Parker Field

by Howard Owen

  I mention the scorecards that several of the survivors remembered, with some of the numbers marked out.

  “There’s nothing left but the 2 and the 9,” I tell him, “and somebody tried to kill Les Hacker.”

  “Who gives a shit?” Jones says. “You probably planted the idea of those numbers in their minds. Power of suggestion. I mean, c’mon. Some old baseball players died, some of them more than twenty years apart, and then somebody shot this Hacker guy. And we’ve got a nut case in lockup, guy with a record long as my dick, who was wearing the same jacket as the guy who did the shooting. And he had the key to the apartment he used in the coat pocket.”

  “He never shot anybody before, outside of Sandland.”

  L. D. shrugs.

  “First time for everything. And he’s killed plenty of people, I hear.”

  He stands, which I suppose is my cue to get the fuck out of there.

  “You know,” the chief says, “I feel kind of bad about it. I mean, he’s obviously had his head messed with a little, over there doing his duty, killing Al Qaedas and shit, but we can’t have a man just going around shooting the citizens.”

  He offers his hand, and I take it.

  “I still think you’ve got the wrong guy,” I tell him.

  “Well,” he says, “then show me the right guy. Don’t come in here with some kind of Perry Mason bullshit. It’s been my experience that the most logical answer is the right one. And Raymond Gatewood is the answer.”

  Not much else to say. I don’t really blame L. D. His detectives came up with the obvious perp, and he’s backing them up. Unfortunately, I think he is, not for the first time, putting his money on a losing horse.

  BACK AT the car, I call Marcus Green’s office. To my surprise, the great man himself answers.

  “Things must be tough,” I tell him. “Did you have to lay off your secretary?”

  “They’re called office managers. And I can still buy your ass and make you my lawn jockey. Kelly’s taking a half day off.”

  “I wanted to talk about your client.”

  “Gatewood? What do you want to do, strangle him? Kate said the guy he allegedly shot was part of your, er, extended family.”

  I explain that I might have some information that could prove beneficial. I try to give Marcus the benefit of the doubt. He’s irritating as hell, but some people, for some reason, say the same thing about me. And despite the fact that he’s got more than a little ambulance chaser in his blood, he’s been known to defend the little guy. That’s why Kate quit her job with an established law firm that has a money pit in the basement to work for or with him. And Marcus Green is no racist. Hell, Raymond Gatewood looks like the skinhead poster boy. Marcus’s last name sums up his allegiance, colorwise. And he’s smart enough to know you can’t buy the kind of publicity you get when you play the white (or in Marcus’s case, black) knight riding in to save the innocent victim. Pro bono, my ass.

  All of Marcus’s clients haven’t been innocent, and I suspect he’s gotten more than a few guilty ones off. But that just makes him more attractive to the well-heeled criminal class.

  Yes, I tell him, Les Hacker is my mother’s special friend, but that’s not why I want to talk to Gatewood.

  “I’m not even sure he’s the shooter.”

  “Hell, the only people who are sure he’s the shooter are the city cops.”

  I tell him that I’m working on more than a hunch.

  “Tell me more,” Green says.

  “On the way to talk to your client, I’ll fill you in. Pick me up at Perly’s in an hour.”

  “Hour and a half,” he says. “I’ll bring your ex-wife along, too.”

  “Which one?”

  Marcus’s laugh, rich as mahogany, is almost enough to make him worth knowing.

  I have time for a couple of Camels, a burger and fries and two Millers. I’m having the last one on the street when Marcus rolls up, five minutes late.

  “Your driver off, too?” I ask, nodding to Kate in the front seat beside him.

  “Yeah. You want a job? I hear you’re taking a little time off.”

  “Just until I finish doing your job for you.”

  “You go to law school while I wasn’t looking?”

  I explain that I’ve figured out that his client almost certainly didn’t try to kill Les. And then I explain, chapter and verse, what I’ve learned. I also tell them how little respect my theory has been given by L. D. Jones.

  “L. D.’s a shithead,” is Marcus Green’s analysis.

  We’ve been parked outside the jail for ten minutes by the time I finish my litany of the 1964 Richmond Vees’ unhappy endings.

  Then I tell Marcus and Kate about the little fly in Raymond Gatewood’s ointment.

  “This guy says one of Gatewood’s friends called him and threatened him?” Kate says.

  “That’s what he says.”

  “I don’t know,” Kate says. “I don’t have the impression he has many, if any, friends. And the ones he does have, they might not know how to use a telephone.”

  Marcus cuts the engine.

  “Well,” he says, “let’s go find out.”

  I help Kate out of the car and wonder out loud when she’s going to go on leave.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe late September, or when my water breaks. What’s it to you?”

  She apologizes for being a little snippy. I tell her she looks great, which is mostly true.

  It’s been a long time since I’ve been around a pregnant woman full time, but my memories of Jeanette when she was carrying Andi almost make me feel sorry for Mr. Ellis. Almost. Kate’s always been prone to get a little cranky when things weren’t going the smooth way she had scripted them. No showing up late for appointments, no leaving dirty dishes on the table. No little buggers kicking around inside you and insisting on a timetable of their own.

  GATEWOOD’S MENTAL health doesn’t seem to have improved behind bars. He looks like he hasn’t been sleeping much, and he’s kind of twitchy.

  After we listen to his litany of complaints about the food, the bed, the toilets and the lack of air conditioning, I ask him if he has any friends who might want to call Finlay Rand and rattle his fur-lined cage.

  “Rand? Who the hell is Rand?”

  “The guy whose condo they say you broke into,” Marcus explains.

  Gatewood just stares at us like we’re speaking Urdu.

  “No, man,” he says at last. “I ain’t got any friends. I got a damn brother that threw me out of his house. I got an ex-girlfriend that says she’ll stick an ice pick in me if I ever try to see her again. The guys over there, they were my friends. Half of them are dead, and I don’t know where the other fuckin’ half are. Probably as messed up as me.”

  I’ve checked on that already, and he seems to be telling the truth about his lack of human contact. He claims to have nothing but contempt for his fellow street dwellers, and I believe him.

  “This guy might have some good news for us, for you,” Marcus says.

  Gatewood scratches his head and complains that he thinks the jail has bedbugs, too.

  “I could use a little good news.”

  I tell him about how all these old ballplayers have died, mostly before their time. I explain that Les Hacker was a teammate of theirs, one of two who haven’t left this mortal coil, unless Rabbit Larue comes bounding out of the brush in the Georgia foothills one day asking what’s for supper.

  “So, you think somebody’s killing a bunch of old ballplayers? What the hell for?”

  I tell him I don’t know, but if it means somebody other than him might have to take the rap for shooting Les Hacker, he might look on it as good news.

  I ask him if he’s made any phone calls.

  “Other than to him?” He points at Marcus. “Nah. I haven’t talked to anybody but him and her.” He points to Kate.

  “Well,” I say, “if you do happen to remember a friend who might want to try to do you a favor by
intimidating a witness, you might want to tell him to stop.”

  Gatewood fixes his thousand-yard stare on me.

  “I already told you I don’t have any damn friends. And I already told you I haven’t called anybody. I don’t lie, buddy.”

  Marcus puts on his best Mr. T frown and rubs his bald, shiny head like he’s polishing a doorknob.

  “We’re not saying you do,” he says, “but we have to make sure. We don’t know you. Listen, I represent liars and thieves all the time. We have to make sure you’re not covering up something. I don’t plan to go before some jury and have the prosecutor spring something on me you should have already told me about.”

  “I told you the truth,” Gatewood says.

  Marcus Green closes his briefcase and stands up.

  “Well,” he says, “then our work here is finished. You might want to thank this fella here. If you get out of this mess, he’s the one who’s most responsible.”

  Gatewood looks at me. He doesn’t appear to be grateful.

  “He’s just trying to get a story,” he says and then turns his back on all of us, obviously tired of our company. I get the impression that Raymond Gatewood is not going to be a happy man even if we’re able to get the police to drop charges. The happy train left the station a long time ago, when he was over there doing the president’s work in Iraq and Afghanistan. We can help him with the life and liberty part, but I’m not sure the man waiting to go back to his cell even has the right shoes to pursue happiness anymore. Still, it’s worth going after the truth, even if it sometimes seems like nothing but self-gratification, a hobby like stamp collecting. You’ve got to try or die.

  Marcus looks at me and Kate. Time to go.

  “WHAT DO you think?” I ask Marcus when we’re outside.

  He shrugs.

  “I always believe my clients,” he says, “until I don’t believe them anymore.”

  I tell him that I’m going down to North Carolina to see the other surviving member of the ’64 starting lineup.

  “Are you going to be taking your little assistant with you?” Kate asks.

  “Probably,” I tell her. “What’s it to you?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  TUESDAY

  Peachy Love calls me sometime after eight to tell me that Raymond Gatewood is telling the truth—at least about who he’s telephoned. Two calls to Marcus Green’s number, and that’s it. He didn’t even try to get in touch with anyone when they first bagged him, just waited for them to appoint an attorney. Marcus beat him to it, though, seeing a chance to show the world what a brilliant attorney he is. He grabbed the case before the judge could stick Gatewood with some rookie freebie.

  “Well,” Custalow says, “that’s something anyhow. But Rand really seems spooked about something. He was asking me about it when I saw him in the lobby yesterday. He said to tell you he’d gotten another call.”

  As one of the Prestwould’s two custodians, Abe Custalow sees more of this place than I do. People tend to like to talk to him, probably because he listens. He is my oldest friend in the world, next to my dear old mom. I imagine he can relate somewhat to Raymond Gatewood, having been a marine and a homeless person, and having an intimate relationship with our nation’s penal system, thanks to a homicide that a judge decided wasn’t quite justified enough to set Abe free. Finding him living in the park, right under my nose, was semiheartbreaking, and the good he does me by living here goes way beyond paying enough rent to keep Kate from evicting me from what is, technically, her condo. As was the case when we were kids, he often cleans up my mess, which can be considerable.

  I talk with Peggy. Andi’s going to take her over to see Les today. I promise her I’ll be home by tomorrow noon at the latest and will stop by the hospital. Les is no better, but no worse. Peggy says they’re trying to get him up to do some therapy, but he doesn’t want to get out of bed.

  “He says he’s tired.”

  I promise her I’ll give him a pep talk tomorrow. My problem with that pep talk is going to be that I keep imagining myself in Les’s sad situation. I’d be telling anyone in charge of pep talks to go fuck themselves.

  Cindy is there by nine, and we’re on our way, on the last day for which the paper will actually pay for my little sabbatical.

  Compared with a trip down I-95 south from Richmond, watching paint dry is exhilarating. Other than the occasional bonehead who thinks “95” also is the speed limit, there’s not much to do except judge the relative tackiness of the signs leading to South of the Border—the combination gift shop, rest stop, amusement park and effrontery to Hispanic people everywhere that sits at the North Carolina-South Carolina state line.

  When I tell Cindy we won’t be going quite that far, she does a good job of hiding her disappointment.

  We stop at the barbecue place Bootie Carmichael told me about, an hour north of our destination. Tragically, it does not serve beer, but the ’cue’s OK. We have it with sweet tea, which is the only kind of tea there is south of Petersburg.

  The turnoff to Buck McRae’s place is just short of Fayetteville. We travel down a humpbacked county road with asphalt chipping off the sides for about three miles until I see the mailbox with “McRae” and a five-digit number on it. Actually, there are five boxes on the same post.

  We drive for a quarter mile down a rut road, past a couple of kids who stop chasing each other with sticks long enough to stop and scowl at us. There are two houses off to the left and what appear to be at least four modular homes, a.k.a. trailers, downhill from the rise the second house is on.

  My hunch is that Buck McRae, family patriarch, lives in the big house. No one answers when we knock at the front door, but when we go around back, a small African-American woman who appears to be in at least her seventies comes out on the screen porch. She has a pistol in her hand.

  “Can I help you?” she says. Her upright posture and hard eyes tell me she’s willing to do just about anything that needs doing, from feeding us to shooting us.

  I explain who we are and why we’re there.

  “He’s out there in the car house,” she says, “trying to get that damn Buick to run.”

  She puts away her sidearm, to my relief, and we follow her.

  “Buck!” she calls when we’re still fifty feet away from the garage. “You got company. Get your ass over here.”

  She turns to us.

  “I’m Lydia. You all want some iced tea?”

  Buck McRae comes out from under the hood of a car whose main color is rust. He’s rubbing his head.

  “Got damn, woman,” he says. “Don’t scare me like that when I’m working.”

  She laughs. “You ain’t working. You playing with cars.”

  He shakes his head.

  “What you all want?”

  Cindy walks back toward the house with Lydia, striking up a conversation like she’s known her for years and Lydia wasn’t holding a pistol a few minutes ago.

  I tell Buck I’m the one who called about doing a story on the 1964 Richmond Vees. He frowns and doesn’t say anything.

  Buck McRae is as weathered as the Buick. His creases have creases. I can tell he’s one of those guys who can’t sit still, who isn’t happy inside a house. He has fifty acres, he tells me. The four trailers belong to three of his children and one of his grandchildren. The little house next door, the only other one on the property that didn’t come in on a truck, belongs to his brother.

  “He’s right poorly,” Buck says. “He’s gettin’ old.”

  I know that Buck McRae never got beyond Triple-A ball, and that he retired in 1968, when he was just thirty-three, so I suppose he’s seventy-seven now.

  “I loved it,” he says. “Loved playing ball. But we already had three kids by then, and I had to make a living.”

  He says he drove long-haul trucks for twenty years, leaving Lydia for as much as a week at a time to raise the kids. They bought the place where he lives now from a white family after the parents died and their
offspring didn’t care for the joys of country living.

  “The kids and all just kind of followed us here,” he says. “They get on your nerves sometimes, you know, but they’re family.”

  He remembers most of the members of the ’64 Vees.

  “I hadn’t kept in touch, though,” he says. “We kind of went our own ways, you know.”

  I know McRae was the only black man on the team. I resist the urge to ask him things I already know the answers to, like how was it being a black man wearing a pro baseball uniform on a white team in Richmond, Virginia, in 1964. It’s a lot better if people tell you things like that on their own. They don’t think you’re quite so stupid.

  His memories of Les are good. He says he was the one guy on the team who treated him “like I was white.” I ask him how close he came to making it to the big leagues. He shakes his head and frowns.

  “I was good enough,” he says, “but I got this reputation, you know.”

  I wait for it.

  “I didn’t take any crap. Or enough, anyhow, to suit some. There was a fight outside a restaurant some of us went to one night. Guy called me a nigger. I had to fuck him up, excuse my language. Black guy got arrested back then, there wasn’t but one side to the story, and it wasn’t his.”

  “They sent you down to Double-A.”

  “Yeah, after I hit .295 with nineteen home runs. I tore up the Southern League the next year, too. Know what that got me? Another year in Double-A.”

  He leans against a sawhorse that sits on the empty side of the two-car garage.

  Finally, I get around to asking him if he can remember anyone trying to kill him.

  He gives me the kind of look a question like that deserves. I give him the short version of what’s happened to his Vees teammates over the years.

  Buck shakes his head.

  “Damn,” he says. “What the hell for? I know people that don’t like the Yankees, but that’s ridiculous.”

  I tell him I’m as mystified as he is.

  He gets up and walks around a little, going in circles on the dirt floor.

  “Yeah,” he says after a minute or so. “I think I know what you mean. It was eight years ago. Eight years ago this October, because I got out of the hospital right before Thanksgiving. Fella really messed me up good. We all figured he was high on crack or something. Wasn’t any other way to explain it.”