Gil got in the car. He drove home. Snow was still falling, the roads jammed. It took him an hour.
Home was a studio at the back of the second floor of a peeling three-decker west of the ring road. He had a bed, a floor lamp, a chest of drawers with a photograph of Richie on top. He opened the bottom drawer, felt under the clothing, took out what was left of his inheritance.
Two knives, both from his father’s forge. The first was a Damascus-steel bowie, with a foot-long blade and an ivory handle, probably dating from the forties. The second, not quite as old, was a heavy, soft-steel thrower, almost as big as the bowie, with a double-edged blade and a leather leg sheath. Gil held them under the lamp. He hadn’t looked at them in a long time, had forgotten their beauty, especially the beauty of that Damascus steeclass="underline" its patterns like waves on a shining sea. A work of art. But it would have to be the bowie. The thrower wasn’t worth much more than a few hundred; barely enough for the tickets.
Gil switched off the lamp and lay on the bed with the knives beside him. He gazed at his view, an alley backed by a brick wall. The light began to fail. He heard the front door open, heard footsteps on the stairs. Lenore. Would she come down the hall, knock on the door? She didn’t. The footsteps kept going, up the next flight, then overhead. Her shoes thumped on the floor above, one, two.
He’d stolen home, just like that. Hard to believe, but he could summon memories: the catcher, lunging at him through the dust raised by his slide, too late; the umpire, bent so close to the ground he brushed his leg making the safe sign; the batter, just standing there, mouth open. The game was over. They carried him off the field on their shoulders. The sun shone down from a clear blue sky. Absolute fact.
Or was that the game where he’d still had to come back and pitch the bottom of the last inning? He wasn’t sure. His mind flashed an image of himself on the mound, of the ball tracing a blurred path toward Boucicaut’s black mitt. He’d been able to put it anywhere he wanted, and he’d had a gun for an arm, especially when it wasn’t sore. But it had been sore almost all the time.
Gil was close to sleep when he heard a noise in the far corner of the room, near the dresser; so close that he almost incorporated it in his dream and did nothing. But he sat up, and saw something moving in the shadows. He switched the floor lamp back on.
A mouse. Scared by the light, or the sound of the switch, it ran toward the dresser, toward the darkness underneath, and safety. Distance fifteen feet, turning cycle about twice that: the thrower was in Gil’s hand. He hadn’t thrown a knife in a long time, but it all came back-the bent-back angle of the wrist, the acceleration, the snapless release. The knife made half a revolution as it flashed across the room and stuck deep in the floor, cutting the mouse in half. The tail end twitched for a moment, then went still.
Gil had a funny thought: there’s nothing wrong with my arm now. He turned off the light.
3
“… by Bud and Bud Lite.”
“Hey. We’re back. We’ll have the scores, but first let’s take a call from Manny in-”
Bobby Rayburn rolled over, hit the slumber button, and tried to go back to sleep. Normally he couldn’t; when he was up he was up, end of story, but this morning he awoke still tired from yesterday’s cross-country trip and probably could have eased back into sleep, if he hadn’t had to piss so bad. After a minute or two he gave up, got out of bed. The curtains in his room at the Flamingo Bay Motor Inn and Spa were drawn, but not completely: a shaft of light penetrated the darkness, falling across the shoulder and face of the girl sleeping in the bed. Bobby tried to remember her name.
He went into the bathroom and pissed. He felt good. A little hung over, but good. The rib-cage thing was all better, or just about. He saw his reflection in the mirror: he was in shape, in great shape considering it was only March.
Back in the bedroom, the phone was ringing. He answered it. “Yeah?”
“Morning, big guy.” It was Wald. “How was the flight?”
“Fine.”
“How’s that rib cage?”
“Fine.”
“Hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Pick you up in fifteen minutes, if that’s okay.”
“Yeah.”
“Got a little surprise for you.”
“What?”
“You’ll see.”
The girl opened her eyes. They were on him right away. She gave him a long look. Oh, Christ.
“Good morning, Bobby,” she said.
“Morning, babe.”
She sat up, exposing her breasts. Nice ones.
“Last night was fantastic, Bobby.”
“Yeah.” Or thanks; should he have said thanks? Or that it was fantastic for him too? Yeah. That was probably it. Too late. He recalled how she’d come over to him in the bar, while the front-desk people took care of his bags; or maybe that was another time, another girl, and this one had been waiting by the pool when he’d left the bar and walked across the inner court to his room.
Under the sheets, her lower body made a grinding motion. “Feels early,” she said. “Coming back to bed?” Her nipples hardened, just like that.
“Sorry,” he told her. “Got to run.”
“When’ll you be back?”
“Late.” She didn’t take the hint. “Maybe you better get going too.”
She bit her lip. “How about a little kiss good-bye?”
Bobby leaned over and gave her a little kiss. She smelled of sex. He considered and rejected a peck on the forehead, went with a lip kiss, but closemouthed and quick. She had other ideas; turning his kiss into something else, and taking hold of his dick.
“Mmm,” she said.
They left the room together. Wald was parked outside in his Targa with the 6 PRCNT vanity plate.
“Bye, Bobby,” she said. “See you sometime.”
“Bye.”
He got into the car. Wald was smiling. “Nice,” he said, watching the girl hurry off, tossing her hair in the sunshine. “Does she have a sister?”
“I don’t know.”
“Even the mother would probably do.”
Bobby was tired of the subject. “Where’re we going?”
“Pancake Palace?”
“Sure.”
“And then I’ll run you over to the facility. They’re expecting you at ten-thirty. Photos, handshakes, all that, but no interviews. BP at eleven. Okay?”
“Sure.”
“And last but not least.” Wald reached inside his linen jacket, handed Bobby an envelope.
Bobby opened it. Inside was a check in his name, drawn on the Chase Manhattan Bank for $1,175,000. “This is?…”
“First half of the signing bonus,” Wald said. “Minus the agency fee.”
“Oh.”
He started to put it in his pocket, but Wald said, “Want me to bank it this afternoon? Shame to lose out on a day’s interest.”
“What’s a day’s interest?”
“On this? Hundred and fifty, two hundred bucks, at current rates. Something like that. Maybe we can make a deal.”
“You can make a deal on interest rates?”
“It’s like Archimedes, Bobby. Get me a lever long enough and I can move the earth. Your job is to-”
“Get you the lever.” Bobby handed him the check.
Wald laughed. “No flies on you.” The breeze blew through the open roof of the Targa, heavy, hot, humid.
They sat at a booth along the back wall of Pancake Palace. Bobby had blueberry pancakes with maple syrup, OJ, coffee.
“Get ready,” Wald said.
A father at a nearby table was nudging his son. The son didn’t want to do it. “He won’t bite,” said the father in a stage whisper, maybe hoping Bobby would look up, smile at the boy, seem approachable, nonbiting. Bobby kept eating, head down.
But still the boy came, holding out a baseball and a pen. Didn’t say anything, just laid them by the pancakes. Bobby wrote his name on the ball. Didn’t say anything either. Then the father came over, big smile, hitching up his pants, toast crumbs on his lips.
“Gonna hit one out for us this year, Bobby?”