Jesse didn’t answer.
“Where we going?”
“Someplace where we can talk, and you won’t get fired,” Jesse said.
“I ain’t done nothing wrong,” Snyder said.
They drove south on Route 1, and crossed the Paradise town line. Jesse pulled the car off onto the little cul- de-sac near the lake where Billie Bishop had been found. He turned off the engine and took out his gun. Snyder’s eyes widened.
“Open your mouth,” Jesse said.
“What the hell are you doing?” Snyder said.
Jesse tapped him on the upper lip with the muzzle of the handgun.
“Open,” Jesse said.
Snyder opened his mouth and Jesse put the gun barrel into it. Jesse didn’t say anything. Snyder tried to swallow. Behind them the traffic went routinely by on Route 1. The hot damp smell of the lake came in through the open windows of the Explorer. Jesse looked at Snyder without expression.
“This is the only chance I’m going to give you,” Jesse said after a time.
Snyder was breathing in small gasps.
“You hit your wife again and I’m going to kill you,” Jesse said.
Again Snyder tried to swallow and failed. He raised both hands in front of his chest, palms toward Jesse. Jesse held the gun steady. His face was expressionless. Below them, down the hill toward the lake, a group of insects made a keening hum.
“You understand that?” Jesse said.
Snyder nodded his head maybe an inch.
“You believe me?”
Snyder nodded slightly as if it hurt to move his head.
Jesse took the gun from Snyder’s mouth and put it back in its holster.
“Get out of the car,” Jesse said.
Snyder got out.
“Close the door,” Jesse said.
Snyder closed the door. Jesse started his engine, put the car in gear and drove away.
Chapter Thirty-six
Lilly came down to the lakeside one evening to watch Jesse play. Though it was still bright, the lights were on. The players gathered in shorts and sweats and tee shirts and tank tops and baseball caps on backward. All of them had expensive gloves, and the talk among them was the same talk, she thought, that Cap Anson had heard, or Cobb, or Ruth, or Mickey Mantle: insulting, self-deprecating, valued for its originality less than for its tradition, like the ancient ballad singers she’d heard of, rearranging the same phrases to create something new. The music was the same. Beloved teammates. Beloved adversaries. Celebrating the same ritual, together on a summer evening. She felt entirely separate from this. She understood it, but she knew she’d never feel it. If there were real differences between the genders, she thought, she was observing one of them.
Looking at the game, her eyes were drawn to Jesse. It wasn’t just because of their intimacy, she was pretty sure. It was the way he moved. Among twenty or more men who all valued the same thing, Jesse seemed most to embody it.
It was darkening after the game. Jesse and Lilly walked across the outfield toward the parking lot. The coolers were open. The beer was out. The cans were popped. The bright malty smell of the beer rode gently on the evening air. The men smelled of clean sweat. Jesse took two beers from a cooler and opened them and handed one to Lilly. She took it though she didn’t like beer much.
“I don’t belong here,” Lilly said.
Jesse smiled.
“Can she play short?” someone said. “We need someone, bad, to play short.”
Jesse held up his hands, all five fingers spread.
“Five for five,” Jesse said.
He walked with Lilly across the parking lot toward his car. He had his glove under his left arm, and the open beer in his right hand.
“Don’t you want to stay and drink beer with your friends?” Lilly said. “I could meet you later.”
“No,” Jesse said. “I’d rather drink beer with you.”
She liked that. They sat in his car in the quiet, drinking their beer.
“You got a hit every time,” Lilly said.
Jesse nodded.
“People hit eight hundred in this league,” Jesse said. “Nobody’s throwing a major-league slider up there.”
