“No, but I got a hunch I ain’t far from one.”
Matilda Richwell smiled a lecherous smile. She said, “My God, think of it—an Indian chief with extra-sensory perception!”
At that moment Kirby heard the wail of sirens and his telephone began to ring. He lunged for the phone as a drowning man lunges for a splinter. The desk clerk was on the line. He said, “You’re just across the hall from Matilda Richwell’s room, and her phone doesn’t answer.”
Kirby said, “Look, pal, you cope with your problems, and let me attempt to cope with mine.”
“But this is an emergency!”
“Baby, you don’t know the half of it!”
The desk clerk sighed. “Well, if you happen to see Matilda Richwell, tell her that Grandpa Earlybeam just set the fucking scoreboard on fire.”
It was the third time Kirby wished that he’d stayed the hell in Chicago.
Twenty
Morning brought slate-gray skies and a misty drizzle. Kirby was seated on a sagging couch in the hotel lobby, paging through the Grizzly Gulch Daily Journal, twelve pages of not a helluva lot to say. He was glancing at a report concerning preparations for the celebration of Smoky Abe Matthewson Day when Nitro Droofik came in, back-handing a smudge of breakfast egg from a corner of his mouth. Droofik sat on a straight-backed wooden chair and scratched his balls inquisitively. He said, “Did you manage to attend last night’s scoreboard fire?”
Kirby shook his head. “No, unfortunately, I was otherwise occupied.”
“Doing what?”
“Well, wedging the back of a chair under my doorknob, for one thing.”
Nitro Droofik yawned. “You didn’t miss much. I’ve seen bigger fires in ant-hills, but it was the only fire in town, you see.” He looked at the eagle on the back of the over-stuffed chair. “What kind of big hairy-assed bird is that, and what is he doing in the lobby?”
Kirby said, “He’s an eagle, and he’s watching you scratch your balls.”
Droofik squinted at Kirby. He said. “Do iggels got balls?”
Kirby shrugged. “You have just touched on a subject that has failed to concern me greatly, but you could probably look it up in an encyclopedia.”
“Yeah? What would I look under—‘iggels’ or ‘balls’?”
A dejected-looking Grandpa Earlybeam entered to sink into the couch with a desolate moan. He said, “Well, I suppose you gentlemen have heard the horrendous news.”
Nitro Droofik said, “Sure, Bucky Kilroy is gonna start the hotdog vendor tonight.”
Grandpa Earlybeam shook his gray head. “Worse than that—much, much worse! Last night, the matchless Roger Hannistan escaped in a cloud of scoreboard smoke. Would either of you fellows happen to have an extra land mine?”
Nitro Droofik said, “Well, as a matter of fact, I lost my very last land mine in a poker game.” He scratched his balls puzzledly. “What the hell would you do with a land mine?”
Grandpa Earlybeam’s grin was a slow, twisting, sinister thing. He said, “How’s plant it at shortstop?”
Nitro Droofik scratched his balls consternatedly. “But that would be murder!”
Grandpa Earlybeam smiled wistfully. He murmured, “Ah, yes, murder—murder, indeed.” His voice trailed away.
Strap Jockingstud drifted in, a hand clamped to a badly swollen jaw. He said, “I got me one Christ-awful fucking toothache!”
Nitro Droofik said, “There’s a dentist across the street. Get it pulled and the Tooth Fairy will leave a dime under your pillow.”
Strap Jockingstud said, “There ain’t no fucking Tooth Fairy.”
Nitro Droofik said, “No? Well, if there ain’t no fucking Tooth Fairy, how come I found all them dimes under my pillow when I was a kid?”
Strap Jockingstud said, “Maybe your father put them there.”
Nitro Droofik scratched his balls ferociously. He said, “Are you calling my father a fairy, you sonofabitch?”
Grandpa Earlybeam stared disconsolately at the lobby carpeting. He said, “All the fucking Tooth Fairy ever left me was a couple pennies.”
Twenty-One
The skies cleared later in the morning, Kirby spent the afternoon drinking Javorsky’s Pilsner at Brady’s Corncrib, and that evening the Grizzly Gulch No Sox lost to the Kelly’s Corners Shillelaghs before a sullen turnout of fewer than two hundred customers. Kirby felt an affinity with hapless No Sox, a sense of belonging. The No Sox didn’t know what they were doing, and neither did Kirby, but there was a difference—every No Sox mistake brought a torrent of criticism, while Kirby’s blunders served only to further convince his CIA colleagues that they were working with a cross between Paul Bunyan and the Wizard of Oz, and there was no way they’d see things in any other light. Kirby showered, slipped into his street clothing, and departed the ball park as the lights went out. In a vacant lot behind the left field wall he found a mossy hollow log, and he sat there in the soft southern Illinois night, lighting a cigarette, trying to collect his prodigal thoughts, staring into the skies, blowing smoke at the moon, and wondering what the hell had ever happened to the Star of Bethlehem. Since childhood, the vanishing Star of Bethlehem had troubled Kirby.
The ball game had found its way into the Southern Illinois Association record books. The hotdog vendor hadn’t pitched badly but Roger Hannistan had broken his own mark of four errors in one inning, accomplishing this by committing six errors in one inning. Kirby felt sorry for Hannistan. The youngster tried hard, but the pressure was getting to him. He’d received numerous death threats, he’d narrowly missed being run down by a pickup truck, someone had taken a shot at him, a boa constrictor had been found in his locker, and the fact that the fifteen-foot reptile was deceased was of small consolation to the beleaguered shortstop.
Kirby felt something brush lightly against his pants leg, and with boa constrictors on his mind, he was badly startled. He glanced down to see a scrawny black cat. The pale Grizzly Gulch full moon was reflected in the creature’s large unblinking yellow eyes as it stared at Kirby, opening its mouth silently. Like Kirby, it was a stray, and instant rapport sprang up between the two. Kirby stroked the bony animal and it popped onto the log beside him, purring furiously like a miniature threshing machine. They shared the hollow log for what seemed a very long time before the cat stretched, yawned, and went away. Kirby watched the forlorn feline blend with the summer darkness before clambering to his feet to walk toward the hotel, feeling very much alone and out of step with the whole fucking world.
He made his gloomy way into the hotel lobby and flopped heavily onto the sofa. The eagle drowsed on the back of its chair and there was a great deal of commotion emanating from the lounge. Above this ruckus, Kirby could hear a high-pitched voice hollering, “Tyrant, show thy face!” and “Turn, hell-hound, turn!” and any number of ridiculous things. In a few moments, Nitro Droofik emerged from the lounge, shaking his head and scratching his balls confusedly.
Kirby said, “What’s going on in there?”
Nitro Droofik said, “Nightlife Nesbitt and Barefoot Boyd spiked the matchless Roger Hannistan’s Ovaltine with gin, and he loves it! He’s gargled about a dozen of ’em, and he’s in there, sitting on top of the piano, giving something he calls a Shakespearean reading, which might be kind of interesting if every goddam thing he says wasn’t coming out all ass-backwards.”
Suddenly the high-pitched voice screeched, “Out, out, brief candle!” and this strange utterance was closely followed by a thunderous crash and a tomblike silence.
Kirby stared at Nitro Droofik. He said, “If I’m not badly mistaken, Roger Hannistan’s brief candle just went out.”
Nitro Droofik scratched his balls sadly. He said, “Alas.”
The desk clerk yawned and said, “Alack.”
Nitro Droofik said, “I’ve seen brighter candles in Italian restaurants.” He scratched his balls hungrily. “You like ravioli?”
Kirby shrugged. “I got nothing against him.”
Nitro Droofik s
cratched his balls regretfully. “Now we’ll never know what happened.”
The desk clerk said, “I believe the Yanks traded him to Kansas City.”
Nitro Droofik said, “I’m talking about that goofy Shakespearean reading.”
The desk clerk yawned. He said, “Macbeth blew the whole shot.”
Nitro Droofik said, “How do you know?”
The desk clerk said, “It was in a poem:
Macbeth was a man what just had to be King,
He wanted them honors a gold crown can bring;
Got his head on a pike and his ass in a sling,
And there was a woman behind the whole thing.
Twenty-Two
He awakened a few minutes before one o’clock the following afternoon, rolling from under the bed to peer through his window at blue skies flocked with lazy, fleecy white clouds, then into his bathroom mirror at an unshaven, battered, tattered, fading man, not at all what he’d once been. He thought of the cardboard sign above the back bar of Lulu’s Jungle Tap—something about getting so soon old and so late smart—and now he was certain of it, he wanted to be back in Chicago, working an occasional cheap divorce case, drinking Hickory Barrel Ale at Lulu’s, throwing Tizzie Bonkowski’s more difficult customers down the stairs, doing those things he felt comfortable doing in the places he felt comfortable doing them.
He spent the afternoon in his room, hungry but too listless to do anything about it. He napped, smoked cigarettes, and thought about the woman in his life. He loved Tizzie Bonkowski, he knew it now, and Tizzie had been right—they belonged together, two waifs from the seamy side of life. Sooner or later a man has to come down to earth, gravity so dictates, and Birch Kirby had flown high, wide, and handsome just about long enough.
Tizzie’s proposed Polish restaurant skidded across his mind, and Kirby smiled at the thought. Well, why not? Tizzie just might bring it off—she possessed every one of the essentials, Polish business sense, Polish thrift, Polish cleanliness, Polish determination, and she could cook up a storm—Kirby had first-hand knowledge of her culinary talents. She’d shown him photographs of Hubbard, Ohio, a tidy little one and two-story village with a business district of two, possibly three blocks, the size community that might keep a few hamburger joints in business—but a Polish restaurant with kielbasa and sauerkraut dumplings? Kirby had misgivings about that and he thought about it until dusk began to close in on Grizzly Gulch. Then he shook off his lethargy, showered, shaved, dressed, and went downstairs. The lobby was orderly again, the furniture had been replaced, the window had been restored and the eagle no longer adorned the back of an overstuffed chair. The desk clerk yawned and waved to him. Halfway down the block, Kirby slipped into an eatery and ordered kielbasa and sauerkraut dumplings. The proprietor glanced under the counter at the spot where firearms are usually kept and Kirby changed his order to corned beef on rye and a cup of black coffee. He wolfed the sandwich, swallowed the coffee in three gulps, and headed south to the ball yard, detached and in love. Kirby had always been detached, but being in love was an entirely new experience.
He rather liked it.
Twenty-Three
The Blister Bend Bandits were in town for a three-game set. They were a tough looking bunch, big, swaggering, hard-faced, tobacco-chewing men, unshaven, and wearing black uniforms with red caps and stockings. They’d pulverized the Grizzly Gulch No Sox in their every meeting of the season, and they’d just completed a sweep of a series in Creepy Hollow to run their current winning steak to a dozen games. Clearly, the Bandits were the class of the Southern Illinois Association.
Matilda Richwell was on hand for the series-opener, a hibiscus tucked over one ear, a red rose clenched in her teeth, and she took a bleachers seat just above the Grizzly Gulch bullpen, throwing Kirby a kiss and giving him a series of slow bumps and grinds with heavy emphasis on the bumps. Kirby smiled a ghastly smile and swerved his attention to the No Sox infield practice during which a wobbly legged Roger Hannistan was having big trouble remaining upright. Then Kirby saw the eagle approaching the ball park in the deepening twilight, flying at high speed, but rather erratically, he thought. The huge bird flapped to a clumsy landing atop the center field flag pole, high over the ashes of the scoreboard, there to list noticeably to starboard, looking not at all like a national symbol is expected to look.
Straightball Collins was Bucky Kilroy’s choice to start against the awesome Blister Bend Bandits. Collins had a season record of 0-8 with an earned-run average of 26.95, he had yet to survive a first inning, and this was why everybody in the No Sox bullpen was up and throwing hard fully twenty-five minutes before game time, keeping Birch Kirby busier than a New Orleans whore on a Mardi Gras Saturday night.
Then Straightball Collins reared back and cut loose with his first pitch of the ball game which the Blister Bend lead-off man lashed viciously over the second base bag. No shortstop in control of his faculties would have attempted to field that rifle-shot, but Roger Hannistan sprinted to his left, left his feet to fly through the air like an arrow from the bow, made a miraculous stop, skidded fifteen feet on his chest, jack-knifed to his knees, uncorked a whistling, clothes-line throw to Nitro Droofik at first base, and cut down the astounded Blister Bend runner by half-a-step.
The next Blister Bend hitter pumped a dinky humpbacked liner into short left field and Roger Hannistan raced twenty-five yards to make a leaping, backhanded, somersaulting catch.
The third batter stepped into a Straightball Collins offering and blasted a screamer toward left-center field. Roger Hannistan moved with a speed that defied the human eye, rocketing four feet straight up to stab the drive. The ball struck his glove with the force of a pile-driver, the impact spinning him completely around, but he held on to float to earth like a helium-inflated cat, and the formidable Blister Bend Bandits were gone on three pitches.
Strap Jockingstud led off for the Grizzly Gulch No Sox, working the count to three-and-two and fouling off half-a-dozen pitches before drawing a base on balls. Roger Hannistan lurched, red-eyed and blinking, into the batter’s box. He took the first pitch under his chin, and drilled the second through the windshield of Seth Dooley’s Chevrolet pickup truck parked at Lem Stuttart’s Double Octane Station on the north side of town.
Peering wide-eyed over the bullpen parapet, Nightlife Nesbitt and Barefoot Boyd were pale and shaken. In a sepulchral voice, Nightlife Nesbitt said, “Father, forgive us, on account of we didn’t have the slightest fucking idea!”
Barefoot Boyd mumbled, “Godzilla, move over, you pussy-cat!”
When the dust had cleared, Straightball Collins had pitched the first twenty-two hit shutout in Southern Illinois Association history. Roger Hannistan had turned in a pair of unassisted triple plays, he’d started six double plays, and he’d knocked in nine runs with a trio of two-run homers and a bases-loaded triple that had torn a smoking hole in the glove of the Blister Bend left fielder.
With the retirement of the final Blister Bend batter, the ecstatic Grizzly Gulch squad swarmed over Roger Hannistan, knocking him to the ground and pummeling him on the back until he howled for mercy, and at the zenith of this jubilation, Kirby glanced at the center field flag pole just in time to see the eagle lift majestically into the summer night. The mighty bird soared to a height of some two hundred feet, leaning into a graceful right bank to circle the tiny ball park on swift and silent wings, before he suddenly heeled over, pointing his beak earthward and descending in a screeching dive, talons extended, lifting Matilda Richwell from her bleachers seat, and winging upward and southward, barely clearing the first base-line grandstand. A great shout had gone up and Nightlife Nesbitt stood entranced by the spectacle. He said, “Oh, gracious, don’t they make a lovely couple?”
Barefoot Boyd brushed away a sentimental tear. He said, “I’m sure they will be very happy.”
Strap Jockingstud whistled a few bars of “Because.”
Nitro Droofik scratched his balls knowledgeably and said, “By the way, that
might not be no iggel because it could be a South American condor. I looked him up in the liberry this afternoon, only the liberrian wasn’t sure whether he got balls or not. She just smiled and said, ‘Chances are.’”
Grandpa Earlybeam said, “I used to pitch for Caracas in Venezuela—the South American weather is very nice.”
Bucky Kilroy said, “That may be true, but Matilda Richwell don’t got no passport.”
In stunned silence, Kirby watched the giant bird fade into the yellow June moon until he became aware of the faint scent of roses and spice. He whirled to find Dixie Benton standing at his elbow, her violet eyes bright with excitement, her lips taut. She whispered, “Kirby, I’ve been spotted at the circus! You’ll have to turn in that romper suit and replace me there!”
Kirby shrugged. “Suits me—there sure can’t be a helluva lot left to see here.”
Dixie eyed the wildly exuberant throng milling around them. She said, “I just arrived. What the hell’s happening?”
Kirby said, “It’s already happened—the No Sox won it big, Roger Hannistan was the star, and a big bird just flew away with Matilda Richwell.”
Dixie threw up her hands. “Not now, Kirby, please! No more of your ‘Jeannette, the Shark Woman’ yarns!”
Twenty-Four
The room was dark, the window was open, and Kirby could hear crickets in the distance, a dim, incessant chorus. He hadn’t heard crickets in years. Gazing into the night, he could see a million stars, crystal bright, other worlds in other galaxies, every damned one of them in better condition than Planet Earth, he’d have bet his shirt. Dixie was saying, “You’re going to have to twist just a bit to my right.”
Kirby twisted.
Dixie said, “That’s your right—I said my right.”
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