by Paul Hina
Clay says, grabbing Wayne's money, tucking it inside his jacket.
He drinks the last of his scotch and motions for Eddie.
It's the top of the third inning by the time Clay arrives at the Braves' game. He hobbles down the steps to his seat, a couple rows behind the home dugout. His thigh is bothering him even more than normal. It hasn't stopped throbbing since he climbed the hill at the site of the accident earlier. He stretches his hand over the muscle and considers what Red said about getting a cane. Would it really be so terrible to have to walk with a cane? It's not like his thigh is getting any better. It used to be that a few drinks would at least help him forget the pain, but his time at Eddie's hasn't seemed to have done the trick.
As he takes his seat, he takes a second to survey the field in front of him. It's a beautiful day for a ball game—sunny and in the mid-seventies. It's not too hot, and the crowd is robust for a four o'clock game on a weekday. He looks at the scoreboard. The Braves scored two runs in the bottom of the second. They're playing pretty well this season, and Clay's thankful that he can take the next few hours to decompress before what's sure to be a long day tomorrow.
Before he left Eddie's, he called Jack, his old boss in San Francisco, and arranged to meet him tomorrow afternoon. Clay's convinced that the answer to what happened to Brett, and, then, what happened with Emma, will somehow go through Ramsey and his Fremont card games. And, if anybody knows what's going on with Ramsey, it'll be Jack.
The seat next to Clay is empty. It's Maggie's seat. She's always pretty busy in the box office for the first several innings of the game. She doesn't usually get to her seat until the third or fourth inning. He turns around to see if he can see her hovering in the stands, talking to the stray fan as she makes her way to her seat, as she usually does. But, as Clay surveys the seats behind him, any hope he had that the game might take his mind off Brett and Emma disappears when he spots Kevin, Emma's brother, in the next section over.
If Maggie were here, she'd convince him to stay put and watch the game, to forget about Kevin. She'd appeal to him to let Kevin enjoy the game and wait to interrogate him afterwards. So, Clay decides to get to him before Maggie has a chance to talk him out of it.
He gets up from his seat, struggles back up the stairs, and sits on the step next to the aisle seat where Kevin is sitting.
Kevin doesn't acknowledge him.
"You Kevin Dunham?"
"Who's asking?"
"I'm Clay. I was a friend of your brother-in-law."
"Is that right?" Kevin says, still not looking in Clay's direction.
"That's right," Clay says. "I was sorry to hear about your sister."
"You friends with her too?"
"I knew her, yeah."
Kevin looks at him now. "Look, pal, I just want to watch the game. You mind?"
"Yeah, sorry, I just had a couple quick questions for you."
"Yeah?" Kevin says, turning back to the game.
"I hear you used to go up to Fremont with Brett to play poker, and I—"
"Hey, aren't you that P.I. that used to play ball?"
"That's right."
"Why are you asking questions about Brett and my sister?"
"The usual reasons."
"You working a case?"
"Might be. Depends on the answers you give me."
"I've got no answers for you. I'm just here to watch the game."
"What about after the game?"
"I'm busy."
"Tomorrow? You work at that garage off Fourth, right?"
"I do."
"I'll come and visit you tomorrow."
"If you say so," Kevin says, staring straight ahead again.
Clay rises and struggles back down the steps toward his Maggie, who has found her way to her seat.
"You're late," she says.
"No, I've been here five minutes already."
"Where were you?"
"I was just up there talking to Kevin," Clay says, turning to motion toward Kevin, but Kevin's no longer there. "That's strange."
"What?"
"Nothing," Clay says. "Let's just watch the game."
Five
"You were gone when I got up this morning," Clay says, catching Maggie's throw.
"You noticed."
"I always notice," he says, throwing the ball back to her.
"Does it bother you?" she asks. "You've never said anything about it before."
"I'm saying something now," he says. "What time did you leave?"
"About six or so."
"Why?"
"I was up."
"Seriously, Maggie."
"Until you make an honest woman of me, I don't exactly want people to see me coming out of your apartment in the morning."
"Come on. Everyone already knows we're together."
"Some do, maybe. But not like that. People are still pretty innocent around here."
"But they have to know."
"There's still a lot of people in town that wouldn't like to see a single girl walking out of a bachelor's apartment in the morning."
"Well, they need to grow up."
"They're not the only ones," she says, throwing him the ball.
"What's that?" he asks, catching the ball, turning his head a bit as if he didn't hear her right.
"Nothing."
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asks, holding the ball up, frozen in mid-throw.
"Just forget it."
"I won't forget it," he says, still holding the ball.
"Clay, you already know my feelings about this. There's really no point in rehashing it."
"Whatever you say, princess," Clay says, throwing the ball back to her.
"Don't call me that. You know I don't like it."
Maggie's dad used to call her princess, and the only time Clay ever called her that was when he was referring to her wealth in a passive-aggressive way. She had money. He didn't. This is where a good deal of the tension in their relationship came from. He knew that she believed her money was the principle reason he hadn't made a more serious commitment to their relationship, and she might be partially right. He certainly isn't comfortable with the idea of her supporting him. And he suspects that the social disparity was a big reason why her dad was so uncomfortable with her being with an athlete. After a certain age, a professional jock has less and less to offer, and that's certainly true with Clay. He has nothing to offer her. But, regardless of their legitimate social disparity, she was right, he did need to grow up—in more ways than one.
"So you left my place at six, and then what? You went home, cleaned up, and came here?"
"No, I just came here and cleaned up," she says, throwing the ball back to him.
"You keep clothes here."
"Since you and I've been together, I have."
"Where do you shower?"
"The locker room."
"You shower in the locker room? What if someone came in?"
"How? I have the keys, remember?"
"Right," he says, throwing her the ball.
"How's things going on this Brett thing you're working?" she asks, clearly trying to change the subject.
"It's coming along faster than I thought."
"Yeah? Anything interesting?"
"More interesting than I would've imagined this time yesterday."
"How so?"
"I don't want to come to any broad conclusions yet, but the car accident isn't looking as cut and dry as it did a couple weeks ago."
"How do you mean?"
"I'd rather not say until I have more information."
"Damn it, Clay. Why'd you tell me anything if you weren't going to tell me everything? Now, I'm curious."
"You asked."
"I hope its nothing too serious. Brett is a hero around here, you know. The fans loved him before the accident, and they revere him even more now. I hope you're not planning on tearing that down."
"No, I don't think anything I'll find will disabuse anyone of his hero status."
<
br /> "And Emma?"
"I'm not saying anything else about it," he says, catching the ball and moving toward the dugout.
"Clay, come on."
"I have to go."
"Where to?" she asks, leaning over the rail of the dugout toward him.
"I've got to stop at a service station here in town, and then I'm off to San Francisco."
"San Francisco, huh? Will you be back tonight?"
"Why? You want to get together?" he asks, walking closer to her, placing his hands on the rail near her breasts.
"Always," she says as she leans in to kiss him.
Clay parks his Fleetmaster about half a block from Gene's Garage and just watches the place for a minute. There is a single, solitary figure in the garage bent over the underside of a car's hood. Clay can't tell from this distance if it's Kevin or not.
He reaches down and grabs a baseball from the floor of the passenger seat and grips it in his left hand, rubs at the hide of the ball with his right.
Interviewing people who have no desire to be interviewed is Clay's least favorite part of the job. And there's no doubt that Kevin has no desire to talk to him, and, due to the nature of the questions, he could hardly blame the guy. Still, Clay has a bad feeling that things could get combative quickly, and he's not quite feeling up to a fight this morning. It might help if he had a few drinks in him, but it's too early in the morning for that. At least yesterday at the ballpark, he'd had a fair share of scotch in him before he approached Kevin. A belly full of scotch is always good for a healthy dose of bravado.
But bravado or not, he has to find out what Kevin was doing the night of the accident. He has to find out about Kevin's relationship with Brett and the Ramsey card games.
Clay throws the ball back down on the floor, and gets out of the car. He just stands there by the car for a minute looking up and down the street. He reflexively reaches into his pocket for a cigarette. There aren't any cigarettes, of course. This is why he'd put off quitting for so long. Smoking calmed
