Brian Mcgrory - Dead Line

All of which explains how Hilary Kane and the mayor ended up at his apartment on the twenty-eighth floor of the Ritz-Carlton at 2:00 A.M., drunkenly and awkwardly pulling off each other’s clothes. She wanted to be desired, to be able to look in the mirror the next morning and know that this man absolutely had to have her.

After fifteen minutes of remarkably mediocre, alcohol-inhibited sex, Harkins placed a meaty forearm across his eyes and began to snore. Hilary climbed out of his bed, slowly and delicately, not out of any sense of courtesy, but for fear that if she woke him up, she’d have to spend another minute in his conscious presence. She pulled on her clothes — far quicker, she thought to herself, than the slutty blonde the week before.

She tiptoed outside his bedroom with her shoes in her hand, then sat on a high-back leather chair at a desk in his living room and looked at the blinking light on his computer. On the walls all around her were pictures of the mayor with various governors, senators, presidents, movie stars, and heads of state. She felt cheap in a way that she had never felt before: pathetic, insecure, and needy. She thought for a moment about quickly logging on to her email account to check one more time if Chuck had sent her a note of apology and explanation. She thought better of it, slipped her clogs on, and swiveled away from the desk.

But in a moment of weakness, standing before the desk, she flicked the computer mouse with her hand and the monitor came alive with light. Rather than a desktop, she was staring at a Word document, a file called Toby. She began scanning, and her hand instinctively rose to her mouth in fascination. She scrolled down, gripped by its contents, listening intently for any sounds from the bedroom. As she reached the second of what looked to be several pages, she struck the Print button.

The printer emitted the labored sounds of warming up, then began slowly churning out pages. As it did, Hilary clicked the Window field, saw another file called TOBY 2, and clicked on it. A new document, loaded with facts and names, filled the screen. She hit Print again.

She began collecting pages from the printer, when it suddenly froze up. A box appeared on the computer screen telling her she was out of paper. She looked in the printer basket and estimated she was about one page shy. A sound came from the bedroom, Danny the dolt rising to his drunken feet. She rolled the papers up in her hand, clicked on “OK” on the “Out of paper” box, and made for the door. The lights on the printer continued to blink a warning.

She pulled the door slowly shut behind her and bolted down the long hallway. What she needed was a taxicab. What she wanted was a shower. What she didn’t know was that the beginning of the end was upon her.

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?”