"Fires? Just fires?"
"Just fires." He saw the look on her face, and he smiled. "What is it?"
"Nothing, nothing at all."
"You were getting excited, weren't you?"
Again the jerky laugh. "Yeah, I guess I was."
"Well, how does it sound to you?"
"It sounds like heaven."
And it was, she thought as she lay beside the pool, her eyes closed against the Florida sun. Years and years of heavenly fires, and now he wants one more. One last fire tomorrow for the only man who ever truly understood me. All the others were for me, David, but this one is for you, and I'm going to make it a beaut.
"They had a chance and they blew it. It could have been a diplomatic coup," said Mike Teague. He pronounced it coop. The old man propped up in bed, a stained and wrinkled pajama top showing over the covers. He had a three-day growth of stubble on his face, and his wispy white hair stuck out in all directions. "It coulda solved the whole Cuban business in one stroke of the pen. You know how?"
"How?" Julio asked politely.
"Baseball, that's how. Cuban people are crazy about baseball, right?"
"Right," Julio agreed, conjuring up childhood memories.
"So here you got the National League, they add two more expansion teams, which is stupid in the first place because you got too many teams already, not enough major-league talent to go around, but that's something else. So they add two more teams, and who do they pick? Miami and Denver, that's who. Okay, nothing wrong with that, but can you imagine what happens if they pick Havana instead of Miami?"
"Havana?" Julio started to grin.
"Don't laugh. You put Havana into the National League and you got Cuba back on our side again. I mean, what's stronger, communism or baseball?"
"Baseball, of course."
"See what I mean? It brings the countries together."
"It's a thought," Julio admitted.
"A thought? It's a natural. You know, Castro was a ballplayer once, a good one."
Julio nodded. The story of the Maximum Leader's tryout with the old New York Giants was a part of Cuban folklore. Havana in the National League? It was a crazy idea, but like most of Teague's ideas there was a germ of sense in it. That was why he enjoyed spending time in the old man's room. He was a cranky old goat, but he had a never-ending fund of sports stories, and the walls of his room were covered with photographs. There were boxers with names like Tiger Arroyo, Battling Benny, the Williamsburg Kid, the Chocolate Kid, and Kid Kelly. There was a photo of the Brooklyn Dodgers, with Mike Teague the assistant trainer. There were team photos of the colleges at which he had worked: the Bowdoin lacrosse team, the Hamilton football team, the Van Buren basketball squad. There were photos of track men breasting tapes, a discus thrower at the moment of release, a vaulter caught in midfight. Every photo was signed; Mike wouldn't have any other kind. Julio was the old man's favorite audience. He had heard the stories so many times that he knew most of them by heart, but he always listened politely.
Julio, check in. The thought came winging from somewhere near.
Right here, Snake, he replied. All quiet.
Where's here?
Mike Teague's room. You?
In the parlor with Mrs. Costigan.
Right. Check again later.
They had divided the days into eight-hour watches so that each could get some sleep, and now at four in the afternoon they were both awake, circulating around the house and waiting for Gemstone to make a move. As he signed off with Snake, Julio felt a touch of excitement. As much as he hated to admit it, it felt good to be back in harness again, doing the work of a sensitive, even if the job was nothing more than standing guard over a ramshackle rooming house. And it was a pleasant change from the daily routine of hanging around the fronton, and telling the fortunes of elderly Cuban ladies. His only regret was that this renewed connection with Snake had not yet led to a renewal of intimacy. The eight-hour shifts made that impossible, but once the job was over…
He broke off the thought, and asked, "Did you ever see any baseball in Cuba?"
"Couple of times in the forties. The Havana Sugar Kings. You got some crazy fans down there."
"Was that when you were with the Dodgers?"
"Jesus, what's the use of me telling you things if you don't listen? I was with the Brooklyns in fifty-three, just that one year."
"Sorry." There was an electric razor on top of the bureau. Julio tossed it onto the bed. "Give yourself a shave, you look like a bum."
Teague let the razor lie. "The hell with it, I don't need it."
"Come on, Mike, the nurse will be here soon. Don't you want to look good for the nurse?"
"That old cow."
"Hey, she's a nice lady, Mrs. Coombs."
"Cow," Teague repeated, but he picked up the razor. "Maybe you were thinking about that Cuban runner I trained that time."
"Who was that?"
"Christ, don't you remember anything? That's him on the wall over there. To the left of the door, about halfway up."
Julio peered at the faded photo of a man in a warmup suit. It was inscribed, a mi bien amigo, Miguel Teague. It took him a moment to make out the signature. He said in surprise, "You worked with Alberto Juantorena?"
"Bet your ass. Fastest son of a bitch over a quarter mile that I ever saw in my life."
"You never told me, Mike, really you didn't. He was a hero in Cuba when I was a kid. When was this?"
"Seventy-six Olympics in Montreal," Teague said with a certain smugness. "Won the four hundred meters in 44.26. He was one rapid bastard."
"That's amazing. I thought you were still at Van Buren in seventy-six."
Teague shook his head sadly. "If I told you once, I told you a dozen times. I quit Van Buren after the seventy-five season. That was the year that we beat Polk in the big game, and then we won the tournament. That's the Van Buren team over there."
Julio followed Teague's pointing finger to another photograph on the wall. There were ten players standing or kneeling, with the coaches in the center, and Teague off to the side. There was no way that Julio could have known it, but one of the men in the picture was Hassan Rashid.
Julio, are you tapped in? Julio? Snake sounded hurried.
Go.
We're on. Mike's nurse just showed up and it isn't Mrs. Coombs. She says that Coombs has the flu and she's the substitute. She's on her way up.
Gemstone?
It figures, doesn't it?
Did you tap her?
No time. I'm coming up behind her.
There was a knock on the door, and a woman walked into the room. She wore a nurse's uniform, and she carried a black bag. She smiled at Teague, and started to say something. She never got the words out. Julio grabbed her wrist, twisted it, and pulled the bag away from her. He threw it across the room, and in the same motion he twisted her arm behind her back. He got his other arm around her neck in a lock. She screamed and struggled as he pulled her against him. She fell forward to the floor, and he lay on top of her, pinning her. She kicked, and a heel scraped his shin.
"Cut it out," he muttered. "I'll break your neck if I have to." She stopped struggling, and went limp. She felt warm and soft under him. Snake came pounding into the room. She had half a sandwich in her hand.
"What the hell?" said Teague. "What the hell?"
Tap her, said Snake.
Going in now. Come on along.
They went in together and poked around. They went through her head from the attic to the basement. They checked the closets and blew dust out of the corners. They mowed her lawn and spaded her flower bed. They gave her a thorough housecleaning, and when they were finished they had nothing. She was nothing more or less than she was supposed to be.