“No,” I said, shaking my head.
“It means when something stands for something else. That arch stands for the gateway to the West. Like the old-time settlers, we’ve left everything behind in the East and we’ve crossed the mountains, and now we’re pointing our horses west.” The car was quiet, and the three of us sat there looking at the Arch as it got closer and closer, and before I knew it we’d driven right past it.
“Like Oregon Trail,” Ruby said.
“What?” Wade asked.
“Oregon Trail,” I said. “It’s a game you play on the computer.”
“I want to go see it,” Ruby said, turning and climbing up on her knees to look out the back window at the Arch.
“We will,” Wade said. “Maybe tomorrow. But today we’re here to see a baseball game. Tomorrow, we head west.”
Brady Weller
CHAPTER 27
Before leaving town on Sunday morning I’d gone by the Fish House to get the $2,000 Roc owed me. He must’ve known I was on the way over to see him because he was sitting on an overturned trash can and smoking a Black & Mild outside the kitchen door when I pulled up.
“Damn, son,” he said when I got out of the car. “Don’t you know we don’t open for lunch until eleven on Sundays? I know your ass isn’t on the way to church.”
“I thought I’d come by here and collect my money so I’d have something to drop in the offering plate,” I said, taking his hand and fumbling through another awkward handshake.
“Sammy and McGwire mono y mono tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “You sure you don’t want to let that two thousand steep in the pot?”
“No way,” I said. “Not the way my luck’s been going.”
He laughed, jumped up off the trash can, and pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket, counting out twenty one-hundred-dollar bills and handing them to me. I folded the bills and tucked them into my breast pocket. Roc stuffed what was left of the wad back into his jeans.
“I can’t believe you carry that kind of cash,” I said.
He smiled. “Come on, man,” he said, lifting up his shirt to reveal a compact 9mm tucked into the waistband of his jeans. “Everybody knows the Fish House is the safest place to work in town.”
“Yeah, I see that,” I said. “Before I take off, you mind if I run another name past you?”
“Hey.” He spread his arms like he was about to give me a hug. “That’s what I’m here for, baby: to share my wealth of knowledge with my community.”
“Have you ever heard of a guy named Bobby Pruitt?”
“Robert Pruitt?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”
“Old baseball player?”
“That’s him.”
“Shit, man,” he said, “that’s the dude who took Wade down. That’s the one I was telling you about.”
“The guy he hit?”
“Yeah, man, and I’d stay away from that dude if I was you.”
“I think he’s looking for Wade and those girls.”
“Well, you’d better find Wade before he does.”
I took the keys out of my pocket and nodded toward my car. “That’s what I’m hoping to do tomorrow.”
“Where you off to?”
“St. Louis,” I said.
“For what?” he asked, smiling.
“A baseball game.”
He laughed. “Shit, you got tickets?”
I held up the folded bills he’d just given me. “I do now.”
Pruitt
CHAPTER 28
All that money, and you’re calling me collect,” the Boss said.
“You should’ve paid it in quarters.”
“Where are you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You’d better have good news,” he said.
“He’s been found.”
“Then why don’t I have what I want?”
“Because it’s not time yet.”
“When will it be time?”
“Monday. In St. Louis.”
“Why St. Louis?”
“That’s where he’s headed. And that’s where this will end.”
“It’s Thursday. Why should I have to wait that long?”
“Because the terms of the deal have changed.”
“What the hell makes you think that?”
“Because the cards aren’t in your hands anymore.”
“What do you want?”
“A hundred thousand.”
The other end of the phone was silent. “No way. That wasn’t the deal.”
“The deal has changed.”
“No. It hasn’t.”
“He’s going to be found, and what belongs to you is going to be found with him. It’s up to you if you want it back. Getting it back means the terms have changed.”
“I’m cutting you loose. We’re done. This is over.”
“No, it’s not. Not for me.”
The forty-dollar lot at Busch Stadium was already slam full of people an hour before the first pitch: college kids, families, hundreds of people wearing T-shirts and hats with “61” on them, carrying posters and signs with McGwire’s name and face on them. Outside the lot, scalpers littered the sidewalk, holding signs, looking into car windows, walking back and forth in the street during red lights.
A group of scalpers stood on the corner of Clark and Eighth, and a tall skinny black guy stepped away from them and waved me over. “What do you need, man?” he asked. “Whatever it is, I got it: dugout, left field, right field, everything but the box.”
“Just a ticket to get in. Doesn’t matter where.”
“Get in where you fit in, right?” he said, smiling, looking around like he expected somebody to be following me or trying to get close enough to hear what we were saying.
“What’s the cheapest you got?”
“You a cop?”
My eyes turned toward the group of guys still standing behind him. “Do they ask questions, or do they sell tickets?”
“Hold up, now,” he said. He looked around again, and then he nodded his head toward the parking deck behind him. “Follow me.” He turned and walked into a parking deck on the corner of Clark and Eighth Street, stopping in between a van and a pickup truck. “A grand,” he said, holding up a ticket. “A grand gets you standing room.”
The garage was full of cars but near empty of the sounds of people, everyone already headed toward the ballpark. The only sound was that of me peeling crisp bills off the stack. His eyes stayed on me while the money was counted.
“Fifteen,” he said
“Fifteen what?”
“Fifteen hundred. The price goes up this close to game time.”
The bills were folded and slid back into my pocket. “Okay.” But by the time he heard it the Glock had already been pulled from the waistband of my shorts and the tip of its barrel slammed down on top of his head. His knees buckled, and he fell at my feet.
“Do you want to play?” The barrel pushed down on his head until it felt like it could be forced through his skull. “Do you?”
“No,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. Take it.” He lifted the ticket up toward me, and my free hand closed around it before the sole of my shoe kicked him in the sternum, knocking him back against the concrete wall. He laid there looking up at me, tears in his eyes, his chest heaving like he’d been running as fast as he could. I pulled the grand back out of my pocket and balled it up and threw it at his face. He winced as the money fell all around him.
Easter Quillby
CHAPTER 29
Wade had parked under an overpass and left us in the car while he went to look for tickets. All the parking lots had signs up saying they were full, and we drove away from the stadium, looking for a place to park. The streets were empty because everybody was already inside. Other cars were parked around us under the overpass, and me and Ruby rolled down the windows and watched a family climb out of a minivan. Both boys were younger than me, and they both had on baseball gloves and McGwire jerseys, and their little sister stood behind their minivan and stared up at the overpass, sniffing and wiping her eyes like she’d been crying. The man and the woman were fussing at each other.