“Who’s the chiquita?” Cobb flicked a cautious eye toward the loud singing. Mooshie was all over Street Fighting Man.
“Mooshie Lopez.” He was annoyed by their puzzled looks. “Mooshie Lopez. The greatest baseball player of all time. Who you had to hear of.”
Unless you really were dead. Because Mooshie played from 2041 to 2065.
“She slapped me,” Mick complained as if Puppy were a Blue Shirt and would produce a pair of handcuffs.
“No doubt well deserved.”
Puppy left a blousy blue Donuts Rule t-shirt, black boxer shorts and a pair of jeans by the door.
“There are clean clothes outside here, Ms. Lopez.”
“Thanks, gorgeous,” she called back. “More soap would be nice.”
He dropped a fresh bar on the clothes, added bottles of shampoo and conditioner, and rushed into the kitchen, making a fresh pot of coffee. Lopez returned, struggling with the jeans zipper.
“A little tight. Got anything else?”
“Give her your fat clothes,” Mick snarled.
She tossed her hair defiantly. The Mooshie flip. Runners in scoring position, key moment in the game, cap comes off, crowd sizzles, screaming with anticipation, toss the hair side to side, crowd is about apoplectic, back and front, curls circling her head like a spider’s web, stadium’s wobbling from the din, opposing team’s frantic, panicked, she’s flipping the hair, cap back on and with a whoosh the ball’s rocketing into the right field bleachers.
Mick and Ty backed away as she sat down with a derisive snort.
Puppy fried up some crumpled Edison’s Crackers in oil and placed the plate down, carefully setting out the knife and fork. Mooshie grinned her famous gums-and-all grin.
“They still make this?”
“It’s not easy to get. There’s a place on College Avenue. I think the guy stockpiled a cache during the war.”
Mooshie speared a bite and lolled her eyes happily. She peered at Mick and Ty as if just seeing them. “Who are these old farts?”
Remember there’s a logical explanation for why you’re introducing them. “Mooshie Lopez, this is Ty Cobb, and the man with the roaming hands is Mickey Mantle.”
Mooshie chewed. “Hall of Famers.”
“That’s right,” Cobb snarled. “I was voted in the first class of eligibility.”
“As you should’ve been.”
Cobb brightened. “Finally, some who knows who I am.”
“Great great hitter. I know. I broke your old record for hits. Oh wait. Pete Rose had did that already. Ah, well, I broke that sucker’s, too.”
Cobb’s face fell.
“And I also stomped the shit of your lifetime batting average. .370.” She proudly tapped her chest. “And you, farm boy.” Licking the last of the crackers off the back of her hand, Mooshie turned to Mantle. “I broke your record for most home runs by a switch hitter. Oh yes. I also set the record for most home runs by any player ever. 810 homers.”
Mickey gulped.
“Along with winning 283 games.” Mooshie held out her cup. “More coffee, handsome.” She grinned. “I forgot your name.”
“Puppy Nedick,” he said hoarsely.
“Puppy. I get the bedroom, of course.”
“She’s staying here?” yelled Ty.
Mooshie reared back her fist and the two old white guys fled into the bathroom.
• • • •
PUPPY BUZZED FEROCIOUSLY on Zelda’s outside bell. She finally answered.
“Yeah?”
“It’s me.”
“What do you want?” she asked anxiously.
“I have to come in.”
“Now?”
“Yes. Now. Zelda. Now.”
Zelda paused inside the intercom. “Can it wait half an hour?”
Puppy shivered in the cool air. He’d left his warmest jacket for Mooshie.
“No. It’s important. Huge.”
Zelda swore softly.
He waited outside. Zelda lived in the Highbridge district, populated by quiet little apartment buildings where everyone exchanged big neighborly smiles and then hid inside their homes. As he stood there, seven people passed with kindly comments about the abrupt April chill. After ten minutes, he was about to buzz more angrily when that sailor kid from the bar came out, smiling sheepishly.
“Hi, Puppy.” Diego shook his hand warmly. “Sorry for the delay. You can go up now.”
“I don’t know why you couldn’t wait.” Zelda padded into the living room in an oversized sweatshirt designed with birds. She grudgingly dropped a bag of Krusty Pretzels on the coffee table.
“Now I understand.” Puppy smirked.
“We were just talking.”
“Whatever you say.” He held up the empty bottle of South Carolina cabernet.
Zelda threw a couch pillow at him. “I say the truth.”
“I can’t talk when you’re stinky.”
She padded off into the kitchen and returned with a bag of Oregon Sallie’s oatmeal cookies, which she cradled, eating slowly.
“Fine, be however you want to be, whatever.” He took a deep breath. “Mooshie Lopez is in my apartment.”
“Oh.” Zelda started on cookie number three.
“Did you hear what I just said?”
“Yes. You interrupted a date with a sweet guy for another hallucination.”
“Are Ty and Mickey hallucinations?”
“You’re right. They’re real and now they let in another DV.”
Puppy leaned forward angrily. “It’s Mooshie. I’m telling you. It’s fucking Mooshie. I know it. I mean, the gestures, the phrasing, everything.”
“Because no one knows how Mooshie Lopez talked.” Zelda clenched her groin in classic Mooshie-style disdain. “All you had to do was watch one of the zillion vidclips.”
“No one could be this good.”
Zelda opened her mouth in mock rapture.
“Ty and Mick and Mooshie have come back. Stop laughing, Zelda. For some reason, I know not why, they have returned. Stop the ghost moaning. I want you to come over and meet her. Interrogate all you want. You’ll see. You know her in and out as well as I do. Probably more because I didn’t dress like Mooshie as a teen.”
“You did once.” Zelda laughed.
“And I was lovely. Will you come over?”
“Not now.”
He clasped his hands. “Please.”
“Don’t you see I’m upset?”
“Yes. Do you see I’m upset that you won’t believe me?”
Zelda sighed. “Tomorrow. Maybe.”
“Not maybe…”
“Fucking tomorrow.” She smoldered with two cookies in her mouth, looking like a petulant squirrel.
“Want to talk for a few minutes why you’re upset?”
Zelda shook her head, her eyes glistening. Puppy reached for her hand. She threw a cookie at him.
Diego was sitting cross-legged outside the building on the stoop, waiting. He bounded up respectfully.
Puppy scowled. “What’d you do to her?’
“Nothing.” Diego stiffened.
“You obviously have a guilty conscience to be waiting here.”
“Stand down, man.”
Puppy exhaled as much
