Mike Reuther - Return to Dead City

by Mike Reuther

  I sampled the coffee. It was good stuff all right. Probably an expensive Columbian brand.

  “Let’s just talk about you two for a few moments,” I said.

  Miller raised a brow.

  “Us, Mr.Crager?” Reba uncrossed and re-crossed her long, ivory legs and brushed back from her one cheek a few strands of red hair that had unloosened from the neat heap on the top of her head.

  I looked at Miller. “He was your brother. Were the two of you close?”

  He stared down at the plush red carpeting. When he raised his head, his eyes were misty. “You must realize that this is hard for me.”

  Reba sat with a stone-faced expression watching her husband.

  “We were fifteen years apart,” he continued. “So, no. I suppose you could say we were never close.”

  “Did you keep in contact through the years?” I asked.

  Miller reached for his coffee on the table. His hands shook as he brought the cup to his mouth. He may have tasted a drop or two by the time he placed it gingerly back on the table.

  “Christmas cards. A phone call every few years,” he said, brushing some lint from his trousers and clearing his throat.

  “How about this summer?” I said. “He was back in town playing for the Mets. Didn’t you two find time to get together now and then?”

  Miller leaned back in his seat. He seemed to be gathering his composure now. “He didn’t have much choice now did he?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “He was the hometown boy, Mr. Crager. And I was his older brother, the owner of the ball club. Naturally, we got together. It’s good public relations all around.”

  “You scratch my back; I’ll scratch yours,” said his wife scornfully.

  “So, the two of you found yourselves thrown together at team functions. Things like that.”

  Miller nodded. “Such as they were. There were very few of such activities.”

  “Didn’t I see you and the missus here at the ball game last night?” I asked.

  Miller and his wife looked at each other.

  “That’s right,” she said.

  “But you left before the fifth inning?”

  “We had to attend a fund-raising banquet,” said Miller.

  “Why go to the game at all if you had to cut out early?” I asked.

  “I was there to throw out the first ball,” Miller said.

  “I guess I missed that. I didn’t get to the game myself until the bottom of the first.”

  I finished off my coffee and set the empty cup on the table. His wife asked me if I wanted more. The pot was this delicate looking piece of china with a big spout, and as I reached for the pot I had the uneasy feeling of them both watching me as if I was the hired help being asked to break bread with them for the first time. Naturally, I spilled a bit of the coffee on the rug as I poured the stuff into my cup.

  “Sorry,” I said, feeling more foolish than anything.

  Miller’s wife shrugged. “Never mind. Ronald and I are getting used to having soiled objects around our home.”

  “Reba,” Miller said through clenched teeth.

  “Don’t worry dear. I’m sure this gentleman isn’t interested in your failing business enterprises.”

  Miller shot his wife this kind of hurt puppy look for just a moment before shaking his head. His wife, for her part, just sat there with a cruel sort of smile as if she were enjoying every moment.

  “So you were there to throw out the first pitch,” I said quickly. “For what purpose?”

  “I guess that’s an easy enough question,” Miller said, raising his eyes from the floor. “I wear two hats. In addition to owning the team, I’m president of the downtown chamber of commerce. The business community raised funds through the summer for the statue, so they found it appropriate for me to perform that rather ceremonial task.”

  “The statue? You mean that thing that rests in the lobby of the Spinelli?” I asked.

  His wife threw me a curious look. “You’ve seen it Mr. Crager?”

  “Yeah. I got a look at it last night.”

  Miller’s eyes began to flutter. “So…That is to say…You were over at the hotel last night?” He and his wife exchanged glances.

  “Now I wouldn’t be much of a detective if I wasn’t. Wouldn’t you say there Miller.”

  Miller managed a pinched smile.

  “Who’s the statue supposed to be?” I asked.

  “I don’t suppose you were familiar with the late Jack Hastings?” he said.

  Anyone who lived for any length of time in Centre Town was familiar with that name. At one time, he owned half the town. At least, that’s what I’d heard growing up in this burg. The many business enterprises revolving around the Hastings name were no secret. Those damn radio jingles for Hastings Fuel Oil Service were the same ones I’d heard as a kid blaring over the air waves twenty-five years ago. And the Hastings name was in other little business ventures too‒like real estate. He’d been notorious as a slum landlord but his most noted land holding had been a whorehouse over on Walnut Street. In daylight hours, it appeared like any other respectable clothing store, but at night a whole stable of girls made a fortune off horny men and a gaggle of teenage boys looking to lose their cherries. Of that I knew first hand. Secrets from a misspent youth.

  “Why would they build a statue to that crook?” I said.

  Miller’s wife suddenly couldn’t seem to stop from smiling. I was beginning to warm a bit to Reba Miller. Her husband, though, was taking it all very seriously.

  “Jack Hastings was the person most responsible for bringing baseball back to Centre Town,” he said sharply.

  I decided I’d heard enough on that subject.

  “Okay. So you went to this swanky dinner Saturday night to pay tribute to one of Centre Town’s shining citizens. What time did you leave the dinner?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Ten o’clock, I suppose.”

  “Sounds like an early night,” I said.

  “They cut the evening’s activities short,” Miller said. “The murder you see…” His voice began to trail off.

  “Yeah. Right,” I said.

  “What other business are you in Miller?”

  He was running a finger up and down the seam of his trousers. “I own and operate The Henry House.”

  “The department store downtown?”

  He nodded.

  I knew the Henry House all right. A five-story relic on Pine Street that in the old days threw at shoppers everything in the way of household appliances, furniture, clothing, toys. The merchandise was everywhere, practically spilling into the aisles. At Christmas time, Henry House was like Macy’s. It was our Macy’s. That was the Henry House. Nowadays, it looked all but deserted. Even without asking Miller I knew damn well he was losing his ass to the Ocyl Mall.

  “My husband’s been involved recently in the sale of the building.” Reba Miller said.

  “Oh yeah,” I said.

  Miller suddenly stood up from his chair. “Will that be all Mr. Crager?”

  “Sure,” I said. “At least for now.”

  They glanced at each other and then his wife asked, “Have you spoken with Jeannette about any of this?”

  “Who’s Jeannette?” I said.

  Miller gave his wife a look that suggested she’d already spoken too much. That was hardly going to stop this woman though. She once again broke into that cruel smile. “She’s supposed to be his ex-wife. But I wouldn’t buy it.”

  “Reba.” Miller’s voice had grown testy. The information was clearly too juicy for his wife to resist, however.

  “Where should I start?” she said. “There was the time…

  “Reba please,” he said.

  “Oh I’m sorry. The prodigal brother and all.”

  “Stop it Reba,” he screamed stomping his foot. “Just stop it.”

  He fell into a heap back in his chair while his wife sat across the room, wearing the sort of smug, triumphant smile th
at can crush a guy’s heart. Poor Miller, I thought. He probably has to come begging for it from this woman.

  “How can I get a hold of this ex-wife?” I asked.

  “Oh that’s easy,” she said, obviously more than eager to fill me in on the details. She’s shacked up these days with the esteemed Giles Hampton. It’s a match made in heaven.”

  We both got up while Miller remained in his seat fuming.

  At the door Reba turned almost apologetic. “I’m afraid this has all been a little too much for my husband.”

  “A death in the family is never easy,” I said.

  “Perhaps we’ll meet again, Mr. Crager?”

  It was those eyes again. They were cold, calculating. She lifted her hand again in that reluctant way. I got another look at the baseball-sized ring. Standing there in the foyer with that skylight above us, it threw off more sparkles than a Fourth of July fireworks display.

  I told her that perhaps we would meet again. Then I left.

  A different cab driver was waiting for me at the end of the drive.

  “High rent district, huh?” he said.

  He was a young guy with a wise guy look.

  “Most of my friends are,” I said.

  “Yeah right,” he said, starting up the cab and pulling away.

  I had the cabbie drive me to the nearest convenience store where I knew there would be a phone. In the time I’d been away from Centre Town, the 24-hour mini-markets had taken root all over the city. I’d come to like the things since my days as a cop back in Albuquerque. They were havens for any cop looking for a quick coffee, some cigarettes or a sudden phone call. And back in Albuquerque they were everywhere, fitting in easily with the rest of the sprawling city’s chain stores, fast food franchises, strip malls and overall boomtown mentality. But back here in my hometown, among all the old architecture, the damn mini-marts stuck out like weeds in a garden. We were barely off Grand Boulevard when we came upon one in a strip mall.

  I had the cabbie pull into the parking lot and instructed him to keep the meter running. Down the block the old familiar yellow and red sign of Switzer’s beckoned. Switzer’s was a mom and pop grocery from the old days. It was a haunt from my boyhood about a half dozen blocks or so from the First Ward. At the first glimpse of that old sign my mouth began to water with the taste of those red hot dollars you could buy three for a penny. They clung to the teeth like glue and no doubt had helped keep more than one Centre Town dentist in expensive suits. I was among a gaggle of snotty-nosed kids who’d stop in at Switzer’s on my way home from St. Mary’s parochial school located a block to the north.

  The three-step stoop was still there and the old screen door that yawned open when you entered. But inside it was different. The pungent smell of bread was the first tip-off that it had probably been sometime before Watergate since I’d been in the place. Fat Mrs. Switzer, always seen peering through her cat’s rimmed spectacles from above the wooden counter of the candy display, had been replaced with some pimply-faced kid with a bad haircut and an earring. An apron fell from his chest to his knees. It was covered along with his thin white arms with baking powder and splotches of dough.

  “Help ya,” he said, as he arranged bread resting inside the metal and glass-enclosed display.

  “Need to make a phone call,” I said.

  “Local?”

  I said it was and he pointed to the rear of the store.

  I walked past a long table of various breads, buns, rolls and other baked goods. In the old days, the space had been taken up by several coolers filled with Popsicles, ice cream and those sweet slushy treats in ruler-like clear sacks that had to be eaten quickly if you didn’t want to lap up just the punch. Across the aisle, on shelves that once held Hershey bars, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and three dozen other types of sweets, were racks of movie videos.

  Giles Hampton was listed at 224 Shephard’s Way. I knew the neighborhood. It was slightly upscale and near Ocyl College. I dialed the number and allowed it to ring ten times before giving up. Then I got the hell out of there. It was too early for supper, so with nothing else to do I told the cabbie to drive me over to the ball park.

  “No game there today pal,” he said.

  I replied that I knew that but that I just wanted to look around. That got him curious. We were at a light on Market Street near Mick’s Gym when he turned around and looked at me kind of funny. “You some kind of detective or something?”

  “Or something,” I said.

  He had the angular nose and narrow-faced features of a Greek or Arab. His voice was unmistakably American though.

  “Yeah, right,” he said.

  The light turned green and then we were heading west up Fourth Street through downtown. The day had turned increasingly gray, although the heat was still unbearable. The street was mostly empty except for an occasional grim-faced pedestrian and small groups of teenagers hanging listlessly at street corners. I was growing thirsty for something stronger than lemonade as we headed uptown past the drab luncheonettes, video stores and occasional boarded-up storefronts through the heart of this sorry downtown. But none of the good saloon keepers along Fourth Street had seen fit to plug in their neon signs on this late Sunday afternoon. We were closing in on my apartment, but I decided against directing the cabbie to stop there long enough for me to enjoy a quick pick-me-up.

  A light rain began to fall as I got out of the cab near the first base entrance to the ball park. I peeled off a twenty from my money roll, dropping it through the window onto the cabbie’s lap.

  He stared down at the bill like it was fresh vomit. “You’re about two Abes short,” he said.

  I wanted to make him eat that twenty.

  “What am I, the national debt’s main creditor? I peeled off two fives from my diminishing roll and dropped those into his lap. He didn’t even look at them but sat staring through the windshield toward the rising grandstands along the first base line.

  “You’re still short four bits pal,” he said.

  Something kept me from reaching through the window and strangling the guy. I peeled off a single, crumbled it into a ball and tossed it at him.

  “Keep the change,” I said.

  “Asshole,” he said, spinning the wheels of the cab and tearing out of the parking lot.

  I walked along the first base side of the stadium and toward the home plate entrance. From inside the stadium, I could hear the distinct thwacking sound of balls being struck by a bat. Someone apparently was taking batting practice. I tried a couple of gates and a door. All of them were locked. I stopped then and looked up at the stadium before me. It was an old wreck of a ball park, slapped haphazardly together with concrete, wood and steel and little imagination in the way of design. A WPA project from the 30’s. Even when I was a kid, the city fathers were forever threatening to tear the place down. A minor league team needs a home and this relic was it. And in this one-horse town it was the closest thing they’d ever had to an entertainment center. The place was a godsend for the two-bit sideshows and circuses and occasional rock concerts that came to town.

  The front gate was locked, but I could look through a crack and see the concrete ramp leading up to the ticket window. There were actually three windows, and they sat inside a little round green building that looked like one of those turrets you see in old Victorian homes. Some civic-minded baseball boosters had tried damn hard to lend some aesthetic appeal or some such nonsense to the damn ticket booth, at least. It was painted green with white trim around each of the windows. They’d even shingled the damn roof. A cute ticket booth tucked inside a decrepit ballpark. It figured.

  The rain grew harder, and I found myself huddled up against the wall of the stadium watching the big drops bang off the gravel of the parking lot. After just a couple of minutes, the rain came to an abrupt halt. The sun popped out from behind a big cloud resting above the big dike to the rear of the ball park. The dike was more of a high grassy hill than anything and ran parallel with the l
eft-field line outside the stadium out to Penn Avenue. Everyone called it the dike though, probably because there was a small creek on the other side of it. For kids in Centre Town, it had always been a prime spot to wait for foul balls that came flying over the roof of the stadium.

  I moved away from the stadium and headed up the dike. The rain had made the grass slick, and I nearly fell on my ass twice making the climb. From my spot at the top of the dike I could just make out the very far reaches of center and right fields. The rest of the playing field was blocked out by the back of the grandstands. The big scoreboard with the Pepsi-Cola sign rose above the center field fence, and beyond that I could see the homes of the surrounding neighborhood. It wasn’t a good place to watch a ball game. If it was, you can be damn sure the ball club would have been quick about putting up barriers.

  Meanwhile, the batting practice had resumed, and I could hear voices now coming from inside the stadium. Then I spotted someone coming into view in the center field grass. I gave a holler. A stumpy guy with gray hair either ignored me or didn’t hear me. He picked up a ball sitting on the dirt warning track at the base of the fence and headed back toward home plate. I yelled again. This time, he stopped and looked my way, shielding his eyes from the sun.

  “Can I come in?” I yelled.

  He pointed toward the home plate entrance.

  He met me at the gate, a short dumpy guy of about fifty or so wearing baggy work pants, a tool belt around his waist and a t-shirt bearing the words: Sunset Bar & Grill. A stubby unlit cigar was pasted in his mouth. He was no walking advertisement for better living. That was for damn sure. He had a heavy drinker’s bulbous nose and a boulder-like head atop a body shaped like a turnip. His face was red and drenched with a mixture of sweat and rain. Standing beside him was a young guy who looked like a choir boy. He was a sturdy looking kid, though, in his blue work-out shorts and t-shirt with the Mets insignia. A ball glove was cradled in his armpit, and he had a batting glove on one hand and heavy blue wrist bands on each arm. Both of them stood on the other side of the chain link gate, the kid with a big open smile on his face, the turnip with a kind of puzzled look.

  “Ain’t no ball game tonight,” said the turnip.