Colin Harrison - The Havana Room

"Haaa!" came his cry of satisfaction. The sound was sexual, murderous.

"See?" announced one of the boys. "See that?"

"I see your momma."

" Your momma fucked my baseball bat."

"Yeah, the one your sister gave her after she was done with it."

"You mean the one you licked for three hours."

"Shut up," said a third boy, "he's switch-hitting."

I watched Jay shift from rightie to leftie and swing at another forty pitches or so. Batting from the left, he wasn't nearly as effective, and missed every other pitch. But of course being able to switch-hit well is one of the rarest of skills in baseball, and I was intrigued that he was even trying it, especially with balls coming at major league speed. The back of his shirt grew dark between the shoulder blades, then a red light on the pitching machine popped on, signaling the end of the session.

"No good," Jay snarled to himself. He spat the inhaler out of his mouth, flipping it up in the air before him, and swung at it with the bat. It shattered and its metal canister flew in our direction, skittering over the dirt.

"He always does that, too," said one of the boys, "that's how come I know it's brain steroids."

Jay pushed up his helmet and started to pull off his batting gloves. I slipped back a step, thinking that it might not be right to confront him there, before so many people, while he held a baseball bat and was under the effects of whatever drug he'd been inhaling.

"Yo, mister," cried one of the boys. "What you got in that thing?"

"I'm finding out," said the other boy, and he scampered into the cage. Jay watched him with disinterest. The boy scooped up the canister from the dirt and ran back.

"What is it?"

The boys studied the fine print and I edged closer for my own look.

"Ad-ren-o-something."

"Let me see that, you fucking illiterate."

"Hey, yo mister," one of the boys hooted.

A heavyset man in his twenties in a Rangers jersey suddenly appeared, bent low to the boy, and spoke harshly to him, glancing up at Jay now and then.

"Okay, okay," the boy protested. Then he and the other boys ran off with their prize.

Adrenaline. In aerosol form. Did it really help one's bat speed? The idea made a kind of crazy sense. Jay opened the cage door and lurched forward through the crowd, his Yankees cap down low over his forehead, a coat and sweatpants slung over his shoulder, eyes on the ground, his face angry and determined and oblivious to all, including me. I made sure he couldn't see me, intimidated by his staggering, violent strength, no doubt enhanced by the stuff he'd pumped into his system. He also appeared deeply alone, threatening in his bulk. My planned declarations seemed puny and even imbecile, but I decided to press forward, and followed him from thirty feet back as he disappeared into the front room, saying goodbye to no one, though it had seemed from the boy's comments that Jay was well known there. I fought through a sudden influx of eight-year-old boys, any of whom could have been Timothy a couple of years earlier, and watched Jay plunge out the front door into the cold. When I reached the door he had already crossed the three southbound lanes of Third Avenue and disappeared under the deep shadowed roar of the expressway. Across the street a neon sign promised XXX VIDEOS amp; BUDDY BOOTHS. I'd missed him again, or rather had found him and then let him go. Impossible, impossibly stupid. Or was I just scared of him? Was letting him go smarter?

"Jay!" I called, trying to lift my voice over the river of heavy traffic before me. I stepped into the street, waiting for an opening.

"Yo, man," called a hoarse voice next to me. "Don't mess with that dude."

A face emerged from the doorway behind me, a man a few years younger, his hair brilloed around his head. He might have been white, dressed Latino, talking black. It gets harder and harder to tell these days. I turned back toward Jay, then checked the light.

"Why?" I answered, still watching. "Why shouldn't I mess with him?"

Through the traffic I could see Jay getting into his truck.

"That guy? Lemme tell you about that guy, okay? He's no good. I mean it."

"Come on."

The cab darkened, the headlights went on.

"Jay!" I called again, stepping forward.

"Do I look like I'm messing with you?" the man said.

I watched the traffic slow. "Jay! Jay!"

His truck bumped its way onto the other side of the avenue, heading north, toward Manhattan.

"I'm telling you, don't fuck with him!" He jerked his thumb toward the batting cages. "Fucking gorilla, they ought to throw him out of there. Sucking on drugs, scaring those kids. Shit fucks you up, makes you crazy. The polices, they don't do shit, neither."

"What, what?"

"That guy, he's done some stuff, okay? Let's just leave it at that. You ain't from around here, okay? I would of seen you before." The man bobbed his head assertively, as if I had argued the point. "One time some guy got into a argument with him, and it wasn't pretty. You know what I'm saying?" He stepped forward, grabbed my coat, yanked. Instinctively I stepped backward but it was too late. His face was close to mine, breath warmly foul. "Just like that, huh? Like pulling down the fucking zipper on your coat, ha!"

This seemed unlikely to me. Street rumor, false legend. But I was scared anyway. "How often does he come here?"

"All the time, anytime. Maybe like three times a week."

So he probably lived nearby, I thought. "You know anybody wants to make any money?"

He looked at me like I had a dead fish hanging out of my mouth. "What're you talking about?"

I said, "You heard me."

"Tell me that again?"

"I'm saying I'll pay a hundred bucks to know where he lives. Somebody could watch for him, follow him home."

"Come on, what the fuck." He pulled a galvanized roofing nail out of his pocket and began to suck on it.

I wrote down my new phone number. "Here's what the guy does. He follows that guy home. By car, whatever. Doesn't do anything. Nothing. No talking, nothing. Just the address. Then he calls this number"- I handed him the slip-"and leaves the address. Then he tells me how he wants to be paid. I'll come right back out here, if necessary."

"Come on, you kidding me with that shit."

"You're right," I said. "I am. I'm kidding."

The nail bobbed up and down. "Hundred's not much."

"I'll pay three hundred."

"Get out of here, three hundred?"

"Sure. What's your name?"

"Everyone call me Helmo." He smiled with sly pride. "You know, the hair and all."

I nodded. "Okay, Helmo."

"Who are you?"

"Who cares who I am?"

Helmo made scissor fingers and took the slip of paper from me. "Yeah, who cares?"

There was at least a chance that Jay had driven to his new building, so I got off the train at the City Hall stop and walked down Reade Street, past the Mexican guys cutting flowers in the Korean delis, past the delivery trucks and battered cabs. When I got to the building I looked for Jay's truck. Nothing. But a couple of windows were lit in the building. I rang the various doorbells until someone buzzed the main door. Inside I saw new menus and fliers on the floor, as well as a garbage can filled with plaster bits, lathing, trash. Had Jay already started some renovation? The more I thought about him, the stranger he seemed. He'd just bought a three-million-dollar building and here he was whacking baseballs in Brooklyn? A guy with a girlfriend named O and who attended basketball games at a private girls' school? I checked the door to the basement, which was locked, then headed up the high, steep stairs, hoping Jay might somehow be in one of the offices, still in his sweaty baseball clothes. I knocked on the various doors but got no response.

On my way down, the door to RetroTech opened, and David Cowles poked his big head out. "You ring downstairs?"