McFall

by Scott Nicholson

  Shit. Bobby’s dad was a loser. A nobody. But maybe he owed him just this much. One good pitch. One championship.

  As he unfolded his body and leaned into the throw, whipping his right arm forward, he felt like the ball was going to top a hundred miles an hour, up in Nolan Ryan territory. Yes, McFall could make that happen. McFall could make the radar gun jump in the scout’s hands, he could make Stinson’s bat shatter into a thousand splinters, he could make Bobby Eldreth live on as a local legend, the Pickett High superstar who made it to the World Series.

  Hell, YES. The game within the game.

  Now Bobby understood. All you had to do was want it, and McFall would give it to you.

  The pitch sailed, just as Bobby had planned. Stinson’s eyes widened, and Bobby was sure the batter would wait it out, take it for ball two—unless the ump had been bought off, in which case, it would be game over. Then it looked like Stinson was about to make an off-balance lunge, just as Bobby had planned. But the guy didn’t lose his balance—he’d merely been hanging back, waiting for the ball to rise, as if he’d cottoned to Bobby’s plan even before the pitch.

  The crack of the bat was like a thunderclap in an arid desert. It surprised everyone but Stinson, and the Vance base-runners jolted into action. Bobby’s mouth fell open in disbelief, and time stretched again, allowing him to take in too much information—Elmer snarling, the scout giving a disappointed shake of his head, McFall nodding in approval, the chili still stinking. Bobby didn’t even have to turn around to know the game was over, because the winning run was already galloping around third. He slammed his glove against the gritty red clay of the pitcher’s mound and stared at his cleats.

  The small group of Vance supporters went wild, rewarded for making the two-hour trip. The home crowd let out a mutual groan when the runner stomped on home plate to seal the defeat of Pickett—and its star player.

  Bobby slouched toward the dugout, where Coach Harnett was doling out passive-aggressive applause. Just as the coach believed kids couldn’t handle pressure, he embraced the old-school clichés of sportsmanship and dignity in defeat. Bobby felt like kicking him in the shins. Harnett slapped him on the back. “Good effort, Bobby. We just got beat by a better team today.”

  Under the crappy unwritten rules of sports, Bobby had to endure shaking hands with all the opposing players and coaches, muttering “Good game.” All the while, he was thinking, I lost the game. AND the game within the game. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought Stinson smirked at him when they low-fived. Stinson leaned in close and whispered, “McFall was right.”

  Then Stinson had moved past him, and Bobby tried to work back through the line to ask him what the hell he was talking about, but his teammates were annoyed, tired, bitter, and ready to go home, so they shoved him forward until the mock ritual was mercifully complete.

  Elmer met Bobby by the dugout. His eyes blazed with anger and his lips puckered with resentment. “You blew it. How could you be so goddamned dumb that you threw him a high fastball?”

  “I had him,” Bobby said. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. All scouts care about is arm speed.”

  Elmer looked around, but the scout had vanished along with two-thirds of the crowd. “You weren’t even reaching eighty. Granny El can throw harder than that.”

  “I’ve still got my scholarship.”

  “You won’t never get drafted out of college. This was your—”

  “Excuse me,” a man said, and Elmer turned to face Larkin McFall. Casually dressed in a polo shirt and khaki trousers, McFall made Elmer look even more like a backwoods hillbilly than usual in his blue-jean overalls. The guy might be creepy, but Bobby wondered why he couldn’t have had a dad like McFall, a guy who had his act together, instead of a mumble-mouthed, drunken loser.

  Elmer immediately became deferential, even goofy. “Mr. McFall! Sorry, I didn’t see you in the crowd, or I’d’a said howdy. Didn’t know you were a fan.”

  “I’m a student of the game within the game,” McFall said, looking squarely at Bobby.

  “I’ll get those estimates to you in a few days,” Elmer blubbered. “That’s a lot of pipe. A big project like that is harder to figure than this nickel-and-dime stuff I usually—”

  “No hurry,” McFall said. Then, to Bobby, “That was a tough loss, son. But you gave it your best shot.”

  “No,” Bobby said. “It wasn’t my best. I should have thrown him a fastball low and outside.”

  Elmer’s mouth gaped in shock, flashing the dark rectangle of a missing canine. “I thought you said—”

  “You can second-guess yourself until the end of time, but the pitch you threw is the pitch you threw,” McFall said, an irritating counterpart to Harnett’s gold standard of useless clichés, “It is what it is.”

  “Well, I won’t throw it next time,” Bobby said.

  “But next time, it might be the right pitch,” McFall responded. “You won’t know until you throw it.”

  Bobby was unsettled by McFall’s philosophical curveballs. Probably, he was just imagining the whole thing about the man having supernatural powers. God knows, people in Pickett County believed in that kind of nonsense. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder if McFall would let him be a successful drummer now, since he’d somehow conspired to take away Bobby’s baseball career. That was the deal, wasn’t it? You had to want it to get it.

  Damn. That’s as bad as “It is what it is.”

  “See you at home,” Bobby said to his dad. “Don’t tell Mom about the scout. She’s got enough to worry about.”

  Larkin McFall stood aside and for the first time Bobby noticed that his wife had been standing behind him the whole time, almost like a shadow. Her face was cool and placid, like a porcelain mask adorned with sunglasses. Although attractive, there was something vaguely … unfinished … about her. McFall put an arm around her, and the corners of her lips turned up in a rote smile that held neither cheer nor warmth.

  Bobby made his way to his Toyota pickup in the parking lot, dragging his feet across the grass. The scoreboard on the hill reminded him of the 3-2 final tally, and the Times would remind him again tomorrow, and Elmer would remind him for about thirty years or until his ticker blew out, whichever came first.

  Melanie and Ronnie were waiting for him by the truck. “Sucks,” Ronnie said. “He just got lucky.”

  Melanie gave him a hug and it felt good, and then it felt great. Her gray eyes were a little moist—they could go from a stormy sea to a spring sky in seconds—but she managed a smile of sympathy. “You were a rock star,” she said.

  Bobby hoped she hadn’t been talking to McFall, too. It seemed like everybody was talking to the stranger these days. “Yeah, well, this was my last game in high school, so the show’s over,” he said. “Wanna lift?”

  She glanced down and Ronnie looked out across the baseball field. “Ronnie’s already promised me a ride,” she said.

  “Cool. See you guys later.”

  “Call me,” Melanie said, and he couldn’t tell if it was a question or a command. He didn’t care either way. He was dead tired.

  He was no longer sure what he wanted, or how badly he wanted it. As he started the pickup, Stinson’s words echoed inside his head: “McFall was right.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “On behalf of the Pickett County Friends of the Library, we’d like to thank you for your generous donation,” Nancy Holloway said. The librarian spoke slowly so that Cindy Baumhower could transcribe her dull quote word for word. “This gift will go a long way toward expanding our local history section and ensuring that the past remains alive for future generations of county residents.”

  Larkin McFall posed with Nancy in front of a bookshelf, inhaling her scent of old pulpwood, dust, and a cheap perfume from a pint bottle she’d likely been using since her long-ago youth. He smiled not just for the photo but because he would be appearing in The Titusville Times for the third week in a row.

  “Okay, everyone,” Nancy said to the f
our retirees who made up the Friends’ board of directors. “Punch and cookies are set up in the conference room to celebrate.”

  As the small group disbursed, Cindy pulled Larkin aside, as he’d known she would. After all, she was the reason he’d dreamed up the $5,000 donation. The library was practically empty this morning, with just three people using the public computers, a young woman pushing a baby stroller through the children’s section, and a filthy-looking man obsessively fingering titles in the mystery section. The man irked Larkin, because his unkempt appearance seemed out of place among the neat and orderly rows of books.

  “Can I have a word with you?” Cindy asked, wresting his attention from the roustabout. “Nancy never lets anyone else get a word in edgewise.”

  “Sure, as long as you don’t ask me about Cole Buchanan’s death. The matter is still under investigation, and my attorney advised me not to comment. And, please, not so many questions that I miss out on the cookies.”

  “Yeah, you don’t want to miss Nancy’s cookies,” Cindy scoffed. “They’re the best that Wal-Mart has to offer at half price.” Pressing her pen to her notepad, she put on a pretty good appearance of interest. “Why do you feel local history is worth supporting?”

  “We should always remember where we came from,” Larkin said. “Especially people in a rural community like Pickett County, where our family trees are so intertwined. Of course, local history also includes the native peoples who lived here long before Daniel Boone hunted these lands.” He winked. “Is that politically correct enough, or should I also mention that the white settlers of the area never held slaves?”

  “This is a puff piece, Mr. McFall. We don’t have room for deeper social issues.”

  “I’d like to add one more thing. It’s a travesty that the county commissioners have cut the library’s budget by ten percent in the next fiscal year. Our local leaders should invest in building better citizens instead of playing shell games to keep taxes low.”

  “That’s also a little beyond the scope of this particular article,” Cindy said, although her nostrils flared, her pupils grew larger, and she leaned slightly toward him. She’d recently written an editorial decrying the proposed budget cuts and was obviously flattered that he shared her opinion. “And don’t you think that statement would get you in trouble with your friends on the commission?”

  “They know my principles,” Larkin said. “True friends always let you speak your mind.”

  Cindy let her guard down a little, apparently seeing him as an ally in idealism. “You should read some of the letters to the editor I get. The ones I can’t publish.”

  “You’re not a good journalist unless people on both sides of an issue hate you.”

  She grinned at that, and it wasn’t forced. Cindy Baumhower was clearly someone who thought she’d conquered her vanity merely by acknowledging its existence. But Larkin knew better.

  “Is that enough for your article?” Larkin said. “I would prefer for the focus to be on the good work the library does, and its need for support, not me.”

  Larkin, for one, knew how to make people like him. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

  “Just a couple more questions for deep background,” she said. “We’re going to start a Chamber of Commerce business series in a few weeks and I may as well get some basics while I have you, since you seem to be rapidly becoming one of our leading citizens.”

  “You can have me anytime, Miss Baumhower.”

  Her nostrils flared again, the only sign that his double entendre had any effect on her. “I’m too busy to chase you down,” she said. “And we’re trimming our staff, so I’ll be writing the series myself.”

  “Okay, then,” he said with a dramatic sigh, giving a forlorn look at the conference-room door. “The cookies will have to wait. Fire away.”

  “I believe I heard somewhere that you were from El Paso, Texas. I did a quick Google check and couldn’t find any business listed there in your name.”

  “I was a silent investor in multiple projects. As I said, I like the focus to be on others. What satisfies me most is … enabling. Yes, enabling success. Bringing out the best of what’s inside people.”

  Larkin was pleased to see her write the quote down. “Any names?” she asked. “Any specific developments I can mention?”

  “I’ll have my wife email you a full list. Although, again, I don’t want it to come off like I’m bragging. I might not have grown up here, but I’m a McFall. I’m one of you.”

  “Oh, I’m an import,” she said. “I’ve barely been in town for a decade.”

  “I tend to think we’re all tourists, Miss Baumhower. Some of us just pass through a little faster than others.”

  The greasy-haired man passed them on his way to the circulation desk, a stack of books in his grubby hands. He walked with a jerky gait, making a guttural noise in his throat, and he nearly bumped into Cindy, his perception apparently limited in the manner of a schizophrenic or borderline autistic. Cindy stepped closer to Larkin to allow the man room to pass. He jerked to avoid contact, even though he was five feet away, and one of his books slid to the floor. As he stooped to pick it up, his eyes met Larkin’s.

  The man immediately dropped the rest of his books, a couple of them bouncing across Cindy’s feet. “You!” the man croaked, loudly enough to draw the attention of the desk clerk.

  “Do I know you?” Larkin said, instinctively putting a protective arm between the man and Cindy.

  “No, but I … but I … nuh-nuh-know you,” the man said. “I’ve always known you.”

  Larkin studied the man’s spade-shaped face and dark eyes. He had the look of a Buchanan, unshaven and surly, and Larkin wondered if this was one of Cole Buchanan’s brothers. Larkin would have gleefully gouged out the man’s eyes and jammed them down his throat, but then he’d have to kill Cindy and all the other witnesses in the library. And he was beginning to rather like Cindy. He had plans for her, and her premature death would take much of the fun out of the summer ahead.

  “I’m afraid we’ve never met,” Larkin said, bending to retrieve the fallen books. He held them out to the man.

  The grungy stranger backed away, shaking his head. “I don’t want nuh-nuh-nothing you’ve touched.”

  Cindy took the books from Larkin and tried to follow the man, but he hurried out of the library’s sliding doors, muttering to himself. “That was weird,” Cindy said to Larkin.

  “Schizophrenia is not pretty,” Larkin said. “Just another area where budget cuts have hurt the disenfranchised.”

  Cindy looked at the books. “James Lee Burke. At least he’s got good taste.”

  I may soon find out all about his taste. Larkin picked up the remaining books. “I’m sorry for the interruption. Is there anything else you needed to ask me?”

  Cindy seemed to have forgotten the purpose of her interview. “No, not as long as I can get that list of your former business ventures.”

  Larkin fished inside his jacket and pulled out a business card. “Just email us and I’ll have it sent over.”

  Cindy accepted the card with her index finger and thumb clamping the edges and closed it inside her notepad. “Enjoy your cookies,” she said. “I’d better get back to the office.”

  “In that case, let me handle the books.” Larkin collected them from her, said good-bye, and carried the stack to the circulation desk, where the pinch-faced staff member—the brass name tag on his chest read “Robert” and, in smaller letters below that, “Multimedia Specialist”—frowned at the extra work.

  “I’m glad he didn’t check these out,” Robert said. “He never returns them on time. And pages are usually missing.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Sweeney Buchanan. He used to be in the psych ward at Broughton before the last overhaul of the mental health system dumped him back out on the streets. He’s the brother of that guy who was found dead in the church fire.”

  “A shame,” Larkin said. “I hope h
e’s not a danger to himself or others.”

  “Oh, he’s harmless. Except for a little property damage here and there.”

  “We all carry our damage with us.” Larkin reflected on the man’s words: I’ve always known you.

  Maybe Sweeney Buchanan was more than just a schizophrenic. Maybe he was a visionary, like those Old Testament recluses who saw God in fire and smoke. His peculiar brand of madness might allow him to see beneath the surface. As McFall well knew, all prophets were madmen until their madness infected enough people.

  Unlike everyone else in Pickett County, Sweeney might recognize Larkin for what he was instead of taking him at face value. In many ways, only saints and madmen made his work worthwhile. He gave Robert a little salute as he headed toward the conference room to flatter some of the well-intentioned but self-righteous do-gooders who made his work—his return—necessary.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Sheriff Frank Littlefield knocked on the door of Stepford Matheson’s little cabin.

  The yard was a tribute to laziness, with knee-high weeds going to seed while the path between the dirt driveway and the front door was nothing but narrow stretch of mud. Cinder blocks and masonry stones were piled all around a dismantled cement mixer. A rusted engine block sat in what might once have been a flower bed, and busted cardboard boxes overflowing with beer cans were stacked under the sagging wooden steps. Stepford’s spot-primed Plymouth Duster was parked under a tin roof supported by skinned locust posts.

  The Duster was a legendary accomplice in three speeding tickets, one Driving Under the Influence, one Driving While License Revoked, and a charge of Assault with a Deadly Weapon that was dropped when the accuser ended up marrying—and soon divorcing—Stepford. The Duster—Stepford’s prized possession—was in a constant state of upgrade. The newest additions, Littlefield noticed, were silver exhaust pipes that extended from the rear like machine guns.