Circling the Runway (Jake Diamond Mysteries Book 4)

by J. L. Abramo

  The crowd erupted the instant Blue’s arm went up. Some old guy near our dugout fell over with a heart attack. After all, this was Scottsdale, one of God’s primo waiting rooms, and if he hadn’t keeled over then, he probably would have next day at the dog track, happen he was holding a winning two dollar ticket.

  The crowd wasn’t done; came to its feet, roared “Charge” in a single voice. On my way in, I looked over at the hottie, who was waving with a cheerleader’s practiced wave. Everyone in the stands were on their feet, I see, save one man two seats behind the dugout, attired in a blue suit. The only guy in the stands in formal attire. Weird. The organist struck up the William Tell Overture.

  Inning over. One to go.

  Everybody else sprinted to the dugout while I strode in with a king’s mien. Kings don’t run. I did take care to step over the first-base foul line. I didn’t want any bad luck today.

  The crowd still stood, yelling its lungs out. Everyone was standing except the guy in the blue suit, I saw, when I popped out for a curtain call.

  Just before I got to the dugout steps, I touched the bill of my cap, milking the crowd for another cheer and they obliged.

  Dusty Baker was the first to meet me, putting his arm around me at the top of the dugout steps. “Man, Pete! That sure killed their rally! Perfect throw!”

  We headed down the steps. Dusty grinned. “I only wish you had that kind of control on your pitches to the plate.”

  I grinned back. “Cap, you know you love me. I put butts in the seats.”

  Baker shook his head and went back up to the top of the dugout steps as Will Clark came up to lead off the last inning.

  I wandered past the other players over to the dugout phone and dialed a number.

  Dusty looked over. “Who you calling, Halliday? You got no business on that phone.”

  I started to hang up, then recovered. “Uh, my landlady, Cap. I think I left the windows open. It looks like rain.” I turned sideways and spoke into the phone in a low voice. “Yo, Fat. It’s me, Pete. I want a dime on Oakland. Same on the Red Sox. Clements goes tomorrow, right?” He said something. I paused. “Hey, man, I’m good. I’m winning this one, big-time. You know I’m—”

  I held the phone away from him and saw Dusty mugging on me. I spoke back into the phone in a louder voice. “Yes. That’s right. The bedroom window.” I hung up, shined a grin at Dusty.

  He just stared back, then did a funny thing. He looked straight up at the man in the blue suit sitting two rows up from the dugout. The man seemed intent on a device in his ear. A wire extended from the device to his pocket.

  Just then, Will Clark, our first batter, smacked a ball that everyone in the park knew instantly was long gone. Out of the corner of my eye as I rushed to the front of the dugout with my teammates to cheer Will on, I saw Dusty watch his home run trot, then turn back to look at the man in the stands. The man nodded, removed the device from his ear and put it in his pocket. Dusty threw down his lineup card in disgust.

  What the hell?

  I hooked up with the girl in the stands as soon as the game was over and it turned out her name was Wendy. Big surprise. “With an ‘i’,” she said. “It was a ‘y’ when I was born, but I changed it.” She squealed when I asked if she used a little heart instead of a dot over it. I think it convinced her I had extrasensory perception skills. “How ’bout we meet up at the Cowboy and Goat Roper’s Saloon,” I said. “Maybe around nine tonight?”

  “Sure,” she said, her chewing gum flying out and bouncing off my chest when she opened her mouth. She wasn’t even embarrassed, which I took to be a good sign.

  An hour after the game, I was still in my uniform, minus my jersey, shooting some stick with Salomon Torres. It wasn’t the happy clubhouse it should have been. The Dodgers came back the last inning and put eight up and just like that, spring training was over. So was my plan to get square with my bookie, but hell, we were headed to S.F. in the morning. I was kind of sticking around in the clubhouse in case he’d decided to show up and ask for an installment. Or worse.

  Torres broke and put one more ball in and then I ran the table. “Yes!” I said, and made the “cha-ching” guesture of triumph. Torres made a face and handed me a twenty dollar bill, twisting his face further in disgust. Dusty stuck his head out of his office.

  “Halliday! In here.”

  I glanced around at the few teammates still there. “Skip’s gonna give me a bonus, I bet. Probably a new contract.”

  Over in the corner, Barry Bonds in his Barcolounger, looked up from staring at his own eight by ten glossy and smirked. “Yeah, you the man, Pete.” The other players laughed.

  I breezed into Dusty’s office, happy as a traded NY Yankee, kissed the twenty dollar bill Torres had just handed me, and stuck it in my pocket.

  “Siddown,” Dusty said. He took the chair in front of the manager’s desk.

  Someone else was in the office. I hadn’t seen him come in so he must have come in through the back. It was the Blue Suit from the stands.

  “Sign this,” Dusty said.

  “What is it?” I said. I leaned forward to see the paper Dusty shoved at me.

  “Your outright release.”

  I was floored. “What the fuck? I missed one lousy sign, Cap. Clark even misses signs. Bonds doesn’t even look for ’em.”

  Dusty sighed, took off his glasses and rubbed his nose. “You ain’t Clark, son, and you sure ain’t Bonds. It ain’t that, anyway. It’s your gambling.”

  “Gambling? Who the fuck says I been gambling?” I looked over at the blue-suited man, gave him a good glare. Somehow, this guy was behind this.

  “Me,” the man said. “I say you’ve been gambling.”

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Vernon Strassler. League office. You want to hear a phone tape?”

  I couldn’t help it. I groaned and slumped forward in my chair. Strassler placed a small tape recorder on the desk and punched a button.

  A deep voice said, “You got the Fatman.”

  I heard my own voice reply. “Yo, Fat. Me, Pete. Gimme a dime on Oakland. Same on the Red Sox. Clements goes tomorrow, right?”

  The deep voice said, “Pay what you owe, Halliday, and we’ll talk. By Friday. That means all of it, hotshot.”

  I moaned again and louder as I listened to my own voice. “Hey, man. I’m good. I’m winning this one, big-time. You know I’m...” A click sounded, followed by silence. Then: “Yes. That’s right. The bedroom—”

  Strassler turned off the machine.

  Dusty shook his head sadly. “Sorry, son. Sign this for your severance pay.”

  I straightened up. “Dusty, I’ll lay you five to one, if you give me another chance you’ll never catch me gambling again. I—”

  “The check’s for ten thousand, Pete. You can thank me for the extra. The club was only going to give you five. We’ll keep this out of the papers and expect you to do the same.”

  There wasn’t anything left to do. I picked up the check and looked it over. I started to say something and ended up shaking my head and picking up the pen on the desk and signing the release form.

  Dusty stood up and I followed his lead and took his offered hand for a last handshake.

  “You know, kid,” Dusty said, indicating the meeting was over. “It’s none of my business, but you might want to look at your life. Gambling’s cost you a wife and now baseball.”

  Bright and early the next morning, a woman teller counted out bills, put them in an envelope and handed it to me. I thanked her, stuck the envelope in my pocket and left.

  I was walking down the bank steps when two men came up, one a beefy mountain of a man and the other slight and swarmy. They came up beside me, took me by the elbows and hustled me down the steps. All three of us walked to the alley beside the bank and went on back to a pair of dumpsters.

  The big guy spun me around and pinned an armlock on me. The little guy snatched the envelop from his pocket, tore it open and counted the
money. “Damn,” he said, “Where’s the other five?”

  I frowned. “It’s in the mail? You buy that?”

  The little guy placed the wad of bills in his jacket pocket and nodded to his large partner who gripped me tighter. “Wise guy, huh?” the little guy said.

  “Well, you wouldn’t know it by my SATs. You know what? You look familiar. I got it! Your mom.”

  “My mom?” the little goon said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Your mom. We been dating. Whenever I have an extra twenty. I just love it when she takes out her false teeth. You know...” I went on. “I might end up your stepfather. Think she’d grow a mustache for me?”

  The little guy hauled off and socked me in the gut. I collapsed and struggled to right myself and get my breath back.

  “Yeah,” I said, wheezing my words out. “You hit about like your mom. I can see you’re related. I suppose you wanna give me a blowjob now?”

  “You fuck,” the little guy screamed, and hit me again. As I folded in half like a WWII Japanese foot soldier unexpectedly finding himself in the same room as the Emperor, the little guy grabbed my hand and brought it around and secured it between his arm and chest. He bent four of my fingers back until they cracked. Audibly. Almost as loud as the scream I gave out, feeling like a complete bitch when I did, but couldn’t help it.

  When I woke up, I was lying in a hospital bed, my hand splinted and bandaged and feeling like I imagined those pennies we’d put on railroad tracks when we were kids might have if they had nerves running through Lincoln’s face. Worse.

  At least it wasn’t my pitching hand. Not that it much mattered any more.

  Two men were sitting there, staring at me. A white man and a black man.

  My teammates. Rod “Shooter” Beck and Willie McGee.

  Willie, said, “Dusty wanted to come, Pete, but the club had a fit.”

  “Loyal fuck, isn’t he. At least you guys came.”

  Both men looked at each other. Rod said, “Some shit, huh, Pete? Almost make it to the Show and this is what you get. What’re you gonna do now?”

  Up to that minute, I hadn’t thought much about it. I made my decision right then. “I’m going home to New Orleans.” I worked up a grin. “This little setback is just a speed bump on my way to riches.”

  “You gonna keep on gambling, Pete?” Rod said. “Might want to reconsider that.” Willie nodded in agreement.

  “Nah,” I said. “I’m done with that. It’s time I used some of my mental dexterity.”

  “You’re gonna keep feedin’ that gamblin’ jones, aren’t you?” Willie said.

  “No way, Jose. Gambling’s a loser’s game. I found that out the hard way. No, I bet you guys a hundred bucks each I’m back on my feet in a week. A month, tops. I’ll be watching you guys in the World Series from my private box. Lighting Cubans with C-notes.

  “I’m giving two to one odds,” I said as they made their way out of the room. “No, three to one. Wait!”

  They must not have heard me.

  Back to TOC

  Here’s a sample from JB Kohl and Eric Beetner’s Over Their Heads.

  1

  CLYDE

  If Madeline didn’t go into labor we’d be eating steak tonight. In a restaurant. Because I would have enough cash to take her out for a change. I’d have money for dinner and clothes and a vacation and enough left over for the baby’s college and graduate school—anything else our kid could want.

  I rummaged through my sock drawer for a pair that matched. A wife at nine-and-a-half-months pregnant didn’t feel the best. In the past Madeline had been meticulous about organizing my sock drawer, folding and pairing them in neat rows. Those days were gone now, along with the days of creased khakis and starched shirts. My kind and beautiful wife had changed to someone pasty, swollen, and, yeah I’m gonna say it . . . bitchy.

  For now, at least, she was asleep, hand resting over her protruding belly, mouth slightly open. In these moments, before she woke up and started to cry over her swollen ankles and nag me about the long hours I spent at the rental lot, before she opened her mouth and swore at me and the dick that happens to reside between my legs, which was clearly responsible for getting her in this predicament in the first place, marriage vows or no . . . in these moments when it was just me digging in my sock drawer for a mate to the only one I could find, when I picked up my khakis from the floor and shook out yesterday’s wrinkles . . . I would watch her sleep and she was just my wife, the woman I fell in love with.

  I saw this movie once. It was one of those chick flicks I took her to on our last anniversary. Normally I don’t go in for that sort of thing, but it was our anniversary and that’s a time she tends to get sentimental and I’m almost always guaranteed sex. So I figure on those nights the least I can do is take her to a movie she wants to see, even if I have zero interest in it. I don’t even remember what the movie was about. Well, it was about a couple, that’s for sure, but the thing I remember is that the woman was pregnant. I mean hugely pregnant. And in one scene, the guy in that film bends over his just-about-to-pop pregnant wife and kisses her stomach. When that happened on the screen, next to me, in the theater, Madeline sighed and put her hand over her heart, and her breath hitched just the tiniest bit like it does when she is just about to cry or like when she watches those dog food commercials. That scene really got to her. I always remembered that moment, the moment in that movie when Madeline was moved by something so simple. We didn’t know it at the time, but she was already seven weeks pregnant and when we found out a week later and realized it was really, really real, I remembered that scene and played it out a hundred times in my head. I knew there would come a time when I’d lean over her and kiss her belly because it would make her happy. And, I don’t know, I guess I imagined myself whispering something profound and kind to her. So I had been biding my time, waiting until she was tired and heavy and hating being pregnant, because all the books told me that was exactly how it was going to be. I wanted it to be perfect. I guess the time never seemed perfect.

  Because today I watched her with my socks in my hand, and just felt . . . tired. So I turned and walked out. I tiptoed so she wouldn’t wake up and I shut the door behind me as quietly as I could. Hollywood and that damn movie could kiss my ass. And so could the goddamn actress with the rail thin legs and a belly with no stretch marks. Madeline was a real woman. Despite it all, despite being Misery’s Deity at the moment, she was a real woman, the mother of my child. She was mine. And while this filled me with pride and gratitude, mostly these days I was filled with fear.

  I toed through the pile of shoes at the front door, settling on a pair of bland loafers, and mentally ran over the day’s plans in my head.

  ONE: Get to work, open the rental lot. If I was honest, this was my favorite part of every day. I liked the lot. It was mine. I had named it after myself, hadn’t I? Clyde McDowd Rentals was, in a way, my first kid. And now, after marriage and with a real, actual kid on the way, it was the one thing that was entirely mine. It was clean, organized, filled with files and the smell of the pink cleaning solution the janitor used late at night. It was white tile floor and fluorescent lights. It was the roar of airplanes taking off and landing at Richmond International. It was business men and families. And somewhere along the way, it started to bring in a lot more money than it should have. Which is why I really, really needed to be at work on time today.

  I looked down at the scuffed loafer I had pulled from the pile of shoes. How could one couple own so many shoes? Even my shoes were something Madeline picked out for me. The house. The carpet. The paint. The towels in the bathroom. But Clyde McDowd Rentals? Not so, baby. Not so. I drifted into the kitchen and sank into one of the rickety wooden chairs at our vintage table and pulled on a sock.

  TWO: Check to make sure the Chevy Tahoe was ready to go. The ceiling seams needed to be perfect, the packets had to be laying right, behind a soft, thin layer of sponge. I always put a pack of Winstons in the glove compartm
ent for the driver. Never hurts to kiss a little ass, just in case. I froze with the sock halfway on. Shit. I forgot the Winstons.

  THREE: Stop and pick up Winstons.

  The mattress in the bedroom groaned as Madeline pushed herself up. The giantess hath awakened, I thought, not unkindly. Hell, if Madeline had been her normal, petite, good-humored self, she would have laughed too. And some day, I was sure I’d tell her my vision of her at nine months pregnant—an angry, towering woman crushing all in her path, and she would laugh and punch me in the arm and say she loved me.

  I’d tell her about all of this one day and not just how grouchy she was. I’d tell her about everything I’d done for her, about everything I sacrificed, the risks I took, the plans I made for us, for our family.

  Today was not going to be that day.

  Today I shoved my feet in my shoes and popped a piece of bread in the toaster. I heard her approach from the other room and pasted a smile on my face. She opened the door and shuffled into the kitchen, her legs swollen, beautiful dark hair cascading down her back. My smile became a real one. No matter what, it was easy to love Madeline. All of it for you, I thought. “Want coffee?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer but reached to the cupboard above the coffee pot, stomach resting on the counter, hands fumbling for filters and coffee beans. “Let me do that,” I said. “You sit down. Put your feet up.”

  “It won’t help,” she said. “Nothing does. I’m a house.” She turned to look at me and I caught a glimpse of the clock on the stove at the same time I caught the look on her face. 7:45 on the clock. Worry on her face. Car lot opened at 8:00. I had been told to expect the driver any time after 8:10.

  Christ on a cracker.

  “You’re not a house,” I said, moving to hug her. She allowed the touch and rested her head on my shoulder. Her hair smelled like that really good shampoo she uses. 7:46.