Brush Back

WHIFFING THE CURVE

Back in my office, back in my present life, I put on Mozart’s Requiem, with Emma Kirkby singing the soprano line—almost with Gabriella’s purity. The music suited my bleak, elegiac mood.

I had given Frank his free hour and then some, but I couldn’t quite let the matter go. He wouldn’t have come to me if he hadn’t been feeling desperate, or at least worried, by what was going on with his mother.

I wrote down everything I could remember, both from his conversation and from hers. The choir had finished their plea for eternal light before I finished comparing what Frank and Stella had each said. I studied the chart I’d made before calling Frank’s cell.

I could hear traffic noise in the background when he answered. Don’t talk while driving, I thought of admonishing him, but really, I wanted to get the conversation out of the way as fast as possible.

“Frank, I went to see your mother this morning, and I don’t know who is more confused, her, me or you.”

“You went to see her?” he repeated, indignant. “Why did you do that? I thought you were going to investigate A

“I had to start someplace, and she’s the person with the most intimate knowledge of your sister’s death. You can’t have thought I wouldn’t go to her.”

“Why didn’t you start with the cops?”

“I did: those files went into cold storage a long time ago.” Clients are always thinking they have a better action plan than the investigator they hired—even clients who tried to comfort you when their mothers had disrupted your own mother’s funeral.

“Ma let you in? How did she—what did she say?”

“A lot of stuff: the same old, same old about my mother and your dad, and then newer stuff about Boom-Boom and A

“She talked about that?”

“Yes. When did that happen?”

I heard honking and braking in the background. Frank swore at some other driver and hung up. When I reached him again, traffic sounds had been replaced by Muzak and people shouting out orders.

“I had to get off the road. Taking my break, which means I’ve got fifteen minutes.”

“Tell me about the Cubs,” I said.

“It was a long time ago. Old dead news.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“It was the fall before A

“Pretty exciting. Who set it up?”

“I don’t know. Someone at Saint Eloy’s, I think was what the guys said, someone who knew someone in the Cubs organization. You know how that goes.”

I knew how that went. You always need someone who knows someone. Even Boom-Boom might not be in the Hockey Hall of Fame if the Tenth Ward committeeman hadn’t known someone who dated a woman who knew a man in the Blackhawks organization.

“What was it like?”

“Sitting in the dugout at Wrigley Field? Ru

I couldn’t help laughing. “I hope it is, Frank, but what I really wondered was what the tryout was like.”

“I’m driving a truck, aren’t I?” he said roughly. “Not admiring my statue in Cooperstown.”

“What happened?”

The sigh came across the phone like the hiss of air leaving a balloon. “You lose those muscles. I mean, I was strong, I was driving a truck, all that stuff. But my baseball muscles, my eye, my timing, all those were gone.

“Boom-Boom, he coached me. Not the baseball, he couldn’t play baseball for shit, but he was a professional athlete, he knew what it took to get in shape. Bagby gave me a leave. Not Vince, who’s in charge now, but his old man. Hell, they were rooting for us, five of us going for the tryout worked there, and Boom-Boom and me, we worked out together every morning. If he was in town—the hockey preseason had started, but I worked out on my own, two hours every morning. I followed his training diet, everything.”

I hadn’t known about this. Guy things that Boom-Boom didn’t think were worth sharing.

“So I was in great shape. I could run a hundred yards in fifteen seconds.”

“Impressive,” I agreed.

“I should have tried out with the Bears,” he said bitterly. “They could have used a guy with fast legs and a truck driver’s muscles.”

I waited: this was a painful memory. Any words from me might shut him up completely. When he spoke again, it was quickly, in a mumble that I could barely understand.

“I couldn’t hit major league pitching.”

I still didn’t speak. Who can hit major league pitching? Even the best pros only do it once every three tries, but that wouldn’t be a consolation to the guy driving a truck instead of playing in the show.

“Ma—Ma blamed Boom-Boom. I shouldn’t have said anything to her, but, you know, I had to talk to her about something, so I told her when we heard we were going to get the chance to try out. She was excited, never seen her like that, she kept saying she’d been waiting for this, waiting for me to get my big chance, prove to the world that Guzzos counted as much as—as Warshawskis. And then, of course, I had to tell her how it came out.”

I looked at the dialogue boxes I’d created of Stella’s invective. “She said Boom-Boom made you fail.”

“That’s not fair, she shouldn’t say that kind of thing, but at the time I was hurt, you know, the way you are when things don’t pan out.”

I sat up straight. “What did you tell her about Boom-Boom?”

“Oh, Tori, you know what it was like when Boom-Boom showed up anywhere, at least anywhere that people cared about sports. He sat in the dugout, he was cheering me on. Only everyone in the place went nuts when they realized Boom-Boom Warshawski was there. He was signing autographs, even the Cubs brass wanted them.”

Anger and grief—he was still feeling them. His one chance at the big time and Boom-Boom had stood in his sunlight.

“I’m sorry,” I said inadequately.

“Yeah, not as sorry as me.” He gave a bark of laughter. “I probably couldn’t have hit the curve if Boom-Boom had gone to Edmonton—he skipped a game against Wayne Gretzky to come to Wrigley with me! But it wouldn’t have felt so—so bad. Boom-Boom watching me whiff, it was worse than when old Gielczowski used to make me lower my pants. And Ma took it like that. To her, it was more proof that the Warshawskis had it in for us. Even later, when I’d visit her in prison, she’d go on about it.”

“I hope you didn’t believe her, Frank,” I said. “No one in my family wished anyone in your family ill. My mother loved A

“Just as well we split when we did,” he jeered. “Ma would have put arsenic in your wedding champagne.”

It was a gallant effort at humor and I laughed obligingly. “She may manage yet. She gave me a good belt in the shoulder, and if she gets hold of poison or a gun I’m definitely toast.”

“She hit you? I thought you were tougher than that.”

“Not tough enough, not quick enough.” I took a breath. “Did you know she’s saying Boom-Boom killed A

There was a long pause. I could hear people ordering sandwiches and muffins, room for cream in that thing, hon.

“She’s saying all kinds of wild things,” he finally said. “Not just that, other crazy stuff. I don’t know what she wants to say or do to get her name cleared, but if she goes completely off the skids, Frankie, Frank Junior—my boy, you know—I want him to have the chance I never had.”