you. And knowing my sister, if she decided to go that way, she’d bring in Drs. Shelbourne and Kauffman who would have you out of here in two heartbeats. A Shelbourne and a Kauffman are good for a double play when the batter is an alcoholic quack like Jim Obermeyer.”
“He speaks highly of you too,” I said. “He says you have no backstroke.”
“Backhand,” Hoffmann corrected. “Baseball’s my game, not tennis.”
“So you told Stanley to kill her,” Trasker managed with a cough.
“No,” said Hoffmann, finishing his drink. “I expressly told him not to touch her. Killing her was his idea. He’s a very good shot. I didn’t ask for details but I’ll bet he shot her between the eyes. I, on the other hand, am only a fair shot, so to be safe I’d fire at the stomach and chest from a close distance like this.”
Hoffmann raised the gun in his lap toward Trasker, who didn’t seem to notice.
Ames sat forward, hand moving quickly toward his belt. Stanley turned his weapon toward Ames as Hoffmann fired.
The first bullet tore into Stanley’s chest. The second hit him low in the stomach. Stanley’s gun dropped to the floor. Stanley went to his knees and fell forward on his face. Hoffmann fired twice more. The first shot missed and broke the glass on a trophy case. A baseball came rolling out along the floor. The next shot went into the top of Stanley’s head.
Snickers sat frozen with a tiny candy bar in his hand.
Trasker blinked down at the body.
Ames was up, a small pistol in his hand aimed at Hoffmann.
I was a spectator.
Before Ames could issue a warning or fire, Hoffmann dropped his gun to the floor.
“Can I pick up the gun again?” he asked me. “I forgot to shoot myself.”
“No,” I said, getting up on shaky legs and moving forward to kick the weapon across the room out of his reach.
The baseball that had come out of the broken trophy case rolled past Stanley’s bloody body, over shards of glass, and stopped a few feet in front of Hoffmann.
Ames kept his gun leveled at Hoffmann while I moved to Trasker. I handed him the three pills Obermeyer had given me.
“Can you swallow these?” I asked.
“Need water,” he mumbled.
“Water,” Snickers said, running toward the kitchen.
Hoffmann reached over to pick up the baseball.
“Bobby Shantz,” he said looking at the ball. “Little man could pitch. Remember him, Bill?”
Trasker tried to focus.
“Shove all your baseballs up your ass with your goddamned Babe Ruth bat for a battering ram,” Trasker managed. “I’ll be happy to help you find the hole.”
There was hope for Trasker. I checked the clock. It was a little before ten. Snickers was back with a glass of water.
Trasker downed the pills with the water and coughed.
“Watch him,” I told Snickers, and ran up the stairs to the room where Trasker had been held.
I found neatly pressed dark slacks, a slightly starched white shirt, and a pair of Bally woven leather loafers on the floor. In the drawer of the dresser I found dark socks and underwear. There was also a wallet and a ring of keys. I put the wallet in the pants pocket along with the keys and hurried them down to the trophy room, where Hoffmann was still looking at his Bobby Shantz ball. I helped Trasker out of his robe and slippers. He looked as if he had spent a couple of years in a Turkish prison. Dressing him was hard. He tried to help.
“Ready,” I said.
“What about him?” Ames asked, nodding at Hoffmann.
“Leave him,” said Trasker. “Let him blow his goddamn brains out or wait for me to tell the police what happened. Either way I don’t give a shit.”
The eyes of the two men met. I’d say that they were about even in awareness of the world about now, but that wasn’t saying much.
There was a phone on the desk behind Hoffmann. I picked it up and dialed 911. Then I handed the phone to Hoffmann.
“It’s the police,” I said.
“There’s been an accident,” Hoffmann said. “No, not an accident. I just shot an employee of mine who was about to kill me. My name? I’ve got so many. Let me…Hoffmann, Kevin Hoffmann.”
He handed the phone back to me and I hung it up.
We went out through the front door. Snickers and I held Trasker’s arms to help him walk. Ames backed away behind us, shotgun back in his hands, aimed at the door in case Hoffmann changed his mind and opted for assisted suicide.
We made it through the gate, leaving it open, and got Trasker into the front seat of my car. Snickers and Ames sat in back. Snickers had a handful of candy bars and was munching one furiously.
“If he talks his way out of this, I think I’m gonna have the son of a bitch killed,” said Trasker.
“Hey, I know a guy…” Snickers began.
“Forget it,” I said. “No hits. No runs. No errors.”
Trasker needed a shave. There was no time.
“How are you doing?” I asked him.
“You mean can I make it through the meeting?” said Trasker. “I can make it through the meeting and more, but not a hell of a lot more. I’m dying.”
“I know. We all are.”
“I’m just doing it a lot faster than you,” Trasker said, with a touch of bite in his words that made me think Obermeyer’s pills were kicking in.
There was silence as we drove except for Snickers munching. About a block from the town hall, I let Snickers and Ames out. We got the scooter from the trunk.
“You get him in on your own?” Ames asked.
“I can walk in on my own,” Trasker said, standing next to the car. The scooter started without trouble and Ames and Snickers got on.
“I still got money coming,” Snickers said.
“You do,” I agreed and went for my wallet.
“Hold it,” said Trasker.
He reached into his back pocket and came out with his wallet. He opened it with shaking fingers and pulled out a handful of bills. He gave them to me. I counted eight hundred and twenty dollars, eight hundreds and one twenty.
“He earned it,” said Trasker.
I handed the bills to Snickers who tucked them into his shirt pocket and tilted his hat back on his head.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said to Ames.
Ames nodded and he and Snickers wheeled off into the night, Snickers clinging to the waist of the tall old man.
When I got into the hearing room, where almost all the faces in the audience were black and many of them vaguely familiar from the funeral service at Fernando Wilken’s church, it was nearly midnight. Reverend Wilkens saw me and came to meet me at the back of the hall while a well-dressed young black man addressed the bored commission members on the need for a library in Newtown.
One of the few white faces in the crowd belonged to John Rubin of the Herald-Tribune. He looked at me, at his watch, and back at me, a question in his eyes.
“You found him?” whispered Wilkens.
Heads were turned toward us.
I said, “He’s in the hall.”
“Bring him through that door in three minutes. Three minutes exactly,” Wilkens said, checking his watch. I checked mine.
