Something for Nothing (35 page)

“Hey there,” he said. “
Hola
. Do you remember me? I'm looking for Lucille. You know, the one I was with before.”

But instead of greeting him with recognition—even pretend recognition (because, of course, there was no reason the guy should know who he was)—the guy ignored him. Just sat there, smiling, but looking off into space, across the street. He was so transfixed that Martin turned around to see what he was looking at. But Martin couldn't see anything terribly interesting—certainly not as interesting as a paying American customer, right? What did he have to do, wave a handful of dollars under his nose? They were still worth more than the fucking peso, right?

When he turned back around, the guy still hadn't looked up at him. No acknowledgment. For a second Martin thought that the guy
did
actually remember him, and that he was fucking with him, maybe because he was mad at him. For the puking and all that. But he'd paid his money, right?

So he tapped the guy on the shoulder. But still, nothing. And then, in a fit of exasperation, he leaned down and yelled into the guy's face.

“Hey!” he yelled. “Remember me?”

No response.

So finally, though he knew it was a risk, he grabbed the guy by both shoulders and started shaking him.

And then he woke up, bolting upright in bed with a start. Light was streaming through the sliding glass door, and when he looked at the clock, he saw that it was late—after nine already. He listened for a second for household sounds, but then remembered that Linda was off at Sharon's with the kids, and that he was alone.

…

W
HEN LINDA AND THE
kids weren't home by noon (no, he wasn't going to call again; once was enough), he got into his car. Val had told him to stop by. He wanted to talk about the horse, but he also wanted to give Martin the money for the next trip to Mexico. Val was leaving town early Saturday morning, the sixth, and he wanted to do it today.

It was a problem. Not the money handoff. Martin could handle that. In fact, it would give him extra time to go through it, touch it, look at it (though he'd have to hide it where Linda couldn't find it, obviously—she was now a proven snoop). No, the problem was that Val wanted him to leave for Mexico July 8. That was the night of the A's game. The whole Gaylord Perry thing. Jesus Christ.

Worse still, Linda told him that she'd found a letter Peter had written to Sal Bando. Not a “Jesus hates you” letter (thank God). Instead, it was a letter explaining to Bando about how to bat against a spitball pitcher like Gaylord Perry. Linda had shown it to Martin. It was written in Peter's chicken-scratch cursive, and it explained how Perry probably got the Vaseline from the bill of his cap: “So when you see him adjust his cap, you will know it's going to be a spitball.” It went on to explain that the ball would dive downward at the last second, and that he (Bando) should aim lower than usual. “You should tell everyone else on the team about this, and then you guys will beat his winning streak, and go on to win the World Series again. Go A's.” It was signed “A Secret Fan. Peter Anderson (You're Neighbor).”

Peter's plan, according to Linda, was to put it in Bando's mailbox on the Fourth of July, when he figured the Bandos would be home. Martin wondered if Linda had swung by their house on the way out to Sharon's. He hoped so. He also hoped Linda had corrected his spelling.

Martin sighed. Had there ever been anything cuter? Probably not. Now, though, Val had him flying down to Mexico the very day of the game. Martin was hoping to persuade Val to wait a day for the trip, but he was pretty sure it wouldn't go over so well. Val didn't strike Martin as the sentimental type, especially when it came to money.

As he pulled into Val's drive, it occurred to Martin that if he were truly desperate, he could get Linda to take Peter to the game. That wouldn't be so bad, he thought as he drove up the steep hill. It was already warm, and with the windows down he could smell the sweet scent of the eucalyptus trees. She'd do it, but it would give her yet another reason to be pissed off at him. But maybe it would be useful: she'd see how good the tickets were, and how hard he'd worked to set this up for Peter. And it wasn't like he was heading off on some sort of pleasure trip to Mexico (though his hangover after the first trip was going to make that hard to believe).

He parked next to Val's Caddy. Next to that was the red Mercedes that Angela drove: a '72 Benz 350, one of those with the removable hard top. It was a nice car, but it didn't have those curved wells coming off of the headlights that Martin liked in the earlier models, especially the ones from the late sixties. Still, he'd take it if someone offered it to him.

Sitting there with the window down, Martin could hear Rex barking. He cut the engine and listened. He knew that if Val yelled at the dog, that would be it—total silence. But apparently Val was inside, or maybe down by the stables. Because the dog was going at it.
Woof, woof, woof.
In spite of himself, Martin was afraid to get out of the car, and so he sat there for another minute, listening.
Woof, woof—woof-woof-woof.

Jeez, Martin thought. He's really barking. But as he listened he also realized the dog wasn't by the gate. The barking was a ways off, which meant that Rex was probably down in his kennel. Maybe that's why Val wasn't doing anything to shut him up. Martin wondered for a second if Val was actually home, but he reminded himself that both his car and Angela's were sitting right next to him. They didn't have another car, only Val's big horse trailer. Plus, Val had said he'd be around, and he was never wrong about meeting times.

Martin opened his door and got out of his car. Standing up, he could see further into Val's yard: the big acacia tree on the right, next to the
house, and to the left the edge of the pool. And then past that, down the slight hill, the top of the dog's kennel. But the yard was empty.

Martin walked over to the thick metal gate and shouted out a greeting.

“Hello?” he yelled. “Val? Angela? Is the dog locked up? It's me, Martin.”

There was no response, only Rex's continued barking. If anything, he started barking more frantically.

“Val!” Martin yelled. “Hello?”

More barking.

Okay, Martin thought. The dog is obviously locked up. Val probably walked down to the lower field where the horses are. I can walk down and find him, and if I see the dog, I'll dash inside and wait in the kitchen.

And so, trying to be quick and quiet, he lifted the latch and slipped through the gate. When he pushed it shut behind him, Rex literally began to howl. Martin jumped, and then scooted at a quick half-jog toward the door. Jesus, he thought. This is ridiculous.

He saw that the sliding glass door was open about six inches. He was still nervous about the dog, but he didn't want to blunder inside unannounced, even into the kitchen.

“Hello?” he yelled into the narrow opening. It was dark inside, and he couldn't see anything. “Angela? Val?”

There was no answer, and so he had to decide what to do. Option A was to walk into the kitchen, then out into the beautiful living room, with its high ceiling and big windows, and then maybe down the long hallway that led to the rear of the house. Option B was to just stand there in the doorway, yelling like an asshole.

Maybe, he thought, they're having sex, and I'm going to ruin things for them. He wouldn't be surprised—Val seemed like a pretty randy guy, and he had a feeling that Angela liked that about him.

Or maybe she's in the shower, he thought, and Val's somewhere else. He listened for the sound of water running, or something like that, a vacuum, maybe, but he didn't hear anything.

He changed his mind. I'm not going in there and making an ass of myself. I'm gonna go find Val.

Rex kept barking, but he'd been at it long enough that Martin was pretty positive that he couldn't get out of his kennel. And as Martin went down the path toward the stables, he saw that the dog really was locked up. He was in his kennel, and the door was secured. Though when the dog saw Martin, he jumped up and planted both his huge paws on the chain-link fence and shifted into a ferocious series of quick, guttural barks.

“Rex,” Martin shouted, trying to sound friendly. He was hoping that, combined with a familiar tone, the sound of his own name would calm him down a little bit. “It's okay, Rex. Good boy, Rex.”

But this only made him angrier.
Woof-woof-woof.
Fucking hell, Martin thought. That dog really would kill me if it had the chance. What kind of pet is that?

He shouted Val's name again, and then, willing himself to ignore the dog, he walked the hundred yards or so down the long, paved path that led to the stables. Again he thought about how this would be a great setting for a slow, thoughtful walk with Temperature's Rising, Jim McKay, and a camera crew. And with that he remembered that someone, maybe Val at dinner, had mentioned that a reporter from the local paper,
The Tri-Valley Herald,
had said he was going to run a short article about Temperature's Rising's win. He was going to have to get his hands on one of those. It wasn't
Wide World of Sports,
but it would be kind of cool just the same.

But even as he mused about Jim McKay, he was feeling irritated. Why am I running around like this on the morning after the Fourth? His fantasy about a spot on national television was spoiled. Instead, by the time he got to the stables and pushed the door open, he was working out a comment to Val about his shitty hospitality.

The sun was brighter than Martin had realized, and so the darkness of the stable was disorienting. He stood in the doorway, waiting for his eyes to adjust. And then, up ahead of him, just past the four horse
stalls, he thought he saw Val sitting on a bale of hay out in the larger barn area.

“Val?” he said. He took a few steps forward, shading his eyes even though he was now out of the sun. “Is that you?” he asked, walking forward now. “What the fuck, Val. Didn't you hear me calling you?”

His eyes had adjusted to the semidarkness of the barn. He could see now that it was definitely Val, and that he was sitting there in the shadows, looking right at him. He was wide-eyed, and his mouth was open, as if he was about to say something. But it was still hard to make him out clearly.

“Val?” Martin said again. “Are you all right?” He walked toward him, feeling the crunch of hay and dirt under his hard-soled alligator shoes. He noticed that the stalls were empty—Temperature's Rising and the other horses were probably in the lower field.

Val was sitting semiupright on a hay bale, leaning back against one of the big eight-by-eight support posts. He was wearing a yellow short-sleeved shirt and whitish khaki pants. But even in the half-light of the barn, Martin could see that he had a rope of some sort gathered loosely around his shoulders and waist and even his neck. It was one of those nice nylon ropes Val used with the horses, and as he looked closer Martin could see that it was actually wrapped around the support post. Like he'd been tied up, Martin realized. But even as he thought this, he noticed as well that Val's shirt was soaked with something dark. And, he realized suddenly, it was the same on the pants. The crotch and thighs were soaked.

Martin took a small step forward, then another one. Then he saw (and heard) a bunch of flies buzz away from Val's stomach, and he jumped back with a yelp.

Holy shit, he thought. That's blood.

“Val?” he said. He took another step forward, then stopped, transfixed by Val's stare. He was looking right at Martin. But Martin realized that although Val's eyes were open, he was dead. Or he was probably dead.

He kneeled about three feet away from Val, peering. It didn't look like he was breathing. Then, slowly, Martin leaned forward on all fours, and then he crawled toward him—a careful, I-don't-want-to-get-dirty cat crawl. The ground was surprisingly cool, he noticed.

He stopped when he was about a foot away and started to stand up, reaching toward Val's neck. Check for a pulse, he told himself.

But as he reached forward he found he was leaning a little too far, and he tipped, hand outward, into Val's right shoulder. He caught himself, but it was enough to knock Val sideways. He slid over slowly, and then his body made a muffled thump as it slid off the hay bale and onto the ground.

Martin jumped back with a yelp and landed on his ass. A couple more flies buzzed away from Val in a noisy, skittering zigzag.

Martin sat there and looked at Val. He definitely looked like he was dead. Yes, his eyes were open, but they were staring blankly ahead, at a spot just in front of him on the barn floor. It didn't matter what Martin did—shout or whistle or clap his hands—Val wasn't going to look up at him.

He let his gaze travel over Val's body. He noticed that in addition to the rope around his upper body and neck, there was some sort of thick wire wrapped around his right hand. And, he realized, the hand and the wire were covered with blood. He stared at the wire, and as he did he saw that it, too, was attached to the big post behind Val. The wire had been wrapped around the post a bunch of times, and then it stretched down to Val, and was wrapped a bunch of times around his hand and wrist. Jesus, Martin thought. What the fuck happened here?

Something on the ground caught his eye. It was a pair of wire cutters. The kind you used for cutting baling wire. Martin had seen Val use them to open a new bale of hay for the horses. They were lying a few feet away from Val. When he looked closer he saw that they were wet. They were glistening a little bit in the dim light. And then, not far from the wire cutters, Martin saw what looked like a finger. It had
some dirt caked on it, but it was lying on a little clump of straw . . . almost as if someone had set it there to keep it from getting dirty. Martin looked back at Val's bloody wire-wrapped hand, and saw that one of his fingers—his pinky—was cut off at the second knuckle.