“We’ll need a porch—and a view.”
“You already have more than you need.”
“But the view is the most expensive part.”
“Why don’t I just give you everything in the case?”
“I would think that should do it, Bobby,” said Laszlo Toth.
Robert stared for a moment before he spun the briefcase around, so that it faced Laszlo with the top still raised. Laszlo’s eyes lit as he reached both hands into the case.
Robert pointed the gun directly at the raised lid.
“Don’t call me Bobby,” he said.
And then he fired.
Later, after he had undone his cuff links and pushed up his sleeves and slipped his rubber gloves back on, as he moved about the office searching and obscuring, setting the scene, as he danced around the dead body of Laszlo Toth, the taste of acid in Robert Spangler’s mouth was so strong and bitter he could feel it rotting his teeth. She had done it to him again. He didn’t need that file to prove the impossibility of his ever gaining what he most desired from her; his life was proof enough. Every step toward her took him further and further from what he had sought to become. He had dreams, hopes, he had fervent plans for his future. But she had made of him an errand boy, a thug, a murderer. And all he ever wanted from her was her love. Was that too much to ask?
Evidently.
KYLE BYRNE SPIED his father watching him play in the seventh inning, which was a little disconcerting considering that his father had been dead for fourteen years.
It was on the diamond at the Palumbo Recreation Center at Tenth and Fitzwater, during a lethargic Monday-night beer-league-softball battle between Dirty Frank’s and Bubba’s Bar and Grill. The field was scabrous, the fence surrounding the lot was close and high, the bleachers were dotted with family and friends getting a start on the evening imbibitions. Kyle, Bubba’s shortstop, was sitting on the bench, having a few swigs of his own from a can of Rolling Rock as Bubba Jr. looked on disapprovingly.
“What’s the rush?” said Junior. “I need you sober.”
“Dude.”
“Don’t dude me, dude. I been duded enough by you to last me
through the rest of the decade. What I need from you is to close my bar tonight.”
“Junior, I’m finding your lack of faith in me frankly dispiriting. I said I’ll be there.”
“You said the same thing last Monday.”
“But you should have seen her. I mean, my God. And she had these little puppy-dog eyes.”
“Puppy-dog eyes?”
“You know, the ones that are just saying, ‘Pet me, pet me.’ How could I resist that?”
Bubba Jr. tried to stare Kyle down.
“ ‘Pet me,’ ” said Kyle in his little-dog voice.
“You seeing that puppy again?”
“If I can find her number. It’s in some pocket or other, I don’t know.”
“But you do know you’re going to see me again. Think about that next time you’re deciding who to screw.”
Bubba Jr. was about as un-Bubba-like as anyone could be. The bar was named after his father, who at six-two, 240, and with a laugh like a trombone, had been Bubba to his bones. A heart attack at fortyeight passed the bar and the name to his small and wiry son.
“I need to be able to rely on my people,” said Junior, “or I’ll find people I can rely on.”
“Aw, Junior, this is sad. You should hear yourself talk, ranting on about your people. Reading all those business books is rotting your mind. When did you start going all CEO on us, dude?”
“In January, when my father died and left me the stinking bar. By nine-thirty, all right?”
“You don’t need me till ten.”
“Nine-thirty.”
“It’s under control,” said Kyle, before downing the rest of his beer. “I love you, dude. I do. Not as much as I loved your father, but then he never read a business book in his life. You know I’m there for you, Junior. Stop worrying.”
“Okay, fine, I’ll stop worrying. Now, grab a bat. You’re on deck, and we need some runs.”
“You think I’ll get my ups?”
Junior looked through the cage at Old Tommy Trapp, gray, grizzled, toothless as a whelp, awkwardly taking his stance at the plate.
“Pitch it in, you pussy,” screeched Old Tommy.
“Like my daddy always told me,” said Junior, “miracles happen.”
Kyle stood, grabbed a bright red bat from behind the backstop, and started swirling it one-handed about his head as he surveyed the field.
Bubba’s was trailing Dirty Frank’s, which was a crime, really, because Dirty Frank’s was just about the worst team in the league and Bubba’s had the league’s best player, who was Kyle himself. Bubba Sr. had spotted Kyle playing on that same field in a fast-pitch league a few years before. Bubba’s needed a shortstop, Kyle needed an occasional bartending gig to supplement his lack of income, a deal was struck. It had worked out great at the start, but Junior had been taking it all a bit too seriously. To Kyle it had started feeling like a job, and really, who the hell needed that, right?
“They put in a new center fielder,” said Kyle to his pal Skitch, who was leaning against the backstop. “And he’s playing in. Can he go back?”
“Who, Duckie?” said Skitch. “Like a gazelle.” Skitch pushed his squat upper body away from the fence and spit a glob of sunflower seeds onto one of his cleats. “An overweight gazelle, with two bad knees and a hippo on its back.”
Skitch was about Kyle’s age, but a foot shorter and built like a fire hydrant. He played catcher because he ran like a fire hydrant, too. But he also pissed like a hydrant from all the Bubba’s beer he drank, which made him a valuable member of the team, at least to Bubba Jr. “We’re going out to McGillin’s after,” said Skitch.
“That dump?”
“You coming?”
“I have the bar tonight.”
“When?”
“Ten.”
“Hell, we’ll be passed out by nine. You won’t miss a thing. I got some friends coming in from Atlantic City you should meet. Friends of the female persuasion.”
“Persuasion? That mean they’re not sure?”
“Oh, they’re sure. Let me tell you something, Kyle, they’re too damn sure for me to handle by my lonesome. That’s why I need you on my wing.”
“How many?”
“Three.”
“Who’s handling the third?”
“Old Tommy’s coming.”
Kyle looked at the geezer at the plate, so skinny it was like the bat was swinging him. “Give me something to hit, you pussy-assed fraud,” shouted Old Tommy at the pitcher in a voice as ragged as his cleats.
“Okay,” said Kyle, who was partial to Old Tommy primarily because he never said a kind or thoughtful word. “But I can’t stay long, I need to be at the bar by nine-thirty.”
“I thought you said ten.”
“Junior’s nervous.”
“Worst thing ever happened to him was inheriting that bar.”
A splash of sound signaled that Old Tommy had slapped a ground ball through the second baseman’s legs. Cheers and claps, catcalls. “You dogs suck pig tits,” shouted Old Tommy from first. “My mother plays better than you, and she’s been dead four decades now.” Two on, two outs, seventh and final inning, Bubba’s down by three.
“Get on base and I’ll pick up the winning knock,” said Skitch.
“Last thing you knocked was that Sheryl from Folcroft,” said Kyle as he stepped past Skitch and around the backstop, taking his place at the plate.
The outfielders backed up when he entered the cage. The left fielder was playing in Saskatchewan. It would be easy enough to dump a line-drive single in front of him, but that would leave them still two runs down, depending on Skitch to win the game, and the one thing Skitch wasn’t was dependable. The right fielder was also playing away, scratching his back on the fence on Fitzwater Street. But the short fielder was playing in and the center fielder had retreated only a few steps. The left fielder was waving him back, but the center fielder was blithely ignoring him.
Sweet.
Kyle kicked his right foot into the dirt, placed his left foot toward the pitcher, stretched his bat high into the air before letting it gently fall into position at his rear shoulder. Here, at the plate, waiting on a pitch, here, in the middle of this moment, was the one safe place left in his life. Everyone had always told him how good he was at this— from Little League and Legion ball through high school, even at that college before his grades took him down—how he had a future at this, even if there was no one around to tell him how to reach it. And though things hadn’t worked out, and he wasn’t taking his stance in a major-league ballpark but instead waiting on a high-arc piece of crap in a beer-league-softball game, he still felt perfectly at home at home plate.
The pitcher’s arm whirled, and the ball flew into the sky, and Kyle could see its seams spinning, could almost count them as the ball fell toward the outside of the plate, just what he was waiting for. Keeping his hands close to his body, he took his step. And he saw the ball shooting out to deep right center field, the angles the fielders took as the ball soared over their heads, saw it all even before he twisted his rear foot and shifted his hips, even before the red bat whipped around and connected, even before the sweet
thwump
flowed through his body easy and smooth.
Then he was off and running, toward first base—not sprinting hard, he didn’t need to be—just chugging-chugging away, watching the center fielder back up and spin awkwardly and trip over himself as he scrambled for the ball. The right fielder charged over, but the angles weren’t right. The ball skidded past him off the dirt and toward the fence. Kyle was following it all, the ball, the fielders, the angles that showed the ball rolling free and out of reach as he made the turn at first.
That was when he saw him.
A bob of gray hair, yes, that for sure. And a dark suit, a quick step, a knowing wink in the crouch of the posture. Maybe Kyle imagined the rest, but it all added up to only one thing.
Hello, boyo
.
For years after his father’s death, there was a part of Kyle that couldn’t accept the truth of it. Even though he and his father had never been close, and even though he still had a small cardboard box filled with his father’s ashes stashed in the glove compartment of his car, he long treasured the hidden hope that they would still have a tearful reunion. As a boy, whenever in crowds or walking down the streets of the city, he found himself searching for his father. And on the ball fields of his youth, he caught himself checking the stands as involuntarily as a tic, to see if maybe, just maybe, Dad had come to watch him play. Part of Kyle secretly believed that his father had run away, was hiding for some good reason, was waiting for the right moment to come back into Kyle’s life. How many times had his heart leaped at the sight of a shock of white hair, how many times had the vision sent him running, only to see that the man was not his father at all, just some old guy shuffling along?
It had lain dormant for a while now, this secret and forlorn hope, he hadn’t had a sighting in years. But suddenly here, on this pathetic little field, as he rounded first and headed for second and tracked the ball on its path deep into right center field, beyond the fence on Fitzwater Street, he spied the bob of gray hair, and, just that fast, something broke free in his heart.
He stopped in his tracks. And stared at the gray-headed figure. And the question came out in a breathless gasp, as desperate as the ache that suddenly ripped through his body.
“Daddy?”
OH, MY GOD, it was the funniest damn thing I ever saw,” said Skitch at McGillin’s Olde Ale House, the oldest continuously operating bar in Philadelphia and damn proud of it. Skitch was sitting at one of the long, narrow tables, with a red face and a pitcher of McGillin’s house lager in his fist. “Down by three, two on, and my man Kyle like Casey himself at the bat.”
“Who’s Casey?” said one of the women from Jersey.
“Wasn’t he the governor?” said another.
“Does he play baseball, too?”
“And then, bam, Kyle hits that ball an absolute ton,” said Skitch.
“A ton. And everyone, I mean everyone, starts howling and whooping. One run scores, Tommy, running like a sore-footed woodchuck, scores. And here comes Kyle, the tying run himself, motoring around first, heading for second, and then, and then . . .”
There were six of them huddled together at the table, Skitch and Kyle and Old Tommy Trapp along with the three women in from Jersey. Skitch had his arm around the neck of one of the women. The second was leaning as far from Old Tommy as she was able, as if Tommy were made of some overripe Limburger cheese. Kyle was dutifully ignoring the third, who sat across from him and whose name was Betsy and who was breathtakingly beautiful and seemed to know it at the start of the evening but wasn’t so sure anymore.
“Then what?” said Betsy, looking at Kyle with a narrowed eye. “Then he just stopped,” said Skitch. “But not on a base or anything. He just stopped, staring out into the outfield, toward Fitzwater Street. You should have seen Junior’s face when the second baseman tagged Kyle out while Kyle was just standing there. That was it—game, set, and match, and me on deck with a bat in my hands and nothing to do with it.”
“As usual,” said Kyle before finishing off his beer and slamming the mug back onto the table. Skitch lifted the pitcher and slopped what was left into Kyle’s mug.
“I don’t understand,” said Betsy.
“What’s to understand?” said Old Tommy. “The kid’s dumb as a tick. Were you smoking that wacky weed again, you freak? I told you about that stuff.”
“Yes, you did,” said Kyle.
“So was you?”
“No.”
“Well, there’s your problem right there,” said Tommy. “You got too many damn edges.” He turned to the woman next to him. “You got nice tits on you there.”
“Thank you,” she said as she leaned farther away.
“They real?”
She turned to her friends. “Can we go now? Please.”
“But why did he stop running?” said the woman with Skitch.
“Tell her, Kyle,” said Skitch.
Kyle turned to Betsy. “You have something there on your mouth. No, above. Yeah, right there. That’s it.”
“He thought he saw his dad,” said Skitch.
“Really?” said the woman with Skitch’s arm still around her neck. “That’s so sweet.”
“Yeah, it is sweet,” said Skitch. “Except his dad’s been dead for fifteen years.”
“Fourteen,” said Kyle.
“But who’s counting?” said Skitch. “Bro, Junior near split a gut.”
“He was so angry,” said Old Tommy, “you could have strummed ‘Oh! Susanna’ on the veins popping from his neck.”
“Let him find another shortstop,” said Kyle. “I’m sick of carrying that team anyway.”
“Did you really think it was your father?” said Skitch’s friend.
“I guess. I mean, it sort of looked like him. Same hair, you know that kind of moppy gray thing?”
“I still don’t understand,” said Betsy.
“There’s a lot she doesn’t understand, isn’t there?” said Kyle. He stood up without looking at Betsy and grabbed the pitcher. “I’ll get us a refill.”
As he was heading toward the tap, he heard Skitch say, “Did I tell you about the funerals? You got to hear about Kyle and the funerals.”
Kyle was at the bar, waiting on a fresh pitcher of the lager, when Skitch slipped beside him.
“You okay, bro?” said Skitch.
“Yeah, sure.” He looked over at the table. Old Tommy was laughing at something, his head thrown back, his toothless mouth agape. He looked like a grizzled old rooster laughing there. “What’s the name of that girl, the good-looking one, sitting next to me?”
“You mean the one you’ve been negging all night.”
“You think I’m overdoing it?”
“She’s almost in tears. Her name’s Betsy. And let me tell you, if I wasn’t hitting the other one, I’d hit that. Are you okay?”
“Sure, why not?”
“You don’t mind me telling the story, do you?”
“You know me, Skitch, I love being the butt of your jokes. It beats being your butt, that’s for sure.”
“It seemed funny to me, but here you are acting all hurt and bothered.”
“I guess I’m just feeling a little emotionally vulnerable tonight.”
“Really?”
“No, not really. Don’t worry about me, dude, it was nothing. A momentary lapse into pathetic adolescent angst. And you know what that means?”
“What?”
Kyle affected a bluff Russian accent. “Tonight we drink like fools.”
“But we are fools.”
“Perfect. You think she likes me?”
“Who, the babe? Well, she’s a little prim, not your typical fare. And you have been insulting her all night.”
“There’s that, true. But I still bet I’ll be making out with her before the night is over.”
“Yeah,” said Skitch, looking back at the table. “I bet you will, too.”
Later, in the dark corner of the bar, Kyle found himself softly cupping the curve of her blouse as he rubbed her teeth with his tongue. She tasted fresh, like he imagined daisies would taste with their linenwhite petals and pollen-filled centers. Her hair was blond and aromatic, her jaw trembled innocently as her lips pressed against his, her teeth were smooth, her breast was pert and responsive. And there was a moment, as he kissed her, pulled away to gaze into her dewy blue eyes, then kissed her again, a sublime moment when he felt fully calm and at peace. The bar fell away shard by shard until the surroundings turned dark and starry and they were in a universe of two and there was nothing he wanted more, nothing at all, than to lose himself in this woman’s arms. And he felt safe and calm, and he began to believe that maybe, yes, maybe this was the answer that had kept escaping him all these years, an answer so elusive he didn’t even know the question.
His answer pushed away and stared at him for an instant as her lovely nose wrinkled sweetly, and then she sneezed.
“I have to go,” she said.
“Don’t leave. I have a secret to tell you.”
“What?”
“Patience. It’s still early.”
“Not anymore.”
“What time is it?”
“Eleven-thirty.”
“See, early? Why don’t you stay a bit? We can go to my place. Talk about English. You teach English, right? I’m all for English. I even speak it.”
“I thought you said you were staying with a friend?”
“Well, her place, then.”
“Her place?”
“See, how cute is that, you going all jealous on me. But don’t worry about Kat. I’ve known her forever. She’s like a sister. Come on.”
“I can’t.”
He followed her gaze and saw her friends standing by the door with coats on, staring daggers at the two of them. Skitch was at a table talking to two sinister characters wearing baseball caps with flat brims and pretty much sharing a single eyebrow between them. Old Tommy Trapp was nowhere to be seen.
“This was nice,” she said.
“Yeah, it was. So nice.”
“Here.” She pulled out a pen, grabbed a napkin, wrote a number, and pressed it into his hand. “Call me.”
“I will.”
She leaned forward, kissed him on the lips, slipped a bit of tongue in for good measure, and then stood. “Do,” she said.
He watched her as she walked toward her friends. Her legs were well shaped, her hair was shiny, she had nice posture. And she was a teacher, which he liked. It was substantial and noble, and maybe she could get all stern and cross at him when he screwed up his homework. He imagined the smart slash of a ruler on his flesh when he ended a sentence with a preposition, and then he looked at the number in his hand. Maybe he actually would call her. Betty. Or Berty. No, something like that, but with an
s
. Esther? Yeah, that was it, Esther.
Funny, she didn’t look Jewish.
Skitch’s head swiveled as Esther walked out, and then he waved Kyle over to join him and his two companions, but Kyle shook him off. Skitch had a steady job with Comcast, putting in cable, and a lucrative side business putting in all sorts of rogue connections, but he still was always up to his chin in some shady scheme or other, and these two goons were most likely his newest partners. Kyle had so far successfully withstood Skitch’s entreaties to join in any of his nefarious business deals. The lure was easy money, and that was pretty much the only kind of money that Kyle liked, but Skitch seemed to be hustling pretty hard without getting very far. The whole point of Kyle’s life was to avoid hard work, and just because the hard work was probably illegal didn’t make it any more palatable.
So instead Kyle stood up, adjusted his pants a bit, and headed over the bar to grab a quick draft for the road. Just one more. There was something nagging at him that he couldn’t quite figure out, but one more beer and the nagging would stop and that would suit him just fine.
He elbowed his way into an empty spot, ordered a glass of lager, blew at the head when it came, and downed a spurt. He hadn’t eaten yet. He didn’t have much cash left, but McGillin’s had a decent burger for not much money and a hot turkey sandwich with masheds and gravy that was more than decent. He leaned on the bar, considered the possibilities as he took another drink, and then, through the windows facing Drury Street, he saw it again, the mop of gray hair bouncing along.
His emotions teetered for a moment before slipping into anger. He was being followed. Some old guy was following him. First the ball field, now this bar. Following him like a taunt. He swallowed what was left of the beer, slammed it on the bar, took out a few bills from his wallet to leave with the empty glass, and headed toward the exit.
“Kyle, yo, over here,” yelled out Skitch, but Kyle ignored him and barged through the door.
He looked right, looked left, saw a figure walking down the dimly illuminated street and turning onto Juniper. Kyle hop-stepped cautiously toward Juniper, turned the corner like a spy, and saw the man heading north, toward City Hall. City Hall, where his father had plied his trade in the city’s courts. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then followed, quickly, hustling to get close, to get a view. His sneakers smacked against the cement as he got closer.
The man stopped, turned around. Kyle pulled up short as the man eyed him.
He was nobody, nothing, just a man walking down the street, fortysome years old with a dark shirt and a head of prematurely gray hair. The man cocked his head and then turned around and kept going.
And Kyle felt stuck there, right there, on the sidewalk, as if the rubber of his soles had melted onto the cement. He needed somebody to pry him loose, and he thought of Kat.