Роберт Паркер - Double Play

“Fairly close,” Burke said.

“You did a hell of a job, my friend.”

Burke nodded.

“I’m doing more harm than good,” he said.

“Oh?”

“There’s a personal thing going on here,” Burke said. “I’m not protecting Jackie anymore. I’m bringing trouble to him.”

“Do you care to discuss the, ah, personal thing?”

“No.”

Rickey nodded slightly, as if to himself, and took his cigar from his mouth and examined the glowing end for a moment.

“It’s a woman,” Jackie said.

“How often that’s true,” Rickey said. “What is it about the woman.”

“That’s up to Burke to tell you,” Robinson said.

Burke glanced at him. Even in repose there was a kind of energy charge to Robinson. He was not simply black, he was blue-black, Burke thought, and showed no sign that he wasn’t proud of it. Rickey looked at Burke.

“And you, sir?”

“I’m quitting,” Burke said. “You need to get somebody else.”

“I thought you were in this to the end,” Rickey said.

“This is it,” Burke said. “The shooting was too far along for me to stop it by quitting. Now there’s time.”

“Jack?” Rickey said looking back at Robinson.

“No,” Jackie said. “I won’t work with anyone else.”

“You mean that,” Rickey said.

“Burke knows I do,” Jackie said.

It was true. Burke had never known Robinson to say something he didn’t mean. He could feel the force in Robinson, and realized, fully, for the first time, what his passivity in public cost him.

“I’m not preventing trouble,” Burke said. “I’m causing it.”

“Then we’ll deal with it,” Robinson said. “I started this with you. I’m not finishing it with somebody else.”

“Maybe you’ll have to.”

“No,” Robinson said. “I’ll finish it with you. Or I’ll finish it alone.”

Robinson looked steadily at Burke. Rickey was quiet, waiting. It was the morning before a day game. There were peanuts roasting somewhere and the scent of them drifted through the office.

“What about Rachel?” Burke said.

“Rachel would say the same thing.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“How the hell can you be so sure?” Burke said.

Burke had an inarticulate sense that he might be talking about more than the present issue.

“Rachel and I aren’t separate people,” Jackie said. “We are two parts of one thing. She can speak for me. I can speak for her. She feels the same way I do.”

Burke was silent. He rocked very slightly in his chair. What the hell would that be like? Two parts of one thing? He and Robinson looked at each other. Then Burke nodded with only the slightest movement of his head.

“I’ll stay,” he said.

Robinson said nothing at all. But he nodded too, if possible, an even smaller nod than Burke’s.

The phone rang in the dark. Burke turned on the light. This time it was 4:00 A.M. Burke was pretty sure who it was.

“Hello,” he said.

“Congratulations,” Lauren said.

“For?”

“Thwarting Louis.”

She had trouble saying thwarting. Burke knew she was drunk again.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Couldn’t have without me,” she said.

“I know.”

“You grateful?”

“Sure,” Burke said.

She was silent. He was silent. The emptiness hissed quietly on the phone line.

“How grateful,” Lauren whispered. Her voice sounded hoarse.

“Lauren,” Burke said. “Why are you calling me up?”

“Remember the Cardinals game?” Lauren said. “Couple of weeks ago? Me and Louis?”

“You and Louis,” Burke said. “Almost fucking in public.”

“Did you like that?”

“No.”

There was silence for a time.

“So whyn’t you do something,” Lauren said.

“None of my business,” Burke said.

“So cold,” she said.

“You don’t like him,” Burke said. “Walk away.”

“And be with who?” she said.

“Up to you,” he said.

“But not you?”

Burke took in a big lungful of smoke.

“There is not enough of me,” Burke said, the smoke drifting out as he talked, “for you. I can’t give you what you need.”

“How the fuck you know what I need,” she said.

“I guess I don’t,” Burke said. “But I know what I need.”

“What is that, Burke? Just what the fuck do you need?”

“I need to be safe,” he said.

“Safe?”

“Un huh.”

Burke sniped out his cigarette and lit another one.

“Safe from what?” Lauren said.

He thought she was probably drinking as she talked. Four in the morning. Burke was silent for a time.

“Safe from what?” she said again.

“I don’t know,” Burke said. “I need to stay inside.”

At the other end of the phone, he could hear her swallow.

“And what about me?” she said. “I can’t live like this.”

“Like what?”

“Burke,” she said, “I’m getting worse. I let him handle me like that in public. He does it all the time. I let you see him do it. I’m drinking more. I’m drinking now. It’s four something in the morning, and I’m drinking gin on the rocks.”

“So stop,” Burke said.

“And drugs,” she said. “He gives me drugs, and when we have sex he likes to... he degrades me.”

“Get away from him,” Burke said.

“I can’t, not without you, I can only stop if I’m with you.”

“Then I become him. Then I’m what you can’t live without,” Burke said. “I don’t have that in me.”

“If you’ll come and get me,” she said, “if you’ll take me and keep me with you, I’ll... I’ll go to a psychiatrist. I’ll go to a hospital someplace, I can be all right, I know I can.”

Burke was silent.

“Jesus, God,” Lauren said. “Other people went to the war. They came back. What happened to you? Did the war take all of you?”

“Ex-wife took some,” Burke said carefully, his voice entirely flat.

“Don’t you understand? We’re connected in an awful way. I need someone to care about me.”

“I know,” Burke said.

“And you need to care about something,” she said.

He didn’t speak.

“Burke,” she said in a clotted voice, “I love you.”

Still he didn’t speak. The silence hummed between them over the phone line. Then she hung up. Burke sat hunched naked on the bed with his cigarette in his mouth and his arms across his chest. He was shaking. His face was clammy. He felt sick. In the dead silent room he heard his own voice.

“I love you too,” it said.

The train crossed the west branch of the Susquehanna River south of Lock Haven. Burke sat in the aisle seat beside Robinson in the back of a Pullman car on the way to Chicago. The second western swing of the season.

“Bob Chipman’s going tomorrow,” Jackie said. “I see him good.”

Burke nodded, looking past Robinson at the central Pennsylvania landscape.

“You miss your wife on road trips?” Burke said.

“Yes.”

The train slowed as it went through Clearfield. They were behind the town, where the laundry hung and the trash barrels stood. Behind sagging barns with tobacco ads painted on the siding. Tangles of chicken wire. Gray scraps of lumber. Rusted stove parts. Oil drums. A sodden mattress.

“He was really going to shoot me,” Robinson said.

“How’s it feel?”

“You got shot at,” Jackie said, “how did that feel?”

“Scared the shit out of me,” Burke said.

Robinson nodded.

“You scared?” Burke said.

“I been scared since I said I’d do this.”