One False Move

20

Once on. the road Myron switched his cellular phone back on. Two incoming calls. One was from Esperanza at the office, the other from Jessica in Los Angeles. He briefly debated what to do. No question really. He dialed Jessica’s hotel suite. Was it wimpy to call her right back? Maybe. But Myron looked at it as one of his more mature moments. Call him whipped, but engaging in head games had never been his style.

The hotel operator connected him, but there was no answer. He left a message. Then he dialed the office.

«We got a big problem,» Esperanza said.

«On Sunday?» Myron said.

«The Lord may take it off, but not team owners.»

«Did you hear about Horace Slaughter?» he asked.

«Yes,» she said. «I’m sorry about your friend, but we still got a business to run. And a problem.»

«What?»

«The Yankees are going to trade Lester Ellis. To Seattle. They’ve scheduled a news conference first thing tomorrow morning.»

Myron rubbed the bridge of his nose with his pointer and thumb. «How did you hear?»

«Devon Richards.»

Reliable source. Damn. «Does Lester know?»

«Nope.»

«He’ll have a fit.»

«Don’t I know it.»

«Suggestions?»

«Not a one,» Esperanza said. «A fringe benefit of being the underling.»

The call waiting clicked. «I’ll call you back.» He switched lines and said hello.

Francine Neagly said, «I’m being tailed.»

«Where are you?»

«The A and P off the circle.»

«What kind of car?»

«Blue Buick Skylark. Few years old. White top.»

«Got a plate?»

«New Jersey, four-seven-six-four-five TV

Myron thought a moment. «When do you start your shift?»

«Half an hour.»

«You working the car or the desk?»

«Desk.»

«Good, I’ll pick him up there.»

«Pick him up?»

«If you’re staying in the station, he’s not going to waste a beautiful Sunday hanging outside it. I’m going to follow him.»

«Tail the tailer?»

«Right. Take Mount Pleasant to Livingston Avenue. I’ll pick him up there.»

«Hey, Myron?»

«Yeah.»

«If something big goes down, I want in.»

«Sure.»

They hung up. Myron backtracked to Livingston. He parked along Memorial Circle near the turnoff to Livingston Avenue. Good view of the police station and easy access to all routes. Myron kept the car running and watched the townsfolk handle Memorial Circle’s half-mile perimeter. A tremendous variety of Living-stonites frequented «the circle». There were old ladies pacing slowly, usually in twos, some of the more adventurous swinging tiny barbells. There were couples in their fifties and sixties, many in matching sweat suits. Cute, sort of. Teenagers ambled, their mouths getting a far better workout than any extremity or cardiovascular muscle. Hard-core joggers raced past them all with nary a glance. They wore sleek sunglasses and firm faces and sported bare midriffs. Bare midriffs. Even the men. What was up with that?

He forced himself not to think about kissing Brenda. Or how it felt when she smiled at him across the picnic table. Or how her face flushed when she got excited. Or how animated she’d gotten when talking to people at the barbecue. Or how tender she’d been with Timmy when she put on that bandage.

Good thing he wasn’t thinking about her.

For a brief moment he wondered if Horace would approve. Strange thought, really. But there it was. Would his old mentor approve? He wondered. He wondered what it would be like to date a black woman. Was there attraction in the taboo? Repulsion? Concern for the future? He pictured the two of them living in the suburbs, the pediatrician and the sports agent, a mixed couple with similar dreams, and then he realized how dumb it was for a man in love with a woman in Los Angeles to think such nonsense about a woman he’d only known for two days.

Dumb. Yup.

A blonde hard-core jogger dressed in tight magenta shorts and a much-tested white sports bra jogged by his car. She looked inside and smiled at him. Myron smiled back. The bare midriff. You take the good with the bad.

Across the street Francine Neagly pulled into the police station driveway. Myron shifted into drive and kept his foot on the brake. The Buick Skylark passed the station without slowing down. Myron had tried to trace the license plate from his source at the Department of Motor Vehicles, but hey, it was Sunday, it was the DMV, you put it together.

He pulled onto Livingston Avenue and followed the Buick south. He kept four cars back and craned his neck. Nobody was pushing hard on the accelerator. Livingston took its time on Sunday. But that was okay. The Buick came to a stop at a traffic light at Northfield Avenue. On the right was a brick minimall of some sort. When Myron had been growing up, the same building had been Roosevelt Elementary School; twenty-some-odd years ago someone decided what New Jersey really needed were fewer schools and more malls. Foresight.

The Skylark turned right. Myron kept back and did likewise. They were heading toward Route 10 again, but before they had gone even half a mile, the Skylark made a left onto Crescent Road. Myron frowned. Small suburban street, mostly used to cut through to Hobart Gap Road. Hmm. It probably meant that Mr. Skylark knew the town fairly well and was not an outsider.

A quick right followed the left. Myron knew now where the Skylark was headed. There was only one thing nestled into this suburban landscape besides the split-level homes and a barely flowing brook. A Little League field.

Meadowbrook Little League field. Two fields actually. Sunday and sun meant the road and parking lot were packed with vehicles. So-called utility trucks and minivans had replaced the wood-paneled station wagons of Myron’s youth, but little else had changed. The lot was still unpaved gravel. The concession booth was still white cement with green trim and run by volunteer moms. The stands were still metal and rickety and filled with parents cheering a tad too loudly.

The Buick Skylark grabbed an illegal space near the backstop. Myron slowed the car and waited. When the door of the Skylark opened and Detective Wickner, the lead officer in the Elizabeth Bradford «accident», swept out of the car in grand style, Myron was not really surprised. The retired officer took off his sunglasses with a snap and tossed them back into the car. He put on a baseball cap, green with the letter S on it. You could almost see Wickner’s lined face slacken as though the field’s sunlight were the most gentle masseur. Wickner waved to some guys standing behind the backstop – the Eli Wickner Backstop, according to the sign. The guys waved back. Wickner bounded toward them.

Myron stayed where he was for a moment. Detective Eli Wickner had hung out in the same spot since before the days Myron had frequented this field. Wickner’s Throne. People greeted him here. They came up and slapped his back and shook his hand; Myron half expected them to kiss his ring. Wickner was beaming now. At home. In paradise. In the place where he was still a big man.

Time to change that.

Myron found a parking spot a block away. He hopped out of the car and approached. His feet crunched the gravel. He traveled back to a time when he walked upon this same surface with soft kid cleats. Myron had been a good Little League player – no, he’d been a great player – until the age of eleven. It’d been right here, on Field Two. He’d led the league in home runs and seemed on the verge of breaking the all-time Livingston American League Little League record. He needed to hit two more homers with four games left. Twelve-year-old Joey Davito was pitching. Davito threw hard and with no control. The first pitch hit Myron square on the forehead, right under the brim of the helmet. Myron went down. He remembered blinking when he landed on his back. He remembered looking up into the glare of the sun. He remembered seeing the face of his coach, Mr. Farley. And then his father was there. Dad blinked back tears and scooped him up in his strong arms, gently cradling Myron’s head with his large hand. He’d gone to the hospital, but there was no lasting damage. At least not physical. But after that Myron had never been able to stop from bailing out on an inside pitch. Baseball was never the same to him. The game had hurt him, had lost its innocence. He stopped playing for good a year later. There were half a dozen guys with Wickner. They all wore baseball caps sitting high and straight, no breaks in the brims, like you see with the kids. White T-shirts were stretched across bellies that resembled swallowed bowling balls. Bodies by Budweiser. They leaned against the fence, elbows draped over the top like they were taking a Sunday ride in a car. They commented on the kids, inspecting them, dissecting their games, predicting their futures – as though their opinions mattered a rat’s ass.

There is a lot of pain in Little League. Much has been written in recent years criticizing the pushy Little League parents – deservedly so – but the namby-pamby, politically correct, everybody equal, semi-New Age alternative was not much better. A kid hits a weak grounder. Disappointed, he sighs and walks toward first. He is thrown out by a mile and sulks straight to the dugout. The New Age coach yells, «Good hustle!» But of course it wasn’t good hustle. So what message are you sending? The parents pretend that winning is irrelevant, that the best player on the team should not get more playing time or a better batting position than the worst. But the problem with all this – besides the obvious fact that it’s a lie – is that the kids are not fooled. Kids aren’t dumb. They know that they are being patronized with all this «as long as he’s having fun» talk. And they resent it.

So the pain remains. It probably would always be there.

Several people recognized Myron. They tapped their neighbors’ shoulders and pointed. There he is. Myron Bolitar. The greatest basketball player this town ever produced. Would have been a top pro if… If. Fate. The knee. Myron Bolitar. Half legend, half a warning to today’s youth. The athletic equivalent to the smashed-up car they used to demonstrate the dangers of drunk driving.

Myron headed straight for the men along the backstop. Livingston fans. The same guys went to all the football games and basketball games and baseball games. Some were nice. Some were blowhards. All of them recognized Myron. They greeted him warmly. Detective Wickner stayed silent, his eyes glued to the field, studying the play with a little too much intensity, especially since it was between innings.

Myron tapped Wickner on the shoulder.

«Hello, Detective.»

Wickner turned slowly. He’d always had these piercing gray eyes, but right now they were heavily tinged with red. Conjunctivitis maybe. Or allergies. Or booze. Your choice. His skin was tan to the point of rawhide. He wore a yellow collared shirt with a little zipper in the front. The zipper was down. He had on a thick gold chain. New probably. Something to jazz up retirement. It didn’t work on him.

Wickner mustered up a smile. «You’re old enough to call me Eli now, Myron.»

Myron tried it. «How are you, Eli?»

«Not bad, Myron. Retirement’s treating me good. I fish a lot. How about yourself? Saw you try that comeback. Sorry it didn’t work out.»

«Thanks,» Myron said.

«You still living at your folks»?»

«No, I’m in the city now.»

«So what brings you out this way? Visiting the family?»

Myron shook his head. «I wanted to talk to you.»

They drifted about ten feet from the entourage. No one followed, their body language working as a force field.

«What about?» Wickner asked.

«An old case.»

«A police case?»

Myron looked at him steadily. «Yes.»

«And what case would that be?»

«The death of Elizabeth Bradford.»

To Wickner’s credit, he skipped the surprise act. He took the baseball cap off his head and smoothed down the gray flyaways. Then he put the cap back on. «What do you want to know?»

«The bribe,» Myron said. «Did the Bradfords pay you off in a lump sum, or did they set up a more long-term payout with interest and stuff?»

Wickner took the blow but stayed upright. There was a quiver on the right side of his mouth like he was fighting back tears. «I don’t much like your attitude, son.»

«Tough.» Myron knew that his only chance here was a direct, no-barred frontal assault; dancing around or subtle interrogation would get him squat. «You’ve got two choices, Eli. Choice one, you tell me what really happened to Elizabeth Bradford and I try to keep your name out of it. Choice two, I start screaming to the papers about a police cover-up and destroy your reputation.» Myron gestured to the field. «By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be lucky to hang out in the Eli Wickner Urinal.»

Wickner turned away. Myron could see his shoulders rising and falling with the labored breaths. «I don’t know what you’re talking about.»

Myron hesitated a beat. Then he kept his voice soft. «What happened to you, Eli?»

«What?»

«I used to look up to you,» Myron said. «I used to care what you thought.»

The words struck home. Wickner’s shoulders began to hitch a bit. He kept his face low. Myron waited. Wickner finally turned to face him. The rawhide skin looked drier now, sapped, more brittle. He was working up to saying something. Myron gave him space and waited.

From behind him Myron felt a large hand squeeze his shoulder.

«There a problem here?»

Myron spun around. The hand belonged to Chief of Detectives Roy Pomeranz, the musclehead who used to be Wickner’s partner. Pomeranz wore a white T-shirt and white shorts that rode so high it looked like someone was giving him a power wedgie. He still had the he-man physique, but he was totally bald now, his head completely smooth as though waxed.

«Get your hand off my shoulder,» Myron said.

Pomeranz ignored the request. «Everything okay here?»

Wickner spoke up. «We were just talking, Roy.»

«Talking about what?»

Myron handled that one. «About you.»

Big smile. «Oh?»

Myron pointed. «We were just saying that if you got a hoop earring, you’d be the spitting image of Mr. Clean.»

Pomeranz’s smile vanished.

Myron lowered his voice. «I’ll tell you one more time. Move your hand, or I’ll break it in three places.» Note the three-places reference. Specific threats were always the best. He’d learned that from Win.

Pomeranz kept the hand there a second or two longer – to keep face – and then he slid it off.

«You’re still on the force, Roy,» Myron said. «So you got the most to lose. But I’ll make you the same offer. Tell me what you know about the Bradford case, and I’ll try to keep your name out of it.»

Pomeranz smirked at him. «Funny thing, Bolitar.»

«What?»

«You digging into all this in an election year.»

«Your point being?»

«You’re working for Davison,» he said. «You’re just trying to drag down a good man like Arthur Bradford for that scum sucker.»

Davison was Bradford’s opponent for governor. «Sorry, Roy, that’s incorrect.»

«Yeah? Well, either way, Elizabeth Bradford died from a fall.»

«Who pushed her?»

«It was an accident.»

«Someone accidentally pushed her?»

«Nobody pushed her, wise guy. It was late at night. The terrace was slippery. She fell. It was an accident. Happens all the time.»

«Really? How many deaths has Livingston had in the past twenty years where a woman accidentally fell to her death from her own balcony?»

Pomeranz crossed his arms over his chest. His biceps bulged like baseballs. The guy was doing one of those subtle flexes, where you’re trying to look like you’re not flexing. «Accidents in the home. You know how many people die in home accidents every year?»

«No, Roy, how many?»

Pomeranz didn’t answer. Big surprise. He met Wickn-er’s eye. Wickner remained silent. He looked vaguely ashamed.

Myron decided to go for the whammy. «And what about the assault on Anita Slaughter? Was that an accident too?»

Stunned silence. Wickner involuntarily groaned a little. Pomeranz’s thigh-thick arms dropped back to his sides.

Pomeranz said, «I don’t know what you’re talking about.»

«Sure you do, Roy. Eli even alluded to it in the police file.»

Angry smirk. «You mean the file that Francine Neagly stole from the records room?»

«She didn’t steal it, Roy. She looked at it.»

Pomeranz smiled slowly. «Well, it’s missing now. She had it last. We firmly believe that Officer Neagly stole it.»

Myron shook his head. «Not that easy, Roy. You can hide that file. You can even hide the file on the Anita Slaughter assault. But I already got my hand on the hospital file. From St. Barnabas. They keep records, Roy.»

More stunned looks. It was a bluff. But it was a good one. And it drew blood.

Pomeranz leaned very close to Myron, his breath reeking of a poorly digested meal. He kept his voice low. «You’re poking your nose where it don’t belong.»

Myron nodded. «And you’re not brushing after every meal.»

«I’m not going to let you drag down a good man with false innuendos.»

«Innuendos,» Myron repeated. «You been listening to vocabulary tapes in the squad car, Roy? Do the taxpayers know about this?»

«You’re playing a dangerous game, funny man.»

«Oooo, I’m so scared.» When short a comeback, fall back on the classics.

«I don’t have to start with you,» Pomeranz said. He leaned back a bit, the smile returning. «I got Francine Neagly.»

«What about her?»

«She had no business with that file. We believe that someone in Davison’s campaign – probably you, Bolitar – paid her to steal it. To gather any information that can be used in a distorted fashion to hurt Arthur Bradford.»

Myron frowned. «Distorted fashion?»

«You think I won’t do it?»

«I don’t even know what that means. Distorted fashion? Was that on one of your tapes?»

Pomeranz stuck a finger in Myron’s face. «You think I won’t suspend her sorry ass and ruin her career?»

«Pomeranz, not even you can be that dumb. You ever heard of Jessica Culver?»

The finger came down. «She’s your girlfriend, right?» Pomeranz said. «She’s a writer or something.»

«A big writer,» Myron said. «Very well respected. And you know what she would love to do? A big expose on sexism in police departments. You do anything to Francine Neagly, you so much as demote her or give her one shit detail or breathe on her between meals, and I promise you that when Jessica gets done, you’ll make Bob Packwood look like Betty Friedan.»

Pomeranz looked confused. Probably didn’t know who Betty Friedan was. Maybe he should have said Gloria Steinem. To his credit, Pomeranz took his time. He fought for recovery, offering up an almost sweet smile.

«Okay,» he said, «so it’s the cold war all over again. I can nuke you, you can nuke me. It’s a stalemate.»

«Wrong, Roy. You’re the one with the job, the family, the rep, and maybe a looming jail term. Me, I got nothing to lose.»

«You can’t be serious. You’re dealing with the most powerful family in New Jersey. Do you really think you’ve got nothing to lose?»

Myron shrugged. «I’m also crazy,» he said. «Or to put it another way, my mind works in a distorted fashion.»

Pomeranz looked over at Wickner. Wickner looked back. There was a crack of the bat. The crowd got to its feet. The ball hit the fence. «Go, Billy!» Billy rounded second and slid into third.

Pomeranz walked away without another word.

Myron looked at Wickner for a long time. «Are you a total sham, Detective?»

Wickner said nothing.

«When I was eleven, you spoke to my fifth-grade class and we all thought you were the coolest guy we’d ever seen. I used to look for you at games. I used to want your approval. But you’re just a lie.»

Wickner kept his eyes on the field. «Let it go, Myron.»

«I can’t.»

«Davison is a scum. He’s not worth it.»

«I’m not working for Davison. I’m working for Anita Slaughter’s daughter.»

Wickner kept his eyes on the field. His mouth was set, but Myron could see the tremor starting back up in the corner of his mouth. «All you’re going to do is hurt a lot of people.»

«What happened to Elizabeth Bradford?»

«She fell,» he said. «That’s all.»

«I’m not going to stop digging,» Myron said.

Wickner adjusted his cap again and began to walk away. «Then more people are going to die.»

There was no threat in his tone, just the stilted, pained timber of inevitability.