“Just close enough to watch what he does, who he talks to,” Stilwell said. “Make a move if we have to.”
“This seat is just below the press box. I can put you in there and you can look right down on him.”
Stilwell shook his head.
“That won’t work. If he gets up and moves, we’re a level above him. We’ll lose him.”
“How about one in the press box and one below — mobile, moving about?”
Stilwell thought about this and looked at Harwick. Harwick nodded.
“Might work,” he said. “We got the radios.”
Stilwell looked at Houghton.
“Set it up.”
They were both in the front row of the press box looking down on Vachon’s seat. It was empty, and the national anthem had already been sung. The Dodgers were taking the field. Kevin Brown was on the mound, promising a classic matchup between himself, a fastball pitcher, and McGwire, a purebred slugger.
“This is going to be good,” Harwick said.
“Just don’t forget why we’re here,” Stilwell replied.
The Cardinals went down one, two, three and left McGwire waiting on deck. In the bottom half of the first the Dodgers did no better. No hits, no runs.
And no sign of Milky Vachon.
Houghton came down the stairs and told them the ticket Vachon was carrying had been sold as part of a block of seats to a ticket broker in Hollywood. They took the name of the broker and decided they would check it out in the morning.
As the second inning started Stilwell sat with his arms folded on the front sill of the press box. It allowed a full view of the stadium. All he had to do was lower his eyes and he would see row K, seat one of section eleven.
Harwick was leaning back in his seat. To Stilwell, he seemed as interested in watching the three rows of sportswriters and broadcasters as he was the baseball game. As the Dodgers were taking the field again, he spoke to Stilwell.
“Your son,” he said. “It was drugs, wasn’t it?”
Stilwell took a deep breath and let it out. He spoke without turning to Harwick.
“What do you want to know, Harwick?”
“We’re going to be partners. I just want to... understand. Some guys, something like that happens, they dive into the bottle. Some guys dive into the work. It’s pretty clear which kind you are. I heard you go after these guys, the Saints, with a vengeance, man. Was it meth? Was your kid on crank?”
Stilwell didn’t answer. He watched a man wearing a Dodgers baseball cap take the first seat in row K below. The hat was on backward, a white pony tail hanging from beneath the brim. It was Milky Vachon. He put a full beer down on the concrete step next to him and kept another in his hand. Seat number two was empty.
“Harwick,” Stilwell said. “We’re partners, but we’re not talking about my kid. You understand?”
“I’m just trying to—”
“Baseball is a metaphor for life, Harwick. Life is hardball. People hit home runs, people get thrown out. There’s the double play, the suicide squeeze, and everybody wants to get home safe. Some people go all the way to the ninth inning. Some people leave early to beat the traffic.”
Stilwell stood up and turned to his new partner.
“I checked you out, Harwick. You’re a beat-the-traffic guy. You weren’t here. In ’eighty-eight. I know. If you were here, you gave up on them and left before the ninth. I know.”
Harwick said nothing. He turned his eyes from Stilwell.
“Vachon’s down there,” Stilwell said. “I’m going down to keep watch. If he makes a move, I’ll tail. Keep your rover close.”
Stilwell walked up the steps and out of the press box.
McGwire struck out at the top of the second inning, and Brown easily retired the side. The Dodgers picked up three unearned runs in the third off an error, a walk, and a home run with two outs.
All was quiet after that until the fifth, when McGwire opened the inning with a drive to the right-field wall. It drew 50,000 people out of their seats. But the right fielder gloved it on the track, his body hitting hard into the wall pads.
Watching the trajectory of the ball reminded Stilwell of the night in ’88 when Kirk Gibson put a three-two pitch into the seats in the last of the ninth and won the first game of the series. It caused a monumental shift in momentum, and the Dodgers cruised the rest of the way. It was a moment that was cherished by so many for so long. A time in L.A. before the riots, before the earthquake, before O.J.
Before Stilwell’s son was lost.
Brown carried a perfect game into the seventh inning. The crowd became more attentive and noisier. There was a sense that something was going to happen.
Throughout the innings Stilwell moved his position several times, always staying close to Vachon and using the field glasses to watch him. The ex-convict did not move other than to stand up with everybody else for McGwire’s drive to the wall. He simply drank his two beers and watched the game. No one took the seat next to him, and he spoke to no one except a vendor who sold him peanuts in the fourth.
Vachon also made no move to look around himself. He kept his eyes on the game. And Stilwell began to wonder if Vachon was doing anything other than watching a baseball game. He thought about what Harwick had said about falling out of love with baseball. Maybe Vachon, five years in stir, was simply rekindling that love. Maybe he missed baseball with the same intensity he missed the taste of alcohol and the feel of a woman’s body.
Stilwell took the rover out of his pocket and clicked the mike button twice. Harwick’s voice came back quickly, his tone clipped and cold.
“Yeah.”
“After the eighth you better come down here so we can be ready when he leaves.”
“I’ll be down.”
“Out.”
He put the rover away.
Brown let it get away from him in the seventh. St. Louis opened with two singles to right, spoiling the perfect game, the no hitter, and putting the lead in jeopardy with McGwire on deck.
With the runners at the corners Brown walked the next batter, bringing McGwire to the plate with the bases loaded. The Cardinals would gain the lead and the momentum if he could put one over the wall.
Davey Johnson trotted out to the mound for a conference with his pitcher, but the manager appeared to give only a quick pep talk. He left Brown in place and headed back to the dugout, accompanied by a chorus of applause.
The crow’d rose to its feet and quieted in anticipation of what would be the confrontation of the night. Stilwell’s rover clicked twice, and he pulled it out of his pocket.
“Yeah?”
“Do you believe this? We gotta send that guy Houghton a six-pack for this.”
Stilwell didn’t reply. His eyes were on Vachon, who had stepped away from his seat and was coming up the stairs to the concessions level.
“He’s moving.”
“What? He can’t be. How can he miss this?”
Stilwell turned his back and leaned against a concrete support column as Vachon emerged from the stairs and walked behind him.
When it was clear, Stilwell looked around and saw Vachon heading toward the lavatory, making his way by several men who were rushing out in time to see McGwire bat.
Stilwell raised his rover.
“He’s going to the bathroom just past the Krispy Kreme stand.”
“He’s had two beers. Maybe he’s just taking a leak. You want me down there?”
As Stilwell replied, a huge noise rose from the crowd and then quickly subsided. Stilwell kept his eyes on the entrance to the men’s room. When he was ten feet from it, a man emerged. Not Vachon. A large white man with a long dark beard and a shaved skull. He wore a tight T-shirt and his arms were fully wrapped in tattoos. Stilwell looked for the skull with halo insignia of the Road Saints but didn’t see it.