by Teri White
Berg blinked. The name obviously meant something to him and that realization pleased Robert in a way he couldn’t really define.
“You know, Berg,” he said conversationally, “you don’t look like a complete dope to me. So how come you’ve lately been acting like one?”
Berg was playing with the pencil. The look in his eyes said clearly that he’d like to drive the damned thing right into Robert’s heart. Fat chance. “Hey, Turchek, this is a free country. Capitalist system and all that shit. Somebody can’t stand a little competition, maybe he should get the hell out of the business.”
Robert just had to grin at that. “You’re talking here about Mr. LoBianca, I guess. Well, see, he doesn’t care much about the capitalist system when it starts interfering in his own private business.”
“The market is big enough for both of us. Tell that to your boss, why don’t you?”
Now he was being treated like nothing but some kind of damned errand boy. Killing Berg—which he would do, sooner or later—was going to be a real pleasure. Robert finished the Quarter-Pounder. He picked up the paper napkin and wiped his mouth carefully. “First of all, Berg, I don’t have a goddamned ‘boss,’ okay?” He crumpled the napkin and tossed it across the table. It fell into Berg’s lap. Berg didn’t pick it up. “Second of all, your fucking whining about just being part of the free-enterprise system doesn’t mean shit to me. Or to the man you’re trying to muscle in on. But see, he’s giving you a break. Killing you is liable to bring him some complications. Which he’d prefer to avoid, if possible.”
A faint look of hope seemed to cross Berg’s face.
Robert almost smiled. “So you have twenty-four hours to get your pathetic ass out of this city. Out of the whole fucking state, in fact.”
“Or?”
Berg was attempting to sneer, but not quite bringing it off.
Robert knew when to talk and when just to look. Now he just looked.
Berg stared at him as if trying hard to read some expression through the sunglasses. They were too dark for that, which was exactly the point. He tried to keep up his hardcase front, but his mouth opened and closed a couple of times with nothing being said. Then the air just seemed to whoosh out of him. “I don’t have enough cash on hand,” he said in a choked whisper. “And my family is here.”
Christ, in another minute the dope would be bawling all over the table. Robert really wasn’t in the mood for that. He finished his Coke quickly and set the paper cup down. “Twenty-four hours, Berg,” he said wearily. “You won’t get another warning. Mr. LoBianca is being real generous to let you leave. Most guys, they’d have your balls in the chopper right now.” Of course, they both knew that generosity had nothing at all to do with it; LoBianca was just looking out for number one. It made sense to avoid murder whenever possible. Robert didn’t think it was going to be avoided here, though. Berg was just too dumb. With a sudden move, Robert snatched the pencil away and, quickly, broke it in two. He dropped the pieces onto the table and started to get up.
Berg reached out and grabbed him by one wrist. “Jesus Christ, man, I got kids. Can’t you be a little understanding?”
Robert just looked down at him until Berg released the grip. “Don’t ever do that again,” he said very softly. “I’ll kill you and your fucking kids, you ever lay a finger on me again. You got that?”
“Yes,” Berg said helplessly. “I get it.” He slumped back in the booth, staring at the greasy used napkin that was still in his lap.
Robert left the restaurant. He walked around the parking lot until he found Berg’s sea-foam-green Pontiac. After checking to be sure that nobody was being nosy, he took a Swiss Army knife from his pocket. Quickly, methodically, he slashed each tire on the car. Just for good measure, he also broke off the rearview mirror and left it propped on the hood.
Then he headed for his own car. He knew that the vandalism was a sort of petty thing to do, but Berg had really aggravated him. For some people, just killing wasn’t enough.
2
Maureen Travers wanted to be an actress.
That was no novelty, of course; not in a town where Robert knew that he could stand on any street corner, spit, and be ensured of hitting not only one or more aspiring thespians, but also a minimum of eight passersby with script ideas to pitch.
It was precisely because of all that competition that Maureen was, temporarily, supporting herself by working as a waitress in a place on Sunset Boulevard. Because it was a first-class establishment and more especially because Maureen was a long-legged blonde who knew how to treat the customers right, she made very good tips.
She was still young enough to be a little bit impressed that her boyfriend (a word that she was also still young enough to use, although it was one that Robert, at thirty-eight, found slightly ridiculous when applied to him) was a sort of mysterious figure. She had no idea what it was he actually did, of course, although she had the feeling that it was something not quite, well, legal. Not that he was a real criminal, she figured. To her, Robert was just something of a renegade, which seemed to excite her. Robert didn’t mind.
What they had going, in Robert’s opinion, was a good summertime relationship. Maureen looked terrific in a bathing suit, got a joke when one was told, and was hot in bed, especially when it came to giving a blow-job. What more could he ask?
But there were times when they were out together, like that very night, for example, when she talked all the way through dinner about some damned audition or other, when he had to wonder if it was really worth all the trouble. He was wondering just that as he signaled the waiter for another whiskey.
“Bobby, are you listening to me?” Maureen said suddenly. She was glaring at him.
“Sure, babe,” he said, although of course he hadn’t been.
“What did I just say?” she challenged him.
Robert tried desperately to think of anything he’d heard in the last ten or twenty minutes. Not one thing came to mind. So he just grinned and shrugged. “Sorry, Mo. It’s just that I’ve got a lot on my mind right now.” That wasn’t exactly the truth, either. He hadn’t been thinking about anything in particular.
“What?” she asked, after a sip of the fancy water she drank all the time.
“What what?” he said innocently.
She sighed. “What’s on your mind?”
Robert played absently with the small diamond stud in his ear. “Ah, just things.”
She almost pouted, although a liberated person like her would surely have denied any such thing. “You never share with me what it is you’re really thinking about.”
Oh God. It always got to that eventually. But why tonight? And why was it that the fact that two people had a good time together, with some laughs and better-than-average sex, didn’t seem to be enough for some women? They always wanted to get inside his head and find out what he was really like. Robert didn’t understand this obsession at all; he certainly didn’t give a good goddamn about what was going on inside their brains.
Meanwhile, she was obviously waiting for some kind of an answer.
Robert was still trying to think of one—he was really hoping to get laid before the night was over—when the maître d’ appeared beside the table. “Excuse me, Mr. Turchek,” he said softly.
“Yes?” he answered with considerable relief.
“You have a telephone call, sir.”
Saved by Ma Bell. Wonderful.
He got up, giving Maureen an apologetic shrug, and followed the French guy across the room. Only then did it occur to him to wonder who the hell would actually call him there. Although he always gave the answering service a number on evenings like this, everybody knew damned well that he hated being disturbed. When he was alone with the phone, he picked up the receiver and said, “Turchek here,” letting whomever it was know by his tone that he wasn’t happy.
“This is the Ledgewood Convalescent Home, Mr. Turchek,” the crisp female voice said in return. “Dr. Randolph would like you
to come over here immediately.”
Robert, still half thinking about the upcoming hassle with Maureen, didn’t immediately absorb the meaning of the words. “I was there this afternoon as usual,” he said irritably. “If Randolph wanted to talk to me, why didn’t he do it then?”
“This is a crisis situation.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means,” she explained carefully but firmly, “that you should get over here as quickly as possible.” With that, she hung up.
Robert listened to the dial tone for a few moments, but found there no answers to his unasked questions. Then, as he finally hung up, an unfamiliar sense of panic raced through him. This had never happened before, not in the years that Andy had been a patient at Ledgewood. At last, he moved, practically upending a waiter carrying a fully loaded tray in his hurry back to the table where Maureen was waiting. “I have to go, babe. A family crisis. Can you get a cab home?”
“Sure.” She looked bewildered. “But I didn’t know you had any family, Bobby.”
Robert didn’t bother to answer as he threw several crumpled bills down onto the table and headed for the door.
Dr. Alan Randolph, a tall man with a completely bald head, was in Andy’s room, along with another doctor whose face was vaguely familiar, but whose name Robert couldn’t remember at the moment. A nurse was there, too. None of them seemed to notice when Robert walked in.
His gaze went immediately to the bed. The first thing he saw was that a new machine had been hooked up to his brother. It sent forth an erratic beeping and Robert tried to read some message in the sound, but he could not. He wanted to ask somebody what the hell was happening but hesitated, because the answer would probably be something he didn’t want to hear. As always in this room, he felt helpless.
Randolph finally glanced his way. Even under these circumstances, he remained his usual brusque, efficient self. “Your brother’s heart has stopped twice in the last hour,” he said, skipping any of the polite preliminaries; Robert had always liked that in the doctor. His head gave a nod toward the beeping machine. “Right now, we’ve got it going again. But our preliminary diagnosis is that extensive and severe damage has been done.”
“Which means what, exactly?” Robert asked, matching his voice to the doctor’s cool tone.
Randolph shrugged. “Which means that the patient has a very slim chance of survival.”
“How much of a chance is that?”
“Slim” was the unsatisfactory reply.
Nobody in the room said anything more for a moment; maybe they were all, like him, just listening to the beeps.
Robert reached up to loosen his green silk tie and ran a couple of fingers around the inside of his collar. “Can’t you do something?” he said. “No matter what it costs …”
Randolph didn’t even bother responding to that remark. Instead, he and the other doctor stepped out into the hallway and bent their heads together over a long computer readout.
Ignoring the nurse who was busily fiddling with various knobs and gauges, Robert moved over to stand next to the bed. “Hey, Andy,” he said softly. “What’s going on here, buddy?” With one hand, he stroked his brother’s arm lightly, taking care to avoid the frightening tubes and needles. “You’re not going to crap out on me, are you? No fair, Andy, that’s not part of the deal.”
Once, a long time ago, Andy Turchek had pitched a perfect game. Robert could still remember every detail of that afternoon as if it had happened just last week, instead of years ago. The hot sun and the cold beer. The crowded bleachers and even the damned hot dogs, which were the best he’d ever eaten.
Andy “The Wizard” Turchek was perfect that day. He was in complete control as he stood on the mound, six feet two inches of power and finesse. His white uniform gleamed and his blond hair was like a beacon in the middle of the field. Robert, sitting in his usual place right behind the dugout, washing down hot dog after hot dog with paper cups of cold beer, could hardly contain the love and pride that kept welling up inside him. That was his kid brother out there. Every time the ball went across the plate, he held his breath, proud and fearful at the same time. But Andy never slipped. Twenty-seven batters came and twenty-seven batters went, with nobody even getting close to first base.
When the last man was gone, swinging wildly at a curve ball that seemed to defy every law of physics, Andy turned toward the dugout and saluted Robert with his cap. Then he grinned. Robert never let anybody know about the tears that filled his eyes at that moment.
All Andy ever really wanted to do was pitch for the goddamned Dodgers.
Without any warning, the beeping machine was suddenly making a different noise, a loud, flat sound that brought the doctors back into the room immediately. Robert was unceremoniously pushed aside and obviously forgotten.
He wanted to cry, but this time the tears wouldn’t come. Maureen would probably say that he needed to get in touch with his feelings or some kind of shit like that. But he couldn’t. The nerve endings were too raw. If he let loose now, things would go to hell very quickly.
Robert went into the hallway. A passing nurse looked at him with what might have been sympathy. He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.
3
There weren’t very many people at the funeral, of course. Robert hadn’t even told Maureen anything about when or where the brief service was going to be held. He didn’t want her hovering.
It wasn’t until he surveyed the small group gathered around the grave that Robert realized something: He had no friends, not really. The sudden realization surprised him a little, because he hadn’t felt such a lack in his life. Between work and a parade of women and Andy in the hospital to visit every day, there seemed to be plenty to think about.
Randolph was there, no doubt motivated by some sense of professional obligation. A couple of the nurses and aides who had taken care of Andy showed up, too, and that was okay. The big surprise, as far as Robert was concerned, was that Wayne Brown was there. He must have seen the short obit in the Times. Brown, a hefty black man in a three-piece suit, had played on the college team with Andy. He had, in fact, caught that perfect game. Now, as it turned out, he sold insurance, which maybe explained why he read the death notices so carefully.
When the service was over, Brown suggested to him that maybe a drink was in order. It could be sort of a final tribute to Andy. Robert couldn’t see anything wrong with that idea, so he followed Brown four blocks to Mike’s, a dark, cool tavern that was nearly empty at that time of the day. They both carried boilermakers to a back booth.
“There were some nice flowers at the grave,” Brown said when they had settled in.
“Some of the people I do business with sent them,” Robert said. He downed the shot in one gulp.
“What business are you in these days?”
“Debt collection,” he replied shortly. That was what it said on his income-tax return.
Brown just nodded.
Two youngish women in almost identical gray suits came in and sat at the booth just opposite them. Each carried a leather briefcase and each was drinking white wine. They paid no attention to Robert and Brown, instead launching directly into a discussion of points and prime rates.
Brown sipped beer carefully. “I was around the majors for a couple years,” he said. “And I never saw anybody better than the Wizard. He could have gone all the way, you know that, don’t you?”
“I know it.”
The women laughed suddenly. Robert wondered what the hell was so funny about interest rates.
Brown sighed. “Let me tell you something, Bob. I’m a religious man, a deacon in the church and all, but sometimes I still can’t figure out God’s holy plan. Like why things had to go the way they did for somebody like Andy.”
Robert smiled a little, not at what Brown had said, exactly, or even at Brown himself, but at the top of the table. “I don’t think that God—even if there really is one—had anything to do with this
.”
Brown obviously wasn’t happy with that expression of doubt, but he let it pass without saying anything.
The women weren’t talking business anymore. Their new topic of conversation was someone named Edward. Both of them, it seemed, had slept with him. On different occasions.
Robert ordered a second shot; it arrived and he downed it as quickly as he had the first. “I know who’s to blame for Andy being dead,” he said. “And someday he’ll pay.”
“Revenge won’t bring Andy back.”
Robert didn’t say anything. Something about the absent Edward’s sexual habits ignited another bout of laughter and the women ordered more wine.
“Well,” Brown said finally, “it’s just sad. Real sad.”
Robert raised a hand to summon the bartender again.
It was very late by the time Robert left the bar. Brown was long gone, having tried but failed to persuade him to go as well.
As he emerged into the still-hot night, Robert realized how drunk he really was. Too drunk to drive, probably, but how the hell else could he get home? So he got behind the wheel and made very sure that he stayed three miles beneath the speed limit the whole way.
The house was dark and quiet, just as always, but, for some reason he couldn’t explain, it seemed darker and quieter than usual.
He hit the john and took a long piss—too damned much beer—and then walked across the hall to Andy’s room. He hardly ever went in there. It was still the way it had been when Andy was first sent to prison. Robert stepped inside the room. The iron band that had been wrapped around his chest for several days now seemed to tighten even more. He picked up the baseball bat that was propped against the bed.
The bat was a real classic, made to Babe Ruth’s own specifications.
He ran his hands along the smooth ash. It felt cool to the touch. After a moment, Robert hefted the bat and gave it a trial swing. Felt good. So then he swung it again. The third swing crashed into the trophy case, smashing the glass. Robert turned around and swung again, this time hitting the portable television.
