free. The third-base coach swatted his butt as he rounded the bag.
In the fourth, Bobby hit another dinger, also solo, this one to left. In the fifth, he saved two runs with a diving catch, landing right on his ribs and feeling nothing. He struck out in the seventh, frozen on a three-and-two change-up, then drove in Zamora with the winning run in the ninth, doubling up the gap in left center. In the dugout, Zamora high-fived him with both hands, hard.
After, Bobby stayed in the shower for a long time, letting water pound his back, hot as he could stand. When he got out, reporters, players, coaches, were all gone. There was no one left but Stook.
“Nice game, big guy.”
“Thanks.”
“How’s that rib cage?”
“Good as yours, Stook.”
“Good as mine? Then you’re in trouble, boy.”
Bobby walked out into the corridor. A girl was waiting. No, a woman: Jewel. He went to her. She took a step back. There wasn’t the slightest sign on her face that last night had happened at all. He realized he had a lot to learn about her.
“Hi,” he said.
“Just give me a straight answer,” she told him. “I’m looking right at you and I’ll know the truth anyway. Did you have anything to do with it?”
“Sure,” he said. Her look, already hard, hardened some more. “I didn’t see anything wrong with it. But we all voted, so don’t blame me totally.”
Jewel’s eyes grew puzzled.
“Maybe it looks bad to outsiders, but it’s what we do.” Bobby sighed. “That probably doesn’t make much sense to you, and I really can’t ex-”
Jewel moved forward, put a finger over his lips. She was smiling now. He didn’t understand her at all.
“I’m thirsty again,” she said.
“Thirsty?”
“Parched.”
Didn’t understand, but at least there was a glimmer. “I’ve got my ID,” he said.
27
“ What else can we say, Bernie?”
“I don’t know, Norm. It’s a tragic, tragic situation.”
“A tragedy, in the true meaning of the word. What does it say, and this is the question that keeps coming back to me, what does it say about the kind of world we’re living in these days, Bernie?”
“Nothing good, Norm. But I suppose we’re going to have to wait till all the facts are in before we can really make a judgment. In all fairness.”
“Right you are, Bernie. It’s all still very murky at this point in time. There was a report on CNN a few minutes ago that the authorities are looking into a Mexican connection, that there may be some relationship to the troubles they’ve been having, since Primo’s wife’s family-”
“A lovely, lovely lady-”
“-is involved in politics down there. Her brother, or her brother-in-law, having some job with the ruling party, whose name escapes me at the moment. Fred, have you got that name? P-something. Fred’s getting it. In any case, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Just a tragic-”
“-tragic-”
“-situation. I don’t know what more we can say.”
“I think we’ve said what needs to be said.”
“Me too. And we’ve still got a few minutes to the top of the hour…”
“Think we should go to the phones?”
“Why not? Here’s Gil on the line right now. Gil?”
“Hi, guys.”
“Where you calling from, Gil? Sounds like Siberia or somewhere.”
“No place special.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“Lots of things.”
“It’s a lousy line, like I said, Gil. Make it quick.”
“This… thing.”
“You’re talking about the Primo tragedy?”
“I was wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
“If they’ll give Rayburn back his old number now.”
“Not sure I’m following you, Gil.”
“Onsay.”
“Excuse me?”
“Eleven. What he used to wear his whole career. Not that stupid forty-one.”
Pause.
“That’s kind of a strange question, Gil.”
Dead air.
Days later in an airport bar, Gil caught the highlights of the first post-Primo game on This Week in Baseball. When Rayburn knocked the first one out of the park, he pounded the table in triumph, as though he had done it himself. And, in a way, he had done it himself, hadn’t he? He was a player. A player in the game.
He pounded the table when Rayburn hit the second shot, but not as hard. He’d opened his wound the first time, felt blood seeping into the bandages he’d wrapped around himself. Gil didn’t mind the wound much: the wound was what made it self-defense. He hadn’t meant for things to play out the way they had, but, left with no choice, he’d taken care of business. That was what it meant to be a pro. Leaving his glass of Cuervo Gold untouched-he was losing his taste for it-Gil drained one last beer, and felt no pain.
No physical pain. Emotional: that was different. There the painful part was that although he was a player, no one knew. Perhaps pain was too strong a word. Confusion, that was more like it. He would have to sort things out. Looking up at a monitor, he saw the flight he was waiting for flashing on the arrivals list and went downstairs to the baggage carousels.
Standing outside the glass wall, a camera crew nearby, Gil watched the team coming down an escalator, watched closely. They looked tired and subdued; but not unhappy. He understood. On one hand was the Primo thing, on the other the fact that they’d closed out the west-coast swing by reeling off six straight, climbing out of the cellar.
And Bobby Rayburn was on fire. Sixteen for twenty-one in the last six games, with seven homers and fifteen RBIs. He’d had a good month last week, This Week in Baseball had just said, and Gil’s heart had leapt at the words. It leapt again as he spotted Rayburn walking toward the carousel, a bounce in his step.
“All right, Bobby Rayburn,” he said, under his breath. Had other fans been there to greet the team, he might have shouted it, but there were no other fans; the team had won six straight in July, not October. But they were on the way. Gil knew it. He was in a position to know.
Bobby came through the door, carrying his bags. Ordinary luggage, Gil noticed with disappointment: Bobby could have done better than that. A reporter asked him a question, stuck a microphone in his face. Gil heard Bobby say: “We’ll just have to go on, that’s all.”
The reporter said: “About your own play; you really seem to have turned things around.” And stuck the microphone in his face again.
Bobby said: “That’s the way the game is sometimes.” And pushed by.
