Gil vaulted the fence. How quickly he was moving now, like a giant on a puny planet! In no time, he was at home plate. The ump was bent over Richie, talking quietly. Gil grabbed him from behind, straightened him up, twisted him around, whipped off his mask, and hurled it over the stands.
In a giant’s voice, he said: “That was a ball, you cheating prick.”
“Get the hell away from me,” the ump said, and gave Gil a push.
A mistake. The ump was strong, but not as big as Gil, and much older. With a giant’s roar, Gil charged into him, drove him all the way to the backstop. The ump lost his breath in one barking grunt, and slid down.
Then Gil had Richie in his arms, and was striding down the right-field line, toward his car. He was aware of orange and green, of people shouting, and running around, and staring; aware, but barely.
Richie looked up at him. He had Ellen’s eyes, and Ellen’s new expression in them: fear.
“Please,” he said.
“Please, Dad,” Gil corrected.
Richie bit his lip.
“Please, Dad,” Gil repeated.
Richie started to cry.
“Haven’t you been wimpy enough for one day?” Gil asked. “Say please, Dad. ” Richie cried, but he wouldn’t say it.
Then someone jumped on Gil’s back. Someone light: Ellen, of course. Gil tried to shake her off, but she wouldn’t shake off, clung desperately. He held onto Richie with one hand, grabbed at Ellen with the other. Richie wriggled free, fell to the ground.
“Run, Richie,” Ellen cried.
Richie ran.
Gil turned to go after him. At that moment, he heard a siren in the distance. He let go of Ellen.
“Why did you do it to me, Ellen?”
“Because you’re out of control.”
“I don’t mean the cops. I mean taking Richie away.”
“That’s what I meant too,” Ellen said. “And I didn’t do it. You did it to yourself.”
Gil didn’t hit her. What was the point? He’d known for a long time that she didn’t understand him. “You’re so small, ” he said. “All of you.” Then he hopped the fence, jumped into the 325i, drove away.
After a few blocks, he passed a squad car, siren blaring, blue lights flashing, going the other way. Behind the squad car came Tim in the minivan. He saw Gil and started honking frantically. But the cops must have thought he was merely getting into the spirit of the chase; they kept going. Gil laughed.
Just after dawn the next morning, Gil knocked on door 3A of a suburban condo. He kept knocking for a minute or so; then the door opened and Figgy, wrapped in a towel, sleep in his eyes, peered out.
“Gil?”
“Right, old colleague. May I come in?”
“Gee, it’s pretty early, Gil, and-”
But he was already in.
Gil looked Figgy over. “I didn’t know Bridgid could cook.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Spare tire’s inflating, Figster.”
Figgy pulled the towel higher. “You’ve come for the fifty bucks, is that it, Gil?”
Gil laughed. “What’s fifty bucks between old colleagues? Didn’t I already tell you that? What I’ve got in mind is a proposition of a different kind. One I think you’ll like, Figster, especially if you’re still stoked on the 325i.”
“You want to sell the car?”
“Bingo.”
Figgy licked his lips. “How much?”
“Five Gs. This is a one time offer. The book is ten-six.”
“I haven’t got five Gs.”
Gil moved past him, toward the rear of the apartment.
“Where are you going?”
“Bridgid’s got five Gs. She’s a regular little squirrel with money, everyone knows that.”
Gil went into the bedroom, Figgy hurriedly following. A shaft of sunshine poked through the slightly parted curtains, fell across the bed, spotlighting Bridgid, asleep under a sheet that covered her to the waist.
“Hey,” said Gil. “I never knew Bridgid had such nice tits.”
Her eyes snapped open. “Oh, my God,” she said, tugging at the sheet.
“It’s all right, Bridg,” said Figgy, coming into the room. “Gil wants to sell the car, that’s all.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“His car. The 325i. He’s giving us a deal. Five Gs. The book is ten-six.”
Gil sat on the bed. He smiled at Bridgid. “One time offer,” he said.
Bridgid opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. “But we’ve already got two cars.”
“Mine’s a piece of shit, Bridg,” said Figgy. “You know that.”
She looked at Gil, at Figgy, at Gil.
Gil smiled at her again. “Strictly business, Bridg, old girl. No personalities.”
She nodded, glanced again at Figgy, got no help from him, and said: “I’m sure we appreciate the offer, Gil. We’ll have to think it over seriously, of course, think it over and let you know.”
“That’s right,” said Figgy. “Think it over and let you know.”
Gil kept the smile on his face, but it was work. “A onetime offer means a limited-time offer. I thought that was understood.”
“Let’s be businesslike,” Bridgid said. “I don’t see how you can expect-”
Gil grabbed the sheet and yanked it off her. Her body trembled. That made it all the more attractive. “You’re a lucky man, Figgy,” Gil said.
Figgy stiffened, as though he was about to do something; but that was it.
Gil took in the sight for as long as he wanted. Then he rose. “Let’s get going.”
They drove to Bridgid’s bank in the 325i-Figgy at the wheel, Bridgid in front, Gil in back. “Rides like a dream, doesn’t it?” Gil said. The pissy smell was almost undetectable.
With five grand in cash and his knapsack of knives, Gil took a cab to the airport. He unstrapped the thrower and put it in the knapsack as well. Inside the terminal, he paid cash for a ticket, checked the knapsack, passed through security, and boarded the plane. He took a coach seat, a tight squeeze for a man his size, and he didn’t like flying to begin with, but there was no choice. His team was playing on the coast. They needed him.
23
Jewel Stern parked in front of the peeling three-decker. The green garbage bags were no longer on the porch. She was about to buzz number four, Renard, when she saw that the front door was open an inch or two. She went in.
On either side were the doors to one and two; ahead, the stairs. She climbed them. At the next landing, she found number three on her left and a dim corridor on her right. She followed it, past a closed and numberless door-the bathroom; she could hear the toilet running-to number four at the end. Like the front door, it too was slightly ajar. She pushed it open a little more so she could see inside.
The room was small and without belongings: no clothes, no papers, no bedding. Deserted, abandoned, tenantless: except for the man in jeans and a T-shirt, standing at the window, his back to the door. Jewel cleared her throat.
He wheeled around. A slightly built man with wire-rim glasses, freckles, and red hair, graying at the sides, thinning on top.
“Mr. Renard?” she said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Remembering Bobby Rayburn in the pool, she wondered whether she had advanced beyond merely making men emotionally uncomfortable, as her mother would have it, to some ultimate disjunctive phase of physically terrifying them.
Like Bobby, the red-haired man said, “You didn’t scare me.”
“Of course not,” Jewel said.
His eyes, narrow to begin with, narrowed some more. “Who are you?”
“Someone looking for Gil Renard. Have I found him?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Nor you mine.”
“The difference is,” said the red-haired man, unfolding a badge, “I’m a cop.”
Jewel crossed the room and read it. The red-haired man was a sergeant in some town up north she’d never heard of. His name was Claymore.
“Has there been a crime?” she said.
Sergeant Claymore stuck out his jaw. She could picture him as a kid: scrawny red-haired scrapper. “I’m still waiting,” he said.