“Man, ain’t you lookin’ for the wrasslin’ matches?” the bouncer said.
“No, we’re looking for Alberto Miranda.”
“He ain’t in there.”
“He’s in there,” Daly said.
“No, he ain’t, and you ain’t, either. But she can go in.”
The bouncer pointed at Heather, flashed his gem-studded smile and lifted the rope, but she stayed where she was. Daly rolled his eyes and took out his cell phone. He punched Miranda’s number and then handed the phone to the bouncer. When Miranda answered, the bouncer stammered and said, “Yo, uh…Alberto?”
When Miranda confirmed his identity, the bouncer told him there were three people outside who wanted to see him. He listened, said. “Sure, man,” snapped the phone shut and handed it back to Daly as though it had just turned to gold.
“He says to go on in. He’s at a cabana on your left as you walk in, first floor, about halfway back in the room.”
The mystified tone never left his voice as they walked past him and up the steps into the club.
Inside, the sound was so oppressive that Sam thought the walls were going to collapse. Every time he’d been in L.A., he’d made it a point to go out to a club and catch at least one band or solo artist. But this was barely music. Daly was actually wincing at the decibel level; he mouthed the words “Please, somebody, kill me.” Heather was oblivious to everything. She cruised past the blue leather couches and the elevated dance floor and headed for the gold beaded curtains that separated the private cabanas from the public areas. Heads turned to gaze at her as they walked through the club, and Sam hoped he wouldn’t have to deal with some coked-out playboy trying to make a pass at her. If it were up to him, he’d let her handle it, but he worked for her. If she needed a bodyguard, that’s what he’d have to be.
Heather pulled one of the cabana curtains aside, and they found Miranda seated on a couch with a woman sprawled on either side of him. One was nibbling on his ear, while the other had her hand in his lap, rubbing back and forth. Two large, dark Hispanic men materialized from either side of the cabana as they began to walk in, stepping in Daly’s way. Miranda shook his head at the two men and held his hand up, indicating it was all right for Daly to come in. Sam and Heather followed. Sam saw Daly lean over and say something to Miranda, but he couldn’t hear what it was. Then Miranda got up, shook Sam’s hand, kissed Heather on the cheek and motioned for them to follow him.
They walked around the dance floor to a stairway that led up to the second floor, and they emerged in a hallway that led to a closed door. Miranda knocked, and after a few seconds the door opened. They went inside and found themselves in a private, glassed-in suite overlooking the dance floor, not unlike Lou Kenwood’s suite at Fenway Park.
A white man with swept-back silver hair and a black open-collared shirt was sitting in a leather armchair watching the dancers, while a large black man wearing a sideways NY ballcap, baggy mid-shin cargo pants and an oversized Detroit Red Wings jersey stood by the door.
“Alberto, my man,” the white guy said. He got up to give Miranda a soul shake and a hug. “Great game today. You’re amazing, dude.”
“Thanks, bro,” Miranda said. “Kenny, I need a favor, man. You know Russ Daly of the Times?”
Daly nodded but didn’t make a move toward Kenny.
“Sure, I read your stuff, Daly. Honored to have you here.”
“Likewise,” Daly said, with absolutely no sincerity.
“Daly, he writes good stuff about me,” Miranda said. “Some of those other bitches, man, they write lies all the time. Not Daly. If he rips me, I deserve it. If I play good, he says so.”
“That’s me—fair to a fault,” Daly said.
“I need a quiet place to talk to these people,” Miranda said to Kenny. “Okay if we use your suite?”
“That’s what it’s here for, Alberto. I was about to make the rounds anyway. Take as long as you want. Tito, let’s go.”
Kenny’s ingratiating manner changed abruptly when he spoke to his assistant, or bodyguard, or whatever he was. They walked out and Miranda took the club owner’s seat. Daly, Heather, and Sam sat down on a couch facing him.
“Now, what’s this all about, Daly?” Miranda said. “Something about me making money?”
He spoke with much less of an accent than his pal Ivan Hurtado. He’d been playing baseball in America for about eight years, and he’d worked hard on his English skills to bring in endorsement money. He was the entire package—tall, muscular, neatly groomed with short hair and no goatee or moustache. In his tailored Italian suit, it was hard to tell whether Miranda had the steroid-enhanced physique that was obvious on some players. What was not hard to tell was that Heather couldn’t take her eyes off him.
“Alberto, Ms. Canby and I work for the Boston Red Sox, and this isn’t really about money,” Sam said. He leaned forward from the couch to try to engage the Dodger player, who looked as relaxed as though he were expecting a commercial pitch from a soft drink company. “It’s about your World Series with the Red Sox.”
“What about it?” Miranda said, suddenly wary.
“Did you try your hardest?”
“Hey, fuck you, man! Hell yes, I try my hardest!”
Miranda’s eyes flashed, and his accent became more pronounced.
“It didn’t look that way,” Sam said. He figured he had nothing to lose—Miranda wasn’t going to talk about this with anyone else. “It looked like you were trying to let the Red Sox win.”
“Why you say that?” Miranda said. He was shouting now. “That’s fucking bullshit, man!”
“I’ll tell you why I say that. Somebody is demanding $50,000,000 dollars from the Boston Red Sox owner. He says unless he gets the money, a player will come forward and claim the World Series was fixed.”
“Who the hell is this guy, Daly?” Miranda said.
“Detective.”
“A fucking detective?” He was on his feet now, waving both hands at Sam as if to say, ‘Get that shit out of my face.’ He walked to the window, looked out over the dance floor and then turned to face Sam.
“I play as good as I can, man. My arm hurt. I couldn’t pitch like I can. That’s it. That’s all I got to say.”
“We’re not trying to get you in trouble, Alberto,” Heather said. She got up and walked to the glass wall next to the ballplayer. “We’re trying to help you. Really.”
She put her hand gently on his shoulder, and he looked down at her hand, then at her. It appeared that Miranda could not quite understand Heather’s role in the proceedings. Women who looked like her normally came to clubs like this for one thing—to meet men like Alberto Miranda and go home with them. This one, however, was with a man who was accusing him of betraying his team and his sport. Miranda took her hand off his shoulder. He looked intently at Heather, then crossed his arms and leaned against the glass.
“You want to do something for me?” Alberto said, still staring at Heather. “Suck my dick.”
“Hey,” Sam said. He started to get up.
“Never mind, Sam,” Heather said. She went back to the couch and sat down next to him. It probably wasn’t the first time she’d heard that proposal in a business meeting.
Sam had known Miranda would not admit to the plot. But he wanted to see Miranda’s reaction—and the reaction was angrier and more defensive than Sam would have expected if Miranda were totally in the dark.
“So you’re not the guy who’s going to go to the press and the Commissioner and tell them the Series was fixed?”
“It wasn’t fixed, man, that’s what I’m telling you!”
But Miranda had averted his eyes from Sam’s when he was first asked the question. Something was going on. Sam decided to take it in a different direction.
“Do you know a guy named Sid Mink?”
This time Miranda held his gaze.
“Yeah, I heard his name. I don’t know him.”
&
nbsp; “You know what he does?”
“Sure, I guess so. Organized crime. Mob stuff.”
“That’s right. But you don’t know him.”
“No. Never met him. Never talked to him. We got to stay away from dudes like that, man. Baseball rules.”
This time, Sam was inclined to believe Miranda, though he wasn’t sure why. He knew Miranda wasn’t telling the whole truth, but Sid Mink’s name had barely registered with him. Something was going on, and Miranda knew something about it, but it looked like Mink wasn’t the guy running it.
“Are you on steroids, Alberto?”
“Hey, man, I don’t got to talk to you anymore,” Miranda said. He walked up next to the couch and glared down at Sam. “You come here, insult me, insult my family—”
He broke off, took a last, long glance at Heather, then walked out the door, slamming it behind him.
“That went well,” Daly said. He looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. “I think I’ve had my last interview with Alberto Miranda.”
“Sorry,” Sam said. “But I had to ask him straight out, to see how he took it.”
The door opened again, but it wasn’t Miranda returning. It was Kenny and Tito, and they didn’t look happy.
“Hey, asshole,” Kenny said. He walked up to Sam, stopping when their faces were inches apart. “I don’t appreciate you coming in here and hassling my guests.”
Tito had walked around beside Sam and suddenly put his hand around Sam’s arm, squeezing it hard and digging his fingers into the muscle.
“He’s got a gun, boss,” Tito said.
“Get him out of here. All of ’em.”
Sam shook his arm to try to free himself, but Tito’s grip was too tight. He looked out the door and saw two more bouncer types waiting for them.
“We’ll leave quietly,” Sam said. “Keep your hands off the young woman.”
“Sure, sure, anything you say, dickwipe,” Kenny said.
He pushed Sam and Daly out the door, then grabbed Heather by the arm and roughly pulled her along with him. Tito and his fellow goons escorted the three of them down the hallway to the stairs.
“Just so you know, Skarda, you’re on your own here,” Daly said. “I’m a peacenik.”
“Daly, I don’t ever want to see your fat face in here again,” Kenny said. “I never read that puke you write, anyway.”
“That hurts,” Daly said.
Then Kenny looked at Sam.
“And as for you, whatever your name is, if I see you anywhere, anytime, I’ll break your legs.”
“You’ll need more than the Jackson Three here,” Sam said.
Kenny stopped walking, turned to face Sam and punched him in the stomach. Sam tried to spin sideways out of Tito’s grasp, but one of the goons grabbed his other arm and held him so Kenny could hit him two more times.
“Stop that!” Heather screamed.
“Shut up, bitch,” one of the goons said. He grabbed her by her hair and pulled her head back.
The door to the stairway opened and Alberto Miranda came running through it, accompanied by a burst of pounding dance music from the main floor. He went straight for the goon who had Heather by the hair, grabed him and shoved him against the wall. Two rapid blows from Miranda’s elbow to the side of the goon’s head dropped him to the floor. Sam shook himself loose from Tito and pulled his gun just as the other thug was drawing a knife from under his shirt.
“Don’t,” Sam said. He aimed the gun at the thug’s heart. “Put it down.”
The knife clattered to the floor. Miranda went to stand in front of Heather, who was clutching the back of her head in pain.
“You all right?” he asked her.
“Yes, I think so,” she said, her voice coming in little gasps. “Thanks.”
“Now, we’re walking out of here, and we don’t need any help,” Sam said. He moved the gun from Kenny to Tito and the goons, and back again.
Kenny nodded to his bouncers. Sam held the gun on them while Daly, Heather, and Miranda walked down the stairs. Then Sam started to follow, but he turned back to address Kenny.
“The name’s Sam Skarda, Kenny. Like you said, anytime, anywhere.”
Kenny was disinclined to make a smart comeback with the muzzle of a Glock pointed at his balls.
Sam found Heather, Miranda, and Daly on the sidewalk outside the club. Miranda was patting Heather and stroking the back of her head.
“Thanks, Alberto,” Sam said. “I’m glad you came back.”
“No problem, man,” Miranda said. He had his arm around Heather’s waist. “That fuckin’ Kenny’s a weasel.”
“Here’s my card.” Sam took one out of his billfold and handed it to Miranda. “If you want to talk…”
“Nothing to talk about, man. Like I told you, I played my best in the Series. I got nothing more to say.”
But Miranda took the card and put it in his coat pocket. He asked Heather one more time if she was all right, and she smiled at him and said she’d be fine. He gave her a long squeeze, and their eyes lingered on each other for another moment. Then Miranda walked over to the valet stand and asked to have his car brought around. He pulled out his phone and made a call while he was waiting. By the time the valet brought his car—a Jaguar—Miranda had been joined by the two women who’d been sitting with him in the cabana. They both slid into the Jag with him, and he drove off—checking to make sure that Heather was looking at them as they passed by.
“What’s he got that I haven’t got, except looks, money, and a great body?” Daly said as Miranda’s tail lights receded.
“I don’t know what to make of him,” Heather said. “First he comes off as a spoiled, piggish jock, and then he turns around and…”
“Becomes your knight in shining armor,” Sam finished.
“Yeah. Strange guy…”
“I’d go with your first impression,” Daly said.
“So you think he’s involved in this?” Sam asked Daly.
“I still don’t know if anything happened. But he’s got something up his ass.”
Sam agreed, but he was at a loss to know how to prove it. Another night had slipped by, and he was no closer to figuring out what, if anything, was going on, or who was behind the extortion note. Now there were just three days left before the money had to be wired to Babe Ruth’s offshore bank account. Three days to find the Babe; after that, Kenwood was out $50,000,000, or baseball had its worst scandal in a century.
There was only one other man in town who might have some answers.
Sid Mink.
Chapter Sixteen
If Sam had been working the case as a cop, he could go to the L.A. police and talk to their organized crime unit about Mink. They could fill him in on chapter and verse of Mink’s illegal activities, his known associates, his usual hangouts, and his most dangerous habits. But as a private investigator, he might not get much cooperation from cops he didn’t know. And he’d probably have to give more answers than he’d get. Kenwood hadn’t been willing to get the Boston cops mixed up in this, so the same caution had to apply in L.A. The story couldn’t get out. Cops were pretty good at keeping their mouths shut when it came to cases they were working on, or protecting the safety of one of their own. But they could also spread a juicy rumor faster than a Hollywood gossip columnist.
There had to be another way to get in touch with Sid Mink—and fast. All he could think of was talking to another bookie—an L.A. bookie. If Mink was running the kind of enterprise everybody said he was running, the bookies would know how to reach him.
It was almost midnight when Sam and Heather got back to their hotel. He told her he was going to call Jimmy the Rabbit before turning in. She said she was going back to her room to call Lou and tell him they’d talked to Miranda. Sam was not surprised that Heather didn’t suggest spending the night together. She’d had a tough night, and if there was anybody she wanted to curl up with, it would be Miranda. Since
he wasn’t around, she went to bed alone. That was all right with Sam—now that he knew about Heather and Kenwood, his ethics were telling him to keep his hands to himself.
Sam got an answer on Jimmy the Rabbit’s cell phone.
“Jimmy?”
“Bad timing, whoever this is. I gotta get back to the table.”
“Sam Skarda. You at the card room?”
“That’s right. I’m down three hundred, Sammy. I gotta get healthy.”
It was just after two a.m. Minneapolis time. Jimmy would be playing poker all night in the card room at the Canterbury Park racetrack. He could afford to take a few minutes off.
“Jimmy, I need to talk to an L.A. bookie. A guy like Bucca in Boston.”
“You in L.A. now?”
“Yeah. Santa Monica.”
“Right on the beach, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Must be nice.”
“Got a name and a number?”
“Sammy, what do I get outta this?”
“Nothing. But if I’m ever in a position to do you a favor with the Minneapolis cops…”
“Which you won’t be.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“Phil Minervino.”
“How’s that?”
“L.A. bookie—Phil Minervino.”
Jimmy gave Sam the number, and told him it was the same deal—wait an hour until Jimmy could call him up and vouch for Sam. Then he hung up.
Sam waited until almost one a.m. and called Minervino. He explained who he was, and said he needed to get in touch with Sid Mink. It was urgent.
“It’s always urgent,” Minervino said, in a bored tone.
“You know how I can talk to him?”
“You like the ballgames?”
“Sure.”
“You can usually find Sid at Dodger Stadium. He’s got a field box down the third base line. There’s a game tomorrow night.”
“Got a seat number?”
“Section 25, Row 15, seats one through four.”
Green Monster Page 14
