to him. I told her I’d help her take care of the problem. She was so happy. Then I stopped thinking about it, because I was too preoccupied with the game. When I was sitting there in the locker room, watching my whole life go down the drain, I finally thought about it again, the whole story. A debt from the old country. They needed money. My God, Alex. Can you imagine? I was buying it. The whole thing. All the time we had spent together. It was all coming together. On that day, after what had happened to me, I could finally see it.”
“Okay, so you figured out she was a con artist,” I said. “And you blew her off. Why come back now? It’s a long time to wait for revenge.”
“I had already gotten my revenge,” he said. “Or so it turns out anyway. There was this man in Detroit named Harwood. He was trying to put together a deal with my father. The minute I met him, I hated him. You ever meet somebody like that?”
“Yes,” I said. “Just last night, in fact.”
“He was such a fraud. Everything he did, everything he said, it was all such an act. He was the most arrogant, pompous jackass I had ever seen in my life. And here he was, trying to suck up to me just because he wanted something out of my father. He made my skin crawl. He came to the game. Did you know that? He was there. I saw him a couple days afterward at the Lindell. I was getting drunk. Again. With Maria a couple blocks away, with her whole con artist family, probably putting the screws on some other sucker even as I was sitting there. And in walks Harwood, just the man I needed to see that night. He starts telling me how sorry he was I had gotten blown out of the game, how embarrassing it must have been, all this other crap. I could tell he was loving it. If he hadn’t still been trying to put the moves on my father, he’d have been standing there laughing at me. So I told him he really needed to go see Madame Valeska down the street to get his fortune told. It would really be an eye- opening experience for him, and he’d really get something out of it. I was hoping he’d go see them. I was really hoping. I knew they’d put him through the wringer. He was such a sleazebag. He was smart about money, but I knew he’d lose his head over Maria. And Maria would actually have to spend time with him. Even… get close to him. So in the end, they’d both get what they deserved.”
He stopped. He looked out the window, at nothing but darkness.
“Is that why you came back?” I said. “To see what they’d done to each other all these years?”
“No,” he said. “Don’t you understand? I had no idea. I didn’t even know if Harwood ever went to see them. I was long gone by then. And I never looked back.”
“You had no idea?”
“When we found her family’s house,” he said, “when they told us about Harwood and how they thought he had sent us? That was the first time I had heard his name in nearly thirty years. It was the first time I had even thought of him. It was just a drunken, spur-of-the-moment thing when I saw him that last time in Detroit. My little good-bye present to both of them. I never dreamed it would become something like that. It was all my fault, Alex. I made it happen. At that point, I didn’t want to drag you into it anymore, so I sent you home. I wanted to see if I could… I don’t know. I guess I was thinking I could fix things somehow. I wanted to try to help her.”
“Why even bother? After what she did to you?”
“I remember it so well,” he said. “How it felt. Back in 1971, when I realized she was just setting me up. All those things she said to me. All those lies. It was so easy to believe, because I wanted it to be true. I wanted it too much. When I was finally done playing out the string in baseball, when I finally went home, I knew I had to start acting like a real grown-up. My father’s business was doing well. Everybody was expecting me to take it over someday. I tried to do it the right way, Alex. I tried to work hard, the same way my father did. But then when the real estate market crashed out there… I was afraid I was going to lose everything. Again. The same feeling, everything going down the drain again. There was this woman, one of our clients. She was very rich. She liked me. I could talk her into anything. It was so easy, Alex. It was so easy.”
“Okay,” I said. “A con man is born. I can fill in the rest. But you still haven’t told me why you came back in the first place. Before you knew anything about Harwood, when it was just you deciding to come back here after all these years. You could have made things right with your family. You could have tried at least. Why did you come back here?”
“Think about it,” he said. He managed a weak smile. “When was the last time everything was good, Alex? When was the last time I was on top of the world?”
“When, Randy?”
“When I was pitching for Toledo, and Alex McKnight was behind the plate, that was the last time I had it right. That was the last time I felt like I could do anything I wanted to. After that, it was all downhill, Alex. On roller skates. Before I went down for good, I had to come back one more time. Just to see if I could be that person again.”
I just shook my head.
“And Maria. This is kind of crazy, but I may be the only person in the world who can understand her now. After everything I’ve done, you know what? You can love somebody, Alex. You can really love somebody, even though you know you’re using them.”
“Randy, that’s the most depraved thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s true,” he said. “I’ve been there. My family will never forgive me, Alex. And I don’t blame them. The people I’ve hurt, the people I’ve taken money from. They’ll never forgive me.”
“She barely remembered you,” I said.
“She remembers me.”
“No.”
“That’s what she said to you. I know she remembers me.”
“Yeah? You know that?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because we’re the same,” he said. “That’s how I know. We’ll always have a connection.”
“A connection,” I said. “That’s good. That’s real good. How about this instead? You know her so well, you gotta figure she’s got a lot of money stored up after all these years. Am I right?”
He didn’t say anything.
“You’ve worn out your welcome everywhere else. You know you’re about to take your last fall, so you figure, Why not? You’ll come back, see if you can tap into her again. After all these years.”
“No.”
“It was a long time ago. You don’t have much leverage. But you know she’s running something now. You get in on it. Or you threaten her, tell her you’ll scare away the mark, or God knows what. You’d think of something. Am I getting warm here?”
“No.”
“This was your last chance. Take her down, whatever you had to do. Take the money and run. Where else were you going to go, anyway?”
“You got it wrong.”
“Give me one reason why I should believe you.”
“Because I can’t lie to you.”
“You could lie to anybody,” I said. “You could look God himself in the eye and tell him the sky is green.”
“Not you,” he said. “I could never lie to you.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because you’re my catcher.”
“Come on, Randy. Enough with that. It was thirty fucking years ago.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m telling you the truth, and you know it. I’ve got no reason to he to you now. In your bones, you know it. You just have to trust me.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
“You believe me, right?”
“I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“Tell me you believe me. I gotta hear you say it.”
“Randy…”
“Say it, Alex. Tell me you believe me.”
“Let me think about it,” I said. “I get nervous when people tell me I have to say things.”
