Forced Out (26 page)

Jack stared at her for several moments, expecting her to rush into his arms the way she always did when they fought. Expecting her to realize how hurtful what she'd said had been and suddenly feel that avalanche of guilt she always felt. Please, Princess, he kept thinking, come to me and wrap your arms around me. I'll make everything better. Like I always do.

Then her chin began to quiver and the tears tumbled down her cheeks. He stepped forward, unable to wait any longer, but she took a step back and held one hand up.

"I've got to get dressed, Daddy," she managed to say, sobbing. "Go take care of the baby."

"Princess, I can't leave you like this. Can't we--"

"Go call my brother and talk to him about baseball. You always did love David more than me."

Jack spread his arms. "
What?
Where did that come from? How could you possibly think I love your brother more than you?"

"You sacrificed everything for him, Daddy," Cheryl whispered. "You gave up your life for him. You've never done that for me." She shut her eyes tightly, and the tears flowed like rivers. "Now
get out
!"

28

J
OHNNY CHECKED HIS watch for the third time in the past five minutes as he stood in the Brooklyn parking lot beside his freshly washed Seville. He leaned against the driver's-side door and pulled out a pack of Parliament 100s he'd bought at a bodega up the street. He never smoked,
hated
cigarette smoke. Made people put out cigarettes in his presence--like he'd made Treviso put out the one at the apartment. Never smoked. Except when he was feeling intense pressure.

Like those few minutes before he actually iced a man or right before he got to the graveyard with the two dozen roses on the passenger seat beside him. Johnny only smoked when he was
really
feeling pressure--like he was now. In fact, this was as bad as it had ever been. He could actually feel his hands shaking, feel himself sweating. And he
never
sweated.

He lit up the first cigarette as raindrops began spitting down from an overcast sky.

"Shit,"
he muttered, taking a long drag and looking up. "Of course, now that I had the damn car washed."

"Never fails," agreed a middle-aged woman with thick calves who was walking past on the sidewalk. She was pulling a cart full of fresh fruit and vegetables she'd bought at the stand on the corner in front of the bodega. "Know what I mean?" Why was she being so friendly? Johnny wondered. This was Brooklyn, deep in Brooklyn. People didn't go out of their way to be friendly here. People didn't go out of their way to be friendly anywhere in New York City--except maybe in lower Manhattan sometimes. But not here.
Especially
not here.

He eyed her suspiciously as she tugged the cart along. What was her angle? Was she following him? He felt better when she grunted and gave him the finger. But that could all be part of the act, too.

He let out a long, frustrated breath. The pressure was getting to him. Plain and simple.
Way
getting to him. He was trying to keep too many balls in the air at once, and it was making him paranoid. Making him suspect everyone of everything. But it was a product of the life he'd chosen, which was the worst part about it. He'd always been sure he could keep everything under control--but he'd been dead wrong.

He took another puff off the cigarette. The premonition of peril was rearing its ugly head a lot lately, and he'd come to trust that premonition. Of course, maybe it was coming around so often because he was doing more things he had to hide than he ever had before. And maybe that thing Marconi always said was having its effect, too. That all deeds done in the dark eventually and inevitably came to light.

Who the hell was that guy leaning against the lamppost in front of the bodega? He seemed vaguely familiar, but then everyone seemed vaguely familiar lately. Jesus Christ. Jesus
freaking
Christ.

He checked his watch again. Karen was twelve minutes late. Something must have gone wrong. Terribly wrong.

29

J
ACK SAT DOWN glumly in front of the computer. It had been a seminal point in their relationship. The power had shifted completely in the blink of an eye, in the time it took to remember how much he loved the aroma of Vermont Roast wafting toward him down the hallway each morning as he shuffled to the kitchen, knees throbbing. Cheryl had made it very clear that if he confronted Bobby about the rough stuff, he'd be alone forever in this good-for-nothing ranch house. That she'd leave and never return. He'd seen in her eyes that she was absolutely serious. That she was finally so sick of him running her life she didn't care what Bobby did to her as long as she believed they were in love. And he knew she'd seen the fear of God in his eyes. The terror that she really would leave him, and he'd be completely alone.

He'd stepped toward her with open arms--the first time he'd ever made the first move--

but she'd stepped back. She hadn't even given him a kiss when she'd left a few minutes later. Just called from the front door that she'd see him at lunch. He'd lost his influence over her, every ounce of it. She could tell him to do whatever she wanted now, and he'd have to do it--or lose her. He'd finally pushed too far. The bitterness of being ordered around and made to feel guilty for so many years had ultimately reached a breaking point. And he was helpless to do anything about it.

The phone sat on the table beside the computer. His fingers trembled as he reached for it, but this time out of fear, not anticipation. The thought of Cheryl not coming home had shaken him to his core. He didn't know if he could do this anymore, didn't know if he even wanted to. His drive to do anything seemed to have suddenly evaporated.

"Christ," he muttered angrily, "make the call." He gritted his teeth and pressed the buttons, starting with the 212 area code. "You have to. This is all you got left."

"Information. How can I help you?"

Here went nothing. "In Manhattan," he said, "I need the number for the Elias Sports Bureau."

"The what?"

"The Elias Sports Bureau," he repeated, louder.

"Hold please."

The operator was back a moment later with the number. Instead of being directly connected, he jotted it down. He never liked being rushed into anything. After he collected his thoughts, he made the call.

"Good morning, this is the Elias Sports Bureau." The woman at the other end of the line had a shrill, nasal voice. She was peppy and full of enthusiasm. "How can I help you?"

"I'm...I'm looking for some information about baseball," Jack answered hesitantly.

"What kind of information?"

"I want to know a few things about Mickey Mantle."

"What about Mickey Mantle?"

"I'm trying to dig up some old box--"

"Hold, please."

"Yeah, but..." A moment later the line was ringing again.

"Baseball."

The male voice was hushed and secretive-sounding. "Yes, hello." Instinctively, Jack lowered his voice, too. He waited for the guy to ask how he could help, but there was nothing but silence from the other end of the line. "I'm looking for some baseball information."

"I know."

Jack took a deep breath. "Right, well, I...look, I--"

"What's your name?"

Jack held the receiver in front of him and gave it a curious look.
"Why?"
he asked after he'd brought it back to his ear.

"What's your name?"

"Jack Barrett. What does that have to--"

"What do you do?"

"I'm retired. Well, I mean I do some odd jobs, but I'm retired from what I used to--"

"What did you
used
to do?"

Why the hell was the guy acting so strange? Well, he wasn't going to feed the fire. Hearing he'd been a Yankee scout might make the guy clam up for some reason. "I was an insurance salesman." There was a long pause at the other end. "Hello?"

"What kind of information do you want?"

"Look, what's the big deal? Why are you grilling me?"

"What kind of information do you want?" the man repeated.

"Stuff on baseball."

"I know that.
Exactly
what kind of information?"

"Box scores. I want to see some old box scores."

"I thought this had to do with Mickey Mantle."

"It does. I want to look up some of his old games. I'm actually looking for one in particular."

"How far back do you need to go? Seasons, I mean."

"Nineteen-sixty-eight. His last." Another pause from the other end of the line. Even longer this time. "Can you guys help me?" Jack pushed. "Look, I'm willing to pay."

"I'm not supposed to tell you this," the guy finally said, his voice just a whisper. "But it would cost you a couple of grand to get this from us."

Jack's heart sank. A couple of grand? He was going to have to call Biff, not wait for Biff to call him. "It's gonna be tough for me to pay you that kind of dough. I'm living on a fixed--"

"Retrosheet-dot-org."

"Huh?"

"That's the website you want," the guy said evenly. "It's www.retrosheet.org. Everything you need is there. Okay? That's all I'm gonna tell you. Bye." Then the line went dead. Jack slammed the receiver down and scrambled to Cheryl's nightstand for the pen and paper she kept there next to her phone. His hand shook as he wrote down what he thought he'd heard the guy say: w-w-w-dot-r-e-t-r-o-s-h-e-e-t-dot-o-r-g. Shook so badly he took a couple of breaths and wrote the website again because the first try was almost illegible. Then he hurried back to the computer, typed in the letters, and pressed "go." Almost instantly the screen flashed a message indicating that the site couldn't be found.

"Damn it." He didn't want to have to call Elias back, didn't have any faith he'd get the same guy or, if he did, that the guy would spell the website out for him again. "Oh, shit." He noticed that he'd typed in www.rAtrosheet.org. No wonder. He corrected the typo, then pressed "go" again.

This time the site came up instantly. "Jesus," he whispered, his eyes widening. It was as if he'd just found the Holy Grail. "My God."

He slid the mouse to the third option down from the top--Box Scores--and clicked. The next page was called The Directory of Major League Years. On it were all years from 2008 back to 1871. He clicked on 1968. Next: Final Standings--the final record of all major-league teams in 1968. He clicked on the New York Yankees. Now there were several choices, but he slid the arrow directly to Game Log. As if someone or something were moving the mouse for him. Or maybe he'd just suddenly figured out how to skate quickly around the Web. Maybe it had finally hit him despite MJ's dire predictions. Either way, the experience seemed otherworldly.

When the next page came up, his fingers began shaking all over again. But this time out of elation. There were two choices: Date or Box + PBP. He moved the arrow directly to the second choice and clicked, and the world opened up in front of him. Suddenly he was staring at box scores for all games the Yankees had played in 1968. He scrolled down to May 30 and clicked.

"My God," he whispered as he gazed at the information, barely able to breathe. On May 30, 1968, Mickey Mantle had gone five-for-five with three runs scored and five runs batted in.

Exactly as Mikey Clemant had yesterday. Exactly as Mikey Clemant had on May 30,
2008.

Jack scrolled down farther. Beneath the box score was an inning-by-inning account of the game. A play-by-play summary. He nodded as he read, his mind racing back to that day in 1968. The game had been played at Yankee Stadium against the old Washington Senators. Sure, that was right, he remembered now. The Senators. A few years later they'd moved to Texas and become the Rangers.

Jack touched the screen gently with his finger, following the progression of at-bats down. Fascinated by what he was reading. In the first, Mantle had hit a home run. In the third, he'd singled. In the fifth, he'd hit another home run. In the seventh, he'd doubled, and in the ninth, he'd singled again. Jack read through the play-by-play over and over, running through last night's Tarpon game in his mind. Going over the Kid's at-bats as he gazed at the record of Mantle's at-bats.

Suddenly Jack's eyes widened, literally like he'd seen a ghost. He clicked back to check the previous game the Yankees had played in 1968. It was on May 26. Must have been a couple of rainouts given the three days off, he figured. He glanced at the box score. Mantle had gone one-for-four with a single in the seventh. He stared at the stats for a second, then shot up out of the chair and headed as fast as he could toward the back door, where they kept the trash cans and the paper recycling tub right outside. When he was through the screen door, he knelt down and went through newspapers from the past few days until he found the sports sections for May 26. He thumbed through the pages, searching for the Tarpon box score. Finally he found it. Mikey Clemant had gone onefor-four with a single on May 26--just as Mickey Mantle had forty years before. The tiny gray hairs on the back of Jack's neck stood straight up.

Slowly Jack lay back until he was prone on the ground staring up at the blue sky, the prickly feeling taking over his entire body. On May 30, 2008, the Kid had posted the same hits Mickey Mantle had posted in his Yankee game forty years earlier--in
exactly
the same order. Home run, single, home run, double, single. And on May 26, 2008, the Kid had posted the same hits as Mickey Mantle had in his Yankee game forty years earlier. Again, in
exactly
the same order. Jack shook his head as he lay beside the recyclables tub. Coincidence? Not likely. A billion-to-one shot. And if it wasn't coincidence? Well...he shut his eyes tightly. He couldn't let himself think that. Not yet, anyway. He'd finish the research. Then maybe let his imagination run wild. If the Kid could hit a ball where he wanted to whenever he wanted to, there was no telling how good he really was. Even if this was Single-A.

30

J
OHNNY WAS ABOUT to take the last long drag on his fourth cigarette, climb back into his rain-spotted Seville, get out of here, and be done with it. About to say the hell with everything and say good-bye forever to Tony Treviso and his psychopathic switch