behind home plate, three rows back.”
“How much?”
“One-fifty.”
Gil thought: about his bank balance, near zero; his plastic, maxed out; his child-support and car payments, due; then realized he probably didn’t even have one-fifty on him. While he was thinking, the man added:
“Each.”
Gil walked away. “Two seventy-five for the pair,” the man called after him. Gil got in his car, but slowly, giving the man time to lower the price again. The man didn’t say another word; he returned to his post near the GATE B sign, wiping his nose on the back of his sleeve.
Gil took out his wallet and counted the money inside. One twenty-three. Problem was he’d promised Richie. He slid down the window. “Take a check?”
“You nuts?”
Traffic thickened, and Gil didn’t arrive at Everest and Co. until 11:25. Took the sample case, the order book, the Iwo Jima catalogue, the Survivor, rode the elevator, said, “Hi, Angie,” to the purchasing VP’s secretary-know the names of the secretaries, that was basic-and handed her his card.
Angie handed it back. “He’s gone.”
“When’ll he be back?”
“For the day.”
“That’s funny. We had an appointment.”
“At eleven.”
Don’t ever fight with a client, Gil told himself. But he couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Looked out the window today?”
“I suggest you call to reschedule.”
Gil sat in the 325i, parked outside Everest and Co. He liked sitting in his car, liked the smell, no longer a new smell, but a nice one of leather and wax. He liked the sound system, the phone, the light that came through the moon roof, now covered in snow. He just sat there, running the engine, staying warm, not thinking about where the next car payment was coming from-he already knew what the answer to that had to be-or about O’Meara, or Richie, or Opening Day. After a while a plow came up behind him, and he slipped the Beamer into gear. He didn’t have another call till three-The Cutler’s Corner, downtown. Only a few blocks from Cleats. He was hungry.
Gil had lunch at Cleats: potato skins and a draft. Leon was behind the bar and Sportswrap on the big screen. The commentator was going over Rayburn’s contract: $2.5 million signing bonus, half this year, half next, $5.05 million the first year, $5.45 million the next, $5.85 million the year after that, with an option year of $6.05 million if he reached five hundred at bats in the last year. There were also incentive bonuses, based on winning the MVP or any parts of the Triple Crown, and a separate $1 million fund to provide deferred payments starting in 2007.
Leon shook his head.
“Why not?” Gil said. “He’s going to take them all the way.”
Leon kept shaking his head. “What’s that oh-five million shit, anyway?”
“Fifty grand.”
Leon laughed. “I don’t even make that. Not close. Not close to his piddly little tacked-on oh-five. And I’m working three jobs, if you count that sanitation scam.”
Gil had another draft, then one more. He walked into The Cutler’s Corner at three on the dot. There was no one inside except the owner, smoking a cigarette at the back. He started to put it out, recognized Gil, kept smoking. Just one more thing Gil hated about his job.
The Cutler’s Corner wasn’t a big client, usually good for a two- or three-hundred-dollar order. Gil took out the sample case, showed the owner everything, including the Iwo Jima catalogue. The owner examined the Survivor. “Not a bad handle.” He ordered one.
“What else can I do for you?”
“Nothing else.”
“That’s it?”
“This time.”
“But what about reorders on our other lines? The Clip-its-you’ve always done well with them.”
“Not lately.” The owner waved at the display cases. “Nothing’s moving except the Jap stuff, and not enough of that.”
Gil wrote the order: one Survivor, gross $37.75, commission $4.72.
Four dollars and seventy-two cents. A day’s work. Less what he’d spent at Cleats, on parking, lottery ticket, Sporting News, gas. But you couldn’t think like that, couldn’t think minus, not in his business. You got in the car. You kept plugging.
Gil got in the car. He drove home. Snow was still falling, the roads jammed. It took him an hour.
Home was a studio at the back of the second floor of a peeling three-decker west of the ring road. He had a bed, a floor lamp, a chest of drawers with a photograph of Richie on top. He opened the bottom drawer, felt under the clothing, took out what was left of his inheritance.
Two knives, both from his father’s forge. The first was a Damascus-steel bowie, with a foot-long blade and an ivory handle, probably dating from the forties. The second, not quite as old, was a heavy, soft-steel thrower, almost as big as the bowie, with a double-edged blade and a leather leg sheath. Gil held them under the lamp. He hadn’t looked at them in a long time, had forgotten their beauty, especially the beauty of that Damascus steel: its patterns like waves on a shining sea. A work of art. But it would have to be the bowie. The thrower wasn’t worth much more than a few hundred; barely enough for the tickets.
Gil switched off the lamp and lay on the bed with the knives beside him. He gazed at his view, an alley backed by a brick wall. The light began to fail. He heard the front door open, heard footsteps on the stairs. Lenore. Would she come down the hall, knock on the door? She didn’t. The footsteps kept going, up the next flight, then overhead. Her shoes thumped on the floor above, one, two.
He’d stolen home, just like that. Hard to believe, but he could summon memories: the catcher, lunging at him through the dust raised by his slide, too late; the umpire, bent so close to the ground he brushed his leg making the safe sign; the batter, just standing there, mouth open. The game was over. They carried him off the field on their shoulders. The sun shone down from a clear blue sky. Absolute fact.
Or was that the game where he’d still had to come back and pitch the bottom of the last inning? He wasn’t sure. His mind flashed an image of himself on the mound, of the ball tracing a blurred path toward Boucicaut’s black mitt. He’d been able to put it anywhere he wanted, and he’d had a gun for an arm, especially when it wasn’t sore. But it had been sore almost all the time.
Gil was close to sleep when he heard a noise in the far corner of the room, near the dresser; so close that he almost incorporated it in his dream and did nothing. But he sat up, and saw something moving in the shadows. He switched the floor lamp back on.
A mouse. Scared by the light, or the sound of the switch, it ran toward the dresser, toward the darkness underneath, and safety. Distance fifteen feet, turning cycle about twice that: the thrower was in Gil’s hand. He hadn’t thrown a knife in a long time, but it all came back-the bent-back angle of the wrist, the acceleration, the snapless release. The knife made half a revolution as it flashed across the room and stuck deep in the floor, cutting the mouse in half. The tail end twitched for a moment, then went still.
Gil had a funny thought: there’s nothing wrong with my arm now. He turned off the light.
3
“… by Bud and Bud Lite.”
“Hey. We’re back. We’ll have the scores, but first let’s take a call from Manny in-”
Bobby Rayburn rolled over, hit the slumber button, and tried to go back to sleep. Normally he couldn’t; when he was up he was up, end of story, but this morning he awoke still tired from yesterday’s cross-country trip and probably could have eased back into sleep, if he hadn’t had to piss so bad. After a minute or two he gave up, got out of bed. The curtains in his room at the Flamingo Bay Motor Inn and Spa were drawn, but not completely: a shaft
