Stuart Kaminsky - Bright Futures

“Please,” said Greg. “Take the money. Stop looking.”

He looked as if he were about to cry.

“Don’t be a dumb shit, Fonesca. Take the money.”

Greg nodded. I moved toward the door as the old man sidled over to sit next to Greg.

I didn’t listen to find out if they were talking about the existence of the human soul, teeth in need of repair, or Elvis. I did have work to do.

No one shot at me as I stepped out of the Waffle Shop. So far, it was a good day.

I had the papers in the back pocket of my jeans. They stood up, scratched my lower back, and reminded me it was time for them to be served.

My bicycle, which Ames had named “Steadfast,” was locked in a storage bin under my twenty-two stairs. I had a key. That made two keys in my pocket. One for my front door and one for the locker. Two keys too many.

I rolled Steadfast into the street, adjusted my Cubs cap, pedaled to Laurel, and then made a right toward Pineapple. On Pineapple I turned left, went through downtown, and walked Steadfast across Fruitville Avenue when the light turned green. From there it was three minutes to the house I was looking for.

It was, as all the houses in the neighborhood were, a small one-story cement-block building with long-dead orange siding. The slightly slanted roof was almost completely covered with leaves and pine cones from a big tree which looked as if its roots went right under the house. Grass, or what passes for it in Southern Florida, still fought a losing battle to live in the stony rubble of the front yard. A severely rusted pickup truck of unknown vintage stood next to the house.

I walked up the narrow and cracked concrete path to the door. The day was already hot. I didn’t mind. The heat didn’t bother me. I didn’t sweat. Even the coldest mornings of winter in Chicago hadn’t affected me very much. When I was fifteen I had a mild case of frostbite from being out too long in subzero weather. I hadn’t felt cold, but even now I get occasional tingling at the top of my ears.

I looked for a bell button. There was one. There was a badly rusted small door knocker. I decided against using it lest it fall off. I knocked.

“Coming,” the high, almost child’s voice inside called.

The door opened.

Below me, head only about thigh high, stood a small black man of no clear age in jeans, a blue T-shirt, and a Cubs cap, though a more expensive one than mine.

“Zo Hirsch?”

“That’s right.”

I handed him the folded order for him to appear at a divorce settlement hearing in the office of my lawyer client. I never deliver court orders or summonses in an envelope. I was supposed to deliver papers, and that I did.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

He muttered, looked at the papers I had just handed him, and shook his head.

“Do I look like I can pay six hundred dollars a month?”

“No,” I said.

“Want a beer?” he asked.

“No, thanks.”

“Dr Pepper, Mountain Dew, Diet Pepsi?”

“Diet Pepsi.”

“Come in.”

He stepped back. Had I reached down, I could have rested the palm of my hand on his head. I resisted the urge to do so.

“This way,” he said.

A few things struck me as we moved past the living room on the left and another room on the right, which must have been a dining room at one point, but was now a library filled with shelves and books. A desk stood near the front window which, if he had been sitting there, meant he would have seen me coming. Another thing that struck me was that everything looked immaculately clean. The furniture looked Arts amp; Crafts and the many framed photos on the walls were crisp, clear, and signed by Major League Baseball players. The other thing that struck me was that not one piece of furniture was a concession to Zo Hirsch’s size.

“Sit or look around,” he said pointing to the living room.

I examined some of the photographs while Zo Hirsch moved down the short corridor.

There were photographs of Bobby Bonds, Deon Sanders, Andre Dawson, and even Sammy Sosa. All of the players on Zo Hirsch’s walls were black. He returned quickly with a can of Diet Pepsi in one hand and an Amstel Light in the other. He handed me the Pepsi. We sat.

“You meet my wife?” he asked, after taking a long drink.

“No.”

He reached into his pocket awkwardly, took out his wallet, flipped it open, and handed it to me. The woman in the photograph looked of normal size, darkly Hispanic, and quite pretty. She was smiling. Her left arm was draped over the shoulder of Zo Hirsch, who was also smiling.

“Pretty,” I said, handing back the wallet.

“Fucking beautiful,” he said, accepting the wallet and stuffing it back in his pocket.

“Cubs fan?” I said.

He seemed puzzled and then got it. He touched the brim of his cap and pointed to mine.

“Not especially,” he said. “Billy Williams gave me this one.”

“Vintage,” I said.

He shrugged and drank some more.

“What happened to your face?” he asked.

“Flying glass. Someone shot at me.”

“Why?”

“I’ll ask when I find him. Nice collection,” I said looking around.

“I make my living writing about baseball,” he said. “Mostly for Spanish language newspapers, magazines, and websites. My mother is Haitian. My father was a Jew from Cuba, a fisherman. He’s gone. They were both normal-sized, if you were wondering.”

I had been wondering, but I said, “No.”

He looked at the photos on the wall and said, “I’d rather be playing right field anywhere for half of what Emilio Vezquez is getting.”

“Emilio Vezquez?”

“The Double-D level pitcher my wife walked off with who will never, never make it to the majors. You want to know why?”

He finished his beer and looked at the empty bottle as if it had betrayed him.

“His fastball never hits ninety and he is scared shitless of line drives.”

He sat back and took off his cap, a look of satisfaction on his face. He looked around the room at the photos of the men whose photographs surrounded him as if they had just applauded his observation.

“I’ve got to go,” I said, rising and placing my empty can on a coaster on the table between us. The coaster had a Cincinnati Reds logo on it.

“Think you might forget I was home?” he said, holding up the papers I had served him. “I’ll have a check from a Dominican newspaper coming in a few days and I’ll be able to hire a lawyer.”

“I don’t-” I began, but was cut off by the ringing of Zo Hirsch’s phone.

“Hold on,” he said and moved to the library, where I heard him pick up the phone and say, “Yeah. Okay. Hold on.”

He came back into the living room carrying a black phone, which he handed to me.

“It’s for you,” he said.

I took the phone and moved to the window, being careful that someone parked and watching wouldn’t be able to see me. No one knew I was at Zo Hirsch’s, not even the lawyer I was serving papers for. Conclusion: I had been followed here.

“Fonesca,” I said.

“You’re supposed to be working on the Horvecki murder.”

The car parked across the street was familiar-a red Buick LeSabre. The window blown out by the BB had been replaced, but the left fender definitely needed work and the left front headlight was missing. Jeff Augustine’s right eye wasn’t missing but it sported a black eye patch. He held a cell phone to his ear.

“You should be in bed,” I said.

Zo Hirsch held up his empty beer bottle, inviting me to join him in a morning brew. I shook my head no. He shrugged and got another beer. Maybe a steady diet of bottled beer had contributed to the departure of Zo’s wife.

“I can’t afford to be in bed,” Augustine said in that musical Robert Preston voice.