“Not especially,” he said. “Billy Williams gave me this one.”
“Vintage,” I said.
He shrugged and drank some more.
“What happened to your face?” he asked.
“Flying glass. Someone shot at me.”
“Why?”
“I’ll ask when I find him. Nice collection,” I said looking around.
“I make my living writing about baseball,” he said. “Mostly for Spanish language newspapers, magazines, and websites. My mother is Haitian. My father was a Jew from Cuba, a fisherman. He’s gone. They were both normal- sized, if you were wondering.”
I had been wondering, but I said, “No.”
He looked at the photos on the wall and said, “I’d rather be playing right field anywhere for half of what Emilio Vezquez is getting.”
“Emilio Vezquez?”
“The Double-D level pitcher my wife walked off with who will never, never make it to the majors. You want to know why?”
He finished his beer and looked at the empty bottle as if it had betrayed him.
“His fastball never hits ninety and he is scared shitless of line drives.”
He sat back and took off his cap, a look of satisfaction on his face. He looked around the room at the photos of the men whose photographs surrounded him as if they had just applauded his observation.
“I’ve got to go,” I said, rising and placing my empty can on a coaster on the table between us. The coaster had a Cincinnati Reds logo on it.
“Think you might forget I was home?” he said, holding up the papers I had served him. “I’ll have a check from a Dominican newspaper coming in a few days and I’ll be able to hire a lawyer.”
“I don’t-” I began, but was cut off by the ringing of Zo Hirsch’s phone.
“Hold on,” he said and moved to the library, where I heard him pick up the phone and say, “Yeah. Okay. Hold on.”
He came back into the living room carrying a black phone, which he handed to me.
“It’s for you,” he said.
I took the phone and moved to the window, being careful that someone parked and watching wouldn’t be able to see me. No one knew I was at Zo Hirsch’s, not even the lawyer I was serving papers for. Conclusion: I had been followed here.
“Fonesca,” I said.
“You’re supposed to be working on the Horvecki murder.”
The car parked across the street was familiar-a red Buick LeSabre. The window blown out by the BB had been replaced, but the left fender definitely needed work and the left front headlight was missing. Jeff Augustine’s right eye wasn’t missing but it sported a black eye patch. He held a cell phone to his ear.
“You should be in bed,” I said.
Zo Hirsch held up his empty beer bottle, inviting me to join him in a morning brew. I shook my head no. He shrugged and got another beer. Maybe a steady diet of bottled beer had contributed to the departure of Zo’s wife.
“I can’t afford to be in bed,” Augustine said in that musical Robert Preston voice.
“You ever play the Music Man?” I asked.
“Yes, dinner theater. You want me to sing ‘Seventy-Six Trombones’?”
“Maybe later.”
“How’s the investigation going? Corkle wants to know.”
“I’m working on it.”
“I know. You’re in the home of one of Philip Horvecki’s few friends.”
I looked at Zo who, with pursed lips, appeared to be deciding if a burp were in order.
“My eye aches,” said Augustine.
“I’m sorry. You should take something for it.”
“I am. I’ve got a container of painkillers that begin with the letter B. Make my life easier. Tell Corkle you can’t find anything so I can go back to simply taking care of his nuttiness. I’m in pain and may never have three- dimensional vision again. I’m in desperate need of a Corkle Pocket Fishing Machine.”
“You are?”
“No, but I still seem to have something resembling a sense of humor.”
“I don’t have a sense of humor,” I said.
“It’s my turn to be sorry. Do we understand each other? Do we share the common language of English? Corkle wants to protect his grandson from anyone who might be unhappy about his paying you to look for an alternative to jolly Ronnie Gerall. We’ve been over this.”
“We have. Can I buy you a cup of coffee or a sandwich?” I asked. “The Hob Nob is five minutes away. Great sandwiches.”
“I’m supposed to be threatening you,” Augustine said. “I can’t do it if you feel sorry for me and offer me coffee and sandwiches. Tell the little man I’m sorry.”
“For what?” I asked.
“Playing the role,” he said.
Augustine turned off his phone before I could ask him what he meant. I turned back to Zo Hirsch. It couldn’t have been more than ten seconds later that a rock came through the window, showering the room with glass. I turned to the window again and watched Augustine drive out of sight to the metallic clank of a piece of dragging undercarriage.
I handed the phone back to the stunned Zo Hirsch who seemed to be baffled by the gift. Then he hung it up.
“What did he do that for?” Zo asked.
“His job,” I said. “Sorry.”
“His job is to throw… forget it. It’s just another piece of crap thrown at me.”
“Want another beer?” Hirsch asked, looking at the rock near his feet.
“No thanks, but I do have a question.”
“Ask.”
“You were a friend of Philip Horvecki?” I said.
“Phil the Pill, Phil the Eel,” he said, sitting down in what appeared to be his favorite chair. “Much beloved by all who knew him. He was almost a saint.”
He looked at me and waited.
“I’m lying,” he said.
“I know,” I said.
“Phil Horvecki was an asshole.”
“You weren’t friends?”
“He was on the bowling team I manage,” said Zo. “Zo’s Foes. Phil Horvecki was a man of many alibis, always ready to criticize the play of others. He will be easily replaced. I wish he had had a funeral so I could stand up and say it. Rest in peace you A-number-one asshole. I did have an occasional beer with him and some of the other bowlers. Small group got together at Bennigan’s on Monday nights after our league games.”
“Was he friendly with any of the bowlers?”
Zo was smiling now.
“The cost of further information is your forgetting to deliver your papers till the end of the week.”
“What papers?” I said.
“Just me,” said Zo. “But I wouldn’t call the relationship friendly. We shmoozled.”
“Shmoozled?”
“Talked.”
“About?”
“Who knows? We have a deal?”
