up for hours. I got hit with a pitch last night in my forearm, and the bugger woke me up at seven.”

“Speaking of which, sorry about that collision in Providence.” In July, he had run Skeete over, scoring from third on a sacrifice fly, and Skeete had sat out a few games with a bruised shoulder. “You know, I didn’t get off so light, either. I couldn’t turn my head to the left for a week.”

“It wouldn’t have hurt so much if you’d been out. But I’m warning you, Harvey, next time you come down the line I’m going to be carrying a switchblade.”

“I wouldn’t worry about a next time, Jimmy, the way we’re playing. I don’t think I’ve been as far as third base in a week.”

“Yeah, I read the sports pages. I guess a murder in the clubhouse’ll do it to you every time. God, it sounded gruesome. Have the cops figured it out yet? The papers aren’t saying much.”

“Neither is anyone else. It’s a goddamn mystery. Look, you roomed with him last year, didn’t you?”

“I still haven’t caught up on my sleep. What a wild man.”

“Yeah, but did he have any real enemies?”

“None I can think of. Unless you count Davis in Detroit. There was one season when Rudy must have plunked him in the ribs three times. The third time it cleared the benches. Of course, John does love to crowd that plate.”

“For what it’s worth,” Harvey said, “Davis was nowhere near Providence the night Rudy was killed. Can you think of anything else?”

“I wish I could help you, Harvey. But for all his faults, the guy did not strike me as a murder victim.”

“Did Rudy throw a lot of money around?”

“Throw it around? Naw. Just the usual, I guess. He sprang for dinner once in a while after a game.”

“That’s it?”

“Why’re you asking? Was he throwing a lot of money around before he was killed?”

“That’s the thing. As far as I can tell, he was generous only with his friends. Nothing more. But he had three thousand bucks on him when he was murdered. In very large bills.”

“How large?”

“The kind that only banks’ll make change for you. Listen, do you think Rudy was the kind of guy, you know, who’d want to make some easy money on the side?”

“No. I mean, he wasn’t the greedy kind. I think it got to him that he was only making fifty, sixty grand here. No one likes playing alongside guys making three, four times that, but the guy wasn’t a criminal. Anyway, he was making good money with you guys, wasn’t he? I always thought of him as just a sort of lonely guy waiting to grow up.”

“Yeah,” Harvey said. “Listen, thanks. Go put some heat on your arm.”

“Let me know if I can help, Harvey.”

Harvey hung up, then dialed directory assistance in New York and got the number of an old schoolmate from the University of Massachusetts who worked in public relations in Manhattan. “Of course,” the old classmate said, “of course I know Frances Shalhoub. Everyone in the business knows her. She was doing so well, we couldn’t figure out why she just packed up and sold the firm.” He gave Harvey what he wanted: the name and number of a former associate of Frances, one Sharon Meadows, who now worked for another public relations company in Manhattan.