Shaker: A Novel

by Scott Frank

  Magically a mitt appeared on his left hand. The mayor jogged out to the mound and waved with it to the crowd, the baseball he hadn’t realized was there falling from the mitt to the ground in front of him. He snatched it up and looked up to see if he could see Science, but he and the other one in the wheelchair were both gone.

  He tried to say his own name, but was drowned out by the crowd saying it for him. So instead he just said over and over, Throw it straight. Just throw it straight.

  The catcher squatted down and punched his mitt. All set. The mayor put his glove to his chest, then wound up as he had practiced with Marco and threw a slow, high-arcing lob that dropped straight down into the dirt a full ten feet in front of the plate. The mayor could hear the laughter in the stands as the catcher made what the mayor thought was way too big a deal of standing up, stretching, and then walking several long paces toward the mound to retrieve the ball.

  At least it went straight.

  —

  Kelly was heading down the steps toward where she’d last seen Science and his brother when her cell rang. She saw that it was an unknown number and was about to let it go when it occurred to her that it might be one of the stadium security guys down on the field—they had all been given her and Rudy’s numbers—so she picked up.

  “Maguire.”

  A slightly accented voice (French?) said, “Did you know that your boy, Roy, one time spent eleven months at Two Rivers? You know what that is, Two Rivers?”

  “Who is this?” The crowd was clearing some and she could see Cole Bennett in his wheelchair at the bottom of the stairs, in a row of other disabled souls.

  “I’ll give you a hint,” the man on her phone said. “We used to visit him there sometimes. He said he was hearing voices. His dead daddy was talking to him in the middle of the night.”

  “You gonna tell me who you are?”

  “He even got headaches like the old man used to. But then he got better and came back to work, good as new.”

  “I’m hanging up now.” She saw that Cole was by himself and started looking around, scanning the crowd.

  “You won’t find him.”

  Was this guy watching her?

  “No matter how hard you look.”

  “How’d you get this number?”

  “It’s what we used to do together, Roy and me, get people’s numbers. If you know what I mean.”

  “And now you’re a model citizen, offering up your assistance to the police?”

  “I’m a baseball fan who happens to know where my old friend is at right now.”

  “I know where he’s at.”

  “But like I said, you won’t find him.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he’s good.”

  “I’m pretty good myself.”

  He laughed. “But I never taught you.”

  “And in return for this information?”

  “Ten thousand will do.”

  “A bargain.”

  Another laugh.

  She looked around the stadium. “Where are you?”

  “Outside Gate 2.”

  “A skinny black gentleman is going to meet you there in five minutes.”

  “I’m a skinny white gentleman in a leather coat and sunglasses. I’ll be waving a St. Louis pennant.”

  Kelly said, “Way to blend in,” hung up, and texted Rudy. She would have loved to go meet this asshole, but had to find Science. Rudy could sort out this character and get back to her, if there was anything there.

  “What’s up, Cole?”

  Cole turned in his wheelchair and squinted up at her.

  “Where’s the little ghetto star at?”

  “You hollerin’ at me?”

  “Jesus, you really gonna play dumb? Right now? After I just watched the two of you practically dry hump the mayor on the fucking Jumbotron?”

  Cole just stared at the field.

  “Or maybe you are dumb. Maybe it’s no wonder you got shot, you stepped on some Blood’s Air J?”

  Cole raised his middle finger without looking at her.

  A kid came down with a couple of beers and passed one to Cole. She recognized him. “Hey, Mickey. When’d you get out?”

  “Month or so ago.”

  “Good for you. Your PO know you’re drinking?”

  Neither of them looked at her.

  She pointed a finger at Mickey. “You stay put.”

  She then got up and rolled Cole away.

  “Hey, what the fuck, bitch?”

  “It’s Sergeant Bitch to you.” She rolled him into the tunnel, empty now as the game was about to begin, and leaned down and put her mouth to his ear.

  “Little bro’s gonna get his ass killed, you know that, right?”

  “Comes with it.”

  “That what you told him? That the big brotherly advice you gave him? Shit happens when you bang? That what you tell yourself, you roll down your fuckin’ ramp every morning?”

  “I didn’t tell him shit, he’s on his own.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  Cole just looked at her.

  “You don’t tell me, I’m gonna get on the phone, get Mickey violated back to Soledad or wherever the fuck he was, you feel me?”

  Cole shrugged. “I don’t know where he is.”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “Same as all these other folks. Watchin’ the game.”

  “Who’s playing?”

  He turned and smiled. “Dodgers.”

  She smiled back. “And?”

  He just looked at her. Something in his face, a kind of smug defiance that Kelly had seen so many times on the street, almost always immediately following some bloody bad shit that had gone down. She didn’t have time for this. She walked around the chair, grabbed the handles, lifted it straight up, and dumped Cole face-first onto the tunnel floor.

  “Motherfuck—”

  She kicked him in the ribs, knocking the wind out of him, and flipped the chair all the way over. Two pieces of duct tape dangled from the underside of the seat. She tore one off and stuck it to his forehead. “Tell me, Cole,” she said. “What’d you bring him?”

  —

  Albert realized that getting into the game wouldn’t be a problem; he had passed at least a dozen scalpers already, and had yet to reach the parking kiosks. No, the tricky part would be getting any kind of weapon inside. He thought about it as he inched the Camry forward, the line of cars behind him stretching all the way down to the exit off the 110 freeway.

  What was it he used to tell Roy and Bob? If you need a gun, just take one from the person who’s trying to shoot you. No one was trying to shoot him, but he knew who might be armed and already inside the stadium. Twenty minutes on her computer, and he had all of her contact information. So why not give her a shout?

  The call turned out to be just as fun as he expected. Kelly Maguire was truly someone he wanted to get to know. If only there was some way to do what needed to be done, and then spend a few extra days in Los Angeles with Kelly at her place. Maybe her friend, Erin, could join them. He wasn’t sure, though, how all that could work given the little idea he was currently chewing on.

  He hadn’t been waiting five minutes when he saw a tall African American man, put together in a nice suit, come out of the gate. Albert watched as the cop’s eyes scanned the immediate crowd, finally landed on him. Albert smiled and waved the pennant he’d bought a few minutes earlier.

  The cop, looking impatient, made his way over and said, “Turn around.” He frisked Albert, took out his wallet, inspected his ID and said, “What can I do for you, Mr. Budin?”

  “Boo-dan. It’s French.”

  The cop said, “Really,” and then fuck it if he didn’t rattle off in perfect French, I don’t give a shit what you are. If you’ve got something for me, say it now or fuck off. We’re kinda busy here.

  “I only talk to the lady cop. What I have to say only gets said to her.”

  The cop kept looking
at him.

  Albert said, “Another time then,” and turned to go.

  “Hang on.”

  The cop led him through the metal detector. It went off and they frisked him again, and again found nothing.

  Albert said, “It’s my hip,” and then smiled. “Two tours in Iraq.”

  The security guard ran a wand over Albert, pausing when it chirped over his hip, then sent him through.

  Some kid was singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Albert had always thought it a ridiculous national anthem. It was hard to sing and it was, in the end, about a fucking flag. He much preferred “America the Beautiful.” He could sing that one and figured little kids could, too. Even the one down on the field butchering it right now could probably get through it okay.

  Albert saw that the tier was relatively empty and figured that now was as good a time as any. He said, “You mind we make a quick pit stop?” and nodded to the men’s room they were just now passing.

  The cop looked at his watch, and headed for the door.

  “Make it quick.”

  There were only a few fans in here when Albert sidled up to the metal trough and unzipped himself, while the cop went to the sink and ran a pick through his hair. Albert reached in and pulled out the tiny knife taped to the inside of his leg, palmed it in one hand as he then took a leak, careful not to cut off his own cock with it. As the cop came away from the sinks, Albert came away from the trough and bumped into him.

  “Excuse me.”

  The cop stood there, confused, and Albert put his arm around him and led him over to the stalls and sat him down on the commode, reacting to the looks he got with a smile and “Think we got here a little too early.”

  If anyone had bothered to look down, they would have seen the line of blood running from the cop’s trousers to the tile floor. Albert closed the stall door and crammed inside with the cop, who was now shaking and white as the wall behind him. His left leg was soaked with blood.

  “The femoral artery,” Albert said. “The big one.” He then took the cop’s gun, badge, and cell phone and put them all in his coat pocket. The cop looked up at him, his face now more gray than anything else, and said, “Don’t kill her.”

  “You just relax,” Albert said. “Close your eyes.”

  —

  Roy watched The Kid warm up. He had picked this seat because of its great sightline straight across the field into the visitor dugout and bullpen. When they introduced the team, The Kid kept his head down. Roy wondered if he wasn’t a bit preoccupied, or just focused on breaking the record today. The Dodgers were tough and shutting them out for the needed innings would be nearly impossible. But the Giants and the Brewers were even tougher and The Kid had put both teams to bed without much trouble.

  Roy had spent twenty minutes in the car working on his disguise. Not much more than a mustache, a blond wig, and wire-rimmed glasses. The Dodger cap probably would have been enough. He was sitting amongst a group of women in suits “playing hooky” from the office to come see The Kid. They all got up and whistled when the announcer called his name and now had their phones up, trying to get a few shots of him loosening up.

  Roy clocked the various security people in his section and hoped he could make it through the game, long enough to see The Kid break the record. What happened after that, Roy had no feelings about one way or the other. Though he had a pretty good idea he would never leave the stadium alive. Looking around it now, breathing in the warm afternoon air as the Dodgers held the Cards to one hit at the top of the first, he thought that he should have moved to L.A. a long time ago.

  Roy watched The Kid walk to the mound and kick at the rubber with the toe of his cleat. Roy sensed a slight hush in the crowd. The hometown fans thinking, if their Dodgers were going to lose, better to go down in the record books, even on the other side. The Kid stretched his neck left then right, spit into the dirt, and stood up straight. He stared at the catcher a moment, and then leaned into his windup.

  A fastball. Roy could barely see it, but he heard the crack in the catcher’s glove all the way up in his seat. He thought he felt the stands reverberate with the sound when he realized it was something else: an aftershock.

  A big one. Nearly as big as the initial quake. For a moment, the crowd was silent as together they processed what was happening. Roy watched the pitcher’s mound rise up like a new volcano and knock The Kid off his feet. Then the home dugout collapsed, the bench just dropped into a hole, taking the first row of the club section with it. Roy got to his feet as, all at once, fifty thousand people started screaming and running for the exits.

  The mayor felt Marco grab him by the back of the shirt and usher him down the steps and onto the field. He turned to see Evan some ways behind them fighting to keep up.

  Marco screamed, “Don’t worry about him,” and shoved the mayor forward toward the first base line. He looked back once more and watched as Evan, struggling down the same steps, suddenly pitched forward onto his face and disappeared beneath the relentless swarm of panicked fans. The mayor lost all sight of him, save a brief glimpse of his soon to be late executive assistant when, during a brief break in the rush—a member of Stadium Security had fired a gun into the air to turn everybody around—Evan somehow managed to sit up, the whites of his eyes visible in a now otherwise red and misshapen face, and reached out with a bloody and broken arm, the gold Rolex Daytona the mayor had bought him after the election the only recognizable thing about him, before the crowd once more trampled him back into the ground.

  The mayor felt his arm nearly wrenched from its socket as Marco yanked him further onto the field, relatively safe from any part of the structure that might fall or topple.

  He was vaguely aware that Marco was yelling at him. We need to wait here for the crowd to chill some before we find a way out!

  But the crowd out here was growing, filling the entire field. The mayor could feel Marco being pulled away, but the man held on, and now a sharp bruise was rising on the mayor’s biceps where he squeezed to keep him close. There was a violent tug as the crowd surged their way and the mayor was suddenly free of the man’s grip. He watched as his bodyguard and driver of three years fought to get back to him.

  Strangely enough, the mayor wasn’t panicked. In fact, if anything, he felt a kind of peace and began to wonder if maybe this wasn’t the real way out. He could vanish. Right now. Like Evan. Well, not exactly like Evan. But he could get eaten up by the crowd and disappear. The Vanishing Mayor. It would be a mystery for the ages.

  But surely he would be recognized out there in the world.

  Someone in uniform barked into his face, “Keep moving, asshole!”

  Maybe not.

  The mayor had the sensation of riding a wave as a gate opened at the far end of the field and the crowd surged toward it, carrying him along. He could no longer see Marco and pulled off the Dodger jersey he had on over a black T-shirt as he shuffled forward through the gate. Once free of the stadium, he dropped the jersey on the ground and stayed with the crowd as they fanned out into the parking lots. The mayor kept on walking until he hit Solano Road and followed it all the way into Elysian Park. He paused and looked back toward the stadium, feeling calm for the first time in years.

  The mayor stood there a moment, breathing in the night air, and then headed into the park. He had walked maybe a dozen paces when he felt someone’s strong grip on his arm.

  “Gotcha.”

  The mayor turned and immediately wanted to cry.

  “Jesus, boss,” Marco said, the man completely winded from running. “Didn’t you hear me yelling?”

  —

  Kelly didn’t think the kid was half bad. He sang a lot better than Roseanne did, that was for sure. She was there that day at what was then Jack Murphy Stadium, spending the summer with her cousins in San Diego while her parents, in the middle of their divorce, fought over the money from the sale of the avocado farm in Fallbrook. Probably the last time she was at a baseball game.

/>   Cole had finally given Kelly Roy Cooper’s section and she was now trying to find his seat when her phone rang.

  It was Stadium Security. “Somebody got knifed in the A tier men’s room.”

  “Who?”

  “We just got the call, but I wanted to let you know we had to pull some people to secure it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Once LAPD gets here, I’ll send them back out.”

  She hung up and located Roy Cooper a few rows down. He was pretty much the lone guy in a sea of women, all of them in suits. Clearly some kind of office outing. Cole had warned her about the disguise, but seeing it for herself, Kelly had to admit that she was impressed. She never would have spotted him in the crowd.

  It didn’t take her long, however, to spot Science, the kid leaning against a cement wall at the top of the tier steps, one row over. Kelly knew Roy wasn’t going anywhere, so she decided to go up and grab Science first. She would then hand him off to someone in security, if she could find them.

  And where was Rudy?

  She would text him as soon as she had Science cuffed and stuffed.

  Kelly jogged back up the steps to the tier and walked around to the adjacent row. Science was too busy watching the man Kelly now knew he had come to put down to see her coming. She had to admit she was curious to find out how he planned to pull this off in a stadium full of people. It would be the first question she asked when she had him in the back of her car.

  It was either dumb luck or Science had somehow sensed her approach; whatever it was, the kid turned just as Kelly was reaching for him. There was no hesitation as he reached into his coat for what Kelly knew was the little Raven.

  She said, “Don’t be stupid,” and grabbed his wrist and pulled it from his coat, while at the same time twisting it back so that Science winced and went down to his knees in order to keep her from bending it back any further.

  She crouched down and smiled at him. “Hi, Science. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for a while now.”