by Stephen Frey
Jack reached over and patted MJ’s shoulder. He’d heard the depth of emotion in the young man’s voice. It was as close as he’d ever heard MJ come to absolute honesty, to complete vulnerability. Most sixteen-year-olds didn’t know what either of those were. “It’s all right.”
MJ gazed straight ahead through the windshield for a while. “Sometimes,” he finally said, “when I’m out on my bike running errands for Momma, I think maybe I’ll turn around and Daddy’ll be standing there. We don’t talk for long, just a few minutes. But he tells me he’s okay. That he’s got a job and a place to live. He gives me his phone number so I can call to check up on him. We end up hanging out together once in a while because we happened to run into each other that day. It ends up being a good thing.” MJ cleared his throat. “Daddy used to take me fishing every Saturday at this little bridge near the house. We’d catch bluegill and bass. We’d be alone for a few hours because nobody else ever came there to fish. It was like our secret spot, and he used to tell me things those days, used to tell me how to look at life. What to watch out for, how to size people up, how to tell whether you could trust someone. Things I remember all the time, things I use all the time.” His voice was barely a whisper. “You know, he wasn’t much of a father, but he was a good dad.” MJ turned toward Jack. “Does that make sense to you?”
This kid was something else. “Yeah, it does.”
“I’d like to see him just one more time. Maybe go fishing with him again at that little bridge. I got some things I’d like to say to him. Nothing bitter, just things. Know what I mean?”
Jack nodded. He’d picked up the phone a thousand times over the past thirty-five years but never made that one call he wanted to make. He’d always put the phone back down before dialing that last digit because when he really thought about it, it seemed like it was better left a fantasy. Seemed like at that critical moment it was better not to know. Now that he was sixty-three, he wished he had made the call, wished he’d had the courage to follow through. But now it was too late. Now it had to stay a fantasy, had to remain an unknown. He nodded ever so subtly. Oh, yeah, he knew exactly what MJ meant.
They drove in silence for a long time.
When Tarpon Stadium appeared over the palm trees, MJ spoke up. “So, did you find it?”
Jack glanced over. “Find what?”
MJ was grinning from ear to ear. “The website. The one with all the box scores. Retrosheet.”
Elation rushed through Jack’s entire body. All the way to his fingertips and toes. “You found it, too?” he asked excitedly.
“Yup. Right after I talked to you on the phone.”
But how? Jack asked himself. From the looks of the house, Yolanda Billups didn’t have two nickels to rub together. “You got a computer at the house? And Internet?”
“I know, I know. You think we’re too poor to have a computer. And we probably are,” MJ admitted. “We probably shouldn’t have spent five hundred bucks on it and we probably shouldn’t be spending fifteen bucks a month on Web access, either. But Momma wants us all to be smart. She figures we need Internet to be smart these days. She figures it’s the best way for kids to learn these days.”
“Your momma’s no fool.”
“She’s the best mom in the world,” MJ said proudly. “So, did you look at it?”
“I had to call the Elias Sports Bureau first to find it, but yeah, I looked at it.” Jack whooped suddenly like he’d just struck out the last batter in game seven of the World Series. He couldn’t keep it bottled up anymore. He wasn’t like MJ. He had to show how ecstatic he was, had to let his joy run wild. “Could you believe it?”
MJ raised both eyebrows like it surprised him, too. “Which part?”
Jack caught the look. It was the first time he’d seen that expression on MJ’s face. An expression of total disbelief. “The part about the Kid having the same game as Mickey Mantle on the same day. Same hits in the same order. Home run, single—”
“Home run, single, home run, double, single,” MJ cut in, shaking his head. “I know. It’s incredible. It’s an incredible coincidence.”
“Coincidence?” Jack’s jaw almost hit the steering wheel. “Coinci—”
“Look out!” MJ shouted, pointing over the dashboard.
Jack slammed on the brakes, and the Citation came to a grinding halt just inches behind a BMW stopped at a red light. He let out a relieved breath. He didn’t have car insurance, either.
“Yeah, coincidence,” MJ repeated firmly. “That’s all it was. Don’t get your hopes up, Ahab. I know what you’re thinking.”
“What’s that?” Jack demanded, his heart still thumping from the near collision. “What do you think I’m thinking?”
“You’re thinking this Kid is copying Mickey Mantle’s 1968 season,” MJ answered bluntly. “You think he’s hitting exactly what Mickey Mantle hit in each game. Like anyone could really do that.”
Jack nodded. Exactly. That was what he was thinking. “Yeah, okay. Look, I know it’s crazy,” he admitted, watching the BMW driver flick a cigarette butt out the window. God, he wanted to hop out, snatch up the burning cigarette, and toss it back into the BMW. He’d always wanted to do that once. “I know it’s wild to think anyone could be that good at any level of baseball. I don’t care if it’s you or me playing T-ball against a bunch of six-year-olds.” The light turned green, and Jack followed the BMW through the intersection. They were almost to the stadium turnoff. “I know how insane it sounds. But still. He had that game yesterday, and it’s the same game Mantle had forty years ago on the exact same date.” He flipped on the blinker. “All we have to do is get the Tarpons’ play-by-play box scores from this season and match them up. I looked at the game Mantle had before the May 30 game,” Jack went on, “and he was one-for-four on May 26 of 1968. The Kid had the same game four days ago, on the twenty-sixth. I couldn’t tell if it was as exactly the same like it was last night because all I had was the newspaper box score. I couldn’t tell if they had the same hit in the same inning or not because I didn’t have the play-by-play, but we should be able to get our hands on all that stuff, right?”
“Yeah,” MJ agreed, “we should.”
Jack pulled into the stadium, then steered to the employee parking lot near the executive offices. “It’d be great if we could get the Kid to admit he’s doing this,” Jack suggested, putting the car in park and cutting the engine. “I know that’s gonna be tough, but you can do it, MJ. Get close to him, drop a hint about what you know, convince him you’re a good guy and you just want to help him.” Jack puffed out his cheeks like he knew what a long shot it was. “I’m worried he might take off if he finds out I’m on to what he did last night. He didn’t like the fact that I was with the Yankees when I talked to him at the Dugout. That seemed to scare him. But you’re not gonna scare him.” Jack’s eyes narrowed. MJ was off in another world, apparently not listening. Jack tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“You hear what I said?”
“I heard, but it doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter? What in the hell’s your problem?”
“I don’t have a problem. I just don’t want to get caught up in a crazy fantasy.”
“How can you say it’s a fantasy? Facts are facts. I’m no statistics guru, but the odds are probably a billion to one that Clemant would have exactly the same game as Mantle on exactly the same day of the year. Hell, the odds are probably even higher than that. It’s worth at least checking out, don’t you think?”
MJ pursed his lips. “I took awhile coming out of the clubhouse last night. I didn’t come out right after the game was over.”
“I know. It pissed me off, too. So what?”
“I took awhile because Clemant pulled me aside, said he wanted to talk to me. He had me meet him in a training room down the hall from the locker room. We went there separately because he was worried about somebody seeing us walking together. I was kin
d of worried about the whole thing, worried maybe he was gonna smack me for something he thought I said about him behind his back. Or something he thought I did. But I went anyway because I’m supposed to be getting you information. Anyway, all he wanted to do was thank me for bringing his stuff out to him for the top of the ninth when no one else would. You know, his cap and glove.”
“That’s great,” Jack exclaimed, remembering how MJ had met the Kid in front of the pitcher’s mound. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“He asked me if maybe I wanted to grab lunch sometime and talk. Not about anything serious, just about baseball and regular stuff. He said he wasn’t the bad guy everybody thought he was.” MJ’s voice was low. “Said he wanted a friend, someone to talk to. Said he couldn’t open up to many people because of something in his past.”
Jack could barely believe his ears, barely control his excitement. “That’s great. You’re in. I mean, we’re as good as—”
“Then he asked me not to tell anybody. Asked me if I could do that for him. Asked me if he could trust me. Said people he cared about could get in trouble if I told anyone what he was telling me.”
“Aw, that’s a crock of—”
“I’ve already broken my promise,” MJ interrupted, “by telling you all this. I think he was serious about people he cared about getting in trouble. I don’t think it was a crock. He seemed real serious, seemed like he was getting emotional. Nervous, too. I feel bad.”
They stared at each other for several moments, then Jack finally nodded. “Okay, fine. I respect your—”
“I’ll only do it for you on one condition,” MJ broke in.
“What’s that?”
“Promise not to tell anyone. That it doesn’t go any farther than the two of us.” MJ drummed his fingers on his thigh nervously. “I promised to get you information. I don’t want to let you down.”
If they found out Clemant was really that good, how could MJ possibly expect him to keep it a secret? Not to at least try to get the Kid in front of people for a tryout? Then it hit him. “That’s why the Kid doesn’t do great all the time,” he said, watching MJ pull something out of his pocket. “That’s why Clemant doesn’t have games like he had last night. Jesus!” he shouted. “That’s why he’d copy Mantle’s last season! It was terrible. By Mantle’s standards, anyway. A season no one would care about, especially in Single-A.”
“Yeah,” MJ agreed, handing Jack what he’d pulled from his pocket. “You’re right.”
“What’s this?” Jack unfolded the crinkled piece of paper and read what was scrawled on it, his heart suddenly thumping hard. Home run, single, home run, double, single. And at the bottom of the paper in large letters: GO FOR IT. “My God,” he uttered. “Where’d you get this?”
“Out of a trash can outside the locker room last night after Mikey Clemant tossed it in there. He had it with him the whole game last night. Had it in his pocket and checked it before each at-bat,” MJ explained, opening the car door and climbing out. “I watched him do it each time,” he said, leaning back down into the car. “He caught me staring once while he was looking at it. I thought maybe that was what he wanted to talk about in the training room.” MJ’s face lighted up for a moment. “I guess, in a way, that is what he was talking about. Anyway, after the game I saw him toss it in the trash can, and I pulled it back out when he was gone. Made a lot of sense to me when I went on Retrosheet before you came over today. By the way,” he said, nodding at the paper, “you ever think about what else Mikey Clemant spells?”
Jack shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean by—”
“Mickey Mantle. The same letters that spell Mikey Clemant spell Mickey Mantle.” MJ made a pistol out of his right hand and pretended to fire it, then brought the tip of his index finger—the tip of the barrel—up in front of his mouth and blew, like he was blowing smoke. “Gotcha, Ahab.”
As Jack watched MJ head toward the Tarpon clubhouse door, he couldn’t decide whether to pump his fist in excitement—or cry. He was so close—yet still so far away.
MJ never put his cleats on until just before he went out on the field. They had long metal spikes and they were dangerous to walk around on in here. The locker room was carpeted, but the big bathroom area had a tile floor, and it was easy to slip on spikes in there, especially if the floor was wet. So he walked around in his team-issued flip-flops until he was ready to go out on the field. Like most of the players did.
Usually he was the first one to the diamond, making sure bats were arranged perfectly by the cage for the players before they started batting practice. But he was late today because Jack and his mother had been carrying on for so long in front of the house. He’d already taken a boatload of crap from the Tarpon’s crusty old manager, Lefty Hodges, and from a couple of the players. But it had been mostly good-natured. This was the first time he’d been late and, besides, everyone seemed to like him, especially the owner. MJ knew why the owner liked him—because he was black and the community could clearly see that the team had no problems hiring minorities. Being a poster boy for race relations had bugged him at first, but it didn’t anymore. He realized it was just good business. Just the owner taking the right steps. A step he might have to take someday as the owner of a baseball team. In reverse. Besides, it ensured MJ’s spot in the team hierarchy because when the owner liked you, everyone else had to like you.
MJ was zipping up his red Tarpon uniform pants as he padded quickly out of the bathroom when he came around the corner leading to the locker room. He happened to look up just in the nick of time. Zack Whitney, the team’s top relief pitcher, was standing thirty feet away in front of a locker staring down at a small piece of paper. A moment later Whitney stuffed the paper in his right front pocket, then quickly opened the lock and the locker door and plucked a wallet from a pair of jeans hanging on a hook inside.
MJ melted back into the hall leading to the showers and pressed himself to the wall, then leaned around the corner and peered into the locker room again. The problem was that Whitney was taking the wallet out of Reggie McDaniel’s locker. Whitney was stealing the wallet.
Whitney stuffed the wallet in the back pocket of his uniform, quietly shut the locker door, then secured the combination lock with a quick upward motion.
As he turned to go, MJ pulled back out of sight and pressed himself to the wall again, praying the guy wouldn’t head to the bathroom to take a leak. He didn’t. A few moments later the locker room door squeaked open and MJ heard Whitney’s heavy footsteps heading down the long tunnel toward the Tarpon bullpen. Not out the short tunnel to the field, which was the way all the players who weren’t pitchers went.
When he was sure Whitney was gone, MJ let out a long breath. Now what?
34
THE GAME OF hide-and-seek was about to take a hairpin turn. The hunter was about to become the hunted.
Johnny had identified the tail. Recognized the sudden lane changes, swerves, and quick stops in his rearview mirror, and he couldn’t stand it. Like a fighter pilot unable to shake enemy radar lock or an antelope sensing a pride closing in, the inevitability of it all was driving him insane. His stress was undoubtedly heightened by his situation with Karen, he knew, but that realization didn’t help. In fact, it only intensified his mounting sense of grinding panic. Made him conjure up all kinds of crazy scenarios about who the stalker could be and why he was back there. Made his imagination run wild with thoughts of psychopathic mental switches, severed heads, codes of honor, rats, how gorgeous Karen was, and a boss who wanted death without judgment.
Johnny had tried desperately—without seeming desperate—to recognize the person behind the wheel of the trailing car. But that had been impossible. The chase car never came close enough—nor went away. It was like a specter that paced him maddeningly as he fled down an eerie, candlelit hallway. It seemed that his only option was decisive action. A scorched-earth response. Survival above all else.
So he parked the Seville in front of a large, nine
-story apartment building near LaGuardia Airport in Queens and headed inside, literally whistling as he went, seemingly oblivious to the drama. He’d been with a call girl who lived here, so he knew the layout of the lobby. It was perfect for what he needed. There was another door opposite the main entrance and, by slipping out that door and going around back of the building, he could quickly return to the street where he’d parked without being observed.
The tail was down the street, parked ten cars behind the Seville, but still in front of the building. Which couldn’t have worked out better. When Johnny came around the side of the building from the back, he was right behind whoever was tailing him. The guy hadn’t gotten out—Johnny had made sure of that after moving through the front door of the apartment building—apparently content to wait for Johnny to reappear. Content to maintain the cat-and-mouse game when Johnny was on his way again.
The building lay directly in the path of planes taking off from LaGuardia and they were still very low as they went over, so each one made a horrendous racket. As Johnny crept along the passenger side of a pickup truck—which was parked directly behind the old Impala that had been tailing him—he tried to coordinate his move with the jet he assumed had just taken off. He’d spent the past few minutes timing interims between planes on his stolen Rolex, and each was almost exactly forty-five seconds. Hopefully the noise of the jet would drown out the gunshots and he’d get away clean.
At forty seconds he stopped and smoothly withdrew the pistol from his belt, feeling so much better with the weapon in his hand as he began to crawl forward again. His heart rate calmed noticeably and the crazy images disappeared now that his fingers were wrapped around the familiar grip. He was thinking clearly once more. He ought to be hearing the whine of a jet engine any second. Come on, baby, come on.
Sure enough, just as he reached the Impala’s passenger door, a jet roared overhead, shattering the quiet of the street. He stood and without hesitation fired two shots through the passenger side window, hitting the unsuspecting victim in the right cheek and tricep. The first bullet ripped through the guy’s mouth, blowing out the left side of his chin, and the second hit a rib, deflecting just enough to miss any vital organs, embedding in the driver’s side door.
