The Big Bounce

“I thought it was you,” Mr. Majestyk said.

Ryan walked over. “I was just going up the beach.”

Mr. Majestyk was lighting a cigar, puffing on it and shaking out the kitchen match. “The ball game’s on. I was watching it over to Fishers’, but they’re putting the kids to bed.”

“Who’d you say, Baltimore?”

“Boston.”

“That’s right, McLain’s going. Maybe I’ll stop in later.”

“No score in the second,” Mr. Majestyk said. He added, almost without a pause, “Your buddy was here about an hour ago.”

“Who’s that?”

“Bob Junior.” Mr. Majestyk drew on the cigar, watching Ryan. “He says he saw you up at the hunting property and thought you were trespassing.”

“Is that what he said?”

“He says you told him you worked here and he was checking on it.”

“You tell him I did?”

“You work here, don’t you? I told him you and him should have a couple of beers sometime and cut out the crap.”

“I can see that happening.”

“He isn’t a bad guy.” Ryan was silent and Mr. Majestyk said, “What about the property? What do you think of it?”

“I don’t know. It looks okay.”

“You see the possibilities?”

“Well, he said he got himself a buck right there with an O-three, so maybe it’s a good spot.”

Mr. Majestyk squinted in his cigar smoke. “What were you doing, for Christ sake, fighting or having a conversation?”

“I guess it was a fu

“It sounds it. Listen, I want to see the ball game, you stop in if you want.” He puffed on the cigar a couple of times, watching Ryan walk off into the darkness. Finally, taking his time, he crossed the lawn to his house.

Ryan walked past the vacant frontage a good fifty yards before he had thought about it long enough and stopped. He looked out at the lake, at the distant pinpoints of light. He looked back toward Mr. Majestyk’s house, at the garden and the flamingoes in the glow of the spot. He could see the side window, a square of light, where he and Nancy had looked in. Not a Western tonight, the ball game, the guy sitting there with a beer and not taking his eyes off the set. Ryan waited a couple more minutes before making up his mind.

He cut across the vacant frontage then and approached the side of the house, hearing the TV and recognizing the a

Boston was at bat. McLain was pitching, looking in and taking his windup and coming in with a hard overhand fastball, grooving it past the hitter before he could swing. George Kell, sounding pretty relaxed, said it was McLain’s fourth strikeout in three i

Since five o’clock Frank Pizarro had finished two bottles of red and almost half a fifth of vodka-vodka because the goddamn store didn’t have any more tequila, the guy saying, “The way you people have been buying it…” Screw the guy, they would leave in a couple of days and the guy would wonder where his business went.

He had meant to save the vodka, to bring a whole bottle, but the goddamn wine made him feel tired an hour later and he used the vodka to get some life back in him. He felt good now and saw everything sharply, the houses in the darkness, the lights in the windows through the trees. He felt good, but he wished he had a cigarette.

The girl would have a cigarette. Plenty. Maybe Ryan would be there and he would have to wait. It didn’t matter. Ryan would leave sometime and Mr. Ritchie’s and Mr. Ryan’s girlfriend would be alone. How about Mr. Ritchie’s and Mr. Ryan’s and Mr. Pizarro’s girlfriend? He could show her something she had never seen before with any Mr. Ritchie or Jack goddamn Ryan.

He would wait and when it was only the girl-what could she do about it? But it would be better if he didn’t have to wait.

He would come out of the shadow of the house and bushes and see the girl in the swimming pool, her dark hair and her body shining in the water. He would take the vodka and sit at the table this time and raise the bottle when she came out of the water.

No, save the vodka. Have her towel. She would come over with her hands on her hips and see him holding the towel. He would get up then and say to her, “Here, let me dry you,” holding the goddamn towel open like a bullfighter.

Jesus, Pizarro thought. He could feel her coming into his arms as he put the towel around her.

Get her nice and comfortable in there. He would be fooling around a little drying her and she would be laughing, putting her head back against his shoulder, and he would mention it to her then. “I want you to give me five hundred dollars.” And she would say, “Why should I give you five hundred dollars?” And you say, “Because if you don’t, I tell somebody what you been doing with Jack Ryan.” She say, “What somebody?” and you say, “Mr. Ray Ritchie somebody.”

But the goddamn house looked dark, like nobody was home. He had parked on the other side of the Shore Road and walked into the Pointe. It was the house, he was sure of that; but no light showed anywhere on this side. Then go around, he told himself.

But what if Ryan was sitting by the pool and heard him? He had been lucky the time before; Ryan wasn’t there. But if he came up from the beach side of the house-sure, he would be able to look the place over better. He could go to the next street and follow it to the beach and come around that way. If she wasn’t home, that might be all right too. He could wait or he could go in and look around. Sure, maybe Mr. Ritchie kept some tequila somewhere.

“You ready?” Mr. Majestyk asked.

Ryan was sitting forward on the couch. He picked up the beer can between his feet and jiggled it. “Not yet.”

“You know where it is.” Mr. Majestyk sat back in his chair to watch the game and for a moment was silent.

“What’s the count?”

“One and one.”

“Two away, a man on second, the tieing run at the plate,” Mr. Majestyk said. “How would you pitch this guy?”

“Probably something breaking. Low and away from him.” Ryan watched the Boston hitter foul off the next pitch, a tapper down to the third base coaching box.

“He’s not going to hit it,” Mr. Majestyk said.

Ryan kept his eyes on the set. “I don’t know. That short left field wall, you lay a fly ball up there, you got two bases.”

And George Kell, a voice coming out of the TV set, said, “You got to pitch to everybody in this ballpark.”

“In tight on the hands,” Mr. Majestyk said. “Back the son of a bitch away. If he swings, he hits it on the handle.”

“He better keep it low,” Ryan said.

When the batter bounced out to the second baseman, Mr. Majestyk said, “I told you.”

George Kell said, “Going into the sixth with a two-run lead, let’s see if the Tigers can put some hits together and get something going. I imagine De

“He’s good,” Mr. Majestyk said. “You know?”

“Kell,” Ryan said. “He was a good ballplayer.”

“You know, he got over two thousand base hits while he was in the Majors?”

“Two thousand fifty-two,” Ryan said.

“Did you know they had a sign outside his hometown? Swifton, Arkansas. You’re coming in the sign says ‘Swifton, Arkansas-The Home of George Kell.’ “

Ryan took a sip of beer. “I don’t know if I’d want a sign like that. Some guy comes along, he knows you’re away playing ball, nobody home, he goes in takes anything he wants. Or you’re in a slump and some nut fan throws rocks at your windows.”

“That could happen,” Mr. Majestyk said. “But when a guy is good, like Kell, you got to be able to take a lot of crap and not let it bother you. So a guy throws a rock. So you get the window fixed. Listen, you hit three thirty, three forty like Kell, the pitchers are throwing crap and junk at you all the time and it’s worse than any rocks because it’s your living, it’s what you do. You stand in there, that’s all. When they come in with a good one, you belt it.”