Best of the Best

by Tim Green

  Now Josh was up.

  He knew from careful study that the pitcher had all the tricks: sliders, sinkers, curveballs, and even an occasional knuckleball. Josh had started out the game hitting from the left-hand side of the plate, taking away the effectiveness of the right-handed pitcher’s curveball. That enabled Josh to get a fastball down the middle in the first inning, a ball he blasted out of the park. Since then, he’d struck out and hit only a double because after Josh’s home run, nothing the pitcher threw came down the middle.

  Josh stepped into the box on the left-hand side, knowing he needed to somehow drive in three runs if they were to win and advance. The pitcher nodded at his catcher, then threw. Josh swung, even though it was a knuckleball outside. He hit it foul. The next pitch came down the middle but dropped at the last second. Josh swung, barely nicking the top of the ball, foul again.

  “Come on, Josh!” Benji screamed from the dugout. “You can do it!”

  Josh stepped out of the batter’s box and breathed deep. He could hear his father’s words in his head.

  “Treat every pitch the same. You have to look at an 0–2 count in the bottom of the sixth with two outs the same as the first pitch of the day. That’s what the great ones do. Every pitch is the same.”

  Josh looked up into the stands and saw his dad sitting there with his arm wrapped around Diane’s waist. She grinned at Josh and kissed his father’s ear. His father gave Josh a serious look and pointed to his own eye.

  Josh heard the word “focus” as clearly as if his father had spoken it aloud. He nodded and stepped back into the box, his mind clear of the count and the inning and the outs. Josh knew nothing was coming at him but junk. The pitcher would make him hunt for it, knowing he had three free pitches just to fill the count. But it was late in the game, and Josh also thought that while the pitcher would throw junk, he might be sloppy about it. Lazy. And if he did that, Josh might be able to read the pitch even before it left his hand, read the windup and the way he’d sometimes drop his elbow just a bit on his curveball.

  Knowing the pitcher liked his curveball but hadn’t been able to throw one to Josh since he’d lined up as a lefty, Josh felt certain that if he switched back to a righty, that was the pitch he’d get. So, Josh circled the plate and stepped into the right-hand box. He thought he saw the shadow of a smile pass briefly across the pitcher’s face.

  Josh felt the sunshine on his own face and he breathed deep, flexing his fingers, rocking steady in his stance. He didn’t try too hard, didn’t press—he relaxed and just absorbed the scene in front of him. The pitcher went into his windup. The elbow dropped—the makings of a curve. Josh reset his back foot, stepping toward the plate, opening his stance just enough to catch the meat of a ball breaking to the outside.

  The pitch came.

  Josh swung.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  THE CRACK OF THE bat and the tremor running through Josh’s hands, up his arms, and into his core blasted a smile across his face.

  He took off at an easy lope. The crowd stood, cheering. The dugout exploded in wild celebration, sights and sounds Josh could never tire of, never stop aching for. He rounded the bases and let the frenzy swallow him.

  When it finally subsided, Josh packed his bag and waded through the crowd of parents toward where his father and Diane and Zamboni stood in the back. Diane was hugging Zamboni and shrieking as if he’d been the one to hit the home run. Josh nodded at his father, and his dad pulled him close with a one-armed squeeze and congratulated him.

  “What about Marcus?” Diane asked Josh’s dad.

  “That was a great bunt,” Josh’s dad said, shaking Zamboni’s hand.

  Zamboni’s face went red. He nodded toward Josh and reluctantly said, “Josh taught me.”

  “Josh?” both parents said at the same time.

  Josh and Zamboni looked at each other and forced smiles that weren’t completely heartfelt, just as they had for the past several days whenever their parents were around. It seemed to be enough, and whenever they did it, the two adults turned their attention to each other. Their adoration made Josh want to throw up, but it beat the alternative of angering his father for not getting along.

  “I try to help all the guys,” Josh said, not wanting to make a big deal of it. “Stuff I learned from you, Dad. Coach Q is really nice, but I don’t know how good of a coach he is.”

  Josh wanted to change the subject, and on his father’s wrist, he saw a brand-new silver watch as big as a plumbing fixture.

  “I like that watch, Dad,” Josh said.

  His father smiled and held it up so that it glinted in the sunlight. “Yeah,” he said, “me too. Kind of a present to myself.”

  “A present?”

  “Yes,” Diane said, separating herself from Zamboni. “We have a surprise. You two aren’t the only big winners. Josh, your father closed a very important deal. As a celebration, Gary and I want to take you two out to a special place. The bankers took us there. It’s called Nobu. They have incredible sushi.”

  Josh shuddered. It was the first time he’d heard Diane call his father Gary. Only Josh’s mother called him Gary. Everyone else seemed too afraid to call him anything but Coach or Mr. LeBlanc, and until Josh heard her say his name like that, he still held out hope that Diane wasn’t in a position to replace his mom. The sound of her voice and the simpering smile on her face soiled everything. Josh had no desire to go to a place called Nobu and eat raw fish that was likely to make him puke. He wanted to ride the bus home and eat hot pizza with his buddies. Despite the truce he and Zamboni seemed to have come to, Josh couldn’t think of many things he’d rather not do than ride all the way back to Syracuse in the back of that stupid Audi with him.

  “I…think Coach Q wants us all to ride with the team.” Josh took a quick glance at Zamboni before he continued. “But it sounds great. I’d love to. It’s just that my dad always says it’s important to be a part of the team, especially since me and Zam—Marcus—scored the winning runs.”

  Josh put as much pleasant honesty into his expression as he could muster, sensing Diane’s careful study, her eyes boring in on him. Josh held her gaze, willing himself not to shudder or blink.

  “I think he’s right,” Zamboni said.

  Diane studied her son for a minute, then, finally, a smile crept across her face and she nodded.

  “Very nice,” she said. “See, Gary, I told you they’d be great friends. Well, we wouldn’t want to interfere with your boys’ celebration. It’s so fantastic to see you two getting along.”

  Josh didn’t know what Zamboni was thinking, but in the privacy of his own mind, he had begun to think of himself as a Trojan horse. Last year in school he’d learned the story of the giant horse the Greek army left as a gift to the Trojans, who brought the horse inside the city gates. That night, the Greek soldiers hidden inside the horse slipped out and opened the city gates from within, allowing the Greek army to enter and destroy the Trojans in their sleep.

  That’s what Josh wanted to do, get on the inside with Diane, then destroy her when she wasn’t ready for it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  IT WAS STRANGE TO Josh, rolling his lawn mower down the sidewalk, working up a grass-stained sweat, and collecting worn-out five-and ten-dollar bills. Everyone in the neighborhood was friendly—except a couple of the dogs bouncing off the inside of their chain-link fences—but no one seemed to be aware of what Josh and his team had done, nor what they were about to do. Oh, the newspaper had allowed Jaden a couple inches of words buried on page eight of the sports section two days ago, but there were no parades, no TV interviews, no general excitement. It was nothing like how it had been after Cooperstown when the Titans competed in and won the Hall of Fame National Championship.

  Josh suspected people weren’t that interested because they thought it was a fluke or because it didn’t really matter that the Lyncourt team was just moving through the Little League qualifying tournaments. All that mattered was whether t
hey made it to the World Series at Williamsport, and then only if they won. That was really it. People didn’t put much value on second place or a nice finish, even if no team from Syracuse had ever gone this far before. It was all or nothing.

  Either you were the best of the best or you were nothing, and somehow that didn’t seem right.

  Josh felt his phone vibrate and he read the text from Jaden telling him not to forget that he was her guest reader at the Assisi Center for the little kids after lunch.

  “Great,” Josh said to himself. He was hot, sweaty, and tired, and now, instead of going home to put his feet up and drink a lemonade, he’d be in the Assisi Center, also hot and also crowded with sweaty little kids crawling all over him as he read them a story.

  He didn’t bother asking Jaden if he could get out of it. He knew how she felt about the kids at the center—many of them very poor and coming from very difficult situations. Benji only got out of it because he was going with his mom to visit a sick aunt in Rochester, and Jaden said one good deed is as good as another. Besides, her dad had a medical conference he’d taken her to in Toronto, and Josh hadn’t seen her since his return from the state finals.

  Josh finished his last lawn, got paid, and left the mower behind the garage so he could pick it up later, on his way back from the Assisi Center. Out in the center of the street, heat waffled up from the blacktop. Cars drove past, kicking up grit that made Josh blink and spit. Inside the center’s basement, it felt even hotter. The kids were finishing their meal of egg noodles and vegetables, and Jaden offered Josh a plate.

  Josh piled the food into his mouth without bothering to sit down. The older kids at the center moved upstairs for some activity of their own. The little kids circled up in a corner onto a rug. Jaden put a copy of The Sneetches into Josh’s hands and showed him to an upright wooden chair.

  “You couldn’t have done this?” Josh whispered to her as he eyed the eager cluster of five-, six-, and seven-year-olds.

  “The boys need grown-up role models,” she said.

  “I’m twelve years old.”

  “But you look older, and I showed them the newspaper articles from when you won the national championship. They think you’re famous. Besides, I’ve got some information for you when we finish.”

  “About Diane?” Josh asked. “Are you kidding?”

  “Hey, I was away.”

  “Why didn’t you text me?”

  Jaden shook her head, pressing a finger to her lips and pointing to the kids. “There was nothing you could have done without me but worry, and it’s better if no one knows about this. Sometimes people see your texts or you forward them by mistake.”

  Josh asked, “What you found out about her, is it really that bad?”

  Jaden looked into his eyes, showing how serious she was before she said, “It could be a game changer.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  JADEN MADE HIM NOT only read but also play Duck, Duck, Goose with the kids before she had a break and could talk with him outside under the shade tree by the swings.

  “Are you enjoying this?” Josh said, sitting down on a weathered bench, the wood warm to the touch, even in the shade. “Because I hate this kind of suspense, you know.”

  “I’m sorry,” she answered. “I’m just not going to text this stuff around. It has to stay between us because it’s…I don’t know, weird.”

  “What is it?”

  “All right,” she said, sitting next to him. “I think Diane and Zamboni’s father are divorced in name only.”

  “What?” Josh squinted at her. “That makes no sense.”

  “I’ll show you the credit reports I got,” she said. “I’m keeping a file at home. They were, like, the poster children for credit card companies. They each had over a dozen, maxed out, totally.”

  “How do you get this stuff?” Josh asked.

  “I’m a reporter.” Jaden sounded almost insulted. “With twenty-five bucks and a credit card, you’d be surprised what you can get on the internet. So, they had this business, some kind of natural gas leasing company or something. I don’t know. They took a lot of people’s money, though, and about a year and a half ago, the whole thing cratered on them.”

  “But what’s that got to do with them not really being divorced?” Josh asked, because that, after all, was what mattered to him most. If Diane was still attached to Zamboni’s father, then Josh’s dad would be back home before dinner. Josh felt certain of it.

  “They moved all the credit cards and the bad business into his name,” Jaden said, “then they got divorced, then he went bankrupt. I’m not an expert at this stuff. People in the news business call it the money trail—so really, this is great experience for me. Best I can figure, they hid some money and put some things in her name and are just pretending to be divorced so they can get out of paying the people they owe money to.”

  “But,” Josh said, “she’s with my dad. They went down to New York City together.”

  Jaden shrugged. “I don’t know about that, but you know how thorough I am when I do this stuff. Well, I got all kinds of things on the dad in my file, including some old newspaper photos from when he played for the Syracuse Crunch hockey team. His name is Richard Cross, but they called him ‘Right.’”

  “Right?”

  “As in ‘right cross,’ like a punch. He was a real goon, more penalty minutes and ejections in a single season than any other player in Crunch history.”

  “Nice,” Josh said with sarcasm.

  “He’s got long blond hair and someone flattened his nose,” Jaden said. “So, I’m scoping her out at her office. She’s got a place on the ground floor in that Nettleton Commons building, the old brick factory they fixed up. About two blocks from my dad’s hospital. I was just getting a feel for her, you know, see what she’s really up to, and who shows up?”

  “Right?”

  “Right,” Jaden said, “Right Cross, and not just to check on his ex-wife’s business prospects. He went in early and stayed late. Lots of people going in and out of that place, too. Mostly men in business suits, but kind of shady looking, like needing a shave or a haircut. I don’t know what that means, but it jumped out at me. That was in the morning, then I came to work. When I finished here, I figured I’d just go back by there to see where things were at. I did, and it wasn’t long before the two of them came out. Together. With their arms around each other. And then he kissed her like it was some romantic scene in a movie. Your dad can’t like that if he’s taking her to New York.”

  “No,” Josh said. “He sure can’t.”

  “So,” Jaden said, “this is what I’m thinking: These two got into some bad business. They spend money like fiends, money that isn’t theirs.”

  “Buying Audi convertibles,” Josh said.

  “Yeah, stuff like that,” Jaden said, “and when they got in too deep, she takes everything that was worth anything, and he takes all the debts. Everyone lost money but them, and now they’re at it again.”

  Josh snapped his fingers. “They’re after my dad.”

  “Your dad?”

  “His Nike contract.” Josh felt both excited and sick at the same time. “That’s why they went to New York. He said something about getting a bank to give him money in advance for his Nike contract, like four hundred thousand up front, instead of a hundred thousand a year for five years.”

  “Pledging the money from his contract for a loan?” Jaden said.

  “You know what that is?” Josh asked.

  “Sure,” she said. “I’ve read about it. It’s what you do when you have a big business investment you want to make. It’s risky, though. If the investment doesn’t work out, you end up working for nothing because the bank takes all the money from the contract.”

  “What were all those people going into her office for?” Josh asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jaden said. “She is a real estate broker. She’s closed on some houses, but it’s not that. I’m sure. If I had to guess, I’d
say Right Cross and Diane went back to what their old company did before it went under.”

  “What is it? Natural gas?”

  “Gas leases,” Jaden said. “Hottest thing in New York and the other states to the south. Pipelines going up all over the place. People say there’s enough gas underground in New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia to put the oil countries like Saudi Arabia out of business for good. What they do is buy leases from people who own the land. They give them money for the right to drill, in case they find gas there. Sometimes you hit a pocket, sometimes you don’t. If you do, it’s big money. If you don’t, you’ve got nothing. Because it’s in the news all the time, lots of people want to invest in it. To me, it sounds like a lottery ticket. Some people are going to make a lot of money, but most are going to wish they’d put it in the bank instead.”

  “So they’re going to try to get my dad to put all his money into this thing.” Josh clenched his fists. “Everything he’s going to make for the next five years?”

  “The question is,” Jaden said, “what can we do about it?”

  “I can’t just say to my dad that he should dump her because this is what I think she’s up to,” Josh said. “I know that won’t work. Sometimes he giggles when he’s with her. He’s brain-dead, I’m telling you.”

  “Then we’ll just have to prove it to him.”

  “Yeah,” Josh said. “But how?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  JADEN REMOVED THE CELL phone from her pocket and said, “Remember how we got the crooked umpire in Cooperstown taking a payoff? We just do that.” She paused. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not sure,” Josh said, “but Benji says taping people like that without them knowing is illegal.”

  Josh explained how they used Benji’s Skype to catch Zamboni on tape smoking in his room.

  “Yeah, that’s totally illegal,” Jaden said. “Every reporter knows that. You can record their voice without them knowing, but you can’t take pictures.”