The Spoiler (21 page)

The office Liuzza led him into was lined with books. Law and politics, even some literature. Liuzza's law degree hung on the wall, alongside a framed letter from Richard Sarafis, the liberal Democrat whose gubernatorial campaign Liuzza had recently joined. Liuzza collected photos of himself. In one he was standing with some Boston politicians; in another he posed with a woman and two children; still another showed him at MacKenzie Field with Brunner. Lofton's attention was drawn to a wall near the desk. He noticed a family portrait of some kind. Amanti was in it. There were lots of folks in the shot—an older couple, Tony Liuzza, a woman in a floral print dress—but Amanti stood out from the others. She stood next to an older woman whom Lofton guessed to be her mother. The picture was three, maybe four years old, judging from the style of Amanti's hair, her clothes, and the careless way she stood. A young couple was at the edge of the photograph. When Lofton glanced up, he saw that Liuzza had been studying him, watching him as he looked at the picture.

“Jack Brunner took that photo one weekend, when we were all out at my father's house.”

“Who's this?” Lofton asked, pointing at the young couple.

“That's David Kelley, the state senator from Holyoke. He and I used to work together. At a small law firm back after I first graduated.”

Although Lofton doubted he would have recognized Kelley on his own, he could see it now; this was the same man whose picture he had run across during his research in the library. Lofton looked at Amanti again, then at the woman in the floral print dress on Kelley's other side. The woman wore a beleaguered expression.

“This his wife?”

“Yes.” Liuzza spoke emphatically, as if pleased Lofton had deduced the relationship. “Her father is Jim Harrison.”

Lofton nodded. Of course he'd heard of Harrison. Harrison was a powerful man. U.S. senator for decades. Lieutenant governor a long time back. Served on all kinds of presidential commissions. So Kelley had married well.

“I won't beat around with it, Frank.” Liuzza said Lofton's first name tentatively, studying Lofton's face, as if to see if it was all right to establish that intimacy. “I have a proposition to make, something I've been meaning to talk to you about. But first … I'll just say what I have to say.”

Lofton opened his notebook.

“No.” Liuzza frowned. “This is off the record. Can you go with that?”

“What is it that you want?”

Liuzza frowned, looking thoughtful, but there was no sign of anything else, any hidden intention.

“You've been seeing Gina Amanti, my cousin?”

“What are you getting at?”

Liuzza shook his head. “No. I'm not trying to interfere. I'd been meaning to talk to you anyway. About the political campaign … What business do you have with Gina? Something to do with the newspaper?” Liuzza controlled the tone of his question well, as if he were simply curious.

“How do you know I've been seeing her?”

“The ballpark's a small place, word gets around.… But I wouldn't worry about it,” Liuzza went on. “People always talk, and it's natural, though I have to admit I get concerned at times.”

There was a long silence now. Liuzza studied the top of the desk. Lofton looked at a picture of Liuzza's family. A very ordinary picture. The wife was good-looking but not beautiful. One of the children had his father's smile.

“My concern is for Gina—that you know how delicate the situation is, how delicate she is. I'm her cousin, but I'm closer than just that. Her brother died when she was young. Then, not too long after, her father died. My parents took her mother in, and they tried to help Gina get through school. Gina's like a sister to me. Though we don't always get along, I have a lot of loyalty to her.”

Liuzza's eyes were clear; they even had a certain sparkle. He was a different person here in his own office, away from Brunner and the ballpark. Lofton thought how good he would be in the education post he wanted. People would believe Liuzza, they would trust him, and he would do anything, Lofton thought, to get what the position demanded. The only thing he had to do was learn to control his smile, the sudden look of pain. With practice he could probably learn to use it to his advantage.

“Anyway, I realize that you're a reporter and that you have a job to do, but Gina's had some unhealthy things happen to her, and—”

“I'm not writing a story about Gina. If that's what you're worried about. She's not quite headline news.”

“No, no.”

“I'm not fucking her either. If that's what you're worried about.”

Liuzza retained his composure. There was no trace of the smile, nothing. His eyes were the same merry blanks.

“All right,” Liuzza said. His tone implied, however, that it was not all right, but that he had other things to say, and those things, once said, would set matters straight. “That's between you two, and it's beside the point. Not at all why I contacted you. As I said, I've been meaning to talk to you for quite some time, before any of this came up. I called the people down at the
Dispatch
—the papers know me, as you can guess—and I asked around. I need somebody to help us with some political writing.”

Lofton still did not understand.

“An editor there, Kirpatzke, he suggested you.”

“Me?” said Lofton. “I'm crime, sports, only sometimes politics. I don't know what's going on locally.”

“Sometimes that's even better. Gives a new perspective. Besides, Kirpatzke said you had experience with this kind of thing, back in California. That you were a press secretary. What do you think?”

Lofton thought it was hilarious, though it was not the kind of hilarious that made you feel like laughing. It gave him the same feeling he'd had as a teenager looking into one of those fun house mirrors and remembering how a few years before, when he'd been even younger, just a snot-nose kid with a dead mother, those mirrors had made him laugh; only looking into the mirrors again, when he was a grown-up kid, almost a man, he'd found the reflection wasn't quite so funny anymore. It was the same way now. Here he was in Holyoke, tracing a story that someone didn't want him to trace, just as he had done in California. Here again was the man-behind-the-desk with the promise of money and a better job, maybe even a dog's share of power. Only now, the second time around, he felt no excitement, as if it weren't just the mirror that was warped and cheap.

“What do I have to do?”

“Write a few speeches, focused to the local interests, that's all.”

“What issues?”

“We don't need anything yet, not for a few weeks. Meantime, we'll give you a retainer and be in touch.”

Liuzza handed him a check. A thousand dollars. In a way he was insulted; it really wasn't that much money, a mere spit in the ocean of the Liuzza family wealth.

“Lot more than I'd make for a story.”

“I don't want you working on any stories for a while. This is more important,” said Liuzza. “This is the future of Massachusetts.”

“Wouldn't Jack Brunner disagree? From what I understand, he's not on the same side as you and Kelley, at least not this time. Doesn't he think his future is with the other candidate?”

“I've been working on Jack. I think he's going to come around to our side.”

Lofton glanced again at the picture of Amanti. He listened vaguely while Liuzza bantered about the good things that were going to happen to the state when Richard Sarafis got back into office. Liuzza explained that Brunner and himself and Kelley had known each other for a while, and though Jack disagreed sometimes on policy, he basically shared their sensibility. Brunner would come around soon, Liuzza was sure. Out in the hall, when Lofton turned to shake Liuzza's hand, he saw that Liuzza's hair, somehow, had gotten mussed during their conversation. The man's voice shifted, becoming higher, slightly out of control.

“You know, you're right, though; there are some nasty rumors going around the ballpark. Somebody even said you were working on a story to embarrass the team.”

“That's ridiculous,” Lofton said. “I love baseball.”

“I know, I know. Kirpatzke said you're good as gold.”

Lofton looked hard at Liuzza's face, trying to catch the mask when it dropped. No mask. The man's eyes were honest as corn on the way to market. There was only the smile, the thin red line across the face, to betray him.

On the way back to Holyoke Lofton drummed the conversation around in his head. Last night Amanti had tried to beg him off the story. And now Liuzza had given him this check. One thing seemed clear: He'd been given the money to drop what he'd been working on. His first thought was that Brunner had somehow found out he was on to the fires. Brunner got Liuzza to try to buy me off, Lofton thought, but then he wasn't so sure. It didn't quite fit. The two men weren't exactly cozy these days. He remembered the picture of Kelley on Liuzza's wall, the strange voice on Amanti's telephone, the trouble he'd had getting through to the senator's office in Boston. Lofton felt one of those chills people talk about, the kind you get when some truth is suddenly revealed, only you don't know quite what it is, and you feel the iceman's fingers dancing on your spine. Then the feeling was gone, and he could not figure what he had missed.

That night there were more sirens. The fire trucks drove down Lofton's street; their wailing and crying woke him up. No sooner had one truck turned the corner—its siren's echo fading, whipping, and whirling through some distant alley—than yet another truck left the station. It had to be a big fire this time, but Lofton did not get up. He did not even remember the sirens until the next morning when he was walking by the ballpark, near a senior citizens' home. A cloud of white smoke rose steadily into the air at the end of the block. A single fire truck stood parked in front of a large lot where a building had been burned. Not much stood, not even the shell, of what had been an empty apartment building. Though the fire seemed under control, two lines of fire fighters remained, dousing the wreckage with water from their big hoses. The water curled into steam when it hit the brick. Across the way a group of old men and women stood in front of their building and watched. Their lobby windows had been blown out by the heat explosion. The paint on the cars out front was blistered.

“You from the paper?” called an old man with a grotesque, mottled face that appeared to have been scarred from birth. The man leered up at Lofton. “I found the fire. I was the first one. Somebody set it, three places. I saw the flames. By the time I called the fire department it was too late.”

“Anybody die?” Lofton asked.

The old man's eyes lit up. “Maybe so. Usually there's somebody squatting in these buildings. They move out when it catches fire, then come back with their mattresses when it cools down. But nobody'll move back into this one.”

The old man did not want to let Lofton go. At one point he even grabbed on to his elbow; his fingers were bony; his grip was fierce and determined.

“Let me go,” Lofton shouted, suddenly hysterical. The old man looked hurt. Lofton was embarrassed. To satisfy the old man, he wrote down his name as if it would be in the paper.

Later that day Lofton mentioned the fire to Kirpatzke at the
Dispatch
.

“Got it covered,” said the editor. “You work on your own business.”

6

The heat wave broke. The wind blew in from the north, the temperature dropped, and clouds gathered over the hills. At MacKenzie Field the talk in the press box revolved around the weather, and around Sparks. Coach Barker, after watching Sparks warm up, had yanked him out of the starting rotation. Golden came to the box to tell Tenace to change his scorecard.

“What's the story?” asked Rhiner.

“No story,” said Golden. He did not look at the reporter, or at Lofton, only at Tenace. “Barker just wants to try Hammer as a starter.”

Golden left as soon as he had given Tenace Hammer's stats. Lofton watched him amble down the right field line. He couldn't help liking Golden; at least he was intrigued by the man. He had mixed feelings about writing a story that would drag him lower. Given Amanti's sudden reluctance, he had mixed feelings about writing the story at all. For a moment he felt the same lethargy he'd felt in California during those weeks between the time he'd found out about Hansen and the time he'd quit his job; he felt the inability to do anything that made any sense, the itch to leave.

“That's the trouble with this team,” Rhiner complained. “Nobody tells you anything. Act like everything's a goddamn secret.”

“No secret,” said Tenace. “He's been drinking.”

“Sparks?”

“Nah, Golden. You could smell it all over him. Who knows what Sparks has been doing.”

Rhiner scowled. “I didn't smell anything.”

Lofton watched Golden cross the field. The general manager had his head bowed, as if deep in thought or brooding. He did not walk as if he were drunk.

“Sparks had himself a bad case of red eye this morning, too. Doesn't look like he's been sleeping much. He's speeding, you ask me.”

“You think everyone's on drugs.”

“They all are,” said Tenace. “Don't you read the papers?”

“Haven't you ever heard of high-strung? That's what Sparks is. High-strung.” Rhiner lowered his voice, sighing. “Almost took my head off when I asked him how his arm's been feeling.”

“Either way, he's losing out, and he knows it.” Tenace nodded with satisfaction. “The Blues'll never take him up now.”

“It's just temporary. His arm needs rest.”

“Should've rested him months ago,” said Tenace.

Lofton stood up. Golden was headed down the right field line. He decided to catch up to him, even though the idea frightened him a little. It might be risky to broach the subject of the arsons directly.