Hit Parade

Funny how people tended not to like the guy.



And now Slansky had all the money in advance, and in return for that she had his sworn promise that Turnbull wouldn’t have a pulse by the time the team got back to Memphis. She’d been after him to get it done in Cleveland, but he’d stalled until he’d gotten her to pay him the entire fee up front, and it looked as though he wouldn’t do it until they were in Baltimore, but it really better happen in Baltimore, because that was the last stop before the Tarpons returned to Memphis for a long home stand, and-



Jesus, suppose the guy tried to save himself a trip to Baltimore?



“Here we go,” he said and turned into a strip mall. All the stores were closed for the night, and the parking area was empty except for a delivery van and a Chevy that wouldn’t go anywhere until somebody changed its right rear tire. Keller parked next to the Chevy and cut the engine.



“Around the back,” he said, and opened the door for her and helped her out. He led her so that the Chevy screened them from the street. “It gets tricky here,” he said and took her arm.



The man he’d called Slansky was staying at a budget motel off an interchange of I-71, where he’d registered as John Carpenter. Keller went and knocked on his door, but that would have been too easy.



Hell.



The Tarpons were staying at a Marriott again, unless they were already on their way to Baltimore. But they’d just finished a night game, and they had a night game tomorrow, so maybe they’d stay over and fly out in the morning. He drove over to the Marriott and walked through the lobby to the bar, and on his way he spotted the shortstop and a middle reliever. So they were staying over, unless someone in the front office had cut those two players, and that seemed unlikely, as they didn’t look depressed.



He found two more Tarpons in the bar, where he stayed long enough to drink a beer. One of the pair, the second-string catcher, gave Keller a nod of recognition, and that gave him a turn. Had he been hanging around enough for the players to think of him as a familiar face?



He finished his beer and left. As he was on his way out of the lobby, Floyd Turnbull was on his way in, and not looking very happy. And what did he have to be happy about? A string bean named Anliot had taken his job away from him for the evening, and had won the game for the Tarpons in the process. No wonder Turnbull looked like he wanted to kick somebody’s ass, and preferably Anliot’s. He also looked to be headed for his room, and Keller figured the man was ready to call it a night.



Keller went back to the budget motel. When his knock again went unanswered, he found a pay phone and called the desk. A woman told him that Mr. Carpenter had checked out.



And gone where? He couldn’t have caught a flight to Baltimore, not at this hour. Maybe he was driving. Keller had seen his car, and it looked too old and beat-up to be a rental. Maybe he owned it, and he’d drive all night, from Cleveland to Baltimore.



Keller flew to Baltimore and was in his seat at Camden Yards for the first pitch. Floyd Turnbull wasn’t in the lineup, they’d benched him and had Graham Anliot slotted as DH. Anliot got two singles and a walk in his first three trips to the plate, and Keller didn’t stick around to see how he ended the evening. He left with the Tarpons coming to bat in the top of the seventh, and leading by four runs.



The clerk at Ace Hardware rang up Keller’s purchases-a roll of picture-hanging wire, a packet of screw eyes, a packet of assorted picture hooks-and came to a logical conclusion. With a smile, he said, “Gonna hang a pitcher?”



“A DH,” Keller said.



“Huh?”



“Sorry,” he said, recovering. “I was thinking of something else. Yeah, right. Hang a picture.”



In his motel room, Keller wished he’d bought a pair of wire-cutting pliers. In their absence, he measured out a three-foot length of the picture-hanging wire and bent it back on itself until the several strands frayed and broke. He fashioned a loop at each end, then put the unused portion of the wire back in its box, to be discarded down the next handy storm drain. He’d already rid himself of the screw eyes and the picture hooks.



He didn’t know where Slansky was staying, hadn’t seen him at the game the previous evening. But he knew the sort of motel the man favored and figured he’d pick one near the ballpark. Would he use the same name when he signed in? Keller couldn’t think of a reason why not, and evidently neither could Slansky; when he called the Sweet Dreams Motel on Key Highway, a pleasant young woman with a Gujarati accent told him that yes, they did have a guest named John Carpenter, and would he like her to ring the room?



“Don’t bother,” he said. “I want it to be a surprise.”



And it was. When Slansky-Keller couldn’t help it, he thought of the man as Slansky, even though it was a name he’d made up for the guy himself-when Slansky got in his car, there was Keller, sitting in the backseat.



The man stiffened just long enough for Keller to tell that his presence was known. Then, smoothly, Slansky moved to fit the key in the ignition. Let him drive away? No, because Keller’s own car was parked here at the Sweet Dreams, and he’d only have to walk all the way back.



And the longer Slansky was around, the more chances he had to reach for a gun or crash the car.



“Hold it right there, Slansky,” he said.



“You got the wrong guy,” the man said, his voice a mix of relief and desperation. “Whoever Slansky is, I ain’t him.”



“No time to explain,” Keller said, because there wasn’t, and why bother? Simpler to use the picture-hook wire as he’d used it so often in the past, simpler and easier. And if Slansky went out thinking he was being killed by mistake, well, maybe that would be a comfort to him.



Or maybe not. Keller, his hands through the loops in the wire, yanking hard, couldn’t see that it made much difference.



5



“Awww, hell,” said the fat guy a row behind Keller, as the Oriole center fielder came down from his leap with nothing in his glove but his own hand. On the mound, the Baltimore pitcher shook his head the way pitchers do at such a moment, and Floyd Turnbull rounded first base and settled into his home run trot.



“I thought we caught a break when the new kid got hurt,” the fat guy said, “on account of he was hotter’n a pistol, not that he won’t cool down some when the rest of the league figures out how to pitch to him. He’ll be out what, a couple of weeks?”



“That’s what I hear,” Keller said. “He broke a toe.”



“Got his foot stepped on? Is that how it happened?”



“That’s what they’re saying,” Keller said. “He was in a crowded elevator, and nobody knows exactly what happened, whether somebody stepped on his foot or he’d injured it earlier and only noticed it when he put a foot wrong. They figure he’ll be good as new inside of a month.”



“Well, he’s not hurting us now,” the man said, “but Turnbull’s picking up the slack. He really got ahold of that one.”



“Number three ninety-eight,” Keller said.



“That a fact? Two shy of four hundred, and he’s getting close to the mark for base hits, isn’t he?”



“Four more and he’ll have three thousand.”



“Well, the best of luck to the guy,” the man said, “but does he have to get ’em here?”



“I figure he’ll hit the mark at home in Memphis.”



“Fine with me. Which one? Hits? Homers?”



“Maybe both,” Keller said.



“You didn’t bring me one,” the man said.



It was the same fellow he’d sat next to the first time he saw the Tarpons play, and that somehow convinced Keller he was going to see history made. At his first at bat in the second inning, Floyd Turnbull had hit a grounder that had eyes, somehow picking out a path between the first and second basemen. It had taken a while, the Tarpons were four games into their home stand, playing the first of three with the Yankees, and Turnbull, who’d been a disappointment against Tampa Bay, was nevertheless closing in on the elusive numbers. He had 399 home runs, and that scratch single in the second inning was hit #2999.



“I got the last hot dog,” Keller said, “and I’d offer to share it with you, but I never share.”



“I don’t blame you,” the fellow said. “It’s a selfish world.”



Turnbull walked in the bottom of the fourth and struck out on three pitches two innings later, but Keller didn’t care. It was a perfect night to watch a ball game, and he enjoyed the banter with his companion as much as the drama on the field. The game was a close one, seesawing back and forth, and the Tarpons were two runs down when Turnbull came up in the bottom of the ninth with runners on first and third.



On the first pitch, the man on first broke for second. The throw was high and he slid in under the tag.



“Shit,” Keller’s friend said. “Puts the tying run in scoring position, so you got to do it, but it takes the bat out of Turnbull’s hands, because now they have to put him on, set up the double play.”



And, if the Yankees walked Turnbull, the Tarpon manager would lift him for a pinch runner.



“I was hoping we’d see something special,” the man said, “but it looks like we’ll have to wait a night or two… Well, what do you know? Torre’s letting Rivera pitch to him.”



But the Yankee closer only had to throw one pitch. The instant Turnbull swung, you knew the ball was gone. So did Bernie Williams, who just turned and watched the ball sail past him into the upper deck, and Turnbull, who watched from the batter’s box, then jumped into the air, pumping both fists in triumph, before setting out on his circuit of the bases. The whole stadium knew, and the stands erupted with cheers.



Four hundred homers, three thousand hits-and the game was over, and the Tarps had won.



“Storybook finish,” Keller’s friend said, and Keller couldn’t have put it better.



“Try that tea,” Dot said. “See if it’s all right.”



Keller took a sip of iced tea and sat back in the slat-backed rocking chair. “It’s fine,” he said.



“I was beginning to wonder,” she said, “if I was ever going to see you again. The last time I heard from you there was another hitter on the case, or at least that’s what you thought. I started thinking maybe you were the one he was after, and maybe he took you out.”



“It was the other way around,” Keller said.



“Oh?”



“I didn’t want him getting in the way,” he explained, “and I figured the woman who hired him was a loose cannon. So she slipped and fell and broke her neck in a strip mall parking lot in Cleveland, and the guy she hired-”



“Got his head caught in a vise?”



“That was before I met him. He got all tangled up in some picture wire in Baltimore.”



“And Floyd Turnbull died of natural causes,” Dot said. “Had the biggest night of his life, and it turned out to be the last night of his life.”



“Ironic,” Keller said.