The Fan (11 page)

Three: outside Everest and Co., 3:07. Every meter taken, the nearest lot three blocks away. Gil swung the car in a U-turn and braked hard beside a hydrant on the other side of the street. Then he grabbed his sample case and ran: across the street, up the steps, through the door, into the lobby. Elevators all in use. He charged up the stairs, piss-soaked pants clinging to his cold skin, beery tie waving like a flag over his shoulder. Three flights. Down the carpeted, softly lit hall and into the outer office of the purchasing VP, the door banging open against the wall.

“Chuck here?”

“Excuse me?”

“Chuck. Two-thirty.” Gil sucked in a lungful of air. “Couldn’t be helped.”

“Excuse me?”

“Being late. The traffic …”

The secretary had a little turned-up nose. Not Angie, Chuck’s usual secretary, Gil realized, and let his words trail off. She sniffed the air. “You’re?”

“Gil Renard. R. G. Renard Fine Knives. Chuckie and I
had a two-thirty meeting, should be there on your schedule, but like I said—”

She held up her hand, a stubby hand with bitten nails. “He’s not here.”

“Shit.”

“Begging your pardon?”

“He’s gone already?”

“That’s what I said.”

“What flight’s he on?” Gil said, a backup plan forming in his mind.

“Flight?”

“To Chicago. Unless he’s not going anymore?”

“He’s going,” the secretary said. “But not till tonight.”

Gil went closer to her desk, his backup plan already revising itself. “Then maybe I could catch him somewhere before he heads for the airport.”

“I don’t think so,” the secretary said. “He’s going straight there from the ball game.”

“From where?” He was leaning over her desk now, plan forgotten. His damp socks slipped down around his ankles. “From where did you say?”

She rolled her chair back a little. “The ball game. But he left you this note,” she said, holding up a sealed envelope.

He snatched it from her hand, tore it open.

Gil—

Gil read the note twice. The first time the noise in his head made him miss some of the details. Then he balled it in his hand and squeezed hard. The secretary was watching him, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “He didn’t draw a smiley face, did he?”

“What?”

“The previous assistant got him in the habit of putting a smiley face instead of
sincerely
. I keep telling him it’s not always appropriate.”

Gil tried to think of something stinging to say, but couldn’t. All he could think of were targets for the tight paper ball in his hand: Chuck’s window, the photograph of Chuck and his family on the wall, Chuck’s secretary’s hard little face. He dropped it on the carpet instead, like dog shit, and walked out.

Out. The irony had already hit him, but it hit him again. It hit him on the elevator, and in the lobby. And again when he got to the street:
he’s going straight there from the ball game
. Gil knew about irony; he went to the movies. He almost laughed out loud, might have done so if he hadn’t suddenly thought of something, a strange quote that he couldn’t place or understand:
They kill us for their sport
. Didn’t understand: but knew that only an idiot would laugh.

They kill us for their sport: he could fax that to Garrity, by way of explanation. Gil, standing on the sidewalk outside Everest and Co., was just beginning to think of how he would handle Garrity, when he noticed the tow truck on the other side of the street. It had already hooked a car, and, as he watched, it lifted the front end off the pavement with a jerk. A 325i, just like his. That was Gil’s first thought.

Then he was racing across the street, tearing off his tie.

“That’s my car,” he shouted at the tow-truck driver, through the rolled-up window of the cab. The driver, wearing headphones, didn’t hear. Gil banged hard on his door. The driver turned, startled, yanked off the headphones.

“That’s my car.”

The driver snapped down the door lock with his elbow. The window slid open a couple of inches. “You can pick it up at the pound,” he said, closing the window and putting the headphones back on.

“Fuck that.” Gil grabbed the handle of the driver’s door, struggled with it. The tow truck began rolling. Gil hung on, running alongside, screaming unbidden words through the driver’s window until the bumper of a parked car caught his left knee. He went down, lost his grip, looked up in time to see the 325i go by on two wheels, like a hobbled prisoner, and hear his phone buzzing inside.

Gil got to his feet. Suit pants ripped at the knee, blood seeping through the polyblend fabric. There was blood in his mouth too. He spat it out, and maybe a tooth as well. Cars went by. No one seemed to notice him. No one gave a shit. Well, he knew that already, right? A taxi approached. Gil stuck up his hand and it pulled over, proving he wasn’t invisible.

“Where to?”

“The pound.”

“Dog pound?”

“Car pound, for Christ’s sake.” As the cab pulled away, Gil saw his lucky tie curled up in the gutter. He opened the window and spat out more blood.

A twelve-dollar ride. At the car pound, he paid $50 for parking by a hydrant, $90 for the tow, and $25 for one day’s storage, even though the car hadn’t been there for twenty minutes.

Gil unlocked it, got in. He took a deep breath to calm himself. The nice smell of leather and wax was gone. The car smelled of piss.

Gil saw his face in the mirror, scratched and hard. He grinned. One of his lower teeth was chipped. He ran his tongue along the roughened edge, and thought of serrated blades pounding deep. Was he looking and sounding successful? Taking the offensive? Ignoring rejection? He ran the rules of the successful commission salesman through his mind, searching for some clue. No clues; he just knew he wanted a shower. First a shower, then a drink.

“What’re you waiting for, bud?”

Gil turned the key. His gaze fell on the dashboard clock: 4:27.

4:27. At that moment, he remembered Richie.

He snapped on JOC-Radio. A voice said: “We’ll be right back with the wrap-up and all the scores from around the league.”

Gil stomped on the gas. He shot through the gate of the car pound, fishtailed around a corner, clipping something, he didn’t know what; only to brake half a block later into a long line of rush-hour traffic. The phone buzzed. He grabbed it.

“Richie?”

But it wasn’t Richie. “Been trying to reach you.” Garrity. “How’d it go?”

“How did what go?”

“Everest. What else? Is something wrong?”

“Wrong?”

“You sound funny.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Gil said. His tongue found the jagged tooth edge and rubbed hard.

“Meaning what, in dollars and cents?”

“Can’t go into it now. I’m on a call.”

Pause. “See you tomorrow, then.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Second Wednesday.”

“Sales conference?”

“You got it, boyo.”

Clouds rolled in from the north, grew heavier, sank over the downtown buildings. On the road, where the best ideas were supposed to happen, Gil waited for one, about Richie, about the sales conference, his tooth, anything. None came. He listened to something scraping under the car, squeezed the steering wheel until his hands cramped. He didn’t reach the ballpark until 5:18.

Gil sprang out of the car, ran to the nearest gate. It was locked. Beyond the chain link, unlit ramps curved away into the shadows. No one was around.

“Hey!” Gil called. “Hey!”

A veiny-faced old man in a red blazer appeared on the other side.

“Yeah?” he said.

“My boy’s in there.”

“Huh?”

“I was supposed to meet him. He hasn’t come out.”

“No way,” the old man said. “We do a sweep. There’s nobody.”

Gil glanced around, saw a few people on the street, but no kids. “Then where is he?” The question echoed through the concrete spaces under the stands, and Gil realized he’d been shouting. He lowered his voice. “Let me in.”

The old man disappeared. He returned a few minutes later. “Checked security. No lost kids. You must have missed him in the crush.”

Gil’s voice rose again. “He’s in there.”

The man went away, came back with a second man, much younger, wearing a suit and the air of authority. “What’s the problem?”

Gil explained.

“Let him in,” said the man in the suit.

“But there’s no kid in here,” said the old man.

“He’ll see that for himself.”

The old man unlocked the gate. Gil went in, walked with them up the ramp and out into the stands. Every seat empty. Fans, players, marine color guard, president of the United States, even the Opening Day bunting—all gone. He made his way down to section BB, seats 3 and 4, just the same, in case Richie had left a note. He hadn’t, or if he had it had been swept up with the popcorn, beer cups, scorecards, icecream wrappers.

“Richie,” Gil called, down the left-field line, out to center, down the right-field line. “Richie, Richie.” The ballpark was silent. The first drops of rain made the infield tarp quiver here and there. Gil turned to find the two men watching him from the walkway above. He mounted the steps, felt their eyes on him all the way.

“Maybe he’s in the can,” Gil said.

“We do a sweep,” replied the man in the suit. “Didn’t you tell him?”

“Sure I told him,” said the oldest man. “You think I don’t know my job after fifty-six years?”

Gil just stood there. The man in the suit glanced down at Gil’s torn pant leg. “That it, then?” he said.

Gil didn’t say anything. The old man said, “That’s it,” for him.

The man in the suit said, “Then show this gentleman out.”

The old man walked Gil to the gate. His mood improved as he swung it open. “Nothing to get stressed about,” he said.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You know—uptight,” said the old man. “Happens all the time. Probably went home on his own.”

Would Richie know how? Gil wasn’t sure.

“Or he’s waiting in a burger joint,” the old man said, locking the gate.

That was a thought. Gil stepped quickly into the street, without looking. A big Jeep swerved to avoid him. Gil caught a glimpse of Bobby Rayburn at the wheel, laughing into a car phone.

Gil tried all the restaurants and coffee shops within three blocks of the ballpark. He described Richie to a hot-dog vendor, a street cop, and a woman who might have been a hooker. Then he got into his car and drove up and down the streets around the ballpark. Night fell.
Probably went home on his own
. Gil turned toward the expressway and Ellen’s. Something dragging under the car scraped pavement all the way.

It was raining hard by the time Gil pulled up at the South Shore triplex. Light shining over the front door, no anxious faces peering from the windows: Gil saw nothing unusual except the big Mercedes parked behind Ellen’s car in the driveway.

He knocked on the door. Footsteps. The door opened. Tim.

Gil blurted it out. “Have you got Richie?”

Tim licked his lips. “Ellen?” he called.

Ellen appeared. Her cheeks flushed at the sight of him. That meant she had Richie—thank God, Gil said to himself, he really thanked God—but he asked anyway.

“Richie here?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Don’t start.”

“Don’t you start. Or do you think you’re the injured party? That would be just your style—feeling sorry for yourself.”

“Where is he?”

“Safely asleep in his bed, no thanks to you.”

“I can explain, Ellen.”

“No one wants to hear it.”

“Richie will.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I owe it to him anyway.”

“No one could repay what you owe. And I said he was asleep.”

“Isn’t it a little early?”

“Not for an exhausted nine-year-old boy. Physically and emotionally exhausted.”

“Then I’ll just go up and have a peek at him.”

“You will not,” Ellen said.

“He’s my son.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“What do you mean by that?” No reply. Gil stepped into the hall. Did Tim really move to block him? Gil brushed past him, brushed past Ellen too.

“Stop,” Ellen said.

Did she really grab his arm, dig her fingernails through his jacket? That wasn’t her at all. What was going on? He shook her off, kept going toward the stairs. As he went past the entrance to the living room, a woman said, “That’s him.”

He glanced in, saw an old couple sitting on the couch, cups and saucers on their laps. Gil recognized the woman: she was still wearing her Harvard cap.

“Just a minute,” the man said, rising. He was tall, square-shouldered, well but modestly dressed: the picture of all
those bullshit Yankee virtues. “I don’t believe Ellen wants you in her house.”

“I don’t believe it’s got anything to do with you.” Gil faced the man.

Ellen grabbed his arm again, but she didn’t use her nails this time. “What is wrong with you? You should be down on your knees thanking these people.”

“That’s not necessary,” said the man.

“On the contrary, Judge,” said Tim. “Who knows what could have happened to Richie?”

Gil turned on Tim. Tim had a smile on his face that Gil had never seen before and didn’t like at all. Gil shoved him against the wall. “Not another word,” he said. Then he climbed the stairs.

There were two bedrooms on the second floor. The first, once his and Ellen’s, now Ellen’s alone, or Ellen’s and Tim’s, who cared? The second, Richie’s. The door was open a few inches, the way Richie liked, or at least the way he had liked it when they had all still been together; and the room was dark inside. Gil went in. A shaft of hall light fell across the bed. Richie lay with his face toward the wall.