Quirt’s voice was emotionless.
“Our top management decided to keep hands off. I wasn’t around; I couldn’t do a thing. I knew Al Hogan for years; we were friends, but I never had any illusions about his ability.”
“Seems a bit rough on the boy, though. I would have thought the club would have done better by him, a brand-new bonus baby...”
“You know the game of baseball, Hank,” Quirt said almost wearily. “You know how all organized sports are today. We’ve got to be holier-than-thou. Our boys chew gum now; no more tobacco, for God’s sake! We have to make the Boy Scouts look like little muggers in comparison. I pushed for the kid, but — well, the decision from upstairs was no dice. Strictly hands off.”
“It seems you people tried the boy even before the jury did,” Ross said quietly. “And poor Al Hogan, bless him, was probably in his cups as usual, so Billy Dupaul went up to Attica for a long time...”
Ross considered the telephone as Quirt remained silent. Sharon McCloud’s fingers were poised over her notebook, her pencil ready to attack again at a moment’s notice. Ross nodded to her to be prepared to begin her stenography and spoke into the instrument.
“Charley, if Dupaul gave the money back to the club, how could he afford a high-priced talent like Louis Gorman in the first place?”
Quirt almost exploded.
“Damn it all, Hank, what the devil difference does it make? If you want to ask a lot better question, ask me how we can afford a high-priced talent like you!”
Ross grinned. “All right. How can you afford a high-priced talent like me?”
“We can’t. Are you happy? Anyway, Louie Gorman wasn’t all that big or all that expensive in those days. Especially not all that big. Any more than he is today,” Quirt added under his breath.
Ross’s grin widened. “I heard that.”
“You didn’t hear anything. Anyway, the whole thing happened eight years ago. If you hadn’t been out of the country, Billy probably wouldn’t have spent more than a night in jail.” Quirt seemed to calm down. “If it makes you happy, nobody paid Billy’s legal bills. Or rather, you did and I did, and all the good people of the State of New York did. Billy’s counsels were court-appointed. Not that I’m saying court-appointed attorneys are any less dedicated to the job than any other.”
“No?”
“Hell, Hank, you know that! You’ve taken enough court appointments yourself in your time.”
“And expect to take more,” Ross agreed pleasantly. “Especially as long as there are clients like Charley Quirt to make up the cash register—”
“Whoa, Hank! Let’s not get carried away on this fee business!”
“I promise not to charge more than the Mets can afford,” Ross said piously. Across the desk Sharon bit back a smile. Ross became serious. “All right, Charley, what’s the story on Dupaul?”
“He’s in this jam — damn it, Hank! Haven’t you been listening for the last half hour?”
“I don’t mean that. I mean, why your sudden interest in him now? Eight years ago you people didn’t want to touch him. You didn’t want to pay for a decent lawyer for him. Now, if you’ll pardon the modesty, you want the best. Or at least the most expensive.”
Quirt hesitated a moment.
“Well, hell, Hank — the boy’s only twenty-six. I’ve kept track of him in prison. He keeps in shape, he works out regularly, or as regularly as you can up there since the troubles last year. And he pitches every time he gets a chance in one of the prison games...”
Ross frowned at the telephone in utter disbelief.
“Charley, are you trying to tell me you’re interested in getting this fellow out from whatever charges he’s up against — murder, riot instigation, or whatnot — because your team needs more strength in the bull pen? What happened to that gum-chewing, All-American-image spiel a minute ago?”
“God damn it, Hank, that’s not what I said! You don’t understand—”
“I don’t and that’s a fact,” Ross said candidly. “When the boy represented a large investment for you, and before he was even tried, you dropped him like a hot potato. Now that he’s a second-offender with a murder charge against him and a good possibility of having been involved in a riot that indirectly may have resulted in the deaths of three men, you want to pull all the stops and save him. As you say, I don’t understand.”
“Look,” Quirt said. “It’s simply — well, eight years ago I wasn’t in a position to try to help the boy—”
“Eight years ago you were vice-president of the Mets, and today you’re still vice-president of the Mets,” Ross said. “What happened? Or were you promoted since I talked with you last?”
Quirt paused a moment and then spoke, but now his voice was no longer apologetic. Now it was cold and hard.
“What the hell is this, anyway? A God-damned inquisition? Who’s hiring who around here? Look, Hank, do you want this case or not? There are other criminal lawyers in town, you know!”
Ross imitated the other’s tone of moments before.
“Whoa, Charley! Of course I want this case. Any time Louie Gorman makes big talk in the papers, I love to put pinholes in his balloons. And I have a feeling the money won’t be bad, either.”
“Well, I was beginning to wonder! All right, then, stop wasting your time and mine and get on the job. Billy will be brought down from Attica within the next few days for arraignment. If you’d like to interview him up at Attica Prison before then — over the weekend, say — I have some pull with the authorities—”
“I don’t need pull to interview a client, Charley. You know that.”
“Sure, only I thought if I could help—”
“I’ll handle it my way, Charley.”
“What? All right, you stiff-necked bastard, I was only trying to help,” Quirt said, slightly offended. “All right, get moving. Let me know how things are going, and if I can be of help in any way.”
“I will,” Ross promised. “Anything else?”
“That’s it. Goodbye, Hank. And good luck.”
“Right, Charley,” Ross said. He put the telephone back in its cradle with a thoughtful look.
Sharon said, “Do you want this transcribed right away?”
“No,” Ross said slowly. “Just put the notebook aside for the time being. Date it, initial it, and let me initial it as well, and then get another one to work from. Don’t tear out any sheets, even blank ones.”
He tented his fingers and swung his chair around, staring from the high window out over the island of Manhattan. A plane was taking off at a sharp angle from LaGuardia Field, leaving behind dissipating vapor trails. Hank Ross watched it disappear into a cloud bank. He spoke over his shoulder.
“What did you think?”
Sharon understood. She said, “Of Mr. Quirt’s reasons for wanting to help this man Dupaul?”
Ross swung his chair back to face the girl. “That’s right.”
“Well,” Sharon said, “it does seem strange, as you pointed out, that when Billy Dupaul represented a large investment on their part, they made no attempt to help him, but now that he doesn’t represent anything to them, they suddenly seem so anxious to get him out of trouble.”
“He doesn’t represent anything to them that we know of,” Ross said.
“Still,” Sharon said, “other than simple goodheartedness, what other reason could Mr. Quirt have? I’m sure it wasn’t for the baseball left in the man, because if he’s a second-offender, even getting out of the murder charge won’t affect his remaining in prison on his present sentence.”
“Though Charley said he kept track of the man in prison,” Ross said, and frowned. “What was even more puzzling, though, was when he said that eight years ago he couldn’t do anything to help Dupaul, and now he can. I wonder what happened to change the picture?”