“He told you to stop snooping around? Those were his words?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So much for your theory that he’s getting his kicks from the publicity.”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me again how he kicked your ass.”
“We already went over that.”
“Yeah, but I like hearing that part.”
I hung up and fell into bed again, but I still couldn’t sleep. I decided to go for a ride.
* * *
“I see him again, and his ass is mine,” I said. “Can’t believe I let him get the best of me like that.”
“Hey, it fuckin’ happens,” Zerilli said. “Asshole hits you in the nuts, it doesn’t matter how big he is. My six-year-old grandson Joey—you remember little Joey? He jumped on me the other day, landed on my balls, and I dropped right to my knees.”
His left hand dropped reflexively to shield the bulge in his boxers.
“The top of his head barely reached my shoulders,” I said, “so I put him at five foot five. Dark complexion, shaved head with a couple of red scaly patches, might have been psoriasis. Shoulders like cantaloupes stuffed in his jacket. Smokes Marlboros. Sound like anyone you see around the neighborhood?”
“Nah. Sounds a little like a guy Arena used to bring down from Brockton now and then for strong-arm work, but last I heard he was doing a dime in Cedar Junction on a hijacking beef. The dumbass pistol-whips the driver, shoots the lock offa the box, and starts dreamin’ about how he’s gonna fence a truckload of computers. He hauls open the doors, and what do you suppose is inside? A load of folding metal chairs.”
We’d already run through our ritual—he presenting me with a new box of Cubans and asking me to swear once again never to reveal what went on in this little room overlooking the grocery aisles; I swearing, opening the box, and getting one going.
“What’s the line on tomorrow’s opener?”
“Sox game?”
I nodded.
“One-seventy,” he said.
“Seems a little steep.”
“With Matsuzaka pitching? Probably should be higher.”
“I’m in for a dime.”
Zerilli’s was a volume business. If the Sox won, he’d collect $100 from the underdog betters and pay out $100 to the favorite betters, making nothing. If the Sox lost, he’d collect $170 from the favorite betters and pay out $150 to the underdog betters, clearing $20 per bet.
Judging by the constantly ringing phone, volume wasn’t a problem.
“Been getting so much action on the Sox,” he said, “that I gotta lay off some of it on Grasso.”
46
Baseball is a game that should be played in the summertime. This seemed especially true on this early April afternoon in Boston when the game-time temperature was in the forties and the wind swirling in from the harbor smelled of salt with a hint of sewage.
We’d caught a late-morning Amtrak train at Providence Station, Rosie in a new, hooded sweatshirt with Ramirez’s name and number stitched across the back, and I in an old Red Sox warm-up jacket that had belonged to my father. We talked baseball, arson, and Veronica all the way up.
“Buy her that present yet?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. It seems like …”
“Like a step.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Baby, you’re way past that point already.”
“I am?”
“Let me ask you a few questions, okay?”
“Sure.”
“Do you think about Veronica a lot when she’s not around?”
“Uh … yeah.”
“When Annie flashed that butterfly the other night, did it take your mind off her?”
“You saw that, huh?”
“Quit stalling and answer the question.”
“No. It didn’t take my mind off her.”
“If her fingers brush your arm, do you tingle?”
“Do I tingle?”
She just looked at me.
“Yeah, I guess I tingle. It’s not always my arm, though.”
“Are you up in the middle of the night, just watching her sleep?”
How in the hell did she know that? “Sometimes.”
She stretched out her hand and pinched my cheek. “Aw. My little Liam is in love.”
My first instinct was to argue with her, but losing would just confuse me.
We took a cab from South Station, arriving at Fenway in time for the hour-long celebration. The Boston Pops played the theme from Jurassic Park as a huge 2007 world-championship banner unfurled to cover the Green Monster. Tedy Bruschi, Bobby Orr, Bill Russell, and a host of other Boston sports heroes were trotted out. David Ortiz helped ancient Johnny Pesky raise the championship pennant on the center-field flagpole. Rosie and I were both hoarse from cheering by the time Bill Buckner stepped to the mound, wiped a tear from his eye, and threw the ceremonial first pitch to Dwight Evans.
Oh, yeah. They also played a baseball game. Matsuzaka toyed with the Tigers’ sluggers, Kevin Youkilis slammed three hits, Ramirez tripled, and the Sox won 5–0.
Afterward I was ready for an ice-cold Killian’s, but Rosie had other ideas.
“Let’s go around to the players’ parking lot and wave to them when they come out.”
Ugh. Bad idea. I loved watching them play, but I wasn’t into hero worship.
“Come on,” she said. “It’ll be fun.”
Not as much fun as that beer. I trudged along behind her.
A manic sea of red and white pressed against the chain-link fence, going absolutely nuts every time a player came out, ignored them completely, and climbed into an obscenely expensive gas-guzzler.
“Marry me, Dustin!”
“Hey, Youk! How ’bout an autograph?”
“Josh! I wanna have your baby!”
Rosie waded into the crowed and shoved her way to the front. A couple of guys started to object, then craned their necks for a look at her and thought better of it. That’s when Manny Ramirez bounded through the door like a schoolboy. He grinned and swung an imaginary bat as digital cameras clicked. Rosie let loose a shriek I’d heard only from smitten teenage girls at rock concerts.
Manny turned toward the sound and, as all men must, he noticed Rosie towering over the throng. Above the dozens of maniacs screeching his name, I clearly heard him say, “Wow.”
As he approached the fence, she stuck her fingers through it. He grinned, grabbed them, and squeezed. Chief Rosella Morelli, the hero of Mount Hope, turned to mush. Then Manny turned and walked to his restored 1966 Lincoln Continental. He looked back, marveled at Rosie again, climbed in behind the wheel, and was gone.
She stared until the taillights disappeared around a corner. Then she turned toward me.
“If you ever …
tell anyone …
about this …”
“About what?”
We followed the crowd to the Cask’n Flagon at the corner of Lansdowne Street and Brookline Avenue for beer and pizza, then wandered down the street to shoot some pool at the Boston Billiard Club. Much later, we had last call at Bill’s Bar around the corner. By then, it was too late to catch the last train to Providence, so the bartender pointed us to an after-hours joint that offered a choice of Budweiser or Miller straight from the can, Jim Beam or Rebel Yell in chipped shot glasses, and a lot of backslapping from blitzed Sox fans. We caught the first morning train, a 6:10 local, and tried to sleep it off on the way home. By the time we were deposited, happy and rumpled, at Providence Station, it was 6:55 A.M. Bedtime.
A Mr. Potato Head statue greeted us in the lobby. On its flank, someone had scrawled “Yankees Suck!” in red spray paint. I thanked Rosie again for the ticket, gave her a hug, begged her to be careful, and staggered out of the station. I walked up Atwells Avenue toward home, poured some Maalox on my screaming ulcer, and collapsed on my mattress.