The Closer (14 page)

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Authors: Alan Mindell

BOOK: The Closer
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Tonight's game probably shouldn't have been played. And probably wouldn't were it not their final scheduled appearance in New York for the year. A heavy downpour delayed the start more than an hour. And a steady drizzle fell during the rest of the evening.

Ironically, the night after his streak ended, Murdoch drove in all five Oakland runs with five consecutive hits. But, he also contributed significantly to the loss, losing a fly ball in the lights with the bases loaded in the eighth inning. The three baserunners scored, turning a 5-3 Oakland lead into a 6-5 deficit they couldn't overcome.

Besides feeling pretty good about his team, Rick felt very relieved they were leaving New York without Murdoch being harmed. Rick had checked with Police Captain Strader about four o'clock and learned there were no more death threats. The two Strader took seriously both mentioned the hitting streak. And now that it had ended and they were returning to California, Strader speculated that the danger had diminished.

Sitting there in the airplane, Rick suddenly found himself shaking his head, still unable to reconcile New York's methods in aborting Murdoch's streak the previous night. Save DiMaggio's record, even if it cost them the game. And it had, the deliberate walk with the bases loaded forcing in what ultimately became the winning run.

What had baseball come to? Where was the integrity? In a game with potential wild card implications, one team had, in essence, let the other team win. Did New York take them that lightly? That they could afford to give them a game and not have it matter in the final standings.

The standings—that's where his thoughts turned next. Oakland had fallen to three and a half behind Texas in the division and three behind New York for the wild card. Maybe the elderly man he had encountered on the flight to San Diego was right. That they soon would drop out of contention. That a small market team really couldn't compete.

But Rick liked his team. The solid pitching, good defense...and Murdoch. Of course it would be nice to add a player or two, especially a power hitter who could follow Murdoch in the lineup. Someone who might protect him a little, keep opponents from simply pitching around him so often. With the July 31 trade deadline only about a week away, Rick made a mental note to discuss some possibilities with front office.

This was often the time when teams in the pennant race offered future prospects to teams no longer in contention, in exchange for established players, thereby strengthening themselves for the final two months of the season. Non-contenders benefited by cutting current payroll, while hopefully enhancing their future.

Unfortunately, Rick sensed what front office's reaction would be. The budget. Make do with the players they had. Unless he wanted to acquire more prospects for an established player. Murdoch, to be specific. Which, of course, he didn't.

He could debate that their main competition would improve themselves—Texas, for example, its pitching; New York, infield and bench. But his argument probably would have no impact. Not if it increased costs.

He must have fallen asleep, because his next conscious awareness was of the plane taxiing toward the arrival gate. Perhaps expressing relief that New York was no more than a distant memory, he took a deep breath. Then he glanced at his watch. 5:00 a.m. Really 2:00 a.m. Oakland time.

The team had an off day tomorrow. Actually today. Good thing...he could use one.

Chapter Eighteen

"No one else I can call."

This time Terry was quickly able to identify the voice coming through the telephone in his bungalow. Who except Murdoch had called very late at night recently? This time, unlike the prior, when Murdoch summoned his help in Los Angeles to locate his daughter, Terry wasn't asleep. In fact, he wasn't even in bed, since he'd just arrived from the airport, where it had taken longer than usual to rent a car.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Carly..." Murdoch replied, his voice sounding strange. "Meet me...hospital."

"Which hospital?" Terry inquired, now alarmed.

"Near..."

Terry assumed he meant the one less than a mile away, which he remembered from one of his walks.

"I'll be there in five minutes," he said. "Where do we meet?"

"`Mergency room," Murdoch mumbled, and then hung up.

 

Approaching Murdoch, who was standing in a corner of the emergency room, Terry saw he wasn't wearing one of his disguises. Though it almost seemed as if he was. Clothes mussed, badly needing a shave, face dirty, hair unkempt. Looking very much like Terry felt, this late at night.

"Where is she?" Terry asked.`

"Already...took her," Murdoch muttered.

"What is it?"

"Expectin' somethin'. Not this."

"What is it?" Terry repeated, more emphatically.

Murdoch, appearing practically in shock, didn't answer.

"What's wrong with her?" Terry said, now very alarmed.

Again Murdoch didn't answer, this time merely shrugging. Terry noticed his upper lip begin to quiver. And his left hand shaking. In fact, he seemed far more nervous, even out of control, than at any time during the long streak.

"O.D.?" Terry guessed.

Murdoch nodded, almost imperceptibly.

"Can we see her?"

"They want us...register her," Murdoch said, barely above a whisper. "Told them...wait for you."

Terry didn't answer.

"Media find out...she my daughter..." Murdoch continued, rambling almost incoherently. "Crucify me. Her too. Swarm 'round here...like flies"

"I'll register her," Terry said, surprised at his own words.

"Don't think they let you..."

"Let me try," Terry replied, beginning to edge toward what he assumed was the admissions office.

 

"How is she?" Terry, still alarmed, asked the doctor, a thin man in his mid forties, who had just entered Carly's hospital room and was now taking her pulse.

"Seen worse."

Standing near Murdoch, beside Carly's bed, Terry didn't know how the doctor could say that. Not unless he was comparing her to patients already deceased. Which, when first coming into the room, Terry had feared was precisely her status. Then he'd observed the barely perceptible movement of her upper body as she breathed. She looked terribly pale, gaunt. As if, rather than an ordinary hospital room, she belonged in the intensive care unit. Where, he later learned, she'd been initially taken.

"She be okay?" Murdoch tensely asked the doctor.

"She's not out of the woods yet."

"Anything we can do?" Terry inquired.

"Yeah, keep her away from that stuff. Next time she might not make it this far."

After writing some notations on a clipboard he was holding, the doctor departed, leaving Terry and Murdoch by themselves to stand vigil. Apparently, Murdoch had
visited a restroom, because he looked much better than earlier. While he still needed a shave, his face was clean and his clothing straighter.

"That damn streak..." he said solemnly. "Glad it's over. Don't think she could handle it...all that publicity."

Terry nodded. But his thoughts were elsewhere. Back to the admissions office, where less than an hour ago he'd managed to get Carly officially admitted without implicating Murdoch—by telling several lies. Her last name became his, Landers. Her address was his bungalow. Due to the recent marriage between her father and his step sister, he'd just become her uncle. No, he knew nothing of any drug use. He'd discovered her comatose after returning from a business trip (he didn't even want to acknowledge being a ballplayer, because of the possible connection with Murdoch).

He nearly smiled now at his own creativity. If admissions personnel believed any of what he'd said, he had no idea why. Unless, of course, at that time of night, no one really cared. Or the graveyard shift didn't attract the most competent people.

"I ever need a witness to vouch for me," Murdoch remarked much later, after he'd had a chance to regain his composure and Terry told him some of his story, "you get the nod."

Terry grinned at Murdoch's comment. Then he noticed the initial light of dawn filtering into the room. Fortunately, their next game wasn't until tomorrow night.

 

"What's the name of that old movie?" Terry asked Lauren as they sat in their regular place, on her living room couch. "Around the World in Eighty Days?"

"I think so," she answered.

"Feels like I've been around it twice in the last four days."

"New York can do that to you," she smiled.

"So can spending half the night in a hospital."

No doubt he'd used the film analogy because a movie had been the evening's principal activity. An animated movie based on a Greek myth, thoroughly enjoyed by the children. They'd all had dinner in a Chinese restaurant before, and after, tackled a picture puzzle of several famous women that Lauren had bought for the girls. By the time they finished, it was nearly eleven and she sent the children to bed.

No question he'd just mentioned the hospital because it was very much on his mind. He then told her about the drug overdose. How Murdoch had summoned his help. How he'd tried to nap several times today, without much success, before this evening's activities.

"Sounds like some of my nights in Texas," she said. "I worked with a lot of runaways there...never knew what they were going to do."

"Murdoch's daughter was a runaway."

"Oh?" she replied, looking surprised.

"We found her on the streets of Hollywood."

"Oh?" she repeated, still looking surprised. "What's her name?"

"Carly."

"Carly Murdoch?" she asked, raising her eyelids, as though possibly recognizing the name.

"Yes," he answered after pausing briefly, recalling he'd renamed her Landers late last night.

"Describe her."

"Tall. Slim. Maybe fifteen or sixteen."

"Pretty?"

"Very."

"This may sound strange," she said. "But I worked with a Carly in Texas. She used a different last name. Said her father was a famous ballplayer. I'm not sure I believed her—these kids say anything. Called him Mr. Ten Million."

"Murdoch's salary..."

"This girl was pregnant..."

"I wouldn't know about that," he replied.

"Of course not.... But it sure sounds like it could be her."

"Wouldn't be hard to find out," he said. "I told Murdoch I'd meet him at the hospital tomorrow. You could come too."

She frowned. As if he'd said something objectionable.

"What time?" she asked.

"About one."

"Okay," she said softly. "I'll meet you there."

He gave her directions to the hospital, which she wrote into a little tan notebook. When she stopped writing, he tried to stifle a yawn.

"Guess I'd better be going," he said. "Unless your couch is available for the night."

"No," she quickly countered. "The kids might not know what to think...in the morning."

"That the only reason?"

"No," she answered, not as quickly.

"Want to talk about it now?"

"No, not now. Soon."

"Promise?"

"I promise," she said, getting up to walk him to the door after he tried to stifle another yawn.

 

Consistent with the theme of the last few days, Terry was having an active morning. Besides running a couple of errands and calling Murdoch to get an update on Carly (no change) and to make sure it was okay for him, Terry, to bring Lauren to the hospital that afternoon (some resistance, but ultimately relenting), he was now signing autographs at an indoor shopping mall a few miles south of Oakland. It was a charity event, whereby the mall association donated ten dollars per autograph to a cluster of local charities.

Despite the impingement on his time, Terry was quite thrilled to be there. Especially when many of the mall patrons addressed him as Mr. Closer, or a similar epithet. The occasion reminded him of the times he'd played mall Santa Claus at Christmas-time during his minor league days (even though he was far from being portly).

He was also thrilled by the amount of fan mail he'd received lately via the Oakland team public relations department. True, it was time-consuming, but he tried to answer each letter personally. And was further delighted when some of the correspondents answered his letter with another of their own.

By far the highlight of the morning was the arrival of a busload of students from a nearby school for handicapped children. Terry took extra time with them, carefully spelling out their first and last names as a salutation for his autograph.

 

Entering Carly's hospital room with Lauren, Terry was puzzled that Murdoch, there already, was again in disguise. He was wearing the same one he wore that night in Boston when Terry and Rick tailed him. Brown pullover knit cap above a long dark wig, making him look more like a strung-out musician than an apprehensive father visiting his daughter.

"How is she?" Terry asked him after introducing Lauren.

"Same," he said despondently.

Terry nodded. She certainly looked the same as early yesterday, after he'd completed the admission process. Pale, gaunt, lifeless. He glanced at Lauren. Her expression conveyed concern. It also inferred, from the look in her eyes, that she knew her.

They stood there a few minutes before Murdoch, seeming far more focused than early yesterday, motioned them outside the room, into the corridor. Once there, Terry briefly explained to Lauren Murdoch's purpose for disguise.

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