Gil lay naked on his bed, except for the thrower, still strapped to his leg. He listened for Lenore upstairs. Once he thought he heard her moan. It gave him an erection. He wondered if she was up there with another man, then decided he had imagined the whole thing. She was sleeping, or working the late shift, or at her sister’s. He considered a quiet trip upstairs, a quiet knock on her door. He stayed where he was. He didn’t like to go to her.
Gil turned off the light. The last thing he saw was Richie’s picture, on the dresser.
Time passed. He drifted in a dark and pleasant fog, close to sleep, playing a little catch with Bobby Rayburn. Bobby was impressed; he could tell.
All at once, Gil sat up, snapped on the light. He got out of bed, picked his jacket off the floor, fumbled for the tickets.
Game 1. April 8. 1:00 P.M. His appointment with the VP at Everest and Co. was for two-thirty, the same day.
5
This one’s name was Dawna. Bobby didn’t have to remember because she wore a necklace with the word spelled out in fourteen-carat-gold letters, like a name tag. When he awoke in his room at the Flamingo Bay Motor Inn and Spa, she was lying on her side, gazing at him.
“You look so peaceful when you’re sleeping,” she said. “And you’ve got the most beautiful hands.”
Bobby had heard that before: both parts, especially the second. The kind of woman who noticed hands always noticed his. Val was that kind of woman too: she’d said exactly the same words when he’d picked up his fork on their first date, dinner at Longhorn Subs and Pizza, two blocks from the athletic dorm. Years later, having gone back to college for her master’s, she put a new twist on it. Now his hands reminded her of something Aristotle Onassis had told Maria Callas: “You’d be nothing without that bird in your throat.” He hadn’t known who Maria Callas was. Wald had explained it to him, explained it was a putdown. But, after some thought, Bobby had decided to take it as a compliment. His hands, his eyes, his body: they were a gift, like Einstein’s brain.
“Thanks,” he said to Dawna.
“And the rest of you’s not so bad, either.” Bobby had heard that segue before as well. Dawna felt for him under the sheets and soon rolled on top, her hands on his shoulders and her necklace swinging lightly against his chin as she began to move. Bobby moved too, although he had intended to sleep alone, had in fact gone to bed alone. But keyed up by the way he’d hit in BP and unable to sleep, he’d gotten out of bed, dressed, and gone to the bar. There she’d been.
The phone rang. Bobby picked it up. “Hello.” Dawna slid under the sheets, went down on him.
“Did I wake you?” Wald said.
“No.”
“Good. Sorry to call so early, but I wanted to get this cleared up before game time. How’re the ribs, by the way?”
“Fine. Get what cleared up?”
“They want fifty grand.”
“Stop it,” Bobby said.
“Huh?”
“I wasn’t talking to you. Who wants fifty grand? For what?”
“Primo’s people. Or else he won’t give up the number.”
“Goddamn it.”
“Right. Your decision. Is it worth fifty Gs?”
“Goddamn it.”
“I know.”
“Can’t you talk them down?”
“They started at a hundred, Bobby.”
Bobby sat up. The girl didn’t stop what she was doing. “Who’s behind it-him or them?”
“Very astute, Bobby. I thought of that-whether they were shaking you down, all on their own-so I spoke to Primo himself. It’s him.”
“Why?”
“He says it’s his lucky number. He speaks good English, incidentally.”
“It’s my lucky number too.”
“Then it’s going to cost.”
Bobby couldn’t think. He pushed the girl away with his foot.
“Bobby?”
“Yeah?”
“You thinking?”
“Yeah.” He thought fifty grand and that asshole Primo, but didn’t get further than that.
“Thirty-three and forty-one are still available,” Wald said. “So’s fifty-one, according to Stook. That’s got a one in it too.”
“You told Stook about this?”
“The money? Nobody knows about the money, except Primo, his people, you and me.”
“But word’ll get out, won’t it, especially if I pay? And I’ll look dumb.”
“Could be, Bobby. Astute of you-again. You should be doing my job.”
Bobby had never considered doing anyone else’s job. The idea appalled him. “Do I have to decide now?”
“Soon,” Wald said. “Game’s at two-oh-five.”
The girl came up from under the covers, looking hurt. Bobby patted her on the leg. “I’ve decided,” he told Wald.
“Yeah?”
“The hell with it.” Allowing himself to get jerked around by a Jheri-curled punk like Primo was no way to start off with a new team. The number on his back didn’t matter; all that mattered was to keep swinging the bat the way he had yesterday, to keep seeing the ball with coffee-table book clarity.
Bobby hung up. The girl said, “What’s wrong?”
Bobby reached for her. “Just business.”
“Business?” the girl replied, as though struck by the possibility she’d made a horrid mistake. “Aren’t you a ballplayer?”
Bobby left in a taxi for Soxtown. Halfway there he spotted a car dealer’s. “Pull in,” he said. He was tired of the driver’s glances in the rearview mirror, didn’t want to take taxis for the next three weeks, getting glanced at. Besides, he was going to need a car on the East Coast, probably two, maybe three. Bobby went inside.
“I don’t want anything flashy,” he said. “Just a solid, family vehicle.”
He chose a Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. V8, ABS, 4WD, AM-FM CD, $35,991, with the gold hubcaps. Bobby wrote a check. An insurance agent arrived, called Bobby’s insurance company in California, collected another check. Someone else took the papers to the registry, returned with the license plate: 983 KRZ. Bobby didn’t want a K on his plate. They went back and got him another one. It all took about an hour. Bobby signed a few autographs and drove off.
Nice car. He had nicer ones, but Bobby liked riding up high, liked the sound system, liked the power and heft. He drove along happily for a while, testing the features. Then, just before the turnoff to Soxtown, Bobby realized he was bored with it. He’d give it to Val, get something else for himself after she came. He parked in his reserved place by the palm tree. The odometer read 000018.
Stook met him in the clubhouse. “What’s it gonna be?” he said. The three shirts-thirty-three, forty-one, fifty-one-were hanging in his stall. Thirty-three was out-wasn’t that Jesus’s age when he died? Bobby tested the divisibility of the remaining numbers. Three went into fifty-one, but nothing went into forty-one. He saw Primo watching from across the room.
“Hey, Primo,” he called. “You’d know this.”
“Know what?”
“If forty-one’s a prime number.”
Primo frowned. “I don’t get it.”
Bobby laughed. He took forty-one.
Bobby dressed: sleeves, jock, sanitaries, stirrups, pants, cleats, shirt. He had fried chicken and iced tea from the buffet, then went outside for BP. The pitching coach was throwing, harder than Burrows and with more stuff, but the ball was still out of a coffee-table book, even bigger, slower, clearer then yesterday. Bobby banged it around the yard, then shagged flies until the Tigers came on.
He returned to the clubhouse, drank more iced tea, checked his mail. The usuaclass="underline" requests for autographed pictures, most from preteen boys and slightly older girls; phone numbers from girls a little older than that, some accompanied by bathing-suit pictures of the writers; a letter from a man who wanted to know why Bobby never bunted; and a four-leaf clover in a plastic locket on a chain, sent by a granny in Texas. Bobby hung the locket around his neck.
Burrows came in, lit a cigarette, and took out the lineup card. Bobby, who had hit third since freshman year in high school, bent down and retied his shoelaces; casual.
“Primo at short, bats one,” read Burrows. “Lanz in left, bats two. Rayburn in center, bats three. Washington at first, bats-” Bobby slipped on his headphones, pressed PLAY.