Green Monster

by Rick Shefchik

  “Look where Johnson’s playing,” Kenwood insisted. “He’s two steps behind the third base bag, and Davis can bunt.”

  “He won’t.”

  “Gil’s got to get the crowd back into the game. You want to put ten on it?”

  “Sure, I’ll take that bet,” Katherine said.

  There was a hint of what must have been the old playfulness between them, the residual familiarity of sharing thirty years and hundreds of ballgames together.

  Davis swung away at the first pitch and fouled it back.

  “I guess Gil doesn’t like the squeeze here, either,” Katherine said.

  “There’s only one strike. He’s got one to play with.”

  Davis took a pitch outside for ball one, and didn’t start to slide his hand up the bat as if to bunt. He stepped out of the box and checked the third base coach’s signals.

  “That’s a different sign than he got on the last pitch,” Kenwood said.

  “You missed the indicator,” Katherine said. “There’s no play on.”

  “Look at Mitchell’s lead. He’s farther down the line. Watch…”

  The Blue Jays pitcher delivered, Mitchell stayed where he was and Davis whistled a line drive past the third baseman, who had started to cheat in. It was now 6-5, runners on first and third, still one out, and the crowd was suddenly on its feet, roaring.

  Silently, Kenwood pulled his wallet out of his pants pocket and extracted a ten dollar bill, handing it to his wife.

  “Why do I bet with you?” Kenwood sighed. “You must be into me for a couple of thousand bucks by now.”

  Katherine took the bill, put it in the pocket of her sweater, and gave Sam a satisfied grin. Sam returned the smile, then glanced quickly at Heather. She was not smiling.

  “Sam, I understand you’re going to be leaving town, with Heather,” Katherine said.

  “That’s right.”

  “I wonder if you could come out to the house tomorrow morning before you leave.”

  “I could. Why?”

  “I’d like you give me a shooting lesson.”

  Sam glanced at Lou Kenwood, who simply shrugged and turned back to the game.

  “Why?”

  “Lou leaves me alone at the house too often. It’s on an isolated point, sticking out in the ocean. With all that’s going on now, I don’t feel safe there.”

  Sam must have looked perplexed by the request, because Katherine felt compelled to explain.

  “Just because I’m dying doesn’t mean I don’t care about protecting myself,” she said. “I bought a pistol, but I need someone to show me how to use it. You were a police officer, weren’t you?”

  “Yes. I’m still licensed to carry.”

  “Then you could take an hour or so to show me how to shoot, couldn’t you.”

  It was a statement, not a question. And since the man paying his salary didn’t voice any objection, Sam agreed.

  “Wonderful. I’ll have Paul pick you up at your hotel right after he drops Lou at his office. Say, about 8:15?”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  ***

  Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” blared out of the stadium loudspeakers after the Red Sox took the lead in the bottom of the eighth inning. The capacity crowd roared along with the “bom-bom-BOM” chorus, kept singing after the song faded out, and continued to sing until the Sox closer threw his second pitch in the ninth. Sam couldn’t help but think about a woman named Caroline who lived in Tucson, and wonder if their good times would ever seem so good…

  Heather took Sam down to the clubhouse level, waiting for the game to end so they could walk out to the left-field scoreboard. After the final out of the 7-6 Boston win, the players exited the dugout and headed up to the clubhouse while the crowd sang along with “Dirty Water” as it blared from the p.a. system.

  “You were getting awfully chummy with the Missus,” Heather said as the players filed past.

  Sam wondered if he was hearing a tinge of jealousy in Heather’s voice.

  “I like her,” Sam said simply. “She’s a smart, interesting woman.”

  “She’s a drag on Lou’s time and energy,” Heather said. “I know that sounds harsh, but it’s true.”

  “God forbid you should get old someday,” Sam said.

  “If I end up in a chair, I hope someone puts me out of my misery.”

  Sam couldn’t tell whether Heather’s lack of compassion was restricted to Kenwood’s wife, or to mankind in general.

  They took the tunnel down to the dugout, now deserted except for the equipment man picking up bats, helmets, and towels. The floor of the dugout was covered in seed shells, gum wrappers, Gatorade cups, and drying saliva. Sam stepped over the worst of it and went up the steps to the field level, where the grounds crew was removing the bases and smoothing the infield with a small tractor. Sam turned to look back up into the stands. While the aisles were clogged with exiting fans, a few stragglers remained seated, not wanting to let go of their visit to this jewel of a ballpark. A dozen security cops stood on the dirt of the infield warning track, looking into the stands for anyone who thought they could get away with jumping over the low retaining wall onto the field. At least on this night, no one was drunk or foolish enough to try it.

  Sam and Heather walked behind home plate and along the warning track that paralleled the third base line to the left-field corner. When they reached the Green Monster, Heather took him to a small doorway cut into the hand-operated scoreboard, just below the AT BAT indicator. Heather pulled the door outward, and they stepped over the foot-high threshold and into the dim, dusty room behind the scoreboard.

  Inside, there was a long corridor about six feet deep, with head room limited by the slanted concrete abutments on the wall opposite the scoreboard. Three men in shorts and t-shirts were extracting green metal plates with white numerals from the scoreboard slots above their heads, and hanging them on the corresponding pegs against the wall behind them. Their night was over, except for the cleanup. It was hot inside the scoreboard, the men were sweaty, and they looked glad to be finished.

  “Hiya, Heather,” said one, a wiry, dark-haired guy with sideburns and curly dark hair on his legs. “Givin’ a tour?”

  “Hi, Danny,” Heather replied. “Yeah, Sam here wanted to see Fenway’s real glamour location.”

  “Well, it’s all yours,” Danny said. “We’re outta here.”

  “That’s the last one,” said one of the other scoreboard workers, hanging up a final number.

  “You gonna be a while?” Danny asked Heather.

  “I thought I’d show Sam some of the autographs in here.”

  “Joe Mauer came in last week and signed, right over there—above Pudge’s name,” Danny said. He pointed to a spot on the back wall where a signature stood out in fresh, bold Sharpie strokes.

  “We’ll shut off the lights,” Heather said.

  The three scoreboard operators picked up their jackets and their plastic Coke cups and walked out onto the field. Heather showed Sam one of the eyeholes through which the operators watched the game, and he could see the three men heading toward the infield. The lights were still on in the park, but the stands were now empty except for the custodians picking up garbage from row to row.

  He turned back to Heather, and saw her taking off her jacket.

  “It’s hot in here,” she said. “Aren’t you a little warm?”

  The question didn’t seem to require an answer. She smoothed her hair back with both hands, her breasts making round shadows on her tight, pink crew-neck shirt; she gave her head a little shake, not taking her eyes off Sam. Then she walked up to him and kissed him. While they kissed, she untucked his shirt from his pants. Sam looked quickly around. Here? Inside the Green Monster? Well, why not?

  He pulled a folding chair over to him and sat down, with Heather facing him. He unzipped his pants and she pulled her skirt up and took off her underwear, hanging it on on
e of the pegs that held the scoreboard numbers. She straddled him on the chair while Sam caressed her breasts, first outside her shirt, then pulling it up gradually and loosening her breasts from her bra.

  “Anyone else coming in here tonight?”

  “I can’t remember if that Girl Scout troop is tonight or tomorrow night,” Heather said.

  He picked Heather up and leaned her against the inside of the scoreboard for support. While he was entering her, he could see the field through one of the peepholes. He wondered if his thrusts were causing any visible movement in the wall—but there was no one on the field to notice anyway.

  Heather’s eyes were open, looking off into the distance behind him. He closed his own eyes and kissed her while his left hand caressed the smooth curve of her small, taut ass, and his right hand played among the smooth strands of her hair. When he opened his eyes again, Heather’s eyes were fixed on a spot somewhere near the far corner of the floor.

  “What are you looking at?” he said into her ear.

  “Nothing.”

  She curled her thigh around the back of Sam’s leg and arched herself backward as Sam kissed her breasts. She moaned, but Sam glanced at her face and saw that her eyes were still fixed on the same spot.

  He adjusted his stance so he could turn his head to follow her gaze. Two rats were emerging cautiously from the shadows fifteen feet from where they stood.

  “Jesus!” Sam said. He started to pull away, but Heather clung to him and thrust her hips closer to Sam’s.

  “Finish,” she said.

  Sam kicked the folding chair toward the corner and the rats scurried back into the darkness.

  When they were done, both glistening with sweat, Sam eased himself back onto the folding chair while Heather got dressed.

  “Is that the standard tour, or did I get the special?”

  “That’s a first for me, too,” Heather said, pulling on her bra. “And I wasn’t expecting an audience.”

  “It didn’t seem to bother you too much.”

  “Well, this isn’t the Ritz…or the Taj.”

  The overhead lights were being turned off a few minutes later as Sam and Heather emerged from the scoreboard and walked back to the infield. They used the gate next to the third base dugout that led into the grandstand and went up the aisle, stepping on black, flattened pieces of chewing gum that must have dated back to the days when Mel Parnell was pitching.

  When Sam and Heather emerged from the stadium onto Yawkey Way, there were still fans milling around, mostly drunk and loudly celebrating the victory as they drifted toward Brookline Avenue and the T station in Kenmore Square. Take this away from them, Sam thought, and they’d find something else to get drunk and yell about—but it would never be the same as their unquestioning love for the Sox. They decided to get a bite and a drink at the Cask ’n’ Flagon on Lansdowne before catching a cab.

  “So you’re really going out to the Kenwood house tomorrow,” Heather said.

  “Yeah. What should I expect?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been invited.”

  Chapter Ten

  Kenwood’s Lincoln was waiting for Sam in front of the hotel at a quarter after eight. Heather had called to tell him that the Dodgers were in the middle of a homestand. She’d booked them on an L.A. flight leaving Logan the next morning. Sam had been in Boston for two nights now, and already he was getting restless to leave. He hadn’t accomplished much; he’d found no convincing evidence that the Series had been fixed, and he’d established a borderline-kinky sexual relationship with his client’s assistant.

  On second thought, not bad for less than 48 hours work, most of which was on the clock. But there seemed little left to do here, unless Heather wanted to do it on Old Ironsides.

  “Good morning, Mr. Skarda,” said Paul O’Brien, who was waiting to open the back door of the limo. “Sleep well?”

  Sam scanned Paul’s face to see if he might have meant anything extra by that, but there appeared to be no hidden intent. Sam settled deeply into the black leather seat. There was a pot of hot coffee and a carafe of orange juice on the fold-down buffet shelf in front of him, and a Boston Globe in the magazine rack. Paul pulled smoothly out into traffic while Sam poured himself a cup of coffee and opened the paper.

  “Paul, how long have you worked for Mr. Kenwood?” Sam asked.

  “Ten years, sir.”

  “What happened to his chauffeur before that?”

  “I don’t know. I think Mr. and Mrs. Kenwood drove themselves. But they were getting older, and then Mrs. Kenwood got sick.”

  “Do you know anything about Kenwood’s son?”

  “No, sir. We—they—didn’t hear from him. I never met him.”

  “What was his first name?”

  “Bruce, I think.”

  “How’d he die?”

  “Drowned in the Pacific—somewhere in California.”

  “Did Lou go to the funeral?”

  “No.”

  Odd, Sam thought. Unless Bruce Kenwood had been in a monastery or a mental ward somewhere, you’d think he’d have wanted to stay in touch, just to try to get his piece of the pie. But the children of rich people were an unpredictable subset. Some grew up with a sense of entitlement, while others had a desperate need to prove that they could make it on their own. Sam knew both kinds, and didn’t particularly envy either.

  “Why do you think Bruce stayed away?”

  “I really don’t know. But I don’t think he and Mrs. Kenwood—Katherine—ever got along.”

  That would make sense. He’d resent his father’s new wife.

  “I think he got into some trouble—taxes or something,” Paul continued. “Then he died. The Kenwoods never talk about him.”

  “What about your family, Paul?”

  “Mine, sir?”

  “Big Sox fans, I’d guess.”

  “Oh, you know it,” he said, again dropping the formal veneer. “Me and my brothers—my brothers and I, we grew up goin’ to Sox games. My dad was at Fenway for Game Seven in ’67. He said losin’ that game broke his heart. Then 1975 did it all over again, and the playoff in ’78…hell, I remember that one. I was just a kid, but I can remember my dad cryin’ when Yaz popped out to Nettles to end the game. But the ’86 Series, when the ball went through Buckner’s legs, that was the worst. It took him most of spring trainin’ the next year to decide whether he was gonna watch the Sox anymore. Course, he did. Still never misses a game on TV, even after he got sick…”

  “What’s he got?” Sam asked.

  “Alzheimer’s. Pretty far along now. He didn’t really know what was going on when the Sox beat the Rockies.”

  “He must have loved it when the Sox beat the Cardinals.”

  “Greatest moment of his life,” Paul said, his voice quavering. “Back then, he knew what was gonna happen to him. When we got the last out, he turned to my ma and said, ‘I can die happy.’”

  Sam let a few moments of silence pass, then said, “Does he still watch the games?”

  “Yeah. Every once in a while he asks if we’ve traded that goddamn Buckner yet.”

  They took the same route out to Marblehead Neck that Kenwood used, hugging the shoreline on Route 1 through Revere, Lynn, and Swampscott, passing industrial areas, beaches, apartment buildings, and a few trendy restaurants and shops, with sailboats bobbing offshore and gulls swooping down for snacks. Traveling against morning commuter traffic, it took just 30 minutes to cover the 15-mile drive to Ocean Avenue, which ran across a narrow, sandy isthmus and connected Marblehead Neck to the mainland.

  The Kenwood house was at the north end of the Neck on a leafy, two-lane road with homes isolated from the passing traffic by thick hedges and stone walls. The entrance to Kenwood’s place was marked by two towering maples on either side of a gated brick driveway that concluded in a circle with a flagpole in the center, from which flew the American flag and 2004 and 2007 World Series Champions ba
nners. To the left of the circle was a two-story, four-car garage in the same weathered, gray cedar-shake style as the main house, which had four chimneys and seemed to sprawl across the high point of the property like a series of smaller houses pressed together. A stone stairway led up to the main doorway, and Sam could see through the windows that the view from the back of the house was going to be spectacular—nothing between the Kenwoods and the rocky shore but a long, sloping green lawn, and nothing beyond that but France.

  Paul went in ahead of Sam and announced loudly that they had arrived. Katherine Kenwood was in the living room bump-out, her wheelchair facing the wide bay windows that looked out over the jagged point that jutted into the ocean. The morning sun was sparkling on the calm water, and Katherine seemed reluctant to turn herself around and surrender the view.

  The spacious living room, with hardwood floors, wood-beamed ceilings, and a stone fireplace, was furnished with sturdy-looking but obviously antique wooden furniture mixed with more comfortable and contemporary couches and armchairs. The living room was open to an adjoining study, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a grand piano, a globe in a wooden stand, and a compass, a sextant, a maritime map, and other nautical knickknacks on the walls, all of it suggesting New England whaling days. The Kenwoods were relatively new to their wealth, but their house was a study in old-money taste.

  “Let’s go out to the porch,” Katherine said.

  Paul gripped the handles of her wheelchair and pushed her through the open door that led from the living room to a covered porch with wooden floorboards. Three-fourths of the porch was sheltered by the overhang from the second floor, supported by shingled wooden pillars; the far end was open, and bathed in sunlight. Katherine was sitting in the covered side. Sam selected a white wicker rocker to sit in, facing the ocean.

  “Bring us some coffee, would you, Paul?” Katherine said. “And bring my pistol out here. It’s on the dining room table.”

  Katherine looked even more striking in the daylight than she had in the owner’s suite the previous night. Despite the lines around her eyes and the corners of her mouth, the natural light brought out the smooth delicacy of her complexion; the ocean seemed to reflect back to Sam in her deep blue eyes, and her fine, silver-blond hair rustled in the gentle breeze off the water. It wasn’t difficult to see past the oxygen tube that ran across her upper lip and imagine why Lou Kenwood had left his first wife for this woman.