Strike Three You're Dead

by R. D. Rosen

  Mickey’s hand swam about in her shoulder bag, searching for the key. “You don’t think they’d put a guy they thought was a whore on an important case like this?”

  “I don’t?” he said, and they went in.

  HER APARTMENT WAS A series of cold white compartments without moldings or baseboards. It reminded Harvey of the inside of a refrigerator. The ceilings were white stucco with recessed light fixtures. Mickey had tried to overcome the sterility by deploying Indian print cushions around the cinnamon wall-to-wall carpeting in the living room.

  Harvey threw himself on her camelback sofa while she opened a German spätlese. By the time they were on their second bottle, the mood had lightened considerably.

  “By day,” Harvey announced in his best imitation of Bob Bolington, the orotund anchorman on WRIP-TV’s “Eleven O’Clock Edition,” “she’s a reporter. She’s tough. She’s smart. She plays by her own rules… and she plays for keeps.” He sipped his wine dramatically. “But by night… by night, she’s a seething, lustful, savage beast.”

  “We’ll see about that.” She laughed from her end of the sofa and began unbuttoning her blouse.

  “Let me help you with that.”

  “No, sir. Don’t you know that in this day and age women can unbutton their own blouses?”

  “Well, excuse me.”

  She wriggled out of her blouse and threw it over the lamp. “However,” she said, “getting out of this skirt is a different matter altogether.”

  “Let’s live together,” he said after they had made love.

  “And if I said no?”

  “Why would you say something as annoying as that?” Harvey said.

  “Do you want the long answer or the short one?” She had her hand on the side of his face.

  “The short one. It’s late.”

  “All right,” she said, reaching for her glass of wine, “let me put it this way. Due to certain emotional upheavals in my childhood, I have intimacy anxieties that make me skittish about commitment. I seduce men into expectations I can’t always fulfill—”

  “You mean I’m not the first you’ve disappointed?”

  “—On top of which, my father robbed my mother over the years of vital self-esteem. As a result, I associate cohabitation with a threat to my independence.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No. I’m afraid I’ll destroy any man I get too close to. Either that, or I’m afraid any man I get too close to will destroy me. It’s one or the other.” She jumped on top of Harvey and began tickling him.

  “There’s always the nunnery,” he said.

  “I don’t look good in black.”

  “Then you’ll have to settle for me.”

  “It’s true,” she sighed. “There’s always you. Tell me again why a good-looking lug like you isn’t already married.”

  “You want the short or the long answer?”

  “The true one.”

  “My mommy won’t let me,” he said.

  She rolled over on her back, giggling. “Be serious.”

  “Okay. Where’d you get all that stuff about yourself, anyway?”

  “Dr. Lovett,” she said.

  “Some shrink of yours?”

  “No, my dentist.” She giggled again, bringing her hand up to her face.

  “You mean he can tell all that just by looking in your mouth?”

  “My molars are a dead giveaway.”

  “You be serious,” Harvey said.

  “All right. What were you doing in Rudy’s apartment when you found the baseball card?”

  He watched the sweat collect in the depression below his sternum. “I’m not sure what I was doing,” he finally said. “Did Rudy ever mention someone named Valerie Carty to you?”

  “Valerie Carty? No. Why?”

  “Under the glass on the dresser, next to my baseball card, he kept a love letter from someone named Valerie Carty. There was also some kind of nightgown hidden away in his closet. One of those short things that snap under the crotch.”

  “A teddy?”

  “That’s it.”

  “You think this Valerie woman had something to do with it?”

  “Be sure to let me know if you have a better idea.”

  On Saturday morning, they ate Rice Chex with sliced bananas on the vestigial balcony outside Mickey’s living room. Thick gray clouds were wadded up over the skyline, and the air was hot and heavy. There was no more news about Rudy in the paper, and Harvey turned to the sports section. The headline on Lassiter’s account of last night’s game read: “Jewels Lack Luster on Diamond, Tarnished by Brewers.” Harvey allowed himself a contemptuous laugh. When they won, the Journal-Bulletin always said, “Jewels Sparkle” or “Jewels Shine” or “Jewels Prove Priceless.” When they lost, it was “Jewels Prove Counterfeit in Loss to Pale Hose” or “Jewels Only Semiprecious.”

  They walked down to a bookstore where Harvey bought a new biography of G. S. Grant. He didn’t know what he was going to do when his playing days were over—a time he judged to be not so far off—so he tried sporadically to keep up with the latest Civil War scholarship. Harvey knew this was a charade. The prospect of returning to school for a graduate degree depressed him. Like baseball, college would be a kind of protracted adolescence. Well, he thought, there were always endorsement contracts.

  “How do you think I’d look modeling Jockey shorts?” he asked Mickey at the cash register.

  “In the privacy of my bedroom, I’ve been impressed.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of a national audience, Mick.”

  “I suppose they could always airbrush that little roll of fat around your waist.”

  It reminded him that he and Bobby Wagner were scheduled to shoot a television commercial for a local insurance company at the park that morning before the game.

  When Harvey walked onto the field at noon, Wagner was standing on the mound next to a man who wore a bird’s nest of blond hair and a plaid shirt open to the navel. A cameraman and an audio man were setting up in front of the mound while a young woman with a clipboard kept glancing up at the cloudy sky.

  “Burt Elias,” the man with the permanent said to Harvey, offering a hand burdened with rings. “I represent Regional East Insurance.”

  “My favorite insurance company,” Harvey said. “Sorry I’m a little late.”

  “No problem. I was just explaining to Bobby what we want to do.”

  “Welcome to Hollywood, Professor,” Bobby said, speaking with a slight drawl. He was a couple of inches taller than Harvey, and he had the lean, symmetrical face of a male model, with strong black eyebrows that threatened to merge into a single one. They were arched in an expression of boredom. If Harvey was considered aloof, Wagner verged on arrogant. But since he was a bona fide star—he had come in second in the voting for the Cy Young Award twice in his career—his cockiness was credited as a kind of authority. That his talent had been less evident this season only increased his defiant pride. “Let’s get on with it,” he said to Elias.

  Elias put on a pair of aviator sunglasses. “First we’re going to zoom in on Bobby on the mound,” he said to Harvey. “He’ll pretend to throw a pitch that gets hit deep to center field, and he’ll say, ‘You know, folks, every once in a while something goes wrong when I’m pitching. And when it does’”—he grabbed the script from the young woman and consulted it—“‘and when it does, it’s nice to know someone is backing me up.’ We cut to you, Harvey, in center. You catch the ball, see, then turn to the camera and say, That’s right. I like to think of myself as Bobby’s insurance policy when he’s out there pitching.’ Cut back to Bobby on the mound, mopping his brow in relief. Then he says, ‘On the field, I rely on Harvey Blissberg. Off the field, I put my trust in Regional East.’ Then, Harvey, you join Bobby in the frame and say, ‘Me, too. When it comes to my family, my home, my car, I count on Regional East. We know how important teamwork is. And in the game of life, it’s good to know that Regional East is on your
team.’ That’s it, gentlemen. Take a few minutes to study your lines. I want this to come out nice and natural.”

  “You’re talking to a man who sold deodorant coast-to-coast for two years,” Bobby said impatiently.

  “As I recall,” Harvey said, “you have very photogenic armpits.”

  “You guys should be glad to get me out here for the peanuts you’re paying,” Bobby told Elias.

  “Of course,” Elias said, “of course. I didn’t mean to imply….”

  When they were finished and walking to the dugout, Harvey turned to Bobby. “You’re in a good mood today.”

  “For five bills and a year’s car insurance, I don’t need it,” Bobby said.

  “Wags, what do you know about Rudy?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I thought he might’ve told you something, you know, trouble he was in. You pitchers hang together.”

  “Rudy hung alone.”

  “Did you know a girlfriend of his named Valerie Carty?”

  “No. What is this, Professor? You some kind of cop now?”

  “No, Wags, I just—there’s—I don’t know.”

  “Look, the guy probably had something going on the side, and he got burned.”

  “Yeah,” Harvey said. “Maybe that’s it.”

  Bobby got his warm-up jacket off the bench and put it on, mumbling, “A year’s car insurance. Christ almighty.”

  Harvey picked up a leaded bat and was swinging it over his head in an arc when Cleavon Battle, the Jewels’ mountainous first baseman, came up and said, “Let me ask you something.”

  Cleavon was the only player on the team about whom it was generally felt that you spoke to him only when spoken to—and Cleavon rarely spoke to you. After ten years in the majors with a healthy .289 career batting average, he was playing out the string in Providence.

  “Ask,” Harvey said.

  Cleavon reached out and grabbed the end of Harvey’s leaded bat. His fingers were the size of egg rolls. “You know it was my stick killed Rudy,” he said.

  “Yeah.” Their hands were holding different ends of the bat. “I know about that.”

  “You know I didn’t have nothing to do with it.”

  “I know that, too,” Harvey said. Cleavon went six-three, about 220 pounds, and Harvey wasn’t going to stand there and tell him he didn’t like the way he wore his batting glove, much less accuse him of murder.

  “I believe you when you say that.”

  “That’s good, Cleavon.”

  The first baseman pursed his lips and nodded slowly, like a man dozing off. “Because I’ve got one bad-ass reputation around here.”

  “I don’t know who killed Rudy,” Harvey said, “but I know it had nothing to do with you.”

  “That’s right,” Cleavon said and let go of the leaded bat.

  Harvey waited until he was out of earshot before releasing a sigh.

  Andy Potter-Lawn, a young left-hander and the only major leaguer born in England, pitched for the Jewels that afternoon, but not with any great distinction. Behind Sammy Arguelles, Milwaukee coasted to a 7-1 win. Harvey was blow-drying his hair when Bob Lassiter came up to his locker after the game with a fried chicken wing in one hand and a reporter’s notebook in the other. He waited for Harvey to snap off his Conair Pro 1000.

  “Bob, you know I don’t like to talk with wet hair.”

  “Just talk with your mouth, then.” Lassiter laughed until he saw that Harvey wasn’t going to join him. “Now look, don’t chew my head again. I’ve just got one question, and I’ll make it quick. You guys have played two miserable games in a row.” He looked at Harvey.

  “I think that charge would stand up in court, Bob,” Harvey said.

  “Do you think it has anything to do with Rudy’s death?”

  “Now, how did I know that question was coming?”

  Lassiter tossed his chicken wing into a wastebasket behind him. “What I mean is,” he said, poised to write, “it’s got to affect your play in some way.”

  “No, I don’t see why a team that’s hiding a murderer shouldn’t go out there every day and give it everything it’s got.”

  Lassiter looked at him for a moment. “Wait. What you’re saying is that—is that you think the guy who killed Rudy is on the team?”

  Harvey realized immediately it was one of the dumbest things he’d ever said. The players who always talked to the press rarely said anything more provocative than “I really think the team’s jelling now.” It was the players who rarely talked who said too much when they did.

  “That was a stupid thing to say,” Harvey said. “Forget I said it.” He pointed his hair dryer at Lassiter’s face. “Keep that one out of the papers, all right? Look, I have no idea who killed Rudy. For all I know, it was the mob.”

  HARVEY DROVE DOWN HOPE Street toward Pawtucket early that evening. Each block was like the one before, only slightly worse: an endless march of clapboard three-deckers with peeling bays and little half-balconies and chipped stoops. Neighborhood groceries called Tony’s Spa and Marie’s Spa sulked behind grated windows. It was hard to believe that Pawtucket had once been a hub of the textile industry, the source of the first machine-spun cotton yarn. Now it looked like the world capital of abandoned Impalas and busted screen doors.

  He looked at the address on Valerie Carty’s stationery on the seat beside him. Was any woman crazy enough to kill Rudy for love? In the clubhouse? Not even Rudy was that captivating. Was any woman’s husband crazy enough to do it? Harvey hadn’t thought of husbands until now. He hadn’t thought of much, except that any woman who wore a teddy around Rudy’s town house probably knew something he didn’t.

  At a red light, he rolled down his window and asked a man in a soiled Boston Red Sox cap for directions to Armbrister Road. He followed several more streets bordered by buckled buildings to a faded pink three-decker next to a lot filled with bakery trucks. A dumpster in the lot had spilled some of its contents onto the sidewalk. Harvey parked in front of the building, waded through the trash, climbed three steps to the porch, and found Valerie Carty’s name on a black metal mailbox next to the door of the first-floor apartment. Above her name was the name Albert Carty.

  The front of the building was covered with pitted pink aluminum siding, and the windows of the first-floor bay were shielded by thick yellow canvas shades the color of calluses. Harvey swung open the screen door, rapped on one of the small beveled glass panes, and waited with his back to the door. The orange sun had fallen behind the buildings across the street, silhouetting a serrated row of rooftops. Two boys raced minibikes with oversized wheels down the sidewalk and disappeared, whooping, into the lot. The air had grown chilly, and he pushed his hands into his pants pockets. Someone leaned on a car horn down the block. Harvey hawked over the porch railing. Pawtucket was having a bad effect on him.

  “Yes?”

  The man in the doorway wore an unbuttoned short-sleeved shirt that hung outside his pants, and at his side he held a bottle of Narragansett by the neck. He had thin sandy hair combed back in greasy streaks over his scalp, and wild sandy eyebrows. Other than that, he had the kind of sullen, unemployed face you could see ten times and still not remember.

  Harvey had not expected the husband. “Oh, I should’ve called first,” he stammered.

  “About what?”

  “I’m, uh, looking for your wife.”

  “I don’t have a wife anymore,” Albert Carty said. “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Harvey Blissberg.” The man’s eyebrows moved, but he showed no sign of recognition. “I’m wondering if—I’m looking for Valerie Carty.”

  “Then you’re looking for my daughter.”

  “I guess that’s right, then.”

  “My daughter doesn’t get many visitors. What do you want to see her about?”

  “It’s kind of hard to explain.”

  “Try to find a way. It’s nippy out here.”

  “Okay. I’m a baseball player, the Providence Jewels.�
�� Harvey raised his eyebrows expectantly.

  “I’ve heard of them. I don’t follow the game.”

  “I wanted to speak to Valerie about one of the other players. Someone she knew.”

  “She doesn’t know any baseball players,” Carty said.

  A woman’s voice called out from deep inside the apartment: “Who is it, Dad?”

  “I’m trying to find out, honey,” he called. He turned back to Harvey and repeated, “She doesn’t know any baseball players.”

  “I’m pretty sure she knew this one.”

  “And I’m saying she doesn’t. She’s a baseball fan, but she doesn’t know any baseball players.”

  “Okay, look. I’m sorry to bother you, but if you could just tell her that Harvey Blissberg of the Providence Jewels would like to talk to her for just a minute—about Rudy Furth.”

  Carty lifted his beer bottle, checked the contents, dropped it to his side again. “You wait here.”

  A minute later, Carty came back to open the door and say, “Well, she certainly knows who you are.” Harvey followed him into a bleak hallway and living room with a low, veneered coffee table whose surface was ringed with glass stains, a mahogany highboy with polyurethane blisters all over it, and an assortment of easy chairs. Three small still lifes in dime-store frames dressed up the side wall between two windows with cracked sashes, and a tarnished light fixture in the shape of four tulips cast the room in a bad light.

  Albert Carty went to one of the easy chairs, picked up a folded Journal-Bulletin off the rug, and sat down. “She’s in her room,” he said. “Second door down the hall, on the right.”

  Harvey walked slowly to the door and knocked. A voice said tentatively, as if asking a question, “Come in?”

  The room was square and stuffy. The curtains and bedspread were of the same ruffled blue-checked gingham. The large chest of drawers was painted white and scattered with bottles of perfume and stuffed animals. Above the bed were collages of pictures from sports and women’s magazines and a Providence Jewels felt pennant tacked up at an angle. On a stamped-tin TV dinner table to the left of the door was a portable television set tuned to The Love Boat.