The Brooklyn Rules

he told me I was going to meet her in the parking lot of the Windjammer Motel up on Old Wells Road. All I had to do was pull my car next to hers. She'd hand me the jewelry and I'd be gone.

Meet her I did, in a manner of speaking. The parking lot was pitch dark and near empty when I pulled my car alongside hers. I waited for her to make a move, even tapped my horn to get her attention. No luck. I got out of my car and put my knuckles to her window. Nothing. The glass in her car was fogged up, I tried wiping it away from my side. I could just make her out. Looked like she was sleeping. I had that wrong.

When I pulled her door open, she fell out onto the asphalt, her head making a sickening thud against the pavement. Didn't seem to bother her much. She had other concerns, like that slice across her throat. She wasn't quite dead yet, a slow, feeble spray of blood barely reaching her chin. The surprise in her dying eyes was probably no match for the surprise in mine. I think she might've managed a smile if she'd had more blood to give.

You see, the solution to what was really going on popped right into my head. Even in the midst of my panic, in the milliseconds before the baseball bat caught me that first time, God's gift was in fine working order. She hadn't expected to see me at all. It was Jake she thought would be pulling up alongside. The whole thing: the robbery, the stolen cell phone was all a setup. It occurred to me that almost nothing Jake had told me was the truth.

My guess was that Jake had in fact tried to dump her and she had threatened to go to his wife. He'd just have to string her along until he found a sucker to take the heat off him. That's where I came in, the King Fixer. The rest of it about her being divorced and not wanting to break up his happy marriage was bull. No doubt, from the minute I left him at the Cinderella, he had a detective on my tail; snapping photos of me making the calls, lifting my prints off the phone, getting the phone records from the girlfriend's cell phone. And then, just before he set up this little rendezvous, he sent the PI's report to the jealous ex-husband with a desperate letter from my wife. Too bad I ain't married. But the ex wouldn't know that, would he?

Bang! The first smack of the bat caught too much of my neck. At best, it was a single to the opposite field, maybe a weak ground ball to the right side of the infield. But it did throw me off balance. I thought about pleading, denying my part in this, but no. I was the King Fixer, the Sultan of Solutions, the kid who knew to let the air out of the bus tires. I knew I had been dethroned. Jake was King. Long live the King.

Bathead Speed

When I kill for the kikes, I call meself Hank Greenberg. For the niggers, it's Hammerin' Hank. Don't love it that Hank is so popular amongst those two races, but let's face it, how many Jews were great home run hitters? Yeah … I'm waiting, boyo. You can count the number on the thumb stuck up yer arse. Bonds stays healthy a few more years and the problem'll be solved. For the wops, it's Joe D. The spics, Roberto Clemente. When the contract is white bread, I go with Mickey Mantle. It appeals to me own sense of vanity. Like I put the Mick in Mickey. Sorry, Babe. Fook, McGuire, the cheatin' cunt. Don't kill for the Irish. No profit in it.

Me specialty or speciality, as me sainted mother would call it, is blunt force trauma. I can take it deep with a mighty blow or play 'small ball,' breaking every bone on me way around the bases. Either way, I always touch 'em all and never is the time I miss home plate. It's management's choice. He who pays controls the play. Nature of the business. I've rigged me iPod so to play the roar of the crowd and the explosion of fireworks in me ears when a job is complete. I'm afraid I've not yet figured out how to rig a curtain call. Some day.

When I began me career as a lad in the disco '70s, there was great affection for the long ball. Clients wanted the work done quickly, with a single swing. And the pitch … Oh, he got all of that one. If it ever comes down, it's a home run. Man oh man, have you ever seen a skull crack quite like that one? The '80s saw the advent of junk bonds and morning in America. And with them, please god, came a jones for cocaine and cracked bones. Jaysus, even had the odd client wanted to watch me do me work. Discouraged it. Whenever I'd break the shins, it was vomitville. No sound like it, breaking a man's shins. Came the '90s, back we went to tape-measure shots. 9/11 has brought back bunts and bones broken one at a time. All business is cyclical in nature. I come to the knowledge honestly.

Was the day I tried changing with the times. Mistake. Turned my back on ash as me material of choice and went aluminum. As effective? Maybe more so. Saved on equipment in the long run. But the sound! Jaysus and his blessed mother, couldn't stomach it me own self. That pinging was a horror. You kill a man, whatever the reason short of rape and child molestation, and he deserves more than a hollow ping! at the end of the road. Bollocks. Embarrassing, really, killing a man that way. Give me a solid thud, crunch, snap. That's music for a man to die by. Lately, I've gone the way of Bonds and tried some of those maple bats from north of the border. Sweet. Lovely feel. But I'll take ash when the job's to be done right.

Yer thinking, how'd a thick-headed donkey like meself develop a taste for baseball? Fair question. First, I think it was out of necessity. Tis always the way, is it not? Came stateside when I was eleven. Da had a run-in with the Brits, the hoors. An explosive personality, me father, if ya catch the drift. Till I landed stateside, had a hurly near glued to my palms. A hurly, you say? A lethal piece of hardwood shaped roughly like a human femur. Hurling? Take a week to explain. Let it suffice to say it's bloodier than politics or ice hockey and a fair bit more entertaining. The sport the real Fighting Irish play.

Guess I saw baseball as the closest thing to it, minus the carnage, of course. I'd more than make up for that. I was quite the prodigy. Couldn't field worth shite, but I was a natural DH. Ron Bloomberg can kiss me arse. Shame me career predated the DH. Coaches tried burying me in right field. And in spite of me shortcomings, made it one game short of the Little League World Series. Didn't show the qualifying games on TV back in the day, only the final on Wide World of Sports. Would've shown those Chinks a thing or three had we made it to the finals.

Pushing fifty now and still I've the bathead speed of a thirty-year-old slugger. Tiger Woods come to me, I'd get his club head speed up a good five miles. I've got the whole set-up in me house: batting cage, videotape, Virtual Reality exercises on the computer to keep me hand-eye coordination sharp. Do yoga, trunk strengthening, and quick-twitch muscle exercises every day. Read every book, seen every instructional tape on hitting that's been produced. Fook Einstein. Ted Williams, now there's a feckin' genius. Charlie Lau was a cunt. Set hitting back a decade with his bat release shite.

Still, with all me own equipment, I love showing off for the colleens at the local batting cages. No matter the town I'm in or the job to be done, I manage to get a session in at the local bat-away. Particularly love the jobs in college towns or hamlets with a minor league squad. Visiting California, Florida, or Arizona is a pleasure. Always baseball to be played. Always a blonde to be had. Hustled me more money than Paul Newman and Tom Cruise put together. Though it grieves me hard to say it, I'll cede the number of blondes to them boyos.

Currently, I'm on Long Island, expensive fooking shitehole. Bad timing as well. The Ducks, the local minor league squad, is on the road and the colleges are out of session. Needless to say, me mood's not great. I'm still waiting for me wedge and instructions. Don't like this much to be up in the air, but the money's too good to turn away from. I've waited for two days now and me patience is near as thin as me own hair. The phone, praise god. Salvation at last. Instructions of a sort.

The bar was crowded but dark. I was in the loose-fitting, road gray Detroit jersey. Very retro. No name across the back. Even if there were, Greenberg wouldn't resonate with this bunch. More likely think I was a dentist than a slugger.

'Hey, Hank,' she says, strolling up to me seat at the bar. Raven hair framing a green-eyed goddess' face. 'Whatcha having?'

Loaded question that. Let it hang there like blue smoke. Moved on.

'Sam Adams.'

'Not Guinness?'

'You'll want to watch that. Stereotypes'll get you in trouble,' I warned.

'Max! Two Sams.'

'Max is it? Know all the barmen on Long Island by their first names?'

'Not on the entire Island. Just Suffolk County.' The sarcasm dripped off her tongue like honey. 'Slainte.'