The Spoiler

by Domenic Stansberry

  At first she had ignored the incident. Whatever Brunner was doing took place in a world she had nothing to do with, over which she had no control. Then there had been the night at Sparks’s apartment when she had talked to Gutierrez, when the dark-skinned shortstop had sat Indian-style, cross-legged on the floor across from her, the collar of his blue shirt open several buttons, showing his hairless chest, his dark skin. He had held the matchbook curled in one hand, and his voice, as it raced on telling her about Golden and the fires in Holyoke, had been full of excitement.

  She had told Kelley what Gutierrez had said not so much because she thought something could be done as to convey the excitement she had felt, the danger. Now she was sorry that she had told him anything, but she knew that was pointless, that of course she would have told him, it wasn’t a matter of volition, but of the way things happened, just as of course the phone would be ringing now, and of course it would be Kelley calling at the same moment she was thinking of him. He called almost every night lately.

  “Have you talked to the reporter?”

  “No,” she lied.

  “Good, but I want you to talk to him now. I want you to tell him to get off the case.”

  “What if he doesn’t listen?”

  “I’ll talk to your cousin. We’ll give him some extra incentive,” he said, but Amanti was paying more attention to a voice she thought she heard in the background, behind Kelley’s. It wasn’t his wife’s voice, she didn’t think, and it was too late for him to be at his office.

  That evening a new pitcher joined the Redwings, Ramon Kubachek, a big, burly man who wore his uniform so baggy it looked like pajamas. Kubachek was a veteran, one of the few in the Blues’ farm system, particularly at this level of play. Cowboy had bought him from the Yankees last year to help the Blues with their late-season pennant drive, but Kubachek pitched poorly. The Blues’ championship bid had failed.

  This year Kubachek had started out with the Blues but had thrown nothing but junk in the early going. Cowboy had sent him to Salt Lake. Now Kubachek had slipped a notch farther, down into Holyoke. For Kubachek, such slides into the minors were not unusual. Once, he had even disappeared altogether, quitting baseball for a year, then showing up with the Portland Mavericks, an unaffiliated club in the Pacific Coast League, a team filled with castoffs: Jim Bouton, Luis Tiant, Willie Horton—men perennially on the comeback trail. But then the team was bought by the Pirates, the old players scattered, and Kubachek showed up, miraculously, it seemed, with the Yankees.

  Cowboy had bought him for a big price and was still paying Kubachek under that contract. Kubachek said he did not care where he played, majors or minors or on the moon, so long as he got his money. When his contract expired, he would play Puerto Rico, Mexico, Japan; it made no difference to him, he said.

  “My arm’s as good as ever,” Kubachek told Lofton before the game, spitting tobacco juice and sneering at the dirt as he spoke. “My being here has nothing to do with that. The Blues are playing like shit, and Cowboy needs a scapegoat. That’s me. But I don’t give a goddamn. They’ll call me up before the end of the year, when they need help. Just watch.”

  Kubachek drew a good crowd, the biggest Lofton remembered seeing in Holyoke. More important, the club seemed to come alive around the pitcher, to take the field with more excitement. The air seemed charged, as if Gutierrez’s death had never happened, or had happened somewhere far away—as if it were a story that had come in over the wire, another dateline, another city.

  He still needed more on Gutierrez. Kirpatzke was not quite ready to let the story drop. Kirpatzke wanted a composite—a “tribute” Kirpatzke had called it: an interview with Gutierrez’s teammates, a description of the neighborhood he had lived in, a summary of his career. Kirpatzke also wanted, incredibly, to patch a call through to Gutierrez’s widow in Managua. And he wanted it all for Sunday’s paper. He planned to run a black-bordered picture of Gutierrez on the sports page.

  Lofton told himself he would start the interviews after the game. The tribute, if he were careful, might provide a good excuse to ease in questions about the fires. On the basis of what Amanti had told him, Tim Carpenter and Rickey Sparks would be the most likely to know something helpful, though it might be difficult getting either of them to talk. Carpenter, the second baseman, had gotten angry with him earlier for writing the story that mentioned Gutierrez’s use of drugs. And Sparks was so worried about the big leagues that he might not say anything at all.

  In the press box Tenace and the reporters were chattering about Kubachek’s sudden arrival at MacKenzie Field.

  “Should pitch him every day,” said Tenace.

  “Yeah, wear him out like a cheap suit.”

  “Kubachek is too smart. He ain’t Sparks.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Holyoke edged ahead in the second inning on a couple of bloop singles and a Lynn error. The Lynn Sailors were a Seattle farm club that led the other division of the Eastern League. The Seattle farm system offered its players a real chance to move up, and the Lynn players usually showed enthusiasm. They had talent, too, more talent than Holyoke, but the Sailors did not look good tonight. They could not handle Kubachek’s knuckleball. Few saw that pitch at this level of play.

  “See you got yourself back on the front page, Lofton,” Tenace said. Rhiner looked the other way.

  “Rhiner here’s worried you’re gonna move over to the Post and take his job.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Rhiner shot back, with a hint of malice that confused Lofton. “It won’t be long before the Dispatch’s regular sportswriter comes back from vacation; then you’ll have to get your stories somewhere else.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got enough to keep me busy,” Lofton said. It was true. He had forgotten that the Dispatch had a regular sportswriter. Rhiner leaned back, cooling off. Suddenly Lofton guessed the source of the reporter’s anger: Rhiner had been the one who told him Gutierrez’s address; then it had turned into a big story, murder. Rhiner had probably been kicking himself for giving it away. Maybe Rhiner’s editor had been kicking him, too. Lofton gave up and settled in to watch the game.

  Jack Brunner appeared behind the third base stands. Though no one had said a word, Brunner’s sudden appearance, Lofton realized, had drawn the attention of the people in the press box. There had been no reason he could put his finger on, no noise, no fanfare, but it had happened anyway: everyone turning to look at the owner. Brunner was a big man, true; good-looking, maybe, with his high-boned face and well-muscled body (though there was something animalistic about him, too, something ugly); but there was nothing sensational to draw your eye toward him. He wore ordinary, comfortable clothes, a plaid shirt, thin khakis. Perhaps it was the way he carried himself, loose and calculating, convinced of his place in the world. Brunner walked toward the press box, headed to his usual seat in the first base bleachers. He seemed to look past Lofton, not to see him or consider him of particular importance, except at the last second, when Lofton saw a flicker in the steel-gray eyes, like the shutter of a camera. For a few moments Brunner stopped to survey the field, standing not two feet away. They all stared at his back through the wire-mesh fence the whole time he stood there, except for Tenace, who kept his eyes on his scorecard. When Brunner walked away, Tenace let out an unconscious sigh.

  The chatter in the press box died down. Soon there was only the banter of Lynn’s radiocaster to the fans back home. Lofton wondered why people would listen to Lynn on the radio when they could go down to Fenway or watch the Red Sox on television. He could ask himself the same question, he supposed. Why did he stay in Holyoke?

  He sat in the box through most of the game and listened to the Lynn announcer speak in his peculiar accent, laying the stress—to Lofton’s ears—on the wrong syllables of the Holyoke players’ California names. Tenace said little. Rhiner wrote down, in painstaking detail Lofton found amusing, the exploits of the players on the field, keeping track on a scorecard and making notes in the m
argins. Another reporter, a man from a small paper upriver, stared into the heat and listened to the play-by-play, occasionally taking notes on what the Lynn announcer said. Either way, it was easy enough to catch what was going on in the field, obvious to everyone that the Lynn batters floundered stupidly in front of Kubachek’s knuckler but clobbered any other pitch he threw, no matter how much the hurler stomped around on the mound before delivering.

  Kubachek made a mistake in the seventh, when Holyoke had built up a 4–0 lead. With two out he lost control and walked a pair of batters. The Lynn right fielder, a burly, unshaved kid with a low hitting average, knocked a fastball out onto Beech Street, a three-run homer that cut Holyoke’s lead to one.

  The score stayed the same into the ninth, when Lofton left the press box to sit in the bleachers behind Holyoke’s dugout. He needed some quotes, something to fill out his “tribute.” Once, when he was Rhiner’s age, he would have dreaded such a story, been uncomfortable asking people questions about a dead friend, but that wasn’t true now. People, when you got down to it, enjoyed talking about the dead.

  Throughout the game Lumpy had trouble fielding Kubachek’s knuckler. It was, by its nature, a confusing, ugly pitch, difficult to hit, difficult to catch. Even the pitcher’s grip, the fingertips pressed flat against the ball, knuckles protruding, looked painful, ugly. Lumpy, not an adroit catcher even by Eastern League standards, seemed mystified by the way the ball spun and sank, sometimes this way, sometimes that, as it came into the plate. Though he could not always stop the knuckler with his glove, he did stop it with his body, letting the ball bounce off his chest, his mask, his arms—anything to stop it.

  In the ninth Kubachek got the first batter on an easy grounder to Carpenter at second. He crossed the second batter up with his knuckler, three quick strikes, but Lumpy boggled the last pitch and threw wild to Lynch at first. The Lynn runner went all the way to second, then to third when the next hitter sent one of Kubachek’s dying fastballs to deep right. Why Kubachek had thrown it, Lofton could only guess: probably to prove to somebody—himself—that he still had the old smoke. He didn’t.

  Last up was the Lynn right fielder, who had hit a home run in the seventh. Kubachek looked to the dugout, but Barker made no move to bring in a reliever. The Holyoke fans cheered.

  The Lynn right fielder was greedy, eager to connect. Kubachek got him to swing on the first pitch, a slider that broke to the outside. Lumpy had a hard time fielding the ball, and it rolled away. The crowd screeched as the runner headed home. But the Lynn Sailor only bluffed; the ball had not rolled far enough for a serious try.

  Kubachek went into his antics on the mound, stomping and pacing in circles, hitching up his pants, peering in at the batter, then giving his shoulders a violent shrug and turning away. When the umpire lost patience, Kubachek stepped forward, threw up his long arms, and came in with his weakest pitch, the fastball. The Lynn right fielder hit the ball, and hit it hard, though a split second too late; the ball went foul. Kubachek strutted about the mound, as if he had planned the whole thing.

  Kubachek played the corners the next two pitches, curves that broke away and hung outside the strike zone. The Lynn batter held off. Two balls, two strikes. Lofton scanned the crowd. Brunner stood up in the stands, staring down at the action.

  On the next pitch Kubachek tried the corner again and missed. A full count now. Coach Barker stood in front of the dugout. He flashed a sign to Kubachek, holding up his hand with all five fingers spread apart—probably telling him to take the corner again, to risk the walk with first base open.

  Kubachek went back into his stomping routine; it was what had made him famous, what brought the fans out. Finally, though, he came in with the throw, and the pitch was beautiful, so beautiful Lofton felt himself catch his breath: a slow-breaking knuckler the right fielder had to swing at, the ball hung so fat and tempting over the meat of the plate, a sure strike. At the last possible second, the ball spun lazily away, slowly, still tantalizing but out of the strike zone, too far away for the batter to hit. Too late. The batter swung and missed, fooled completely. Unfortunately the pitch fooled Lumpy, too. He batted at the ball with his glove, and the ball rolled back between his legs. The Lynn players shouted from the dugout, and the batter hurried for first.

  The Lynn base runner at third, who had broken with the pitch, came hard for the plate. The fans screamed behind Lofton. Lofton, the players, the fans, Brunner—they all were on their feet. Lumpy fumbled for the ball.

  The runner was almost home. Close, too close. Dully, in unbelievable slow motion—the crowd groaned with anxiety—Lumpy groped at the ball. Then, somehow, he got it into his glove and lunged heavily at the runner. The two men smashed into one another, a vicious thud. The runner went down, and Lumpy stood in front of the plate, the ball still in his glove. The umpire made a grand sweep with his right hand, thumb pointed down at the dust. The runner was out. Holyoke had won.

  Lumpy held the ball over his head, and the crowd screamed louder, a joyous rush such as Lofton had not felt since he was in Denver and the Broncos beat Oakland in a National Football League play-off game. That day there had been nothing more beautiful than the junk and debris of Denver, the salvage yards that seemed to sprawl out at every freeway interchange, the lots and lots of trailer trucks, railroad cars, and corrugated warehouses. Here, in Holyoke, as that day in Denver, he screamed with the rest of them, forgetting his role as the writer and forgetting the gun-gray eyes of Brunner across the field. He wanted to let go with the feeling, to be with the crowd, to file out onto the street and pat some friend on the back, to drive home together over the glass-shattered streets.

  The Redwings mobbed Kubachek and Lumpy. Some fans climbed the fence and joined the mob. The two hired police guards made a halfhearted effort to herd them away. Lofton jumped the fence and hurried toward the scene. Rhiner was there, too, and the two reporters jostled against each other.

  “The fastball, why did you throw it there, at the end of the game?” Rhiner yelled out.

  “Because I felt like it,” Kubachek yelled back. That was enough for Lofton. He could use that quote, work it in somehow. He looked for Coach Barker, for Tim Carpenter. He got caught in the middle of a group of fans, smelled their sweat, their beer-drunken breath. The boy from the library, his Redwings’ cap tilted crazily over his eyes, grabbed Lofton’s arm and jumped up and down, hysterical with joy. Lofton pulled away and caught hold of Carpenter.

  “Tim, I need an interview.” Lofton tried to put a note of sincerity in his voice, a hint of apology. He recognized, instead, his own slurred, lazy-tongued California accent, still not that much different from when he was a kid.

  “Later,” Carpenter said. “After I shower. Meet me by the gate.”

  Lofton let him go. Barker was walking down the third base line toward the dugout. Lofton started after him, but a cluster of fans crushed around him. A policeman shouted. As Lofton turned, breaking from the circle of people, he saw Brunner holding open the clubhouse door, watching proprietarily as the players filed in. Sparks was one of the players, but he did not look up at Brunner, not now. Neither did any of the others.

  “Fun’s over. Time to get moving.”

  It was a security guard, his voice high and nasal, not quite believing its own authority.

  “I’m a reporter, goddammit.” Lofton stepped away from the man and headed for the main gate. The Lynn team bus stood idling by the curb, and the Sailors filed on. Some Holyoke fans stood nearby and heckled them. A group of teenagers, Puerto Ricans mostly, but a few whites. The same kids Brunner tried to keep from kicking in his fence night after night.

  “Nobody comes to Holyoke and lives.… Miterate al equipo.… Get out of here, maricones.… Vamos, Lynn faggots … Viva Gutierrez!”

  When the Redwings played in Lynn, this would come back on the team. Lynn was a rough town; the fans would ride the Redwings hard. Even so, he enjoyed the way the Holyoke kids yelled at the visitors. He waited for Carpenter until the L
ynn team bus pulled away, headed for the Motel 6 in Chicopee, where the team would stay until its Holyoke road stand was over. Then he knocked on the clubhouse door.

  It was Golden who opened it. “What do you need?” His voice seemed friendly, but his eyes were empty, and he did not look Lofton in the face.

  “Tim Carpenter said he would talk to me after the game, but I can’t find him.”

  “He left, with some of the others.” Golden gestured down the right field line, to the other exit. Though it was a simple gesture, in the way Golden’s hand rose and fell, in the lowering and veiling of Golden’s eyes, in the creases of his quick, hard smile—in the whole motion that was over in a second—Lofton tried to read Golden’s guilt, to tell if it was true that Golden was dealing with arson, acting as Brunner’s front man. The gestures gave him no clue; they were simply movements, nothing inherent in them, just as there was nothing inherently good and evil in any movement: swinging at a ball, lighting a match, pulling a trigger. He thought of confronting Golden now, but that would be rash, he told himself; it wasn’t the time. In another quick motion Golden had closed the clubhouse door.

  Lofton hurried after Carpenter and the others. He started to run, his breath rasped, there was a small soreness in his lungs. When he reached the right field gate, he did not see them. He walked the city streets, headed home, but with an eye out for the players. Along the way he kept imagining he saw them, always one block over, just rounding the corner of some burned-out building, disappearing, just as he caught up, into the thick-tongued alleys of fire and ash.