said about falling out of love with baseball. Maybe Vachon, five years in stir, was simply rekindling that love. Maybe he had missed baseball with the same intensity he had missed the taste of alcohol and the feel of a woman’s body.
Stilwell took the rover out of his pocket and clicked the mike button twice. Harwick’s voice came back quickly, his tone clipped and cold.
“Yeah.”
“After the eighth you better come down here so we can be ready when he leaves.”
“I’ll be down.”
“Out.”
He put the rover back on his belt under his jacket.
Brown let it get away from him in the seventh. St. Louis opened with two singles to right, spoiling the perfect game, the no-hitter, and putting the lead in jeopardy with McGwire on deck.
With the runners at the corners Brown walked the next batter, bringing McGwire to the plate with the bases loaded. The Cardinals would gain the lead and the momentum if he could put one over the wall.
Davey Johnson trotted out to the mound for a conference with his pitcher, but the manager appeared to give only a quick pep talk. He left Brown in place and headed back to the dugout, accompanied by a chorus of applause.
The crowd rose to its feet and quieted in anticipation of what would be the confrontation of the night. Stilwell’s rover clicked twice, and he pulled it out of his pocket.
“Yeah?”
“Do you believe this? We gotta send that guy Houghton a six-pack for this.”
Stilwell didn’t reply. His eyes were on Vachon, who had stepped away from his seat and was coming up the stairs to the concessions level.
“He’s moving.”
“What? He can’t be. How can he miss this?”
Stilwell turned his back and leaned against a concrete support column as Vachon emerged from the stairs and walked behind him.
When it was clear, Stilwell looked around and saw Vachon heading toward the lavatory, making his way past several men who were rushing out in time to see McGwire bat.
Stilwell raised his rover.
“He’s going to the bathroom just past the Krispy Kreme stand.”
“He’s had two beers. Maybe he’s just taking a leak. You want me down there?”
As Stilwell replied, a huge noise rose from the crowd and then quickly subsided. Stilwell kept his eyes on the entrance to the men’s room. When he was ten feet from it, a man emerged. Not Vachon. A large white man with a long dark beard and a shaved skull. He wore a tight T-shirt and his arms were fully wrapped in tattoos. Stilwell looked for the skull-with-halo insignia of the Road Saints but didn’t see it.
Still, it was enough to slow his step. The tattooed man turned to his right and kept walking. Harwick’s voice came from the rover.
“Say again. The crowd noise blocked you out.”
Stilwell raised the radio.
“I said, get down here.”
There was another short burst of crowd noise, but it was not sustained enough to indicate a hit or an out. Stilwell walked to the lavatory entrance. He thought about the man with the shaved skull, trying to place the face. Stilwell had left his photos in the rubber band on the Volvo’s visor.
It hit him then. Weapon transfer. Vachon had come to the game to get instructions and a weapon.
Stilwell raised the rover.
“I think he has a weapon. I’m going in.”
He put the rover back into his pocket, pulled his badge out of his shirt, and let it hang on his chest. He unholstered his .45 and stepped into the restroom.
It was a cavernous yellow-tiled room with stainless-steel urine troughs running down both sides until they reached opposing rows of toilet stalls. The place appeared empty but Stilwell knew it wasn’t.
“Sheriff’s Department. Step out with your hands visible.”
Nothing happened. No sound but the crowd noise from outside the room. Stilwell stepped farther in and began again, raising his voice this time. But the sudden echoing cacophony of the crowd rose like an approaching train and drowned his voice. The confrontation on the baseball diamond had been decided.
Stilwell moved past the urinals and stood between the rows of stalls. There were eight on each side. The far door on the left was closed. The rest stood half closed but still shielded the view into each stall.
Stilwell dropped into a catcher’s crouch and looked beneath the doors. No feet could be seen in any of the stalls. But on the floor within the closed stall was a blue Dodgers hat.
“Vachon!” he yelled. “Come out now!”
He moved into position in front of the closed stall. Without hesitation he raised his left foot and kicked the door open. It swung inward and slammed against one of the interior walls of the stall. It then rebounded and slammed closed. It all happened in a second, but Stilwell had enough time to see the stall was empty.
And to know that he was in a vulnerable position.
As he turned his body, he heard a scraping sound behind him and saw movement in the far reach of his peripheral vision. Movement toward him. He raised his gun but knew he was too late. In that same moment, he realized he had solved the mystery of who Vachon’s target was.
The knife felt like a punch to the left side of his neck. A hand then grabbed the back collar of his shirt and pulled him backward at the same moment the knife was thrust forward, slicing out through the front of his neck.
Stilwell dropped his gun as his hands instinctively came up to his torn throat. A whisper then came into his ear from behind.
“Greetings from Sonny Mitchell.”
He was pulled backward and shoved against the wall next to the last stall. He turned and started to slide down the yellow tiles, his eyes on the figure of Milky Vachon heading to the exit.
When he hit the floor, he felt the gun under his leg. His left hand still holding his neck, he reached the gun with his right and raised it. He fired four times at Vachon, the bullets catching him in a tight pattern on the upper back and throwing him into a trash can overflowing with paper towels. Vachon flopped onto the floor on his back, his sky-blue eyes staring lifelessly at the ceiling, the overturned trash can rolling back and forth next to him.
Stilwell dropped his hand to the floor and let go of the gun. He looked down at his chest. The blood was everywhere, leaking between his fingers and running down his arm. His lungs were filling and he couldn’t get air into them.
He knew he was dead.
He shifted his weight and turned his hips so he could reach a hand into the back pocket of his pants. He pulled out his wallet.
There was another roar from the crowd that seemed to shake the room. And then Harwick entered, saw the bodies on opposite sides of the room, and ran to Stilwell.
“Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus.”
He leaned over and studied Stilwell for a moment, then pulled out his rover and started to yell into it. He realized he was on a closed frequency, quickly switched the dial to the open band, and called in the officer-down report. Stilwell listened to it in a detached way. He knew there was no chance. He dropped his eyes to the holy card he held in his hands.
“Hang in there, partner,” Harwick yelled. “Don’t go south on me, man. They’re coming, they’re coming.”
There was a commotion behind him, and Harwick turned around. Two men were standing in the doorway.
“Get out of here! Get the fuck out! Keep everybody back!”
He turned back to Stilwell.
“Listen, man, I’m sorry. I fucked up. I’m so fucking sorry. Please don’t die. Hang on, man. Please hang on.”
