Mike Reuther - Return to Dead City (6 page)

“Help ya,” he said, as he arranged bread resting inside the metal and glass-enclosed display.

“Need to make a phone call,” I said.

“Local?”

I said it was and he pointed to the rear of the store.

I walked past a long table of various breads, buns, rolls and other baked goods. In the old days, the space had been taken up by several coolers filled with
P
opsicles, ice cream and those sweet slushy treats in ruler-like clear sacks that had to be eaten quickly if you didn’t want to lap up just the punch. Across the aisle, on shelves that once held Hershey bars, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and three dozen other types of sweets, were racks of movie videos.

Giles Hampton was listed at 224 Shephard’s Way. I knew the neighborhood. It was slightly upscale and near Ocyl College. I dialed the number and allowed it to ring ten times before giving up. Then I got the hell out of there. It was too early for supper
,
so with nothing else to do I told the cabbie to drive me over to the ball
park.

“No game there today pal,” he said.

I replied that I knew that but that I just wanted to look around. That got him curious. We were at a light on Market Street near Mick’s Gym when he turned around and looked at me kind of funny. “You some kind of detective or something?”

“Or something,” I said.

He had the angular nose and narrow-faced features of a Greek or Arab. His voice was unmistakably American though.

“Yeah, right,” he said.

The light turned green and then we were heading west up Fourth Street through
downtown. The day had turned increasingly gray, although the heat was still unbearable. The street was mostly empty except for an occasional grim-faced pedestrian and small groups of teenagers hanging listlessly at street corners. I was growing thirsty for something stronger than lemonade as we headed uptown past the drab luncheonettes, video stores and occasional boarded-up storefronts through the heart of this sorry downtown. But none of the good saloon keepers along Fourth Street had seen fit to plug in their neon signs on this late Sunday afternoon. We were closing in on my apartment
,
but I decided against directing the cabbie to stop there long enough for me to enjoy a quick pick-me-up.

A light rain began to fall as I got out of the cab near the first base entrance to the ball
park. I peeled off a twenty from my money roll, dropping it through the window onto the cabbie’s lap.

He stared down at the bill like it was fresh vomit. “You’re about two Abes short,” he said.

I wanted to make him eat that twenty.

“What am I, the national debt’s main creditor? I peeled off two fives from my diminishing roll and dropped those into his lap. He didn’t even look at them but sat staring through the windshield toward the rising grandstands along the first base line.

“You’re still short four bits pal,” he said.

Something kept me from reaching through the window and strangling the guy. I peeled off a single, crumbled it into a ball and tossed it at him.

“Keep the change,” I said.

“Asshole,” he said, spinning the wheels of the cab and tearing out of the parking lot.

I walked along the first base side of the stadium and toward the home plate entrance. From inside the stadium, I could hear the distinct thwacking sound of balls being struck by a bat. Someone apparently was taking batting practice. I tried a couple of gates and a door. All of them were locked. I stopped then and looked up at the stadium before me. It was an old wreck of a ball
park, slapped haphazardly together with concrete, wood and steel and little imagination in the way of design. A WPA project from the 30’s. Even when I was a kid, the city fathers were forever threatening to tear the place down. A minor league team needs a home and this relic was it.  And in this one-horse town it was the closest thing they’d ever had to an entertainment center. The place was a godsend for the two-bit sideshows and circuses and occasional rock concerts that came to town.

The front gate was locked
,
but I could look through a crack and see the concrete ramp leading up to the ticket window. There were actually three windows, and they sat inside a little round green building that looked like one of those turrets you see in old Victorian homes. Some civic-minded baseball boosters had tried damn hard to lend some aesthetic appeal or some such nonsense to the damn ticket booth, at least. It was painted green with white trim around each of the windows. They’d even shingled the damn roof. A cute ticket booth tucked inside a decrepit ballpark. It figured.

The rain grew harder
,
and I found myself huddled up against the wall of the stadium watching the big drops bang off the gravel of the parking lot. After just a couple of minutes, the rain came to an abrupt halt. The sun popped out from behind a big cloud resting above the big dike to the rear of the ball
park. The dike was more of a high grassy hill than anything and ran parallel with the left-field line outside the stadium out to Penn Avenue. Everyone called it the dike though, probably because there was a small creek on the other side of it. For kids in Centre Town, it had always been a prime spot
to
wait for foul balls that came flying over the roof of the stadium.

I moved away from the stadium and headed up the dike. The rain had made the grass slick, and I nearly fell on my ass twice making the climb. From my spot at the top of the dike I could just make out the very far reaches of center and right fields. The rest of the playing field was blocked out by the back of the grandstands. The big scoreboard with the Pepsi-Cola sign rose above the center field fence, and beyond that I could see the homes of the surrounding neighborhood. It wasn’t a good place to watch a ball game. If it was, you can be damn sure the ball club would have been quick about putting up barriers.

Meanwhile, the batting practice had resumed
,
and I could hear voices now coming from inside the stadium. Then I spotted someone coming into view in the center field grass. I gave a holler. A stumpy guy with gray hair either ignored me or didn’t hear me. He picked up a ball sitting on the dirt warning track at the base of the fence and headed back toward home plate. I yelled again. This time, he stopped and looked my way, shielding his eyes from the sun.

“Can I come in?” I yelled.

He pointed toward the home plate entrance.

He met me at the gate, a short dumpy guy of about fifty or so wearing baggy work pants, a tool belt around his waist and a t-shirt bearing the words: Sunset Bar & Grill. A stubby unlit cigar was pasted in his mouth. He was no walking advertisement for better living. That was for damn sure. He had a heavy drinker’s bulbous nose and a boulder-like head atop a body shaped like a turnip. His face was red and drenched with a mixture of sweat and rain. Standing beside him was a young guy who looked like a choir boy. He was a sturdy looking kid, though, in his blue work-out shorts and t-shirt with the Mets insignia. A ball glove was cradled in his armpit
,
and he had a batting glove on one hand and heavy blue wrist bands on each arm. Both of them stood on the other side of the chain link gate, the kid with a big open smile on his face, the turnip with a kind of puzzled look.

“Ain’t no ball game tonight,” said the turnip.

“Yeah, I heard,” I said. “What with the murder and all.”

“Just a terrible, terrible thing,” said the ballplayer. He gave me one of those somber looks better reserved for a funeral.

“Anything we can do for ya
?
” said the turnip.

I told him my business and handed him one of my cards through a hole of the chain link gate. He studied it for a long time as he worked the cigar around in his mouth. The kid looked over his shoulder at the card.

The turnip handed me back the card and cleared his throat. “Yeah. Well. He was one hell of a ballplayer. It’s really too bad.”

“A terrible, terrible tragedy,” the kid said.

And now they were both staring at the ground. Finally, the turnip looked up. “You wanna ask us some questions. Is that right?”

I nodded.

With a key he unlocked the big padlock on the gate. The door swung open.

He stuck out a pudgy hand. “I’m Dickie Emerson, head groundskeeper here. This here’s Randy Vaughn, the team’s second baseman and a future major league all-star.”

“Vaughn broke into a Gomer Pyle grin. “Cut it out Mr. Emerson.”

“Shit boy. You got what it takes.”

Vaughn looked up at me and shook his head. His face had turned a shade of red.

“Let me tell ya somethin’ about Lance Miller,” Emerson said. “He coulda had one helluva career. One helluva career. But he just pissed it away.

“Take Randy here. He don’t have the talent of a Lance Miller. But he comes out here to the ball
park hours and hours before games, even on his days off and works his butt off. That’s how you get to the major leagues.”

“I heard Lance had gotten the call to join the
M
ajor
L
eague team right after the game yesterday,” I said.

“That’s right,” Emerson said. “Lance had been hot as hell the past few weeks
,
and the Mets were short on outfielders. I thought it was a mistake.”

“How’s that?” I said.

“Look. I know the Mets were desperate for an outfielder
,
and Lance was carrying a hot stick and all that. But for chrissakes, the guy was thirty-three years old with a lot of heavy baggage to boot.”

“Heavy baggage?” I said.

“There was that drug thing from his past for one thing. And he had been pretty much of a bust as a
M
ajor
L
eaguer before.”

“But the Mets did need an experienced outfielder
,
and they’re in a pennant race,” I said.

Emerson looked at the ground and shook his head. “I just think they would be better off calling up one of the young kids. Not some has-been with a lousy track record.”

Emerson worked the cigar around in his mouth and looked up at me. “Look,” he said. “I been around a lot of ballplayers. Shit. I been maintainin’ the grounds of this ball
park for the better part of twenty-five years. Most of ‘em that come through here will never play a damn inning of
M
ajor
L
eague ball. But just about all of ‘em got one thing in common.”

“What’s that?” I said.

“None of ‘em wanna be ridin’ buses through the minor leagues the rest of their ballplayin’ careers.”

“But not Lance huh?” I said.

“No. I didn’t say that,” he said. “And that’s what shocked the shit out of me. He got here back in June with a reputation for being lazy and showin’ up at the park late and not wantin’ to do anything more than he had to. Hell. He was a good twenty pounds overweight when he got here. Looked like a wet sack of shit. But let me tell ya, he sure made some heads turn around here. Every day, he’d be out here a good two hours before the other players, doing his running and stretching and hitting off that batting machine. Most days he even beat Randy here to the park. Ain’t that right kid?”

Vaughn nodded.

Emerson used a pudgy hand to heft up the tool belt. The thing was filled with all sort
s
of tools and sagged well below his big belly. I spotted a hammer, some screwdrivers and a couple of wrenches sticking out of the pockets. And for the first time, I saw strapped to the tool belt, a sheath for a long-bladed knife.

“I heard he was into weight-lifting too,” I said, averting my eyes from the sheath.

“He wanted to increase his home run power,” Emerson said. “I thought it was a lot of crap. These ballplayers today think if they throw around some weights they’ll become the next Babe Ruth. I always thought it made ‘em muscle-bound
,
but it seemed to work for Lance.”

“He really went at it too, Mr. Crager,” Vaughn added.

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“He was always at the gym sir.”

The sir and the mister bit was getting a bit annoying.

“Look kid. Just call me Cozz. Okay?”

“I was always taught to respect my elders, sir.”

The kid apparently was too far gone on the respect thing.

“Okay,” I said. “So he hit the weights pretty good. This was over at Mick’s Gym. Right?”

I looked at Emerson. He shrugged.

“Yes sir,” Vaughn continued. “He went over there as much as he could. He really added some muscle to his body too.”

“All to the betterment of his career huh,” I said.

“Lance was at the end of the line,” Emerson said. “Not too many
M
ajor
L
eague teams are gonna take a chance on a thirty-three-year-old minor leaguer unless the guy can really show ‘em somethin’. Lance probably figured he had one last shot and put everything into it.”

I turned to Vaughn. “You hang around Lance much?”