Midnight Pass: A Lew Fonesca Novel Part 31

Stanley stepped forward carefully, right hand out.

"Turn it around," he said amiably.

Ames turned the shotgun holding it by the barrel. Stanley took it and motioned for us to walk ahead of him out the door. We did.

"Sorry," I said to Snickers as Stanley marched us to the stairway and we started down.

"Not your fault," Snickers said. "Not the money. The challenge got me. Know what I'm sayin'?"

"I know."

Stanley marched us into the baseball collection room where Kevin Hoffmann sat drinking with a pistol in his lap. I could tell now he was wearing a New York Yankees s.h.i.+rt.

A color television sat on a shelf between two trophy cases. Someone was sliding into second base trying to steal. He was out by a yard.

Hoffmann pushed a b.u.t.ton on the remote and the game disappeared.

Below the television set, in an armchair, sat a haggard man in a blue robe dotted with little white fleurs-de-lis. There was a blue terry cloth sash around William Trasker's robe and he was wearing blue leather slippers. His skin was dead pale white. His eyes were dead blue. His mouth was partly open and his hair flopped over his forehead, probably getting in the way of his vision.

The good news was that he was alive and somewhat awake. The bad news was that he looked like he was going to fall over.

"You know what we're going to do?" Hoffmann asked pleasantly, turning his head toward me and motioning to chairs in the room in front of him with the gla.s.s in his hand. "We're going to sit here, maybe talk a little, maybe watch a little baseball, White Sox and Yankees, maybe have a drink until we're sure the commission meeting is over. Then you are going to leave and Bill is going back to bed. Maybe Stanley has an appropriate poetic quotation for the occasion."

"*In the groin of the natural doorway I crouched like a tailor sewing a shroud for a journey,'" Stanley said.

"Shakespeare?" Hoffmann guessed, a distinctly slightly alcoholic smile on his face.

"Dylan Thomas," said Stanley, gun in hand, standing next to the dazed Trasker.

"I can give you the best of Casey Stengel, Bill Veeck, and Yogi Berra, and tell you the real ones from the ones the reporters made up, but poetry and literature...Stanley can't be beat. Right, Stanley?"

Stanley didn't answer. Hoffmann drank.

"Any of this getting through to you, Bill?" Hoffmann asked his brother-in-law.

"You know, after tonight and a few more little bases on b.a.l.l.s, Stanley is going to be very rich. Not as rich as you and me, Bill, not as rich as me particularly when you quietly pa.s.s away and I inherit your total earthly a.s.sets."

Hoffmann turned his head toward me.

"You understand what I'm telling you, Fonesca? You're reasonably smart. Dumb too, but reasonably smart."

"No," I said. "Mr. Trasker here dies and his money which would go to his wife if she were alive goes to his kids."

"My nieces and nephews," Hoffmann concurred. "Not a ballplayer in the lot. They don't even like the game. Bill and my sister believed their children have been ungrateful and should make it on their own. They made me the beneficiary of the Trasker millions, about twenty-two million including the house here and the apartment in New York. In fairness, I made them the beneficiary of my not inconsiderable holdings," said Hoffmann.

"You got anything to eat?" asked Snickers.

"Baby Ruth candy bars, the little ones they give out on Halloween along with little packets of Cracker Jacks," said Hoffmann. "In the bowl over there. Stanley?"

Stanley reached for the bowl and pa.s.sed it to Snickers.

Bill Trasker blinked his eyes and tried not to keel over. He said something I couldn't make out.

"Sorry?" I said.

"He killed Roberta," Trasker said, more clearly looking at his brother-in-law.

"No," said Hoffmann, taking another drink. "I did not. Bill, I did not kill my sister. I loved only three people in the world. My sister, Lou Gehrig, and Joe DiMaggio. I wouldn't kill them. Disease got Gehrig. Age got Joe and Stanley's greed got my sister. He was afraid she would give Fonesca here permission to bring in a doctor to look at you. And knowing my sister, if she decided to go that way, she'd bring in Drs. Shelbourne and Kauffman who would have you out of here in two heartbeats. A Shelbourne and a Kauffman are good for a double play when the batter is an alcoholic quack like Jim Obermeyer."

"He speaks highly of you too," I said. "He says you have no backstroke."

"Backhand," Hoffmann corrected. "Baseball's my game, not tennis."

"So you told Stanley to kill her," Trasker managed with a cough.

"No," said Hoffmann, finis.h.i.+ng his drink. "I expressly told him not to touch her. Killing her was his idea. He's a very good shot. I didn't ask for details but I'll bet he shot her between the eyes. I, on the other hand, am only a fair shot, so to be safe I'd fire at the stomach and chest from a close distance like this."

Hoffmann raised the gun in his lap toward Trasker, who didn't seem to notice.

Ames sat forward, hand moving quickly toward his belt. Stanley turned his weapon toward Ames as Hoffmann fired.

The first bullet tore into Stanley's chest. The second hit him low in the stomach. Stanley's gun dropped to the floor. Stanley went to his knees and fell forward on his face. Hoffmann fired twice more. The first shot missed and broke the gla.s.s on a trophy case. A baseball came rolling out along the floor. The next shot went into the top of Stanley's head.

Snickers sat frozen with a tiny candy bar in his hand.

Trasker blinked down at the body.

Ames was up, a small pistol in his hand aimed at Hoffmann.

I was a spectator.

Before Ames could issue a warning or fire, Hoffmann dropped his gun to the floor.

"Can I pick up the gun again?" he asked me. "I forgot to shoot myself."

"No," I said, getting up on shaky legs and moving forward to kick the weapon across the room out of his reach.

The baseball that had come out of the broken trophy case rolled past Stanley's b.l.o.o.d.y body, over shards of gla.s.s, and stopped a few feet in front of Hoffmann.

Ames kept his gun leveled at Hoffmann while I moved to Trasker. I handed him the three pills Obermeyer had given me.

"Can you swallow these?" I asked.

"Need water," he mumbled.

"Water," Snickers said, running toward the kitchen.

Hoffmann reached over to pick up the baseball.

"Bobby Shantz," he said looking at the ball. "Little man could pitch. Remember him, Bill?"

Trasker tried to focus.

"Shove all your baseb.a.l.l.s up your a.s.s with your G.o.dd.a.m.ned Babe Ruth bat for a battering ram," Trasker managed. "I'll be happy to help you find the hole."

There was hope for Trasker. I checked the clock. It was a little before ten. Snickers was back with a gla.s.s of water.

Trasker downed the pills with the water and coughed.

"Watch him," I told Snickers, and ran up the stairs to the room where Trasker had been held.

I found neatly pressed dark slacks, a slightly starched white s.h.i.+rt, and a pair of Bally woven leather loafers on the floor. In the drawer of the dresser I found dark socks and underwear. There was also a wallet and a ring of keys. I put the wallet in the pants pocket along with the keys and hurried them down to the trophy room, where Hoffmann was still looking at his Bobby Shantz ball. I helped Trasker out of his robe and slippers. He looked as if he had spent a couple of years in a Turkish prison. Dressing him was hard. He tried to help.

"Ready," I said.

"What about him?" Ames asked, nodding at Hoffmann.

"Leave him," said Trasker. "Let him blow his G.o.dd.a.m.n brains out or wait for me to tell the police what happened. Either way I don't give a s.h.i.+t."

The eyes of the two men met. I'd say that they were about even in awareness of the world about now, but that wasn't saying much.

There was a phone on the desk behind Hoffmann. I picked it up and dialed 911. Then I handed the phone to Hoffmann.

"It's the police," I said.

"There's been an accident," Hoffmann said. "No, not an accident. I just shot an employee of mine who was about to kill me. My name? I've got so many. Let me...Hoffmann, Kevin Hoffmann."

He handed the phone back to me and I hung it up.

We went out through the front door. Snickers and I held Trasker's arms to help him walk. Ames backed away behind us, shotgun back in his hands, aimed at the door in case Hoffmann changed his mind and opted for a.s.sisted suicide.

We made it through the gate, leaving it open, and got Trasker into the front seat of my car. Snickers and Ames sat in back. Snickers had a handful of candy bars and was munching one furiously.

"If he talks his way out of this, I think I'm gonna have the son of a b.i.t.c.h killed," said Trasker.

"Hey, I know a guy..." Snickers began.

"Forget it," I said. "No hits. No runs. No errors."

Trasker needed a shave. There was no time.

"How are you doing?" I asked him.

"You mean can I make it through the meeting?" said Trasker. "I can make it through the meeting and more, but not a h.e.l.l of a lot more. I'm dying."

"I know. We all are."

"I'm just doing it a lot faster than you," Trasker said, with a touch of bite in his words that made me think Obermeyer's pills were kicking in.

There was silence as we drove except for Snickers munching. About a block from the town hall, I let Snickers and Ames out. We got the scooter from the trunk.

"You get him in on your own?" Ames asked.

"I can walk in on my own," Trasker said, standing next to the car. The scooter started without trouble and Ames and Snickers got on.

"I still got money coming," Snickers said.

"You do," I agreed and went for my wallet.

"Hold it," said Trasker.

He reached into his back pocket and came out with his wallet. He opened it with shaking fingers and pulled out a handful of bills. He gave them to me. I counted eight hundred and twenty dollars, eight hundreds and one twenty.

"He earned it," said Trasker.

I handed the bills to Snickers who tucked them into his s.h.i.+rt pocket and tilted his hat back on his head.

"I'll call you tomorrow," I said to Ames.

Ames nodded and he and Snickers wheeled off into the night, Snickers clinging to the waist of the tall old man.

When I got into the hearing room, where almost all the faces in the audience were black and many of them vaguely familiar from the funeral service at Fernando Wilken's church, it was nearly midnight. Reverend Wilkens saw me and came to meet me at the back of the hall while a well-dressed young black man addressed the bored commission members on the need for a library in Newtown.

One of the few white faces in the crowd belonged to John Rubin of the Herald-Tribune. He looked at me, at his watch, and back at me, a question in his eyes.

"You found him?" whispered Wilkens.

Heads were turned toward us.

I said, "He's in the hall."

"Bring him through that door in three minutes. Three minutes exactly," Wilkens said, checking his watch. I checked mine.

Three minutes later, still in need of a shave but wearing the white s.h.i.+rt and slacks and walking on his own, William Trasker shuffled down the carpeted center aisle and into his seat at the table.

The room went silent as they watched Trasker, many, I was sure, wondering if he would drop dead from the effort.

"I think we need an ambulance," said Mayor Beatrice McElveny.

The speaker rose and returned to his seat. I stood at the rear of the room with Wilkens and Trasker. A uniformed officer with arms folded stood next to us.

"You haul me off in an ambulance, Bea, and I sue your sorry a.s.s," said Trasker. "Let's vote."

A commissioner named Wrightman said, "I propose we hold off the Midnight Pa.s.s vote till our next meeting. It's getting late and-"

"I'll be dead by the next meeting," Trasker rattled.

"Do I have a motion to conclude this meeting?" the mayor said.