Murder is My Racquet

by Otto Penzler

  “Who’s this? Moran, that you? Moran! You hear me? Answer me!”

  Tom dropped his briefcase in shock. “Sir?” he stammered. It wasn’t Marie. It was Bill Masterson himself; the district attorney of Philadelphia, echoing like the Wizard of Oz on a cell phone. At least it sounded like Masterson. Tom had never spoken to his boss and recognized his booming voice only from the TV news. “I hear you perfectly, sir.”

  “I been calling you all day. Where the hell were you?”

  “Calling me?” Tom couldn’t imagine why Masterson was calling him. Tom had only been two years on the job, one of 125 fungible assistant district attorneys. Why would Masterson be calling him? “I was on trial, in an ag assault case. Didn’t my secretary—”

  “I don’t care. You think I care? I said I need you, Moran. Now.”

  Now? Tom thought, but was smart enough not to say. He checked his watch. 6:15. What was he going to do? He had promised to take Marie out to dinner tonight, a meager payback for her forbearance during the two-week-long Simmons trial. She’d been taking care of the twins by herself, and they had double ear infections. Two three-month-olds; four clogged Eustachian tubes. Tom couldn’t cancel dinner. He’d been trying to be a Better Husband.

  “Moran? You there?”

  “Of course, sir. Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. How can I help you, sir?”

  “Not on the phone. Here. Now. You hear me?”

  There? Now? It was going from bad to worse. Tom broke a sweat. He had no choice. He’d have to call Marie and tell her he’d be late. Ask her to delay the reservation; beg the sitter to hang around. He wouldn’t be too long, maybe ten minutes. None of the assistants got much face time with Masterson. Last week the boss had fired somebody in three minutes. What? Tom swallowed hard. Maybe he was getting fired. He was getting fired! And he’d been trying to be a Better District Attorney.

  “Moran! I said I need you. Why are you there when I need you here?”

  “I’m on my way, sir.”

  “I said now!”

  “Gotcha. Sure. Not a problem.” Tom rifled through the clutter on his desk, shoving aside phone messages, draft briefs, and photocopied cases, in layers thick as the earth’s strata. He needed to clutch something while he got fired, like a security legal pad. In a minute he spotted a yellow one, embedded in the correspondence like a vein of gold, and unearthed it. “Ready to roll, sir. I’ll be in your office right away.”

  “Not in my office!”

  “You’re coming to my office?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Masterson burst into a ha-ha-ha that fired like a semiautomatic. “What’s the matter with you?”

  Tom couldn’t think of the right answer. Nothing? Everything? “Where am I going, sir?” he asked, and winced at how dumb he sounded.

  “Wistar Plateau.”

  “Wistar Plateau?”

  “Don’t cross-examine me, Moran.”

  “No, sir.” Tom didn’t get it. Outside? Wistar Plateau was a bad section of Fairmount Park, which was the huge, forested park that lay along the city limits. Fairmount was allegedly the largest city park in America, and though much of it retained its Victorian grace and gardens, some, like Wistar Plateau, had gone downhill with the neighborhoods surrounding it. There was nothing at Wistar Plateau but an abandoned playground. Why would Masterson fire him there? No witnesses.

  “You like your job, Moran?”

  Oh, oh, here it comes. Tom prayed it was rhetorical. In fact, he had never stopped to think if he liked his job. All he knew was that it paid the bills. Twin bills. He needed his job. Wasn’t that the same thing? “I love my job, sir. I really love my—”

  “You wanna keep it?”

  Gulp. “Yes, sir.”

  “Then get your ass over here! Now!”

  “Yes, sir!” Tom exhaled with relief, his thoughts racing ahead. What was going on? So Masterson wasn’t summoning him to Wistar Plateau to fire him. Then why Wistar Plateau? That part of the park was close to the city, but it wasn’t safe there after dark. You could get killed. Then Tom put it together. Maybe there was a case, a new murder case! A body must have been found in the park! And Masterson wanted Tom to handle the case. It could be Tom’s big break. Wowee! “I’ll be right there, sir! I’ll grab a cab.”

  “No! Moran! The car’s downstairs!”

  “Car?”

  “The squad car. Go!”

  Tom’s mouth dropped open. They’d sent a squad car for him. The VIP treatment. It must be a huge case. And it was his. He had been waiting for this. His first murder case. A real dead body! The cops called them stiffs, and Tom made a mental note to say “stiff.” He didn’t want to sound like a total rookie.

  “Moran? You still on the phone? What, you need an invitation? What’s the matter? Go! Now!”

  “I’m going. I’m coming. I’m there.” Tom started to put down the phone but Masterson was still talking. The receiver yo-yoed up and down.

  “One more thing! Moran!”

  “Sir?”

  “Don’t tell anybody!” he barked, and hung up.

  Tom hung up a split second later, tucked the legal pad under his arm, grabbed his briefcase, and sprinted for the door. There was no time to lose. Masterson had sent a car for him! It had to be a “red ball,” as the detectives called it, a murder so high-profile the uniforms turned on their sirens. And Masterson had picked him! Tom raced down the empty corridors to the elevator bank and punched the bottom. He was grateful that no one was in; he couldn’t hide his excitement. Tom was realistic enough to know that he probably wouldn’t get to try the case himself, if it was a red ball, but at least he’d be second chair to Masterson. He was on his way up!

  The elevator cab going down arrived, and Tom jumped in and hit the button for the lobby. He tapped his foot as the cab door closed, his mind reeling. Masterson must have heard about Tom’s victory today; the boss knew everything that went on in the office. The man was legend: ace prosecutor, mover, shaker, and close personal friend of the mayor, the governor, and Alan Iverson of the Sixers. And Masterson was up for reelection, a shoo-in, and even rumored to be the next pick for the state supreme court. Tom felt a warm rush of goodwill for the man. The two would become fast friends. The elevator doors rattled open.

  Tom scooted into the lobby, ran past the startled receptionist, and shoved out the revolving door to the busy sidewalk. It was dark outside, but parked in a pool of light from a streetlamp in front of the building was a brilliant white squad car, waiting for him. Just like a limo! Its engine was running and a plume of exhaust billowed in the November chill. Tom flushed with surprise as he threaded his way through the foot traffic to the squad car.

  But the second he touched the door handle, the squad car’s siren blared suddenly to life. Tom jumped as if he’d been electrocuted, flung open the door, and leaped into the car. People on the street pivoted and stared. A SEPTA bus halted as it pulled away from the curb. Embarrassed, Tom slammed the door behind him. “What’s this about?” he shouted to the uniformed cop in the driver’s seat.

  “Dunno!” the cop yelled back, and hit the gas. “Hold on, I’m under orders.”

  The squad car rocketed forward, its siren screaming, and Tom grabbed the cage divider to avoid whiplash. Rush hour traffic parted instantly, a tangle of red brake lights and chalky exhaust. Everyone made way. Tom’s embarrassment ebbed, replaced by elation. He was rushing to the scene of the crime. It was such a charge, he was almost high. Then he remembered.

  Marie.

  Tom felt a stab of guilt. He had to call her. The squad car screamed around the curve of Logan Circle, and he leaned over to reach the Star-Tac attached to his belt. Maybe he wouldn’t be that long at the crime scene. Even with a red ball, there wouldn’t be all that much to do the night of the murder, right? Meet with the detectives. Take some notes. Supervise the techs. The medical examiner would wait until morning for the autopsy, wouldn’t he? It was hard to think, over the blare of the siren and the crackle of the police radio. The police di
spatcher didn’t mention Wistar Plateau at all; Masterson must have been keeping it hush-hush. Very smart of the boss. What a guy!

  The squad car sped to West River Drive, tearing past the art museum. Traffic parted like the Red Sea. It saved a lot of time. Tom could still make dinner, just a little late. He figured he would finish at 7:15, maybe 7:30. Then he’d be a Better Husband and a Better District Attorney! Tom flipped open his cell phone and punched number one on the speed dial. WIFEY flashed onto the phone’s tiny lighted screen, then CALLING, but Tom couldn’t hear if Marie had picked up because of the siren and the radio.

  “Babe? You there? Can you hear me?” Tom yelled into the phone, as the huge oak trees that lined the West River Drive whizzed by. Their leaves had all but fallen and those scattered on the West River Drive flew in the wake of the squad car, like the Batmobile. Traffic fled to the curb, parting for the speeding superheroes. They were entering the park. Five minutes from Wistar Plateau. Beyond it was gang turf; so many gangs Tom couldn’t keep track of the color codes. And he still couldn’t hear a damn thing on the cell phone. “Marie? Marie?”

  The uniformed cop caught Tom’s eye in the rearview. “Tell her I said hi!” he hollered.

  Tom decided to settle for one-way communication. In the circumstances, maybe it was a blessing. He shouted into the phone, “Marie? I’ll be late, but I’ll be there! Masterson needs me! It’s a red ball! A stiff in the park! A gang thing! I’ll call when I can! Love you!” Tom pushed the END button to hang up, but sensed uneasily that Marie had pushed the END button first.

  Ten minutes later, the squad car was streaking to the highest point of Wistar Plateau, and Tom couldn’t help but gasp. He had never seen so many squad cars in his life. There had to be fifteen of them, all lined up in a row, their white paint and gold stripes standing out in the dark. Who the hell had gotten killed? A drug kingpin? An entire cartel? The cruiser sped to the end of the squad car line, rumbled onto the grass, and skidded to a stop.

  Two uniformed cops came running in the dark toward the car, and Tom had barely opened the door when they wrenched him out and hurried him beyond the line of squad cars and up a hill strewn with old newspapers and litter. It was too dark to see anything but the line of squad cars, whose headlights shone against a battered cyclone fence. Tom hurried ahead, crack vials crunching under his wingtips.

  “Where’s the stiff?” Tom asked, as gruffly as he could, as the cops huffed and puffed up the hill.

  “Masterson’s this way.”

  Tom figured they’d misheard him, although Masterson was a little on the stiff side. When he and Tom got to be friends, Tom might let him know as much. It would help his relationships with the uniformed personnel. Everybody needs a sounding board. Even the boss.

  The cops hustled him onto a plateau and in the dark he could see that the cyclone fence, broken and bent, had been intended to enclose an urban tennis court. The cops must have found the body—the stiff—on the tennis court. The lights from the line of squad cars illuminated the court, and Masterson stood at the middle line, behind the dilapidated wire net. “There he is,” said one of the uniforms, propelling Tom alone onto the concrete court.

  “Thanks.” Tom walked onto the court, then froze at the roar of a zillion car engines, igniting all at the same moment. Suddenly headlights blinked to brightness, almost blinding him on all sides. What gives? Tom shielded his eyes instinctively and squinted around in bewilderment. There weren’t only fifteen squad cars, there were at least fifty, and they surrounded the tennis court on four sides. All ran their huge engines, and their headlights blasted pools of light on the tennis court’s pitted surface. Tom blinked at the large silhouette of Bill Masterson, in a dark topcoat at the net. Was this standard procedure?

  “Moran! Get over here!” Masterson barked.

  Tom obeyed, advancing with trepidation. Masterson stood six foot four, maybe 220 pounds, an immense and still-fit figure. His ruddy face, with its big, coarse features, had gone red in the cold. His steely hair flew in the brisk wind, and his wiry eyebrows swooped upward. His silhouette was framed by exhaust from the fleet of squad cars, billowing like smoke and hellfire. Masterson had morphed from the Wizard of Oz to Satan himself, and Tom felt an unaccountable tingle of fear. Something strange was going on. “Sir?”

  “You Moran?” Masterson fixed Tom with a fierce blue-eyed gaze. His large mouth formed a grim line.

  “Uh, yes.”

  “You play tennis.”

  Tom didn’t get it. Was it more police lingo? It could be so confusing. Once Tom had called a detective a dick and gotten hit for it. He decided to answer his boss’s question, straight up. “Yes, I play tennis,” he said slowly.

  “You have to think about it? You said you did. You play or not? Do you? Or was it bullshit?”

  “No. I mean, yes. I play tennis,” Tom answered, as quickly as possible. Still he didn’t know what Masterson was talking about. He hadn’t told his boss he played tennis. He’d never even spoken to the man. It was time to get to the bottom of this. “I never said I played—”

  “You said you used to teach it,” Masterson fired back. “On your résumé. My girl found it in personnel. Or was that crap? Like that altar boy shit?”

  “No, it wasn’t crap. I taught tennis, at a camp, for three summers in a row. I didn’t lie on my résumé.”

  “I’m no altar boy. I did. I said I like classical music but I hate it. Who the hell likes classical music?”

  Tom did, but he knew enough not to say so. “I really was an altar boy, too,” he added, instead.

  “I can tell by lookin’ at you. That’s why I trust you with this.” Suddenly Masterson reached under his topcoat and emerged with a large metal object. Tom glimpsed its aluminum gleam in the headlights from the squad cars. A rifle! The murder weapon? Tom looked again. It was a tennis racquet, a graphite HEAD. A white price tag fluttered from its handle. Masterson thrust the racquet at Tom’s stomach. “Teach me, altar boy,” he ordered.

  Tom took the racquet in confusion. “What about the murder? Shouldn’t we investigate?”

  “What murder?” Masterson was withdrawing another racquet from his topcoat, a matching HEAD with a price tag that he ripped off. “Steinmetz?” he called out, turning toward the darkness at the court entrance. “Gimme the balls, Steinmetz! Shit, it’s too dark. Steinmetz, it’s dark! I don’t have time for this! Turn on the effin’ lights!”

  Suddenly, the squad cars switched on their high beams as one, lighting up the tennis court like an operating room. Tom reeled in the brightness until his eyes adjusted, and he took in the ratty wire net, the pitted court surface, and the peeling white baselines. A uniform cop was scurrying over, and he handed Masterson a clear plastic container of fluorescent green tennis balls, then hurried to the end of the net, where he crouched like a ball boy. Another uniform ran onto the court and squatted at the other side of the net. Tom couldn’t believe his eyes. It was Wimbledon, with municipal employees.

  Masterson yanked the pull-top lid off the tennis ball container, and Tom heard the familiar pfft as the vacuum seal was broken. He even remembered the rubbery smell. He had always loved tennis. But was he really called here to play it? With his boss? “I don’t understand,” Tom blurted out, but Masterson tossed him a tennis ball.

  “What’s not to understand? The governor’s having a tennis party. Round robin, buncha crap. I told him I play but I don’t. I gotta learn. I gotta play like a pro. You gotta teach me.”

  “In one night?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Thank God.” Tom sighed with relief.

  “In one hour.”

  “What?”

  “The party’s at eight, Moran. At an indoor tennis pavilion, whatever that is. This is the closest court I could find. Nobody uses it.” Masterson’s eyes bored into Tom’s, blazing even brighter than the high beams. “And you tell nobody about this, understand, Moran? You breathe a word, one single word, and I fire you. You’re fired! On the spot.
Understand?”

  Tom shuddered. “Understood.”

  “If I hear back about tonight in any way at all, even ten years from now, if it comes back to me, you’re fired. I’ll hunt you down like the dog you are and fire you dead. Got it?”

  “Got it.” Then Tom remembered. The police radio hadn’t mentioned Wistar Plateau at all, probably to prevent the press from picking it up on the scanners. Masterson had gone to great lengths to keep this secret, for obvious reasons. If it got out, the boss could lose the election and his friendship with Iverson.

  “You keep your mouth shut. Don’t tell anybody. All these cops, they owe me. And they all swore to secrecy.” Masterson paused. “You married, right? It said on the résumé you were married.”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t tell her. Kids?”

  “Twins.”

  “Don’t tell them. Kids yap at ‘show and tell.’ I know. Mine did. Only they call it ‘circle time’ now. Mine gave away the friggin’ store, every Wednesday morning. I never did that. I was a good kid. I kept my trap shut.”

  “My kids are three months old—”

  “Don’t tell them, Moran!” Masterson shouted. “Don’t make me ruin you! Don’t make me. Don’t make me leave your family in the lurch. You want your wife to go begging? Your kids? Do you know how many important people I know in this town?”

  Tom nodded. Enough to stage a taxpayer-funded tennis lesson? “I won’t say anything, I swear.”

  “It’s my ass if the press finds out. This is just the kind of nitpicky shit they love.” Masterson held up the tennis racquet. “Now how do I hold this thing?”

  Tom looked around. Was this really happening? Heat simmered from the high beams, warming the court. The police ball boys crouched in readiness at the net, their handcuffs swinging in the breeze. If Tom was teaching tennis for only one hour, at least he could make dinner with Marie. Oh, what the hell. He took his racquet and wrapped his fingers around the leather grip, still covered with cellophane. He hadn’t taught in years, but it was coming back to him. “Shake hands with the racquet, Mr. Masterson.”