The Final Play

by David Baldacci

  “I see your point,” she said quietly.

  “I’m sure you do.” He paused, eyeing the dimensions of the vast hall. “You have a basement corridor, stone, with low ceilings here, correct?”

  When Draven looked puzzled, North took out the photograph that McIntyre had back at her apartment. “This space?”

  “Oh, yes.” She shivered. “A very cold place. John loved it. I never go down there.”

  “I thought as much. They would have needed some safe place to study the effect.”

  “The effect?” said Draven.

  “I’ve found that the best way to really determine the truth is to replicate the conditions and elements of whatever it is you’re trying to prove.”

  Draven now clearly understood what he was getting at. “Follow me.”

  It took about an hour, for North had to get the lighting and other conditions in the lower passageway just the way he wanted, which included the removal of all furniture, paintings, and other objects until the space was entirely bare.

  As he pulled one painting off the wall, he looked at it and then glanced at Draven. “This is your husband? In uniform?”

  “Yes, he fought in World War Two. Well, he didn’t actually fight. He was too old. But he wanted to be part of it and he had important friends in the government. So he had a nice, safe desk job overseas. But to hear him tell it, he beat Hitler all by himself.”

  North laid the painting aside and looked at the long hallway, now shorn of all decoration. He smiled at the result. Yes, this would work out very nicely.

  Draven and North stood at the far end of the tunnel, for that was certainly what it was now, a tunnel—if not the tunnel.

  In the spirit of a director about to commence his masterpiece, North called out, “Action.”

  At the far end of the tunnel, a door opened, and McIntyre stepped out into the shadows wearing the gown and wig. When they saw her both North and Draven exchanged a knowing glance.

  From a distance at least, a youthful Gloria Draven once more stood in their midst.

  “Thank you,” said North to McIntyre. “You can go ahead and change.” As McIntyre walked off, North turned and looked at Draven.

  “Remarkable,” said the old woman. “Truly remarkable.”

  “Even though Molly is taller than you, from a distance and under these conditions anyone could be fooled into thinking you were there when you really weren’t.”

  “Yes, but for what purpose?” Draven looked a bit frightened now, which struck North as perfectly normal. It was all a bit frightening.

  “If I were a young man, very much in love with a woman, and I saw that woman, or what I thought was that woman, my first inclination would be to go to her. Of course, up close, I would realize the impersonation. But if she kept moving away from me, down a darkened tunnel, what would I do?”

  “You would follow her,” said Draven in a hushed tone, as a teardrop splashed onto her wrinkled cheek.

  “I would follow her,” repeated North. “And when I realized the deception I would be confused, even angry, and then I would probably go back to what I was doing. Unless something prevented me from doing so.”

  “Prevented you from doing so.” It was now Draven’s turn to do the mimicking.

  After McIntyre rejoined them, North said to Draven, “Were you aware that your husband knew about your affair with Herschel Ruggles?”

  In response, the shrunken mistress of the house took North’s hand and led them back upstairs, to a small room that was not nearly so ornately lavish as the rest of the home’s interior. A few odd jumbles of chairs, a day bed, a plain writing table, no pictures on the warm blue walls, and a small yet spirited fire fronted by a slender mantel of knotted pine completed this tiny sanctuary, for that was what it seemed to be to North.

  “I spend most of my time here,” she said in response to his look. “The rest of the house was not my doing, this was.” She delicately displayed herself—displayed seemed to be the appropriate description to North—on the day bed and motioned for them to sit on a comfortable leather settee.

  “To answer your question, no, I did not know that my husband knew, though that was awfully presumptuous, arrogant—silly, even—of me, for John was omniscient, at least in matters of importance to him. And I suppose, in a perverse way, I was such a matter of importance. Not in the sense that we had a good marriage, for we did not, but in the sense that I was a possession of his, and he was very protective of his possessions.”

  “And not particularly pleased when others tampered with his property,” interjected North.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me about Ruggles.”

  “The newspaper clipping you brought, that was the first time I had met him. It was a sports awards banquet, such silly nonsense. Grown men running around and hitting and hurting each other and then feted and rewarded and proclaimed great men for doing so. It made no sense to me at all.”

  “I could see that,” said North. It had never made much sense to him either.

  “At first I lumped Herschel in with all the other silly boys. I had of course heard about his reputation among the ladies, and I found that appalling, I really did. My marriage was not a source of happiness to me, and yet I had made my bed, and I slept in the damn thing every night, alone, if you understand me.”

  North said that he did, while McIntyre looked sad and clutched North’s arm.

  “Well, you can imagine my surprise when I found myself becoming attracted that night to Herschel. Yes of course he was handsome and tall and strong and everyone in the place was fawning all over him. He could have had any woman there.”

  “He could have had any one of them, anyone except you,” North corrected her.

  “Except me.” She looked into the fire for a bit, and continued to do so even as she spoke again. “We ended up talking, just the two of us. And the more we talked the more complex, troubled, and inspired I found him. He was a magnificent athlete, and the truly great ones, I’ve been told, so often stop right there. They possess otherworldly physical ability and nothing more, as though God had wanted to spread the wealth a bit and so, upon creation, had never given all possible gifts to one person. Yet what I found most remarkable about Herschel Ruggles was this quality of destructive melancholy, I guess one would call it. I wasn’t quite old enough to be his mother, yet I did have maternal instincts toward him.” She stared into the fire. “He also had a curious ambivalence about his physical gifts that I discovered later he worked very hard to cover up. It seemed to me he spent his entire life trying to live up to the image that people had of him, and it made him terribly depressed.”

  She looked at North. “This may be hard for you to believe, but I don’t think Herschel Ruggles really even enjoyed playing football.” An ironic smile graced her lips. “It was never him on that field, you know, not really. It was as though when the game started, he stepped out of his real self, left it on the sidelines, and became Herschel Ruggles the mightiest Mighty John there ever was or ever would be.” She patted North’s hand. “You could break his records, young man, but you could never top the man. He was too talented, too good, you see. He wasn’t like the rest of mankind. But with those great gifts come terrible burdens imposed by us, the less gifted. Do you know what it felt like to believe that you were never supposed to lose? That you were never supposed to be stopped once your hands touched that ridiculous little ball? He carried that with him every day, just as he carried that ball—that ball and chain, more like it. He needed to be the perfect student, the perfect athlete, and, despite those vicious rumors about his philandering, he was the perfect gentleman. I was his only indiscretion. You see, the masses will suffer nothing less than flawlessness in our earthbound gods. And, at least back then, ironically, part of that faultless image was as a ladies’ man—a predator, if you will—who took what he wanted of the fairer sex. And no one would begrudge him that, at least in those prefeminist days. Yet he wasn’t that way at all. Every day he carried th
ose expectations, and they were literally crushing him. He could never be what he actually was, if he even knew who that person truly was. I felt terribly sorry for him, though he never sought anyone’s pity.”

  North said, “And you helped him through it? Intellectually? Emotionally?”

  She smiled and a rapturous laugh came from somewhere deep inside her small body and whipsawed into the room with its urgency. “Merl North, we were lovers. Don’t believe that we were not.”

  She eyed McIntyre, who let a tiny smile escape her lips in a sign of understanding.

  Draven said, “I’m no saint, I’m probably not going to Heaven, though my suffering has been long on this earth.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Yet I did bring some good to him. At least I think I did.”

  Now North reached across and took one of her hands in his. “Gloria, he followed you down that tunnel, or what he thought was you. Right in the middle of a football game, an important game to him because it would determine a bowl berth. In the midst of over twenty-four thousand fans screaming his name in triumph because he had just performed the most remarkable feat anyone had ever witnessed on a football field, he chose to follow you down a tunnel instead of returning to the game and basking in their idolatry. I’d say that you did more than just bring him some good. I’d say he loved you far more than the game he played so brilliantly. If you believe nothing else, believe that. I don’t need to conduct an experiment to verify the truth of the man’s feelings for you. They are as obvious to me as the most indisputable principles of science, perhaps even more so.”

  Gloria Draven’s eyes filled with fat tears that dribbled down her fallen cheeks and spattered onto the shawl she wore around her collapsed shoulders.

  “I had always hoped it would be so,” she said in a subdued voice. Then she dropped her head and started to weep.

  North felt McIntyre grip his shoulder. When he turned to her, there were also tears in McIntyre’s eyes. She said quietly, “That was beautiful, Merl.”

  Draven continued to weep for another minute while North averted his gaze and made no sound. He would do nothing to deny her that very personal moment. McIntyre did likewise.

  Draven finally wiped her eyes and looked at him. “What can I tell you that will help?”

  “Did you ever make an arrangement with Ruggles to see him during that game?”

  “No. My husband forbade me to go.”

  “Forbade you? Was that unusual?”

  “Nothing my late husband did could be termed unusual, for his life was one long list of outrageous acts.”

  “Did it make you suspicious that Ruggles disappeared on the very day he would not allow you to attend the game? Did you ever envision a connection?”

  “I am, by nature, a suspicious woman. I had my dalliance with Herschel, though we both saw it as much more than that. However, my husband’s sexual indiscretions numbered in the dozens. The double standard was alive and well back then. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised about my husband’s continuing affairs even at his advanced age, what with my being his third wife and all. But to answer your question, no, I did not see such a connection. As I said, I didn’t know John knew about us, and my own belief, which you have just proved erroneous, was that Herschel himself had chosen to disappear. Chosen to disappear because of his depression, and chosen not to include me in that flight. In his new life, wherever it would take him.”

  North was puzzled by this response. It was an angle he had not considered. “Would you have gone with him?”

  She said fiercely, “Of course I would have!”

  “So all these years, you thought he had abandoned you?” He paused, though she made no move to respond. “That isn’t great penance, Gloria, for you did nothing wrong. What you did was a great sacrifice.” He paused and then added, “You might make it to Heaven after all.”

  “I would assume Herschel would be there waiting for me. It is nice to think that, at least. I have had a long life, and though I am stronger than I look, I am also very tired. I never thought I would grow weary of living, for who wants to die? But I am. I am tired of living, at least in this body. And in this world. I know it’s hard for you to see that because you both are young and vibrant, your whole lives ahead of you. But it does happen, you know, that sense of ‘this is enough.’”

  North rose from his seat and her gaze rose with him. McIntyre stood as well.

  “You know what happened to him, don’t you? My husband was involved.”

  “I have no hard evidence, but I believe so,” said North, “though if he was he obviously had help.”

  Her eyes searched his. They seemed to plumb the depths of his heart, soul, and mind, leaving nothing unexamined, like scientists always strove for and sometimes achieved. “Who? Who helped him?”

  “That’s for me to find out. And I promise you that I will.”

  Chapter 18

  T​HE MIGHTY JOHNS had just finished their practice, and the team members dutifully marched back into the locker room. Swift’s and North’s lockers were next to each other. North sat down and took off his practice jersey and shoulder pads.

  North was dejected because while his experiment at Draven’s home had uncovered a good deal that he had not known, he wasn’t sure how to move forward from there. He still didn’t know what had happened to Ruggles. He strongly suspected that someone impersonating Gloria Draven had been in that tunnel when Ruggles had entered it. And he had followed her. Perhaps to his doom. And while he believed that John Milton Draven had been involved, the man certainly had not murdered Linda Daughtry.

  He believed that Ed Belichek had lied to them. He had been in the training room and he had seen both Ruggles and the woman impersonating Gloria Draven; that North was reasonably certain of. And he had done some digging into Belichek. The man had made little money playing for the Giants. So where had the cash to buy and run that bar come from?

  John Draven, that’s where.

  And Belichek was clearly holding something back from them. If he had known why they were really there, North believed the man would never have agreed to see them. Now he was wondering about a way to talk to Belichek again.

  Maybe I should go to the police with what I know now.

  “Are you thinking, Merl, or are you constipated? I can’t tell, they sort of look the same on you.”

  North glanced up to see Swift grinning at him. “Thinking,” he replied curtly.

  His friend took off his cleats and sweaty socks. “Okay, for a minute there I thought I’d have to shove an Ex-Lax down your throat.”

  “I hope you make it to the NFL, Jimmy.”

  “Why?”

  “Because standup comedy is not in your future.”

  “Ha-ha. So when are you going to ask Molly out?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, come on. She’s got the serious hots for you. And she is one sexy lady. And brains, too. You have to like that.”

  “You may parade your love life around, Jimmy, I choose not to.”

  “Okay, I’m just saying don’t be surprised if somebody beats you to it.”

  North was about to reply when another of their teammates came by.

  Ben Jacoby was a tight end, six-four, two forty, with the widest shoulders North had ever seen, and the biggest hands. He had a real shot at going pro, along with Swift.

  But right now he was fuming and struggling with his jersey.

  “Idiots, effing morons,” barked Jacoby.

  “What’s up, Ben?” said Swift.

  “Look at my damn jersey,” said Jacoby. “I had to get two guys to help me get it on. And now I can’t get the sucker off.”

  “What happened?” asked North.

  “The laundry guy shrunk it. He said he used the wrong detergent or something. Look at my jersey numbers! They’re so stretched you can barely read them. You want to give me a hand, fellas?”

  Swift and North pulled and tugged and cursed and tugged some more, with the
result that, with a rending of material, they were finally able to get the jersey off.

  North held it out to him. “This thing is for the trash, Ben.”

  Jacoby took it. “Tell me about it. I have half a mind to put that punk in the washing machine. Second time he’s done this to me.”

  He walked off and North plopped back down in front of his locker. Swift sat down, too, and started laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” asked North.

  “Ben’s number eighty-six.”

  “Right, so?”

  “Well, his numbers were so stretched he looked like number eighty-eight.”

  Swift gaped as North leapt to his feet. “Hey, Merl, where are you going?”

  North rushed away without answering, leaving Swift sitting there shaking his head. He looked across the locker room at two other players who were also staring after North.

  “What’s got into Merl, Jimmy?” asked one of them.

  Swift grinned and said, “Ex-Lax.”

  North raced into the film room, dug through the boxes, found the video, and popped it into the player. He sat down, hit the remote, and fast-forwarded to where he needed to go.

  He slowed the speed down and let it go frame by frame. When things were slowed down you saw things that you didn’t see at normal speed; North knew that better than anyone.

  He watched Ed Belichek, helmet off, speaking to Herman Bowles. Then Belichek was lost in the crowd of players. Two minutes later North sat enraptured as Belichek rushed off the field, his helmet now on.

  North looked at the man’s jersey. It was baggy on him.

  He rewound the tape to when Belichek was talking with Bowles. The number 68 was stretched tautly across the huge man’s chest. North thought back to what Bowles had told him. That they could hardly find jerseys to fit the man since he was the biggest player they had.

  Well, either Belichek had inexplicably grown smaller in the shoulders and chest in the two minutes that had passed in the video . . .

  Or the man leaving the field that day was not Ed Belichek.