No Legal Grounds (8 page)

The bouncer, with shaved head and arms the size of laundry bags, told Sam to wait. Sam was not going to argue.
A moment later the bouncer motioned him through the door. Sam entered a corridor, dimly lit, and followed the man to a backstage alcove where Heather was waiting.
“I can’t believe you’re here.” Her voice held a twinge of rebuke.
“I wanted to hear you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to get nervous. And we haven’t exactly been together on things lately.”
Another band started up. Heather had to raise her voice. “So, you ready to tell me I’m heading to hell or something?”
That was a jab to the heart. “Oh, honey, no. I wanted to tell you I thought you sang beautifully.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No! You have a great voice. I mean, really great.”
She looked stunned. “Wow. Thanks.”
“I just wanted you to know that.”
“What about the music?”
“Not my cup of Ovaltine, as you know.”
“Yeah.”
“But the words. You wrote that song?”
She nodded.
“Fantastic. You really have a talent.”
“I still can’t believe you came — ”
Roz burst into the corridor. “Hey, Heather, you — ” She stopped, looking at Sam. “Oh, hi.”
Stay cool, boy.
“Hello, Roz. I just came to say I thought you guys did great.”
“No way.”
“Way,” Sam said. “I mean it.”
“Thanks,” Roz said. “I mean, thanks a lot.”
The band on stage seemed to have amped up. Sam sensed someone behind him. It was the guy in the fedora, with the bouncer next to him.
“Hey,” Fedora shouted to the girls. “Loved your set!”
“Thanks,” Roz said, barely audible.
“So you got any contracts? Prospects?”
Roz paused, then shook her head. Sam wanted to pipe in, have the guy deal directly with him, but he held back. This was Heather’s moment, and Roz’s. He could give them plenty of free advice later. And no doubt would, whether they wanted to hear it or not.
Fedora shouted, “My name’s Lundquist. Maybe we should talk.” He turned to Sam. “Pop must be real proud of you.”
Sam said, “I am.”
“You sing?” Lundquist said.
Sam put his hand to his ear. “How’s that?”
“Sing! You!”
“In the shower,” Sam said.
“Honest truth,” Lindquist said, raising his right hand as if to swear. “I heard Dylan sing in the shower once. Worst sound you ever heard.” He smiled, turned to Heather. “You guys have a website?”
She nodded.
“We’ll be in touch. Again, great set.”
He and the bouncer left.
Heather looked at Roz. “What do you think?”
“Who knows?”
Sam couldn’t help it. “Just don’t sign anything until I have — ”
“Dad — ”
“You don’t have a lawyer for a dad for nothing. You coming home soon?”
“I’ll probably stay at Roz’s tonight. We want to celebrate a little.”
Roz nodded.
“It’s late,” Sam said.
“Dad — ”
“All right. But call tomorrow, will you? I get worried.”
She put her hand on his cheek. “Ah, Pop, when are you gonna stop worrying about your lovely daughter?”

He would never stop worrying, Sam realized as he made for his car. You’re a father, it’s a lifetime duty. What was the old saying? A son is a son till he marries a wife. A daughter’s a daughter for the rest of your life.

He remembered the night when she was five and woke up screaming. She’d had a nightmare and he picked her up and held her and brought her into the family room. He sat in the recliner with her nestled on him and stayed there until she fell asleep. And knew then that he would do anything to protect this life. He knew he would give his own if it came to that, without any hesitation or question.

Life was sweet and good then. A daughter at five. That was the age she learned to skip. It was one of the happiest events of her childhood. Heather loved to skip when she was happy, when they went to Disneyland or just to 31 Flavors for ice cream. Always skipping.

When did she stop? It had been years, long years, since she’d done it.
Yes, she was older now, and skipping was a childhood thing. But even so, as he unlocked his car, Sam knew one thing would remain with him always. He’d protect his daughter, even if it meant his own life.

The next week passed in a pleasant blur. Sam got some good work done on FulCo and Harper. Heather was acting civil, even friendly at times.

But best of all, Nicky Oberlin hadn’t called or emailed again. Maybe his mind games were over now. He’d gotten Sam to squirm, to dance, and now Nicky could move on to others in his pitiful pursuits.

By Saturday, Sam finally felt as if he could give some solid time to Max again. Max, who’d sort of been the odd one out in all the flurries involving Heather.

Max had a baseball game at ten, and Sam was going to go. Yes, he had a full Saturday of work to do dismantling the government’s motion for summary judgment in FulCo. The law, the old saying went, was a jealous mistress. But Sam was not going to let it bat him around like the baseballs out on the field. Max needed him.

At twelve years of age, Max was in that awkward phase that had a medical term attached to it — sucky. This age was the worst. You get your first inkling that childhood is over forever, and there will be no more dipping back into the warm pool of innocence. You’re not ready to look over the fence at adulthood, but you can hear the sounds, and they are sometimes fearful. You know that the people who make it over there, on the other side, are the popular ones, and that’s not you.

Sam remembered well his own adolescent angst. He thought he was the most awkward doofus in the school, a guy who liked to watch old movies rather than go out with friends trying to talk a cool man into buying them Boone’s Farm apple wine.

Sitting on the hard aluminum of the stands, Sam saw it was Max’s turn at bat. Sam steeled himself against the death of a thousand cuts. Or, more accurately, swings. Max had never been the

The pitcher on the other team suddenly seemed the size of King Kong. Linda took Sam’s hand, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.

The first pitch came in high and near Max’s chin. Max fell back on his keister.
King Kong smiled.
“Ow!” Linda pulled her hand away.
“Sorry,” Sam said, realizing he’d crushed it.
“Relax.”
Oh, sure. The next pitch was right down the middle, but Max didn’t move the bat at all.
“Be a hitter up there, Maxie,” the third-base coach yelled.
Sam wanted to shout,
Swing at it!
But that would have been the worst thing in the world for Max. Sam bit his lip.
Another pitch cut the plate in half. The umpire called strike two.
It was going to be another whiff, Sam was sure. He tried to prepare himself. Max would just have to learn to get more aggressive with the bat. He’d be able to tell him at home, he’d —
Kong went into his windup, and Sam fought not to close his eyes.
And then Max swung. Bat hit ball. Not all of it, though. The contact drove the ball into the ground and became a dribbler up the third-base line.
“Run!” Sam jumped up.
Max was on his horse toward first. The third baseman had been playing deep and was scampering for the ball. He reached down for it barehanded, trying to make a major league pickup, but bobbled the ball.
Max crossed first. Base hit!
Sam pumped his fist as Max stepped on the bag, beaming. This was what youth sports was supposed to be about. You work, you practice, you get a result, you enjoy it. The perversion of parents driving their kids to win at all costs, the cheating coaches — not to mention the occasional mad dad who assaulted an umpire — had became a national embarrassment.
This was a small inlet of relief off the ocean of recent bad news.
Enjoy it, Sam, drink it in.
The next batter took his stance, and Sam watched as Max took a tentative lead off first base. He was no steal threat but had an inherent quickness that could get him going at the first crack of bat on ball.
Then Max turned his head, looking at the fence along the firstbase line.
What was he doing?
Sam looked at the fence and lost his breath.
Nicky Oberlin was clapping his hands and yelling something at Max.
Bill, the first-base coach, screamed at Max to get his mind back on the game.
Sitting over on the third-base side, Sam could now hear Nicky’s voice over the din of rooting parents.
“Atta boy, Maxie! ’At’s the way to hit ’em, boy! You da man!”
Sam took a step down.
“Where you going?” Linda said.
He didn’t answer.

Only half aware of what was happening on the field, Sam threaded his way off the bleachers and around the backstop, toward the place where Nicky Oberlin stood.

And what would he do when he got there? He’d think of something, and it would flow naturally off the hot blood pounding in his head. This was so obvious, what Nicky was doing, it would have to be dealt with right here and now.

“Get out of here,” Sam said.
Nicky kept looking at the field. “Be ready to go, Maxie.” Sam reached out to Nicky’s shoulder and spun him. “I said get

Nicky looked at him with a half smile. “Hey, I’m trying to watch a game here.”
“You’re a sick man. I don’t want you around me or my family, understand?”
“A guy can’t come to a baseball game in America anymore?”
“Not the way you’re doing it. This has just become a police matter.”
“Cops?”
“That’s what I said, unless you — ”
“And you’ll tell them exactly what?”
“You’re harassing me and my family.”
Nicky shook his head. “And you, a lawyer. What are the witnesses going to say? I’m here, an old friend, pumping up your kid at a game, and you don’t like it. Is that your legal standing?”
Hearing Nicky use legalese was disconcerting. He’d no doubt brushed up on just how far he could go with Sam. Which made him all the more dangerous.
A sudden dark wind blew through Sam at that moment. He felt himself capable of anything, of beating this man to a pulp. Pure, unreasoning animal passion.
Then a fleeting voice told him this was not the way, that vengeance belonged to the Lord. But that voice was weak and tinny and disappeared with another look at Nicky Oberlin’s smiling face.
“You want to go to the mat on this?” Sam said. “You want to play with the law? I’m telling you I will go all the way on this. I will make sure your life is a living hell if you get anywhere near me or my family again.”
“When did you change, Sammy? You used to be such a nice guy.”
Sam made a fist at his side. His last fight had been in junior high school, one he lost when Bruce Weber caught him flush on the nose and blood streamed all over his shirt. That was when he decided fistfighting was the stupidest thing human beings could do with each other.
Until now.
“You look tense, Sammy. You should try to relax.”
A loud cheer went up from the stands, terminating the confrontation for the moment. Sam looked toward the field in time to see the shortstop scoop up a grounder and throw Max out at second base.
“Now that’s a shame, Sammy. Maxie was a little too distracted out there.”
A fresh, hot brew of anger boiled up in Sam. If this didn’t stop soon —
“You know,” Nicky added, “your good-looking wife seems a little distracted too.”
That burst it, the last barricade of restraint. Sam’s hand shot out to Nicky’s neck. He pushed him hard against the chain-link fence.
“If you ever — ” Sam’s words stuck in his throat, stymied by the sense that he had gone too far.
But he didn’t let go.
Then he felt strong hands on his shoulders, pulling him backward, and a voice shouting, “Hey, man, take it easy.”
Sam released his grip. Two other men jumped between Sam and Nicky.
“Don’t pull that stuff here.” One of the men pointed at Sam. “We got kids here.”
Sam looked at the stands, saw the faces looking at him. At him! While the other man was saying to Nicky, “Hey, you all right?”
“I think so,” Nicky said, acting the victim, rubbing his neck.
The man who had Sam by the shoulders, a large man with an American Chopper T-shirt, said, “Why don’t you take off, man?”
“Let me go.” Sam felt eight years old and ashamed.
The big man gave him a push away. “Go on, cool off.”

“What got into you?” Linda said in the car. Sam was just sitting there in the parking lot. The game was going on and he was in his car as a refuge from shame.

“It was him, Linda. That guy I was telling you about.” “Why did you attack him?”
“He was baiting me!”
“It worked.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“You lost control, Sam.”
“Thank you.” He hated it when Linda brought up his “control

issue.” He hated it because he knew it was true.
“Isn’t that just what he wanted you to do?” Linda said. “So what if it was? I’m not going to let him — ”
“You need to be better than that.”
“Please! I’m not ten years old. He made a comment about you.” “What did he say?”
“He made a lewd comment about how good-looking you are.” When Linda didn’t answer, he read into it that she was confused

He’d seen the hurt look on his son’s face. There was no greater parental sin than to cause a scene in front of other kids. The whole team, not to mention all the other parents in the stands, had witnessed Sam’s loss of control. No doubt Max had heard it from his teammates: Your Dad freaked out. What was up with that?

When Max was dropped off at home by another parent, he went up to his room without a word.
Sam gave it a few minutes, then took the long march up the stairs. He felt like a prisoner walking the last mile. He knocked softly on Max’s door.
Max was at his desk, doing something on the computer. Buzz looked up, his tail whapping the floor.
“Hey, can we talk?” Sam offered.
“It’s okay,” Max said without turning around.
Sam sat on Max’s bed. His son’s room was a mix of sports posters and black-and-white photographs. Max’s hobby was photography, and he had a good eye. A sensitive eye.
Max was a sensitive soul all around. Which was what made this so hard. Sam’s outburst must have really cut into Max.
“Turn around for a second,” Sam said.
Sighing, Max spun around in his chair. His hair was matted and he still wore his baseball uniform. The Orioles.
Sam patted Max’s knee. “You had a pretty good game today.”
“Yeah.”
“A nice hit.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You saw what happened with me and that other guy?”
Max shrugged.
“I want to explain what happened, okay?”
“You don’t have to.”
“No, I do. Max, this guy is someone I knew way back in college, and he’s come back around to try to . . . I don’t know, bother me, for some reason.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. But he showed up at your game because he knew I was going to be there.”
“That’s creepy.”
“A little, yes,” Sam said, trying to keep his voice steady so it wouldn’t upset Max more. “But it’s nothing that can’t be handled.”
In the pause, Sam almost heard Max puzzling it all out in his mind.
“I’m human, Max. Maybe you figured that out by now.”
Max said nothing.
“The guy pushed my button and I grabbed him. I was wrong.”
“Maybe you should’ve punched his face in.”
An odd thought coming from the normally pacifistic Max. “Much as I wanted to then, that’s not the way to do things. If it gets worse, I’ve got the law on my side.”
“What if he doesn’t care?”
“About the law?”
“Yeah. What if he’s a criminal?”
Good question. “Let’s not worry about that. I just want you to know I’m okay, and I want to know if you’re okay.”
“Sure, I’m okay. I got a hit today.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah, a good one. See you later, okay?” “Dad?”
“Hm?”
“We’ll be all right, right? From this guy?”
“Oh, yeah. He’ll go away.”
Sam was never less convinced of anything in his life.
Downstairs, Linda was waiting with an ice-cold lemonade and sandwiches. The old homestead. Safe and undisturbed.
Then the phone rang.