Harlan Coben - The Final Detail

Two security guards raced down the steps and broke it up. No one was tossed. Dad came back to the upper tier. “Go back down,” Dad said. “He won't bother you again.”

But Myron and Brad shook their heads. They liked the seats up here better.

Win said, “Time traveling again, are we?”

Myron nodded.

“You realize, of course, that you are far too young for so many reflective spells.”

“Yeah, I know.”

A group of Yankee players were sitting on the outfield grass, legs sprawled, hands back, still kids under the collars waiting for their Little League game to start. A man in a too-nicely-fitted suit was talking to them. The man gestured wildly, smiling and enthusiastic and as enraptured with life as the new bom-again on the block. Myron recognized him. Sawyer Wells, the motivational speaker ne con man of the moment. Two years ago Wells was an unknown charlatan, spouting the standard reworded dogma about finding yourself, unlocking your potential, doing something for yourself-as though people weren't self-centered enough. His big break came when the Mayors hired him to do talks for their workforce. The speeches were, if not original, successful, and Sawyer Wells caught on. He got a book deal-cleverly monikered The Wells Guide to Wellness -along with an infomercial, audi-otapes, video, a planner, the full self-help schematic. Fortune 500 companies started hiring him. When the Mayors took over the Yankees, they brought him on board as a consulting motivational psychologist or some such drivel.

When Sawyer Wells spotted Win, he almost started panting.

“He smells a new client,” Myron said.

“Or perhaps he's never seen anyone quite this handsome before.”

“Oh, yeah,” Myron said. “That's probably it.”

Wells turned back to the players, shouted out a bit more enthusiasm, spasmed with gestures, clapped once, and then bade them good-bye. He looked back over at Win. He waved. He waved hard. Then he started bounding over like a puppy chasing a new squeaky toy or a politician chasing a potential contributor.

Win frowned. “In a word, decaf.”

Myron nodded.

“You want me to befriend him?” Win asked.

“He was supposedly present for the drug tests. And he's also the team psychologist. He probably hears a lot of rumors.”

“Fine,” Win said. “You take the roommate. I'll take Sawyer.”

Enos Cabral was a good-looking wiry Cuban with a flame-throwing fastball and breaking pitches that still needed work. He was twenty-four, but he had the kind of looks that probably got him carded at any liquor store. He stood watching batting practice, his body slack except for his mouth. Like most jelief pitchers, he chewed gum or tobacco with the ferocity of a lion gnawing on a recently downed gazelle.

Myron introduced himself.

Enos shook his hand and said, “I know who you are.”

“Oh?”

“Clu talked about you a lot. He thought I should sign with you.”

A pang. “Clu said that?”

“I wanted a change,” Enos continued. “My agent. He treats me well, no? And he made me a rich man.”

“I don't mean to knock the importance of good representation, Enos, but you made you a rich man. An agent facilitates. He doesn't create.”

Enos nodded. “You know my story?”

The thumbnail sketch. The boat trip had been rough. Very rough. For a week everyone had assumed they had been lost at sea. When they finally did pop up, only two of the eight Cubans were still alive. One of the dead was Enos's brother Hector, considered the best player to come out of Cuba in the past decade. Enos, considered the lesser talent, was nearly dead of dehydration.

“Just what I've read in the papers,” Myron said.

“My agent. He was there when I arrived. I had family in Miami. When he heard about the Cabral brothers, he loaned them money. He paid for my hospital stay. He gave me money and jewelry and a car. He promised me more money. And I have it.”

“So what's the problem?”

“He has no soul.”

“You want an agent with a soul?”

Enos shrugged. “I'm Catholic,” he said. “We believe in miracles.”

They both laughed.

Enos seemed to be studying Myron. “Clu was always suspicious of people. Even me. He had something of a hardshell.”

“I know,” Myron said.

“But he believed in you. He said you were a good man. He said that he had trusted you with his life and would gladly do so again.”

Another pang. “Clu was also a lousy judge of character.”

“I don't think so.”

“Enos, I wanted to talk to you about Clu's last few weeks.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I thought you came here to recruit me.”

“No,” Myron said. Then: “But have you heard the expression killing two birds with one stone?”

Enos laughed. “What do you want to know?”

“Were you surprised when Clu failed the drug test?”

He picked up a bat. He gripped and regripped it in his hands. Finding the right groove. Funny. He was an American League pitcher. He would probably never have the opportunity to bat. “I have trouble understanding addictions,” he said. “Where I come from, yes, a man may try to drink away his world, if he can afford it. You live in such stink, why not leave, no? But here, when you have as much as Clu had…”

He didn't finish the thought. No point in stating the obvious.

“One time Clu tried to explain it to me,” Enos continued. “‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘you don't want to escape the world; sometimes you want to escape yourself.’” He cocked his head. “Do you believe that?”

“Not really,” Myron said. “Like a lot of cute phrases, it sounds good. But it also sounds like a load of self-rationalization.”

Enos smiled. “You're mad at him.”

“I guess I am.”

“Don't be. He was a very unhappy man, Myron. A man who needs so much excess… there is something broken inside him, no?”

Myron said nothing.

“Clu tried. He fought hard, you have no idea. He wouldn't go out at night. If our room had a minibar, he'd make them take it out. He didn't hang out with old friends because he was afraid of what he might do. He was scared all the time. He fought long and hard.”

“And he lost,” Myron added.

“I never saw him take drugs. I never saw him drink.”

“But you noticed changes.”

Enos nodded. “His life began to fall apart. So many bad things happened.”

“What bad things?”

The organ music revved immediately into high gear, the legendary Eddie Layton opening up with his rendition of that ballpark classic “The Girl from Ipanema.” Enos lifted the bat to his shoulder, then lowered it again. “I feel uncomfortable talking about this.”

“I'm not prying for the fun of it. I'm trying to find out who killed him.”

“The papers said your secretary did it.”

“They're wrong.”

Enos stared at the bat as though there were a message hidden beneath the word Louisville. Myron tried to prompt him.

“Clu withdrew two hundred thousand dollars not long before he died,” Myron said. “Was he having financial problems?”

“If he did, I didn't see it.”

“Did he gamble?”

“I didn't see him him gamble, no.”

“Do you know that he changed agents?”

Enos looked surprised. “He fired you?”

“Apparently he was going to.”

“1 didn't know,” he said. “I know he was looking for you. But no, I didn't know that.”

“So what was it then, Enos? What made him cave?”

He lifted his eyes and blinked into the sun. The perfect weather for a night game. Soon fans would arrive, and memories would be made. Happened every night in stadiums around the world. It was always some kid's first game.