The SJ.Com 2006 Summer Novel

[21]

Let's try again.  We never seem to get to the end, and we surely won't again, but it's been a helluva good time trying.

Only a few rules:
1) No Terry Haute and Shanna--we have done them to death, they are now married and living in Boca and having great sex without our help.
2) No comments in the middle of the story. If you have to make one, delete it later.
EDIT: 3) If you want the next installment, just post 'I got next' or something, and we will wait for you. That way, you don't spend an hour writing something only to find out your character was killed while you were writing.


I forgot the rest, but we'll figure it out.

And now, with great embarrassment and apologies, the SportsJournalists.com 2006 Summer Novel.

 

[21]

‘****!  Fuuuckk!! ********************!’

What else was there to say, in that stunning moment between the glass of vodka slipping out his hand, and then splattering all over the laptop.  He watched the last of the Grey Goose drip down in between the keys…$15 from the hotel bar, and most of it was ice, ****in New York hotel bars.  He said no twist or any of that other crap…but the dumb broad behind the bar threw in a cruddy lime, now taunting him as it lay like a dead slug on the Caps Lock key.

****.  He picked up the sloshing laptop—heh, he thought, now we’re both sloshed—and tipped it over to the side. A few drips tinkled out. He thought about licking them up off the bedspread.

What a ****ing day. ****ing game goes into extra innings, computer crashes halfway through finishing the column, which sucked anyway, and the only cab back to midtown had air in three of the tires and smelled like it had been hauling goat hides and used toilet paper.

Was this the same day? Was it just this morning that he woke up in his own bed in his own house in his own nice New Jersey suburb, next to his own wife down the hall from his own kids? Was that today, that he left for the ballpark early, realized he forgot his laptop at home, and went back to get it? Was it just today that he walked into the kitchen to find his wife and her hairy-assed cooking teacher making baked chicken on the new granite countertop, her legs pointed up toward the pot rack as she whapped him repeatedly with a spatula and screamed ‘More sauce! More! Sauce!!’

It had not been a pretty scene. Things hadn’t been good—probably never had been. She was a rich brat who married him to **** off her parents, who wanted her to marry a lawyer, not a football player. He married her because his friends thought she was hot, and he was tired of dating bimbos. 

He had stood in the kitchen that morning, not sure whether to laugh or cry. By the time they noticed him, he had already thrown a few things in a bag and was standing over them. ‘You should turn over,’ he said,’ this side looks done.’

And now here he was in this lousy hotel room, thinking about his kids and his dog and wondering what the hell…..what the hell.

He reached for his computer bag, where he knew he would find his last friend today….the perfect Cohiba he had started a few hours ago.  His hand fished through the bag, under some gym shorts…sunglasses….socks…he had left in a hurry….cell charger….OUCH! ****!  Pulled back his hand…his finger was bleeding.  Something had stuck him, hard.

He dumped out the bag onto the bed.  All his **** tumbling everywhere…and then he gasped.  Five syringes, uncapped, taped together.  A note dangled...a scribble on a cocktail napkin...'Have a Toot at The Train Whistle' was stamped on one side, a smeared but delicate handwriting on the other.

He carefully picked up the napkin by the corner: ‘Wanna know who used these? Five needles, five guys…Don’t look for me, I will find you.’

****.

 

[Freelance Hack]

Just when Evan Seville thought his day was ending, it was just beginning.

 

[Boom_70]

Evan studied the note. The writer clearly had to be female judging by the neatness.

 

[21]

All you had to know about Dr. Mitch Mendel was that his mother joined mah jong groups just so she had more places to brag about him. Handsome, brilliant, finished Yale undergrad in three years before heading to Harvard Med School. He called his mother every morning before rounds, bought her a Camry for her 70th birthday, and never ate pork.

When she told people what he did, she shrugged and pretended she understood. “He’s the Doctor to the Superstars,’ she laughed, repeating the line from his website. ‘All the big players, they go to Doctor Mitch!’

And they did. Bones, muscles, joints…he was the man. If you were a player with a big future, or hoping for one, you knew Doctor Mitch.

The Feds knew Doctor Mitch too. They knew about the plainly wrapped boxes that showed up at his offices every day, and what was in them. They knew about the offshore accounts, and the investment in the Arubian pharmaceutical company, and they knew about the secret computer files that listed countless professional athletes, and their drug regimens.

What they didn’t know, when they busted into Doctor Mitch’s office late one night, was that they’d find his bloody body at his desk and his severed head in the toilet, so badly beaten that even his mother couldn't identify him.

 

[DyePack]

Willie McAndrews was the lucky agent who found the good doc's decapitated body. He had led the raid, but now he had more than he bargained for. The neck stem drooped down the doc's back. Blood saturated the carpet, the desk and the doc's $800 office chair.

"Better glove up, boys," McAndrews said. While the stooges fished for the routine evidence, McAndrews turned to the file cabinet. The records were all on the computer, but the agent knew there was something more important in the room. He reached behind the cabinet and found the safety deposit box key taped to the back.

"Money. Dough. Coin of the realm," he mumbled to himself as he recalled a line from a dime-store novel he'd picked up a summer or two ago.

 

[Boom_70]

Evan removed the tape from the syringes and layed them all on the table. He picked up the note and held it up to the light. The writing style was very familiar he thought. He then carefully picked up one of the syringes and studied it. Upon closer inspection he noticed a black mark next to the calibratiion "3 cc". He picked up the others and found that each had the same mark on a different calibration - 1- 5 CC. He layed the syringes in their correct order 1-2-3- 4-5 .

 

[21]

His cell phone rang. 'START ME UP! IF YOU START ME UP I'LL NEVER....'
'Yeah, Seville here..."
He knew from the breathing it was Marcee...now that she was smoking three packs a day (another quirk to **** off her parents), he could hear her and smell her three counties away.
'Evaaaaaan,' she whined. 'We need to taaaawwwwk.'
All the Louis Vuitton and Burberry her parents' money could buy, and she still pure Garden City.
'Marcee,' he sighed, still staring at the note and the needles and wondering if he could get a disease from being stuck by one. 'I don't want to talk. Not tonight. I called the kids on their cells earlier and told them I was on the road for a few days....'
She wasn't listening...he could hear her crying and snuffling and babbling about being a-PREE-see-ated and WHAHN-ted.
He caught his own reflection in the mirror as she blew her nose into the phone. Still looked pretty good for a guy in his late 40s….his hair had been silvery grey since he was in his 20s, and he still had all of it. Still had the physique of a lineman…still had the slight limp from the busted knee that ended his college career in the middle of his senior year at Michigan. Becoming a sportswriter was just another result of the injury…if he couldn’t play, at least he could stay close to the game.
‘….and I never feel that you caaaaaaare about me…’
He closed his eyes. ‘Marcee…I am hanging up. You do what you do, and I will do what I do, and we’ll see what happens. Go cook something, you’ll feel better. Goodnight.’ And he snapped the phone shut.
For a long moment he shut his eyes...he needed sleep...he needed a drink....he needed to know who was putting syringes in his bag.
The phone rang again. 'WHAT DO YOU WANT, MARCEE?!' he snapped.
But instead of Marcee's gravelly I-just-ate-a-razor-blade voice, he heard soft breathing...soft music...silence.
'Hello? he asked. 'Anyone there?'
A gentle wispy voice wafted through the phone and straight into his pants.
'You get my package, baby?" she whispered.
'Ummm.'
'I got a story to tell,' she breathed. 'Decide how much it's worth to you. Sleep well, baby.'
Click. She was gone.

 

[DyePack]

Willie fingered the key in his palm, just for an instant. Then he slipped it into his pocket.

"Tomorrow," he thought. "Tomorrow I'll go to the bank. After that, I just have to wrap up this case without anybody getting wise. Then, off to Tahoe forever."

 

[novelist_wannabe]

Groove stood 6-foot-6. His mother, a single parent from the projects in Hell's kitchen, had christened him Orlando Battle, but he had long since cast that name aside, as he had all vestiges of his gangland life. No more drive-bys. No more sprinting home to beat the sunlight before the murderous thugs - as opposed to the ones who would simply beat you up over your Nikes - wound their way through the neighborhood.
No, Groove, who'd heard  “Baby Let's Groove” on the radio and couldn't get it out of his clean-shaved head and then decided to start introducing himself around that way, was now in a growth industry. Which meant he had nice accommodations that required no sprinting to safety. And a car. And girls. And, most important, respect.
It started with the small-time stuff, which really didn't last long. He'd narrowly avoided getting busted for selling weed. This strange man in a Mercedes had rolled through as Groove had sidled up to an undercover cop. Mercedes asked for directions, then cut his eyes at Groove in a way that clearly told him to walk away from what looked like an easy $100.
Strange thing was, Mercedes kept showing up, invariably close to the local hardcourts. And he kept doing so when street hoops legend Nasdaque Leeward was playing. It didn't take long before Groove figured out what was going on: Mercedes was dealing. Whatever it was, though, it wasn't weed. Groove knew enough to know this Mercedes wasn't the product of a gateway drug.
Then one day, Mercedes pulled up to him when nobody else was around. Or at least, visible. Though it was their second meeting, it was the first with a formal introduction.
“I hear they call you Groove,” he said to Groove's back, the wheels on the Benz slowly turning as Groove walked. This was enough to get his attention.
“Sez who?” You didn't just open up to strangers in this neighborhood.
“Oh, I see. Your mom taught you not to talk to strangers, right? Well, My name's Mitch Mendel. And I think you owe me one.”
“**** off.”
“Well, I could do that,” Mendel said, “but I could also turn on you. You do realize you were about to sell a cop some marijuana that day, right?”
Groove stopped walking and faced the car. Damn, that was a fine machine, he thought. I can see myself in every surface.
“Okay ... Mitch, so what do you want?”
Mendel had made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Even a ninth-grade dropout knew enough math to recognize that muling syringes to the Hamptons at the behest of this strange man in the Mercedes was more lucrative - not to mention safer and more interesting - than dealing small-time drugs in Harlem. And his general distrust of white people flipped on him with this dude, who seemed to have the attention of the most prominent hoops players on the streets. If he had the sack to mosey around the blackest of New York boroughs, then he must be serious, indeed.
That was eight months ago. Now, Groove had that sack in his briefcase. Walking to the No. 7 train, he kept looking at the briefcase to see if blood was leaking out of it. He'd thought about claiming a bigger souvenir, and Mendel's head in the toilet added a symbolic touch, if he did say so himself, but in the end, the good doctors scrotal endowment seemed most appropriate. He'd just take them down to Shea himself, hang out at the players' parking lot, and wait for the clients to roll up so he could break the news.


[[wow, i just noticed this was my 2500th post. Do I get a toaster or something?]]

 

[21]

The first time Bianca Macedonia ****ed a ballplayer, she thought maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe her expectations were too high, but it was without a doubt the worst sex she had ever had, and that was saying something.

Cole Slawicki was gorgeous and dumb, with a rotator cuff that looked like frat house spaghetti dinner.  He was the first athlete she ever slept with, an experience so stunningly bad that in the weeks and months that followed, she found herself ****ing an endless array of patients trying to find just one who could get her within remote range of an orgasm. So far, no luck.

In the five years she worked as a physical therapist for Dr Mitch Mendel, she had had her hands on more professional athletes than any woman on earth, and that was just in the office. She had seen them pee and puke, she had seen their ill-timed hard-ons and flaccid failures, she had seen them cry and scream and beg for mercy as she sunk her fingers deep into their muscle tissue, or their joint, or their rectum…whatever Dr Mitch needed her to do.  She avoided their gaze as they watched those 34Ds fight the restraint of her Doctor Mitch logo tshirt, avoided the random hand reaching for her ass, avoided the dumb lines about how their wives were frigid *******.

Basically, she had seen athletes at their weakest moments, and found them to be entirely unsexy. 

There was only one man who made her reach between her legs at night and dream, and that was Doctor Mitch. Five minutes in the same room with him, just seeing patients, and she’d have to go change her thong. When they were really busy on the road, like during Super Bowl week, she had to run out to Bloomingdales to buy a dozen more.

They had been together once, and she could still remember every moment.  A trip to the Pro Bowl, a gift from one of their players for the whole office staff after they saved the guy’s knees and his career, and never told a soul the injury had come from a loan shark’s baseball bat.  Bianca had traveled plenty of times with Mitch, but this was the first time he had shown up at her hotel room door, pretending he needed a button sewn on his shirt.  By dawn, he was still missing a button, but he had found hers.  She had never seen such a big cock….three days later, it still hurt to pee.  When they returned to the office the next day, however, he took her aside and explained it could never happen again. “I don’t want to lead you on,’ he said, patting her shoulder. ‘I could never explain this to my mother.’  And before she could respond, he announced, ‘Patients to see! Let’s go!’ 

Was it possible to hate and love someone with equal passion?

Cole Slawicki was just what she needed. 

 

[slappy4428]

She also realized Dr. Mitch has some major shortcomings; he wouldn't do.
(I made my own donation this morning...)

 

[DyePack]

"His nuts are missing."

"What?"

"Somebody cut his balls off."

"No ****?" Willie was almost gleeful. Someone was walking around with rock-solid evidence, although it probably wasn't very solid by now. All he had to do was find the guy, put a bullet in his head, doctor the scene a little, and he could raid the cash box.

 

[Boom_70]

that last phone call had the effect of downing a double espresso at Starbucks . Evan was no longer sleepy. He now needed some fresh air and time to think. He decided to go for a walk. It would have been useless to try and sleep.

First Evan hit the park and did the loop. On his way to his hotel he found hiself not that far from the Train Whistle

Well he thought "One more grey goose might help him sleep."   Being a Monday night there was only one patron at the bar besides Nick and cocktail waitress - Varla.

Evan sat at the bar and ordered his grey goose on the rocks. After his second sip Nick came over holding an envelope. This was sitting by the cash register when I came in.
Nick dropped the  envelope on the bar and walked away.  "Evan Seville" was printed neatly on the the envelope-- obviously written by same writer who left the syringes in Evan's bag.

Evan opened the envelope and pulled out the note  " Syringe # 3 was used by Rock Blemens "

 

[PopeDirkBenedict]

Evan stared at the note. He stared at to the point a cocktail waitress asked him if everything was OK. "Yeah, just me wife telling me that the radiator went out on the car today...800 bucks to fix it. ****ing mechanics," he quickly lied. "Gimme another Grey Goose."

The waitress started talking about the troubles her 96 Corsica was giving her, but Evan barely heard it. Rock Blemens just kept running through his mind. This had to be some kind of practical joke. Evan had been around enough locker rooms as a player and a writer not to be naive -- athletes do dumbass things and some of them involve syringes. He still didn't know what the syringes were used for -- could be anything from heroin to steroids to smuggling -- and why he had them. But if he was going to guess an athlete who was going to be using steroids, Rock Blemens was at the bottom of the list.

Evan had known Rock since his senior year at Michigan, when Evan was the All-American offensive guard and Rock was a 5-10 walk-on safety from a hick Indiana town. At first Rock was just another body -- some dreamer kid that had seen too many Michigan-Notre Dame games and thought he could play with the big boys. But Rock stood out from the crowd of nobodies right away. When Prince Murphy, the all-American wideout caught a slant pattern against the scout team on the third day of practice, everyone thought he was headed for paydirt. That was until Rock hit him with such violence that his helmet and shoes went flying in one direction while the rest of his body went in another direction. Legend had it that a chemistry professor in a nearby building heard the hit and thought a car had crashed outside his office. The entire practice fell silent until Murphy gingerly got up and glared at Rock and everyone else looked at Bo Schemblecher, fearing the worst. How would Bo react to some walk-on nearly killing his Heisman candidate? "GODDAMMIT, WHY IS THAT KID STILL ON THE SCOUT TEAM?," the crusty coach roared. "IF THAT KID IS GOING TO HIT LIKE THAT, I WANT HIM KILLING THAT ****ER WOODY HAYES' BOYS!"

Rock was out of Schemblecher's dreams: he hit opposing ballplayers and the books with equal ferocity. Unlike most football players, he wasn't called Rock because he was dumb -- he got the nickname because he would watch Rocky incessantly. Rock had a 3.96 GPA in Economics and planned to go to law school someday. Evan drifted toward Rock because he was one of the few ballplayers he could have a real conversation with. They talked about politics or current events or business  -- anything but football, booze and women (the favored topics for most of the Wolverines). Rock was so paranoid about what he put in his body that he wouldn't eat the chicken dishes at the Olive Garden because they cooked it in wine. One day, Evan caught Rock doing extra workouts and asked why: Rock had succumbed and eaten a Snickers between classes and felt the need to work it off right away.

Rock's obsessiveness paid off: he had just finished a freakishly long NFL career at free-safety. Even though he hadn't decleated a wideout in years and would lose a footrace to most third-graders, his smarts extended his career by 10 years. Teams always found a place for a free-safety who knew what the QB was thinking and could get there in time to break off the pass. Evan had kept in sporadic touch with Rock -- whenever Rock's team came to town, the two would have dinner. They exchanged the odd e-mail and Rock even passed him along a tip or two...Mitch broke a few stories about coaches getting fired with Rock's help. Even though Rock had been retired for less than five years, he was already the Redskins' defensive coordinator and the Redskins had the best defense in the league last year, losing in the NFC title game. Teams contacted Rock in droves after he retired -- he was destined to be an incredible coach and rumor had it he turned down the Lions head coaching job in the off-season. With his pedigree, he could afford to picky -- he was the hottest coaching candidate in the NFL. The idea that Rock even touched a syringe seemed laughable. Something wasn't adding up.

"Can you believe that? 700 bucks for a new fuel pump?" Evan was jolted back as the waitress finished her diatribe about her worthless car. "Man, the mechanics will get you every time," Evan replied, shaking his head. Evan had seen enough for today...between the wife playing hide the bratwurst with the cook and the syringes and Rock, he just needed some time to think. He laid a 20 on the bar, said thanks and went back to his hotel room. Evan didn't quite know what to do next, but figured a trip to D.C. was in the works.

 

[Boom_70]

Evan was about to nod off when he was startled awake by the terse tone of Nick- "last call buddy"

Feeling like he needed sleep more than he needed another drink he dropped a twenty on the bar and headed to the Weston.

It was a two elevator bank at the Weston. The glass enclosed kind that you could see in as they went up and down. One of the cars was out of service and the other was in use. In fact it appeared to be stopped at his floor- the 21st.

Seemed like it took forever but the doors finally opened. Evan had not expected anyone to be in the elevator at 1:30am and as he got on he bumped into a women hurrying to get off.  She was dressed in a sweat suite and had a pink Yankee baseball cap pulled low on her head. Seems like a strange time of night to go for a run Evan thought as the doors closed.

Evan got to his room - 2170 and searched his pockets for his card. He found it and opened the door to his room. As he walked in he found an envelope on the floor with his name - the same hand waiting as the one at the bar.

He quickly tore it open and pulled out the sheet of paper. Their were 2 names

"syringe # 2 was used by Clem Rogers "

"syringe # 4 was used by Lou Picca"

Clem Rogers was the 43 year old pitcher for the Nationals out of retirement for the 3rd time and still the ace of the staff.  Most thought he was done at 35 when he went 4 and 16 but out of nowhere he seemed to find the fountain of youth and went on to win 3 more Cy Youngs.

Lou Pica was the annoying little columnist for Evan's rival paper-  The National.  He was not very welled liked by his colleagues or his subjects but he stilled seemed to be able to get a story or two.  He also liked to brag about his pitching exploits as a Sunday beer league pitcher in a local over 40 hardball league.

 

[alleyallen]

Nick Trainer hated washing glasses more than anything else in this world, an irony not lost on the man who ran The Train Stop, a popular watering hole in the area. He hated the lipstick stains the overmade 40-year-old women left, he hated the spit residue left by that one asshole who was always hacking up a week's worth of cigarette smoke from his lungs, and he hated the greasy fingerprints left by the slimy ****ers who were always arguing with the smoker and always flirting with the older women.

He finished one glass, set it aside and picked up another. Only two more trays of the damn things to do, he sighed, then gave serious thought to taking a broomstick to all glasses, and eating the cost of buying more, just to get out of washing them.

Then Nick heard a sound that he'd almost grown accustomed to in his neck of the woods. One sharp bark of gunfire, followed a moment later by two more. It came from the window near the front of the building, less than 15 feet from where he stood behind the bar, and he could make out the sound of a heavy thud. Splashing sounds, fading away in the distance, told him that someone was having a very bad night.

Nick pondered the situation and wondered if he could pretend he hadn't heard anything, he might avoid having a very bad night as well. Maybe. Just maybe.

 

[alleyallen]

Did I cut in front of the doc? Sorry if I did.

 

[Chi City 81]

As Nick took a long look into the glass laying in front of him on the chipped mahogany bar, he weighed his options. He could stand there and continue his menial task, all the while sipping at his own drink and praying the alcohol would wash away the sounds of gunfire from his mind. Or he could go outside and make what might become the biggest mistake of a life filled with them.

**** it, he thought with a shrug, it ain't my problem. Nick thought the hollow footsteps he heard moments before were the sounds of a fleeing gunman. He'd soon find out he was wrong.

Nick picked up the glass of Chivas and ice and swirled it around, listening to the whooshing sound of the ice, and a peace fell over him. He brought the glass of golden liquid to his lips and took a sip. A half-dozen drinks into what figured to be a long night, the Chivas no longer burned as it once had. Instead, it went down smooth and further dulled his senses. But not too much to fail to notice the loud crack as the door to The Train Stop was kicked in.

"Freeze, mother****ers," boomed throughout the dingy bar. And as Nick whirled around he knew it was going to be a bad night.

"Put yo' ****in' hands up, and give me all your money!"

As the masked man walked toward the bar, he cocked his sawed-off pump shotgun and leveled a shell into the chamber. It was a sound of pure terror. Nick was now at the mercy of a man with a loaded gun.

Nick just stood there, frozen, seemingly oblivious to the gunman's demands.

The robber leveled the gun at the bartender and yelled, "Last chance, goddammit! Give me the money now."

Having a loaded shotgun pointed at his head was all the motivation Nick needed. He turned toward the cash register and emptied it into one of the nearby brown paper bags he used to wrap the cheap bottles of Mad Dog 20/20 and Thunderbird Wine the winos of the neighborhood favored.

As he turned back around to hand over the bag of cash, he took notice of the man sitting at the end of the bar, who hadn't quite gotten the concept of Last Call for Alcohol. Something wasn't right. The man was staring straight ahead into space, a knowing look on his face. The man's left hand was favoring a bottle of Bud Light, but his right hand was nowhere to be seen.

Something definitely was amiss. But Nick wasn't quite sure what it was.

The man, a semi-regular who went by Rico, spoke a single word.

"Hey."

The gunman turned to face Rico, whose body became rigid when he looked into the masked man's eyes. Something just clicked in that man's mind, Nick thought while looking at Rico. It couldn't have been more clear if a light bulb suddenly appeared above his head.

Rico spoke again, softly, but his words were damning nonetheless.

"Lionel, what the **** are you doing?"

The gunman's eyes went as wide as hen's eggs as Rico's words sunk in. Then they squinted in anticipation.

Nick recognized this look anywhere. It was pure rage and determination. He'd seen it before growing up on the streets of Chicago. And he knew what was about to happen.

No, please, he wanted to cry out. But the fear he was feeling had cut off his powers of speech. All he managed was a dull squeak as Rico's right hand flashed into sight, holding a pistol, ready to fire. But the man behind the mask pulled the trigger, and Rico's brains and most of his face were deposited on the beam behind him. In a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity, Nick watched Rico slump forward while the robber grabbed the blood-stained wino bag and fled from the bar.

Lionel, Nick thought to himself, trying to shake away the cobwebs caused by one-too-many sips of Scotch, Where have I heard that name before?

But before the answer came, the adrenaline took over, causing Nick to vomit up the Chivas and what was left of his lunch. I need a shower, he thought, hearing the far-off sirens in the distance.

 

[novelist_wannabe]

Groove leaned against the fence at Shea Stadium. Nobody had noticed him on the No. 7 train; his ensemble was relatively tame for that crowd, especially on game day, when the Mets jerseys, t-shirts and fuzzy wigs dominated the landscape. He checked his case several times, and never saw any blood.
So here he was, about 20 feet from the gate to the players lot - that was as close as the guard would let him get, and he didn't want to draw any more attention than necessary - confident that as soon as one of Mendel's clients saw him, he'd have an audience.
Mendel had not imposed much in the way of rules. The only thing he couldn't do was show up at the good doctor's office. Groove wasn't familiar with the term 'plausible deniability'; they hadn't covered that in his nine years of school, and if they had, he wasn't paying attention anyway. If he had been, though, he'd have know that's exactly what the doctor wanted to achieve by keeping him away from the office.
He did know a great deal about the goings-on at Mendel's practice from talking to the clients. He'd used his athletic frame and cool demeanor to win their trust, and they'd sung like the patsy invariably found on any CSI episode.
He knew Mendel had ****ed the physical therapist just once, and it was enough to rock her world. And he knew she had made the beast with two backs with Cole Slawicki. Groove sniffed at the thought. He viewed Slawicki as a little weasel. The pitcher was average sized - which made him smaller than Groove - and had an angular face that always made it seem as he was looking at you sideways. And that mass of snaky scars on his right shoulder was ****ing spooky. Groove didn't know how anyone went about deciding to do that to their body, but he suspected that for the money these dudes were making, they'd do just about anything.
The autograph seekers were starting to congregate - first pitch was 7:05, and it was now about 3 - so Groove dug in his pocket and found the only piece of paper he could find, a receipt from a convenience store from the day before. He'd stopped to get a quart of Schlitz Malt Liquor - Look out for the Bull! - to steel his nerves before offing Mendel. He always kept a pen handy, and pulled one out in a half-assed effort at blending in.
He figured Slawicki would be the first there. He knew the weasel wasn't pitching tonight, which meant he'd be itching to take batting practice. Pitchers and their hitting.
True to form, Slawicki pulled up in his Escalade, “SLWDWG” plates from his home state of Wyoming keying everybody to who was inside. Groove, with his superior height, was able to catch the pitcher's attention, and before Slawicki drove through the gate, Groove snuck around to the passenger side and quickly jumped in.
This drew a quizzical look from the security guard, but it was New York. He was an off-duty cop, and he'd seen just about everything, so when Slawicki looked unalarmed, he let it pass.
They pulled into a parking space - Slawicki was a 10-year major-league veteran, so he got a second-row space behind the GM and managers row - and the pitcher killed the engine.
It had been about three weeks since Groove had visited Slawicki in his Midhampton beachfront home. Slawicki was one dose from completing what Groove heard him call his “regiment” and was sweating it, but the delivery was right on time. Groove had heard from more than one client that he was real dependable for a kid from the streets, and it became a source of pride for him.
Now, though, he was early, and both men knew it.
“Whatcha got?” Slawicki asked, breaking the silence.
“News,” Groove said, and he paused to let it sink in.
Slawicki drummed his thumbs on the Escalade's wheel, ignoring the shrieking autograph requests of the fans outside the fence. He wondered if he was going to have to pull Groove's teeth to get him to speak, and just before he decided that might be required, the large black man did.
“Mendel's dead.”
“Get the **** outta here.”
Groove opened his briefcase, a movement that for Slawicki progressed in slow motion. In that moment he imagined the courier reaching into that case for - what? A weapon? Cash? Syringes?
“Look, I don't think …” And then he saw the contents of the case. There were indeed syringes there, but what immediately drew his attention was the bloody, hairless ball of flesh, with bulges on either side, and a tattoo saying “rockdoc” running vertically down the middle. Slawicki had examined his own privates enough to recognize where these had come from.
“I guess you could say I have Mendel by the balls,” Groove said, then he cracked up laughing, a booming, 7-up man laugh that echoed inside the Escalade.
“And I guess you could say you need another supplier.”
Slawicki went slack-jawed. Groove waited a minute to enjoy the incredulity, then pulled the syringes out and dropped them on the seat as he got out.
He closed the case, then walked past the off-duty cop with a nod.