Dead Line

Chapter One

Monday, September 22

The moment, or rather, the episode, might be the ultimate proof of that old sports axiom that only fools try to predict the future in that little jewel box of a ballyard called Fenway Park. The fool in this case: Me. I was sitting in a field box, third row behind the visitors’ dugout, great seats courtesy of my editor, Peter Martin. Well, okay, it wasn’t actually Martin’s courtesy as much as my bribery that got me the seats. I offered him dinner at any restaurant in town for the company tickets, and Martin, having absolutely no appreciation for the consequences of this great athletic event, grabbed the bait. I’ve always believed it’s food, not love, that conquers all.

So it’s one of those crystal clear late September nights when Boston seems to be the absolute epicenter of the entire world. Suntans have faded. People have stormed back into town refreshed from a summer spent in Vermont, or Maine, or on Cape Cod. The city is filled with men in dark suits and red ties handing fistfuls of cash to young valets in front of swank restaurants with front doors lit by gas torches. Half the women on Newbury Street look like they just came from a Cosmo photo shoot. I swear, you could strike a match off their calves, if they let you, though they probably wouldn’t, not, at least, until making more formal acquaintance.

Ahem, anyway. The leaves were just showing their first hint of color. The air had a slight nip to it, and the breeze a bit of an edge — enough of one, as a matter of fact, to take Nomar Garciaparra’s lead-off line drive in the bottom of the eighth inning and turn it from a sure-thing home run to a sliding double that bounced hard off the left field wall, the famed Green Monster.

So Nomar’s on second. The Sox are playing the Yankees. Need I say more? Well, yes, I do. They trail the Yankees 3–1 in the game, and they lag two games behind them in the East Division of the American League, with only a handful of games left in the season. To say this was an important game is like saying Jack Flynn only covers major stories. You don’t need to; we’re all too sophisticated for it; it’s just one of those things in life that’s automatically known among those accustomed to being in the know, and even those who aren’t.

With Nomar taking a short lead, Manny Ramirez, batting cleanup, draws a walk, putting men on first and second, nobody out, David Ortiz coming to the plate.

Here’s where the prediction stuff comes in. I turned to Elizabeth, my girlfriend, the brilliant, gorgeous one on my left with the pouty lips and the legs so achingly long it actually hurts her to fold herself into these seats, and I said, “My bet is, he bunts.” I mean, of course he’s going to bunt. Not only do you put both men in scoring position, but you take out the prospect of a late-inning, rally-dousing double play.

Elizabeth doesn’t say anything, not because she doesn’t have thoughts on this exact issue. I’m sure she did. But she’s not there. I vaguely remember her telling me something about the women’s room and heading out to look for a couple of those delightful Cool Dogs with the warm chocolate topping.

Instead, I’m looking at a short, middle-aged guy with stubby legs in loose-fitting jeans and a bored expression on his ruddy face. He looks like he took a wrong turn at the $2 window over at Suffolk Downs. I mean, he’s the only guy within 200 miles of Fenway Park who’s bored on this night.

“That seat’s taken,” I tell him.

He doesn’t reply. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Rivera wind up and deliver. I turn back to the game, watch Ortiz lower his bat like he’s going to bunt — I knew it — and the ball zip past him and into the catcher’s mitt. Strike one.

“I said, that seat’s taken.”

Still, no answer. He’s just kind of looking at me out of these deadened eyes, not even paying attention to the most pivotal game of the season, but hardly paying attention to me, either. Again, Rivera winds up, but this time Ortiz swings away — what the hell’s he doing? — and misses. Strike two.

I watch Ortiz in disbelief. I look at the third base coach to see if maybe a signal was crossed or missed. Then I remember the clown beside me.

“Sir—” I begin. I hear the crack of a bat. Two men in the seats in front of me scream in unison. The entire crowd rises to its collective feet. The ball, a simple gleam of white, soars high into the air on its path toward nirvana, which in this case, is the right field bullpen. It’s going, it’s going, it’s, it’s — well, out of reach of the right fielder, bounding off the wall, squirting wildly around the turf. The damned wind knocked it down again.

Garciaparra scores from second. Ramirez comes chugging into third like he’s running from a burning building with twenty-five pounds of firefighting equipment draped across his back. Ortiz stops on second: 3–2, nobody out, two men in scoring position.

I’m thinking that Elizabeth’s going to be furious she missed all this. Then that thought is replaced by my abiding hope that she found the Cool Dogs. And finally it occurs to me that I’ve sat with her for three hours, seven-and-a-half innings, and the Sox scored a single run, and on a throwing error at that. This mute’s been sitting next to me for five minutes and we’re about to blow the game open. Now I don’t want to sound superstitious or anything like that, but just to make sure he was in no unnecessary rush to leave, I turned to him and said, “Jesus Christ, pal, what a game, huh?”

He still didn’t reply. The entire stadium is up on its feet, everyone clapping in an audible frenzy, and he’s just sitting there looking at me, but really looking at nothing at all.

Undaunted, I said, “Great seats, no?” Read: Don’t be rushing anywhere, there, MVP. You may be the entire reason for this turn of fortune.

Trot Nixon comes to the plate. He takes the first pitch for a ball. The crowd calms itself down and everyone takes their seats. Elizabeth is still down in concessions hell — exactly where I want her right now, bless her heart, not to mention the rest of her gorgeous body.

I leaned back in my seat, casually turned to my silent friend, and said, “Truth is, I think Trot’s the best clutch hitter on the club.”

He replied, “You Jack Flynn?”

Ding, ding, ding. I knew this was some sort of Christ figure, or maybe Christ himself, descending from the heavens to push the Red Sox to their first World Series win in 85 years, and he’s about to let me in on his secret.

Nixon swung and missed. I turned to my seatmate and stared him up and down, allowing some of my reporter’s skepticism to take hold. I asked, “Why do you ask?”

He was just sitting there, his eyes so dull we might as well have been sitting in the last pew of the Holy Name Cathedral on a Sunday morning rather than the box seats of Fenway Park during a one-run game against the Yankees in the middle of the best pennant race we’ve had in this city in twenty years.

“Because if you are, I have some information for you.”

Well, there you have it, my biggest weakness — information, well, along with beautiful women, great food, and handsome dogs, specifically retrievers.

Crack.

I whirled toward the action to see an arching fly ball to center field, more shallow than I or anyone else in the park would have liked. The outfielder caught it. Ramirez tagged up and headed for home. It’s a shame they don’t have public transportation right on the playing field because it probably would have gotten him there faster.

As it was, the catcher caught the throw, completed half that day’s New York Times crossword puzzle, then tagged Ramirez out. Double play. To Ramirez’s credit, it took him so long to run home that it allowed Ortiz to tag up and get to third.

Back to the man beside me. I asked, “What is it you have?”

“You’re Mr. Flynn?”

“No, my father’s Mr. Flynn. He’s dead, though. I just go by Jack. Jack Flynn.”

I sounded like Bond, James Bond, when I said that, but not really.

My fellow fan said, “From the Record, right?”

I nodded.

“I have a group of associates who want to meet you after the game, in the Boston Cab Company garage. If you’re not there within thirty minutes of the last out, they’re gone, and they’ll take the information somewhere else. We have a story of crucial importance that we’d like to give you.”

His instructions were formal, rehearsed, as if he had gone over them many times in what I was starting to understand was his tiny mind. Deviation didn’t seem to suit him well, as when I replied, “Not likely. But who are your associates?”

He fumbled for a moment, collected himself, and returned to the script, “You will see them soon enough. Mr. Flynn, people’s lives depend on your getting this story. Life and death. It’s in your hands.”

Crack.

Again, I turned back to the infield and saw batter Jason Varitek racing toward first base. The right fielder was sprinting toward the foul line, heading directly at the Pesky Pole. I saw a blur of white disappear in the short right field stands. I heard a deafening roar. I began clapping along with the rest of civilization, stamping my feet, hollering my approval, until I couldn’t clap, stamp, or holler anymore.

Then, flush with bravado, I turned back to my mystery man and said, “Tell your friends to go fuck themselves.”

Elizabeth, standing beside me holding a Cool Dog in each hand, an impassive look on her utterly flawless face, held one out to me and casually replied, “Why don’t you go tell them yourself.”

I accepted the ice cream and said, “No, no, I wasn’t talking to you.”

She looked at me curiously. I cast a glance up the aisle, in search of my messenger, but he was nowhere to be found. Elizabeth said, “I had to go all the way over to the first base side to track these things down. You better like it.”

Oh, I do. I do. I spread some warm chocolate sauce across mine. The Red Sox put New York down one-two-three in the top of the ninth, advancing to within a game of first place. But it ends up, now that the game was over, the night’s excitement had just begun.