The Best American Mystery Stories 2002

Brendan DuBois A Family Game

From Murderers’ Row

The June day was surprisingly muggy and hot, especially out in the baseball field behind the Morton Regional High School, where there was no shade and the sun beat down so hard that Richard Dow could feel its strength through the baseball cap he was wearing. The cap was yellow with a blue “P” in the center, just like the caps of the dozen boys who were on the field or in the dugout this day who played for the Pine Tree Rotary youth team. He stood by first base, the team’s assistant coach, and he looked over at the scoreboard, kept current by a young girl using a piece of chalk almost the size of her fist. Pine Tree Rotary, 1; Glen’s Plumbing & Heating, o. Two out, the bottom of the sixth. The game was almost over. Just one more out.

He rubbed his hands together. A boy from Glen’s Plumbing 8c Heating was on third base. He didn’t know his name. But he certainly knew the name of the boy pitching this afternoon’s game: Sam Dow, age twelve, who was one out away from earning Pine Tree’s first victory this season. They were 1 and 5, but nobody on the team counted that solitary victory: it had been a forfeit, when the other team — Jerry’s Lumberyard — didn’t make it to the game because the coach’s van had struck a moose on Route Four.

“C’mon, Sam!” he called out, slapping his hands together. “One more out, you can do it! Just one more out!”

Sam ignored him. Good boy. Focus on the hitter, standing there with his helmet and blue and white uniform, bat looking so large in his small hands. The attendance was good for a warm summer day in Vermont, with a smattering of parents and friends and relatives in the stands behind home plate. Someone in the stands was smoking a large cigar, and a brief breeze brought the scent over, and Richard was surprised at the hunger he felt at smelling it. God, how long had it been since he had a really good cigar...

Richard looked over in the stands again, saw his ten-year-old daughter, Olivia, carefully keeping score in a large looseleaf binder. He waved at her but she, too, was ignoring her father, keeping focused on the job at hand. And that’s what their mother Carla was doing this early afternoon as well, working at the local travel agency.

Sam wound up and the ball flew fast for a throw from such a young boy, and the batter swung just as Richard heard the satisfying thump! as the ball landed in the catcher’s glove. The umpire did his sideways dance and said, “Strike!” and there were a few cheers and groans, but no jeers. The umpire today was Denny Thompson, the town’s fire chief, and he had a good eye and for an umpire was pretty reasonable.

“C’mon, Sam,” he whispered, “one more strike. You can do it.” He rubbed his hands again, looked over at the few boys of Pine Tree who weren’t on the field, now leaning forward on the badly painted green bench in the dugout. He could sense their anticipation, their youthful hunger, to feel — just once — what it would be like to win. That’s all, pretty simple stuff, but for an eleven- or twelve-year-old boy, getting that first win meant everything. It had been a long time since Richard had been this young, but he remembered. He always remembered.

There. Another windup from his boy, the blur of the ball, and — Crack!

Richard snapped his head, tracking the firing ball, it was well hit, pretty well hit, but wait, it’s arcing over, it’s just a pop-up fly, great, a pop-up fly, that’s it, it’s going to happen, we’re going to win, it’s going to happen...

Then Richard noticed the slow-moving legs of the Pine Tree Rotary boy backing up in right field, one hand shading his eyes, the other hand holding up the open glove, his arm now wavering, trembling, moving back and forth like a semaphore signaler. Leo Winn. The youngest player on the team. Richard just whispered again, “C’mon, Leo, you can do it, buddy, just catch the ball, just like practice, nothing to it, nothing at all.”

The ball plopped into his glove, and before the cheers could get any louder from the Pine Tree players and fans, young Leo, still moving backwards, tripped and fell on his back, the ball flying free into the freshly mown grass, the cheers and shouts now coming from the other team, as Pine Tree players and fans, including Richard, fell silent, as they lost once again.

After the ceremonial end-of-the-game lineup, when the players stood in line in the field and shook each other’s hands, murmuring “good game, good game,” Richard was in the parking lot of the school, one arm over Olivia’s shoulder, the other over Sam’s. Olivia was carrying the score book under her arm and said, “Sam, that was your best game ever. Three strikeouts and only one hit. And that was scored as an error.”

“Yeah, I know, I know. I was there, okay?” Sam replied. “What difference does it make? We still lost.”

Richard hugged his boy’s shoulder. “You did well, Sam. Even Leo.”

“Dad, he’s no good,” Sam complained.

“He’s not as good as you, but he’s still out there, practicing and playing,” Richard said. “That counts for a lot. He could have given up a long time ago. But he didn’t.”

Sam didn’t say a word, and Richard knew the poor guy was struggling over showing emotion at having lost yet again but determined not to say anything that could lead to dreaded tears pouring out. For twelve-year-old boys, sometimes showing tears was worse than anything else.

Olivia spoke up. “Look, there’s the other team. Going out for ice cream.”

“Well, we can go, too,” Richard said, seeing the smiles and happy faces of the other boys, trooping into open car and minivan doors.

“Dad...” Sam said. “No, let’s just go home. It doesn’t count. They’re going for ice cream ’cause they won. Losers don’t get ice cream after a game like ours.”

Richard was going to say something, but he noticed something going on over near the school’s dumpster. He pulled out his car keys and passed them over to Sam. “Here, go in and get the car opened up. I’ll be right along.”

Sam said, his voice now not so despondent, “Can I start it up?”

“Yes, but move it out of park and I’ll ground you till you’re thirty.”

His two kids ran ahead to his Lexus, and he dodged around the end of a pickup truck hauling an open trailer with a lawn mower on the back. There came a man’s voice, loud and insistent, “... dummy, how in hell could you drop that ball? It was an easy out!”

Richard froze at what he saw. George Winn, landscaper in town — among other things, some legal, some not so legal — had his boy’s T-shirt twisted up in a large fist and was shaking the poor guy back and forth. Tears were streaming down the child’s face, and his ball cap was on the ground. George was huge, with a beer gut that poked out from underneath a dark green T-shirt and a beard that went halfway down his chest. The hand that was wrapped around the boy’s T-shirt was stained with dirt and grease. Richard stepped forward. “Hey, George, lighten up, okay? It’s just a game.”

George turned, his face looking surprised, like he could not believe anyone would approach him for something so insignificant. “Hunh? What did you say, Dick?”

Richard hated being called Dick but let it go for now. “George, c’mon, it’s just a game. Your kid did all right.”

George let go of his son’s shirt, and the boy quickly went over to pick up his hat. The older man stepped closer and Richard caught a whiff of beer. “You looking for trouble, Dick?”

Richard’s hands seemed to start tingling, like they were being suddenly energized by the adrenaline. Richard recognized the sensation, tried to dampen it. “No, I’m just telling you that your kid’s a good player. Hey, he’s a trooper. Why don’t you—”

George came over, punched a finger into Richard’s chest, making him step back. “No, he ain’t no trooper. He’s a loser, writer-man, so back off. Unless you want to settle this right here and now.”

A horn honked, and he recognized the tone. His kids were in the Lexus, urging him to hurry up so they could get home. A door slammed and he saw the small figure of Leo in the front seat of the truck. Richard stepped back, made sure his back wasn’t turned to George.

“No, I don’t want to settle this right here and now.”

George snorted in satisfaction. “Good. Then why don’t you go home to your kiddie books and leave me and my boy the frig alone.”

Richard walked over to his Lexus as the truck backed up and roared away, the front right fender brushing his pants leg as it bailed out of the parking lot. He got to his Lexus and sat still for a moment as Sam talked more about the game and Olivia asked what he thought would be for dinner tonight, and it was like their voices were coming at him through thick cotton, for the only voice he could really make out was George’s.

Dinner that night was the usual rolling chaos of dishes being prepared, voices being raised, the television set on, and the phone ringing, with boys and girls calling for Sam and Olivia — and was it a genetic quirk among children everywhere, Richard thought, that they always called at dinner time? — and he managed to give Carla a quick hug and kiss as she heated up a tuna fish casserole.

“Besides losing, how was the game?”

“Great,” he said. “Sam pitched well. Got three strikeouts. Your day okay?”

“Uh-huh,” she said, handing over a head of romaine lettuce to him. “Wash this up, will you?”

“Sure,” he said, looking over at the trim figure of his blond-haired wife, her tight jeans and black flat shoes, and the light blue polo shirt that had white script on the left reading CENTRAL STREET TRAVEL. The casserole smelled all right, but he remembered a number of years ago, when Carla would prepare dishes like baked ziti and manicotti and a lobster fettucine... my, how good that had been. But all those food dishes had been left behind, years ago, when they had come to Vermont.

Olivia was at the kitchen counter, drawing a horse, and piped up, “I think Daddy almost got into a fight today.”

That got Carla’s sharp attention. “He did, did he?”

He started running the cold water, washing the lettuce leaves. “No, he didn’t. It wasn’t a fight; it was just a discussion.”

“That true, Olivia?” Carla asked, her voice still tense.

“Dunno, mom,” she said, still working on her horse. “The car doors were closed, but the other man was pushing his finger into Daddy.”

“Oh, he was, was he?” she said, her brown eyes flashing at him. “I thought you said things went great.”

“They did,” he said, washing another leaf of lettuce.

“And who was this guy, and what was going on?” she demanded.

“Nothing much,” Richard said, patting dry the leaves of lettuce on a stretch of paper towel. “We were just talking about the game and about sports dads. That sort of thing. He got a little heated up, and that was that. I just tried to remind him that it was just a family game. That’s all.”

“No trouble then,” she asked.

He smiled at his demanding wife. “No trouble.”

Some hours later he woke up in bed with Carla, staring up at the ceiling. He rolled over, checked the time on the red numerals of the nearby clock radio. It was 1:00 A.M. Time to go. He slowly got out of bed, sitting up and letting his feet touch the floor, hoping he wouldn’t disturb his wife. But Carla was too good.

She gently touched his bare back. “What’s up, hon?” she whispered, shifting closer to him in the darkness.

“Nothing much,” he said, leaning over to a chair, picking up his pants and a pullover.

“Getting dressed?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What’s going on?”

“Gotta see a guy about something.”

“Something bad?”

He reached behind him, stroked her face. “No, nothing bad. Just seeing a guy about something. No big deal. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

“ ’Kay,” she murmured. “You be careful, and you come back to us. Capisce?”

“Capisce,” he said, leaning over to kiss her forehead.

A half-hour later he was on the other side of town, at a small dirt park near the wooden covered bridge that spanned the Bellamy River. He shifted in his seat, wincing some at the uncomfortable feeling of the nine-millimeter Browning pistol stuck in his rear waistband. It was a quiet night, and he leaned his elbow outside the open window. The night sound of crickets and frogs were pleasant enough, but he remembered other night sounds as well. Traffic, always moving, always going. Horns and sirens and brakes squeaking. Music and the rattle-roar of the subway and people talking, shouting, laughing. And behind it all, the constant hum of an island filled with millions of people, always moving, always dealing, always doing something. That sense of energy, of being plugged in, of being part of something, God, he missed it as much as the faraway scent the day before of the cigar...

Lights coming across the bridge. The headlights flashed twice and then the lights dimmed as the car pulled up beside him. He stepped out and kept the hood and engine block between himself and the visitors.

“Richard?” came the familiar voice from the dark car. One Charlie Moore, and once again he wished he could be in a place where he would never hear that voice again.

“The same,” he said, relaxing, bringing his hand to his side from where it had been, at the rear of his shirt.

“Glad to see you,” he said. “Have a visitor here. Do you mind?”

“Do you care if I mind or not?”

A laugh. “Nope, I guess not.”

The footsteps came toward his Lexus, and a voice cautioned, “Watch it, light coming on.” He moved his head away and a small battery-powered lamp was turned on and was then placed on the hood of his car. In the small but bright light he made out the faces of two men, one familiar, the other a stranger. The familiar one said, “Time for introductions. Bob Tuthill, Department of Justice, please meet Richard Dow. Formerly known as Ricky ‘the Rifle’ Dolano.”

Tuthill just nodded. He had on a dark suit, white shirt, and red necktie. His companion was dressed more comfortably, in jeans and a black turtleneck shirt. Richard said, “Charlie, what’s going on?”

Tuthill spoke up. “What’s going on is another trial, set to start in August.”

“Where?”

“California. Two days, maybe three.”

“Who are you guys after?”

“Mel Flemmi,” Charlie said. “Used to be in your neck of the woods, then got into trouble in San Diego. The government needs to prove a pattern of criminal conduct, which is where you come in, testifying about what he did in Jersey. That won’t be a problem, will it?”

“Nope,” Richard said.

Tuthill shook his head. “Sorry, Ricky, that was—”

“Richard,” he interrupted. “The name is Richard Dow. Go on.”

Tuthill looked over at Charlie in exasperation and said, “What I was saying is that you answered too quickly. Saying there wouldn’t be a problem is a given, ’cause you know where we’ve got you. Set up in this little piece of paradise is part of the deal, and so is your testifying when we say so. But I don’t like the way you answered Mr. Moore so quickly. What I need to know is that we’re going to have your full faith and cooperation in testifying against Flemmi. Understood?”

Richard folded his arms, feeling his breathing tighten, just like when he was face to face with that moron George Winn at the high school parking lot. He said, “Look, Mel Flemmi is an animal. I know enough about what he did so you guys could put him away until the next millennium, even without bringing up whatever he did in San Diego. So yeah, I don’t have a problem with testifying against him. Little slug, his own teenage niece started doing drugs, started staying out late in the streets, and he whacked her, personally. So she wouldn’t bring shame to his family. So that’s the kind of guy he is, and so here’s the story. I don’t have a problem testifying against him. That good enough for you, Tuthill?”

A little smile came across the man’s face. “Nice talk from someone accused of committing eleven murders in his career.”

“Accused,” Richard said. “Never convicted.”

This time, Tuthill laughed and turned to Charlie. “What is it with these wise guys? Man, they flip and testify at the drop of a hat. The old-timers in my office, they said there used to be a time when guys like this would rather serve ten, twenty, or thirty years before being accused of being a rat. They getting soft or what?”

Richard tightened his arms against his chest. “I don’t know about any ‘they.’ All I know is that I found out my boss was cooperating with clowns like you. So I cut my own deal, to protect myself and my family. Loyalty’s a two-way street, and I’m not going to Leavenworth for life for some guy who wants to get free on my back.”

Tuthill laughed. “Whatever. Moore, I’m ready to go back. Oh, Richard, one more thing.”

“Yes?”

Tuthill leaned over the hood of the car. “Some of your compatriots over the years, they’ve embarrassed the department over side deals they had going on while they were in the program. Your job, what is it? A children’s book writer?”

“That’s what they gave me,” Richard said.

“And the publicity problem...?” Tuthill asked.

“You should know,” Richard said. “I write under a pseudonym. The books are for two- and three-year-olds. Not much chance of many fan letters. There’s no photo on the book jackets; they say the author lives in California. The locals, they don’t care. This is Vermont. You could sacrifice goats to Lucifer in your spare time, and nobody’d care, as long as you don’t keep your neighbors up with the noise.”

“How charming,” Tuthill said. “Which brings me to my original point. Other guys like you, they’ve gotten bored with their agreement. They’ve decided to get back to their original business, like loan sharking and gambling and breaking arms and legs. Which means sleazy defense lawyers get to jump all over their character, and whether or not their testimony is truthful.”

“How interesting,” Richard said.

“Wait, it gets better. So what I’m telling you is that your friggin’ nose better be clean. No violence, no threat of violence, not even a parking violation. This trial is important, quite important, and I’m not going to let some stoolie killer like you spoil it for me. ’Cause if you do, you and your family will be moving. How’d you like to run a pig farm in the middle of Nebraska?”

Richard said, “I like it here. You won’t have a problem.”

“Good,” he said. “Moore, I’m ready to head back.”

“Sure,” Charlie said. “I’ll be right there.”

When the sound of a car door being slammed reached them both, Charlie sighed. “Sorry. Young guy, new in his job, wants to make his bones. Sorry about all that yapping and such.”

“Not your fault,” Richard said, letting his arms relax.

“Still...”

“Yeah?”

“Listen well to what he said, Richard. Except for one little mark against your record since you moved here, you’ve done okay. Keep it that way, or he will transfer you out to a pig farm. Your wife, your kids, they’ve adjusted over the years here, haven’t they. I don’t think they’d like moving again.”

Richard said, “You let me worry about my family. And that so-called black mark against my record, that was bogus, and you know it. Besides, I had only been out here a month. I was still adjusting.”

Charlie laughed. “You broke the headlights on some guy’s car with a baseball bat and threatened to do the same to his teeth. Doesn’t sound too bogus to me.”

Richard smiled. “He stole a parking space from me at the shopping center. Look, I’ve got the message, loud and clear. I’ll be a good little boy.”

“Okay,” Charlie said. “Here, I’ve got two things for you.” Charlie reached into his pocket and took out a computer disk, which he tossed over to Richard. He caught it with no problem.

“Your next book,” Charlie said. “Lulu the Seasick Sea Lion.”

“Marvelous. What’s the other thing you’ve got for me?”

“This,” Charlie said, handing over a plastic shopping bag, full and bulging. “Some souvenirs from your old haunts. Cheeses and sausages and pepperonis and spices and sauces. A little bit of everything. I figured you still missed some of that old-time food, don’t you.”

Richard was surprised at how much his mouth watered. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Charlie picked up the little lamp, switched it off. “Well, don’t let it be said that the U.S. Marshall’s Office doesn’t have a little consideration. I’ll be seeing you, Richard.”

“Unfortunately, I think you’re right,” he said, now smelling the delicious scents coming up from the bag. His stomach began grumbling, and he hefted the bag a couple of times as he waited until the other car left the small lot. Richard waited until his eyes adjusted to the darkness, and then he walked a few yards to the beginning of the covered bridge. His feet echoed on the old wooden planks. He leaned over and heard the rushing of the Bellamy River below him, and then took the bag and threw it into the river.

He sighed, rubbed at his face. That was the only way. To follow the rules and survive, and never, absolutely never, dress or smoke or eat or do anything like you once did back home, because they were out there, still out there in the shadows, bent on revenge, and he didn’t want to raise a single scent for their benefit.

He looked at the river for a couple of minutes, and then went back to his car and drove home.

At home he was in the upstairs hallway, heading to the bedroom, when he heard a murmuring noise coming from Sam’s room. The door was ajar and he could make out a bluish light coming from inside. Sam was curled up on his side, his eyes closed, dressed in light gray pajama bottoms. On a dresser at the foot of the bed was a small color TV, and Richard made out a baseball game being played. He reached up to turn it off when a sleepy voice said, “No, Dad, don’t... still watching it...”

“Sam, it’s almost three in the morning.”

“I know... The Red Sox are in Seattle... it’s gone extra innings...”

Richard looked at a little graphic in the corner of the television picture. “Sam, the score is zero to zero, and they’re in the eighteenth inning.”

“Mom said I could watch the game till it was over.”

Richard shut the little TV off. “And I’m saying it’s just a game, okay? You need to get to sleep.”

No answer. Just the soft noise of his boy, breathing. From the hallway light he made out posters of baseball players up on the walls, all of them Red Sox. He shrugged. He wished the boy would at least follow a winning team, like the Mets or the Yankees, but what could one expect. He bent down to kiss Sam’s forehead.

“Just a game, son. Just a game.”

In the morning, before she left for work and to bring the kids to a day camp, Carla brought him another cup of coffee in his small office, which was a spare bedroom when they had first moved in. He took the cup and sipped from it, and she said, “So. What went on last night?”

Other guys back then, they could spin stories to their wives about being solid waste management consultants, but he could not do that with Carla. She had entered things clear-eyed and agreeable, and not once had he ever tried to pull something over on her.

He put the coffee cup down on his desk. “A trip to California in a couple of months. Another testimony deal. Against Mel Flemmi.”

She made a face. “Good. He sure deserves it. What else?”

“What do you mean, what else?” he asked.

Carla gently whacked him on the side of his shoulder. “There’s always something else with the feds. What was it?”

He tried a casual shrug. “I’ve got to keep my nose clean, as always. That way, any defense lawyer won’t be able to say I don’t have the kind of character to testify truthfully.”

“Keep your nose clean...” she said simply. “Does that mean not breaking some guy’s headlights over a parking space?”

“It was my parking space, I’d just got here, and it won’t happen again.”

She leaned over, grabbed his ears, and kissed him firmly on the mouth. “Good. ’Cause it ain’t no game, Richard. I like it here. The kids like it here. We can continue having a good life here. Don’t do anything to screw it up.”

“I won’t.”

“Good. Because if you do, I’ll kill you.”

He kissed her back. “I have no doubt.”

For most of the day, he stayed in his office. He played twenty-three games of computer solitaire and another computer game involving shooting lots of fast-moving monsters — not surprisingly, he scored quite high — and he spent a while on the Internet as well, seeing the combined creativity of a number of women who could just barely dress themselves, and got an idea or two for next Valentine’s Day.

Then, at about 3:00 P.M., he popped in the computer disk, called up a file called “Sea Lion,” and printed out all thirty-three pages. He put the pages in an Express Mail envelope, drove to the post office, and sent the envelope to a publisher in New York City. Back home, he made another cup of coffee and waited for Carla and the kids to show up. “Man, writers have it easy,” he said.

The next day was a practice one for the Pine Tree Rotary team, and he enjoyed seeing how enthusiastically all the kids took to the field — Patrick and Jeffrey and Alexander and his own Sam and even little Leo, chugging out there on his tiny legs, and all the others. They did some exercises to loosen up, and then some pitching and hitting, and some base running. He took it upon himself to spend some extra time with Leo, tossing up pop flies, and Leo managed to catch fifteen in a row.

Then he took Ron Bachman, the town auditor and the team’s manager, aside. “Did you see how Leo’s doing?”

“Yep,” Ron said, making a note on a clipboard. “Not a single dropped ball. That’s what happens when his dad’s not around. Plays a lot better.”

“So tell me, what’s the deal with his dad, George? What’s his problem?”

Ron looked up from the clipboard. “What do you mean, ‘what’s his problem?’ ”

“The way he goes after his kid, that’s what.”

“Oh, that,” he said. “You know, George has got a lot of problems. Drinking and picking fights and being the son of the chairman of the board of selectmen, so he gets a lot of slack cut his way. He’s a mean man who takes his frustrations out on his kid. Typical story. Unfortunately, it has to show itself here.”

“Yeah,” Richard said. “Unfortunately.”

Two days later the team went on a field trip to Fenway Park in Boston, an hours-long drive that took three minivans and a number of other parents to act as chaperones. When putting kids in the vans, Richard made sure that Leo was in his van, and he glanced at the boy some while heading into Boston. He half-expected to see a haunted look in the boy’s eyes, a troubled expression, but no, there was nothing like that there. Just the excitement of being in Boston and seeing the Red Sox play.

Richard took in Fenway Park as they found their seats. It was an old, tiny park, opened up in 1912, the same year the Titanic sunk on its maiden voyage. It had its charms, with the Green Monster out in left field and the intimacy of being close-up to the action, but Richard wasn’t satisfied. It wasn’t Yankee Stadium, it wasn’t the House that Ruth Built, but he kept his opinions to himself.

All part of his new life.

As the game progressed, he enjoyed watching the kids almost as much as the game itself. They followed each pitch intensely and ate popcorn and hotdogs and drank sodas, and cheered when one of the Red Sox players rocketed a home run over the Green Monster, and booed when the opposing pitcher hit a Red Sox player with a fastball, causing both benches to clear. The game wasn’t worth much — an early season bout with the Tigers that the Red Sox managed to lose, 4–3 — but it was still fun. He was glad to be here with his boy and was glad not to be in jail, and it even looked like Leo was enjoying himself, too, watching the game with wide eyes and grins, seemingly thousands of miles away from his father.

On the way back to Vermont, as Sam rode up front next to Richard, and with most of the boys in the rear seats, slumbering, he said, “Dad?”

“Yeah, Sam,” he said, feeling a bit juiced after driving through real city streets for a change. Here was real traffic, intersections, lights, people moving in and out. Where they now lived, in Vermont, there were two traffic lights, and only a few hundred feet of sidewalk in the downtown. He liked driving in the city and rolled down his window as he drove, to hear the noises, smell the scents out there.

But now they were on a featureless stretch of asphalt, making the long drive back to Vermont.

“About the game,” Sam said.

“Go on.”

“When the Red Sox hitter got beaned by the pitcher, I was just surprised at how fast the other players came out of the dugout to go after the pitcher. And then, the other team... well, man, Dad, that fight started quick. Why do they fight like that? Couldn’t it have been just an accident?”

“Maybe,” he said, glancing at both sides of the narrow highway as they headed home, keeping an eye open for deer or moose on the side of the road, ready to trot across and wreck several thousand dollars’ worth of vehicle parts. “But players like that, it’s more than just that. It’s a team thing. You stick up for a member of your team, no matter what. And when one of your team members gets hit, or gets in trouble, you help out. That’s what happens.”

“Oh,” Sam said. “Like a family, right? Like you’ve said before, about me and Olivia helping each other out? Like a family?”

“Sure,” he said. “Like a family.”

He drove on a few more miles, and looked over at the drowsy face of his boy, remembered a time when he was much younger, and when they all lived in a neighborhood not unlike some of the streets they had passed through on the way to the ballpark.

“Sam?”

“Yeah, Dad.”

“Besides the game, how did you like it?”

His son moved in his seat, like he was seeking a comfortable position to fall asleep in. “I dunno, what do you mean, how did I like it...”

“I mean the city. How did you like being in the city? You know, all those buildings, all those people. What did you think?”

Sam yawned. “It was too noisy, too dirty. I like it better back home.”

“Oh.”

He kept on driving, wondering if he should feel angry or glad that his son — his own boy, raised in New York! — should now hate big cities.

A few days later, the next to the last game of the season. Pine Tree Rotary was playing Greg’s Small Engine Repair, and Richard was tired and hot and thirsty. The other team had jumped on the boys right away in the first inning, and the score was now 10 to 0. Even his boy, Sam, as good as he was, grounded out twice and struck out once. About the only bright spot in the lineup was poor little Leo, who was so small that he confused the opposing team’s pitcher and managed to get on base twice through walks. Even though they were walks, Leo acted like Pete “Charlie Hustle” Rose himself — of course, before getting caught up in that gambling fiasco — and raced to first base, just so damn pleased to be there, out on the bases.

Last inning, and here was Leo. Richard checked his watch and was going to call out to the boy when somebody with a louder voice beat him to it.

“Leo!” the man bellowed. “You better get a hit or I’ll be after you! That you can bet on!”

He shaded his eyes from the glare, knew who had shown up, like a shambling bear wandering into someplace he wasn’t welcome. George Winn was at the fence, his fat fingers protruding through the open metal, shouting again. “Leo! You worthless player, you! Get a hit or you’ll get one from me!”

Richard yelled out, “Leo, wait for a good pitch, guy, wait for a good one!”

But Leo, his legs trembling, his face red, swung at the first three pitches that came across the plate, and promptly struck out.

He ignored Olivia. He ignored Sam. He ignored the other coaches and players and strode right out to the parking lot again, where George was hauling his kid to his truck, the clothing of the boy’s shirt clenched up in his fist. Richard called out, “George, you hold on!”

George spun around, moving surprisingly fast for such a large man. He propelled Leo forward with one hand and said, “Wait in the truck! Now!”

Leo ran ahead, and Richard came up to him, saying, “George, you can’t yell at your boy like that. He’s doing the best he can, and yelling like that—”

And George stepped forward and punched him in the chest. Richard staggered back, the force of the blow bringing back hordes of muscle memories from times past, when he had faced down and put down bigger and badder guys than this, and his fists clenched up and he was spotting his move, what he should do to put this bullying jerk down, but thinking, now, he was thinking about Carla and the kids and—

The next punch struck his jaw, and then George grabbed him and he fell to the ground, and the kicks began, one after another, and Richard curled up and protected his kidneys and groin and face as much as possible, until there were other voices, other shouts, and the kicking and punching stopped.

Later that night, in bed, Carla was next to him, gingerly wiping down his face again with a wet cloth. Her face was hard and set, and he couldn’t tell from one moment to the next whom she was most angry with, and he just kept his hands still and let her work and talk.

“You think I like having the children see you, their father, in a brawl right in their own school parking lot?”

It hurt to talk, so he kept his words to a minimum. “Wasn’t a brawl. I didn’t touch the guy.”

“Well, he sure as hell touched you,” she said. “Poor Olivia and Sam were crying so much, I thought they’d never stop.”

“They’re okay.”

“Yeah, but you’re not. And remember what those feds told you, about keeping your nose clean? Is this how you’re doing that?”

“Didn’t file a complaint,” he said. “No cops.”

She wiped him down again, and he winced. Even with the painkillers, it was going to be a long night.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Word gets out. And poor Sam... he thinks the whole team should get together and go on over and burn down George Winn’s house. He thinks they should stick up for you. Is that right?”

“Nope.”

“You’re damn right,” she said, getting up from the bed, walking into the bathroom and back out again with a fresh washcloth. “But our family... that’s something else. I don’t like what happened, not one bit. Are you going to do something about it?”

He thought for a moment. “Yeah.”

She wrung out the cloth over a small metal bowl. “Are you going to tell me?”

“Not yet,” he said. “Not yet.”

“When?” she asked.

“Soon,” he said.

The next day, in his office, playing computer solitaire and wincing in pain as he moved the fingers on his right hand, the phone rang.

“Is this Richard?” came the vaguely familiar voice.

“It is,” he said. “Who’s this?”

There came a slight chuckle. “Let’s just say it’s one of the two gentlemen you spoke with the other night.”

He sat up straighter in his chair. “You shouldn’t be calling. It’s not part of the agreement. It’s not part—”

“Look, pal, here’s the only agreement I care about, and that’s that you testify in August, and that you stay out of trouble. Right now, you’re batting five hundred, and I don’t like it.”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Richard said.

“Wasn’t there a fight yesterday? In the parking lot of a school? Right after a baseball game with your kid?”

He winced again as his hand clenched the phone tighter. “It wasn’t my fault. He picked the fight, not me. There was no complaint filed with the cops.”

Another chuckle. “Yeah, I heard you didn’t even put up a fight. Man, you must really like that place to put up with crap like that. So here’s the facts, one more time. You’re right on the edge, my friend. Right on the edge. One more little problem, and I don’t care whose fault it was, who threw the first punch, you’re still coming out to testify. But you’ll come back to that pig farm in Nebraska.”

Richard didn’t even bother replying, because the caller had already hung up.

He sat back in his chair, looked at the little computer mouse next to the computer, and in one flurry of motion, tore it from his desk and threw it across the room.

Two days after the phone call, he was in the kitchen when Sam came tearing through. He wanted to call out to Sam, to tell him to slow down, but instead he said, “Hey, bud. What do you have going on today?”

Sam went to the refrigerator, opened up the door, and started chugging down a couple of swallows of orange juice. His mother would never let him get away with doing anything like that, but he knew his father would. What a kid. Sam put the juice away and said, “Not much. Some fishing later with Greg over at the river.”

“Want to catch a late-afternoon matinee?” he asked.

Sam smiled. “Just the two of us? What would Mom and Olivia think?”

“Mom’s at work,” he said, “and Olivia’s over with some friends, staying through till dinner. I’ll leave a note for your mom. It’ll be fine. Come on, you’ve got a big day tomorrow. Last game of the season.”

Sam slammed the door of the refrigerator. “When?”

“Right now.”

“Cool, Dad,” he said.

The movie theater was on the outskirts of town, in a little shopping mall, and the cool interior felt comfortable. He let Sam pick the movie, and it was a live-action film based on a popular comic book series Richard had never heard of. Most of the audience were kids about Sam’s age, with a scattering of parents like himself, there to chaperone and make sure the little ones didn’t walk out and sneak into an R-rated film. He sat in a row next to a guy he knew, some clerk at the hardware store named Paul, who was there with a boy of about eight or nine.

He checked his watch as the movie droned on with punches and gunshots and buildings blowing up. He looked at the smiling faces of the young boys, illuminated some from what was up on the screen. Smiling and young and full of energy and life. He wondered how Leo was doing, if he was dreading tomorrow’s game, the last game of the year, the last chance to win one before the season was over, one more time out there in the field with his father watching and shouting at him.

One more time with his watch. Time. He leaned over to Sam and whispered, “I’m going to get some more popcorn. You want another drink?”

“Uh-huh,” Sam whispered back, attention still focused on the screen.

Richard got up, stepped on Paul’s foot — “Jeez, excuse me” — and walked out of the dark theater.

Later that night, he was in the living room, trying to judge which one of Olivia’s drawn horses was the best one — “for a contest the library’s holding, Dad, and the deadline is tomorrow!” — when the doorbell rang. Olivia looked up at him and then Carla appeared in the entranceway to the kitchen, slowly wiping a salad bowl from dinner. He looked down at Olivia and said, “Right away, squirt. Go see your mom.”

“But, Dad...”

“Now, please,” he said, and Carla added, “Olivia, listen to your father. He’ll finish with your horses later.”

He went to the door, wiped at his hair for a moment, remembered the many other times when he had answered evening doorbells like this one, so he wasn’t surprised when he opened the door and saw the town’s police chief there.

“Mr. Dow?” he said quietly. “Ted Reiser. Chief of police.”

The chief was about ten years older than Richard, heavyset, with a black mustache and a chubby neck that spilled over the collar of his white uniform dress shirt. A gold star was in each of his collar tabs, and Richard thought the chief — who was boss of a whole six officers — looked slightly ridiculous.

“Sure,” Richard said. “What can I do for you?”

The chief looked past Richard and said, “Can I come in for a moment?”

“Absolutely, come on in,” he said, and the chief came in and took a seat on the couch, balancing his gold-brimmed hat on his knees. Richard sat down and said, “If you’d like, can I get you a drink, or—”

Reiser raised his hand. “Sorry, no. Look, I’m sorry, but this is an official call. I’m investigating something that occurred earlier today. Something I’m afraid that might involve you.”

He made a point of folding his hands together and leaning forward in his chair. “One of my kids? Did they do something?”

The chief ignored the question, went on. “George Winn. I take it you know him.”

“Sure. I coach his kid in the baseball league.”

“You’ve also had words with him, plus one altercation. True?”

Richard nodded. “True. I try to help out his boy, and George thought the kid would work best under threats.”

“But there was an altercation, nearly a week ago.”

“I didn’t hit him, not once. Can you tell me what’s going on?”

The chief sighed. “George Winn was attacked and severely injured today. An intruder broke into his home, struck him from the rear. No description of the attacker, but I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you what you were doing at about four forty-five P.M. today.”

“Why?”

“Please, Mr. Dow. You were in a fight with him last week. I need to know this.”

“Should I be getting a lawyer?”

That got the chief s attention. “Do you think you need one?”

“No,” Richard answered.

“Then why don’t you tell me where you were this afternoon.”

Richard shrugged. “All right. I was at the movies with my boy Sam, at the River Mall theater. The picture started at three-thirty, got out at five-thirty.”

“Do you have any proof?” the chief asked.

“Sure.” He dug into his pants pocket, past his handkerchief and change. “Look. Ticket stubs for the both of us.”

“Anybody see you at the theater?”

“Um, a kid named Larry who took my money.”

“Anybody else?”

“Let’s see... oh, sure. Paul, who works at Twombly’s Hardware. He sat next to me. In fact, I stepped on the poor guy’s toes when I left to get some popcorn about halfway through the movie.”

The chief moved his hat in a semicircle. “Did you know what time it was?”

“Nope.”

“And what time did you get back into the theater?”

Richard looked at the chief, tried to feel what was going on behind those unblinking eyes. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

Now it was time for the police chief to lean forward. “You said you left the theater to get some popcorn. And what I want to know is, how long were you out there?”

“Two minutes, maybe three.”

“And did anybody see you come back into the theater?”

“Yeah, Paul did, I’m sure.”

“Oh, you are, are you,” the chief said. “And why’s that?”

Richard looked at the chief calmly. “Because when I tried to get past him and sit next to my son, I accidentally poured a cold drink on his head. That’s why.”

Another sunny day, hot but the air was dry, with little humidity. Richard was back at his position near first base, waiting. It was the bottom of the sixth inning and the score was tied, 0 to 0, but his boy Sam was on third base. He rubbed his hands together, could feel the anticipation in the air, as the next Pine Tree Rotary batter came to the plate, little Leo Winn, holding his baseball bat strong and true.

The stands were nearly full, and there was Olivia, keeping score again with the large notebook on her tiny lap. Today Carla had taken the afternoon off and she was there as well, and he waved at them both, but neither waved back, as they were talking to each other. Maybe later, he thought.

He wiped his hands on his pants legs. It was a beautiful day, the best so far this summer, and there was the first pitch...

Thump! as the ball went into the catcher’s mitt. Denny Thompson was umpiring again today, and he slowly got up. “Ball!” came the shout.

“Good eye, Leo, good eye!” Richard called out, and he looked up in the stands again, and sure enough, there was Leo’s dad George, sitting there stiffly. Richard thought about waving at George but decided that would be pushing it.

Another pitch, and this time Leo swung mightily at it, and missed. Another thump! of the ball into the glove.

“Strike!”

Richard clapped his hands. “That’s fine, Leo, that’s fine. You’re doing all right,” and even his teammates in the dugout joined in, calling out to Leo, encouraging him, telling him to take his time, to swing at a good pitch. It was a good sound, a wonderful sound, made even better by the fact that no one was shouting insults, no one was shouting threats. Like he had mentioned the other night in the van to his son, sometimes a team was like a family, looking out for each other. Richard looked up in the stands again, and there was George, sitting still, sitting quietly.

He clapped his hands again, “Come on, Leo, the next one’s yours!”

But of course, George had no choice, for George was sitting there, jaw wired shut, after somebody broke into his house and smashed his jaw with what the police believed to be a length of lead pipe. Funny how things happen, Richard thought, and then he looked over at Carla, and waved at her.

And she raised her arm and waved back, and even at this distance, he could see the slight pain in her eyes, for she had quite the workout the previous day, and wielding a lead pipe with such a slender arm could cause some soreness. He smiled as the other team’s pitcher began his windup, remembered the meeting last week with the two feds, and how even to this day, they couldn’t figure out why he had gotten away with eleven killings in his previous life. It was simple, really, if you looked at it as a game, as a family game, and he waved once more at his lovely wife.

The pitch flew by and this time, oh, this time, there was a powerful crack! as Leo swung his bat and the ball flew up and out, heading so far out into the sky, and the people in the stands began cheering as little Leo chugged up the baseline, his face so alive and excited, and true enough, this was just a game, but it was the best damn game in the world.