Страница 3 из 55
2
THE TANK, PAINTED A LIGHT BLUE with curvy white lines on it to look like waves-Billy Darwin 's idea but okay with De
It was the Tishomingo Lodge amp; Casino's celebrity host, Charlie Hoke, the ex-ballplayer, who got De
"Vernice," Charlie said, "is on a diet and hardly cooks anymore, goddamn it." Vernice, a nicelooking redhead if a bit plump-which was okay with De
It was Charlie, also, who got De
This was a man by the name of Floyd Showers from Biloxi, a ski
This final day of setting up they were working late to finish. De
It was early evening, the sun going down over Arkansas across the river. No one sitting by the pool, the patio in shade now. About an hour ago De
CHICKASAW CHARLIE 'S PITCHING CAGE
LET'S SEE YOUR ARM!
What Charlie had there, inside the enclosure, was a pitching rubber at one end and a tarp with a strike zone painted on it hanging sixty feet six inches away. You made your throw and a radar gun timed the speed of the baseball getting to the tarp and flashed it on a screen mounted in there on the fence. Five bucks a throw. Get three in a row in the strike zone, you got three more chances free. Hum one in ninety-nine miles an hour or better, you won ten thousand dollars. Or you could challenge Chickasaw Charlie. If this big ex-ballplayer with the beer gut, fifty-six years of age, failed to beat your throw, you won a hundred bucks.
It looked easy.
The first time De
"Not once I climbed up on a diving board. I follow the American League," De
"You're smart, you know it? How 'bout the '84 Series?"
"Who was in it?"
"De-troit won it off the Padres. You remember it?" No, but it didn't matter, Charlie kept talking. "I was up with the Tigers and pitched in what became the final game. Went in in the fifth and struck out the side. I got Brown and Salazar on called third strikes. I hit Wiggins by mistake, put him on, and got the mighty Tony Gwy
Later on that day Billy Darwin had come out to see how De
Darwin said, "He tell you about all the big hitters he's struck out, and what he threw them?"
"I can't believe I've never heard of him," De
"He tell you where he struck them out?"
"Where? I don't know what you mean."
“Ask him,” Darwin said.
De
De
Two guys in shirtsleeves, one wearing a hat, were by the bar. De
When the hotel did try for Indian atmosphere-like the mural in the office reception area: Plains Indians in war bo