Lawrence Block: Hit Parade

And the longer Slansky was around, the more chances he had to reach for a gun or crash the car.

“Hold it right there, Slansky,” he said.

“You got the wrong guy,” the man said, his voice a mix of relief and desperation. “Whoever Slansky is, I ain’t him.”

“No time to explain,” Keller said, because there wasn’t, and why bother? Simpler to use the picture-hook wire as he’d used it so often in the past, simpler and easier. And if Slansky went out thinking he was being killed by mistake, well, maybe that would be a comfort to him.

Or maybe not. Keller, his hands through the loops in the wire, yanking hard, couldn’t see that it made much difference.

“Awww, hell,”said the fat guy a row behind Keller, as the Oriole center fielder came down from his leap with nothing in his glove but his own hand. On the mound, the Baltimore pitcher shook his head the way pitchers do at such a moment, and Floyd Turnbull rounded first base and settled into his home run trot.

“I thought we caught a break when the new kid got hurt,” the fat guy said, “on account of he was hotter’n a pistol, not that he won’t cool down some when the rest of the league figures out how to pitch to him. He’ll be out what, a couple of weeks?”

“That’s what I hear,” Keller said. “He broke a toe.”

“Got his foot stepped on? Is that how it happened?”

“That’s what they’re saying,” Keller said. “He was in a crowded elevator, and nobody knows exactly what happened, whether somebody stepped on his foot or he’d injured it earlier and only noticed it when he put a foot wrong. They figure he’ll be good as new inside of a month.”

“Well, he’s not hurting us now,” the man said, “but Turnbull’s picking up the slack. He really got ahold of that one.”

“Number three ninety-eight,” Keller said.

“That a fact? Two shy of four hundred, and he’s getting close to the mark for base hits, isn’t he?”

“Four more and he’ll have three thousand.”

“Well, the best of luck to the guy,” the man said, “but does he have to get ’em here?”

“I figure he’ll hit the mark at home in Memphis.”

“Fine with me. Which one? Hits? Homers?”

“Maybe both,” Keller said.

“You didn’t bringme one,” the man said.

It was the same fellow he’d sat next to the first time he saw the Tarpons play, and that somehow convinced Keller he was going to see history made. At his first at bat in the second inning, Floyd Turnbull had hit a grounder that had eyes, somehow picking out a path between the first and second basemen. It had taken a while, the Tarpons were four games into their home stand, playing the first of three with the Yankees, and Turnbull, who’d been a disappointment against Tampa Bay, was nevertheless closing in on the elusive numbers. He had 399 home runs, and that scratch single in the second inning was hit #2999.

“I got the last hot dog,” Keller said, “and I’d offer to share it with you, but I never share.”

“I don’t blame you,” the fellow said. “It’s a selfish world.”

Turnbull walked in the bottom of the fourth and struck out on three pitches two innings later, but Keller didn’t care. It was a perfect night to watch a ball game, and he enjoyed the banter with his companion as much as the drama on the field. The game was a close one, seesawing back and forth, and the Tarpons were two runs down when Turnbull came up in the bottom of the ninth with runners on first and third.

On the first pitch, the man on first broke for second. The throw was high and he slid in under the tag.

“Shit,” Keller’s friend said. “Puts the tying run in scoring position, so you got to do it, but it takes the bat out of Turnbull’s hands, because now they have to put him on, set up the double play.”

And, if the Yankees walked Turnbull, the Tarpon manager would lift him for a pinch runner.

“I was hoping we’d see something special,” the man said, “but it looks like we’ll have to wait a night or two… Well, what do you know? Torre’s letting Rivera pitch to him.”

But the Yankee closer only had to throw one pitch. The instant Turnbull swung, you knew the ball was gone. So did Bernie Williams, who just turned and watched the ball sail past him into the upper deck, and Turnbull, who watched from the batter’s box, then jumped into the air, pumping both fists in triumph, before setting out on his circuit of the bases. The whole stadium knew, and the stands erupted with cheers.

Four hundred homers, three thousand hits-and the game was over, and the Tarps had won.

“Storybook finish,” Keller’s friend said, and Keller couldn’t have put it better.

“Try that tea,”Dot said. “See if it’s all right.”

Keller took a sip of iced tea and sat back in the slat-backed rocking chair. “It’s fine,” he said.

“I was beginning to wonder,” she said, “if I was ever going to see you again. The last time I heard from you there was another hitter on the case, or at least that’s what you thought. I started thinking maybe you were the one he was after, and maybe he took you out.”

“It was the other way around,” Keller said.

“Oh?”

“I didn’t want him getting in the way,” he explained, “and I figured the woman who hired him was a loose cannon. So she slipped and fell and broke her neck in a strip mall parking lot in Cleveland, and the guy she hired-”

“Got his head caught in a vise?”

“That was before I met him. He got all tangled up in some picture wire in Baltimore.”

“And Floyd Turnbull died of natural causes,” Dot said. “Had the biggest night of his life, and it turned out to be the last night of his life.”

“Ironic,” Keller said.

“That’s the word Peter Jennings used. Celebrated, drank too much, went to bed, and choked to death on his own vomit. They had a medical expert on who explained how that happens more often than you’d think. You pass out, and you get nauseated and vomit without recovering consciousness, and if you’re sleeping on your back, you aspirate the stuff and choke on it.”

“And never know what hit you.”

“Of course not,” Dot said, “or you’d do something about it. But I never believe in natural causes, Keller, when you’re in the picture. Except to the extent that you’re a natural cause of death all by yourself.”

“Well,” he said.

“How’d you do it?”

“I just helped nature a little,” he said. “I didn’t have to get him drunk, he did that by himself. I followed him home, and he was all over the road. I was afraid he was going to have an accident.”

“So?”

“Well, suppose he just gets banged around a little? And winds up in the hospital? Anyway, he made it home all right. I gave him time to go to sleep, and he didn’t make it all the way to bed, just passed out on the couch.” He shrugged. “I held a rag over his mouth, and I induced vomiting, and-”

“How? You made him drink warm soapy water?”

“Put a knee in his stomach. It worked, and the vomit didn’t have anywhere to go, because his mouth was covered. Are you sure you want to hear all this?”

“Not as sure as I was a minute ago, but don’t worry about it. He breathed it in and choked on it, end of story. And then?”

“And then I got out of there. What do you mean, ‘and then?’”

“That was a few days ago.”

“Oh,” he said “Well, I went to see a few stamp dealers. Memphis is a good city for stamps. And I wanted to see the rest of the series with the Yankees. The Tarpons all wore black armbands for Turnbull, but it didn’t do them any good. The Yankees won the last two games.”