(Red wine)
When Quinn arrived home, her dad was sitting up past his usual bedtime.
‘Where’ve you been?’ He tried to moderate his dread.
‘Who’s asking?’
‘I’m your father, for crying out loud.’
‘Not what I meant.’
‘What did you mean?’
‘You never ask me where I’ve been. I mean like you’re somebody different. It’s a joke.’
‘Used to be I could count on you being at a game.’
‘Used to be,’ Quinn said. She went to the pantry, hauled out a box of cereal.
That seemed to awaken her dad from his coma. ‘I made spaghetti and meatballs. You want, I can warm them up.’
‘No thanks. I’m kind of hungry, but not. Maybe later.’
‘Sure. Like in the middle of the night. Quinn, the police were here today.’
She stood frozen a moment. Then continued to shake out her Cheerios. ‘I know why,’ she said.
‘You have a boyfriend?’
She sat down opposite him. ‘We went out a few times. His name was Dietmar. Somebody killed him, Dad.’
‘Quinn.’ Jim Tanner scratched a side of his forehead. They didn’t have formal father-daughter talks. Instead, they communicated in brief asides, snippets of news, sudden bursts of chatter unrelated to anything pertinent in their lives. They got along but had found a way to communicate without saying much. ‘Were you there?’
She shrugged a shoulder. ‘If I was, I’d be dead, too, I guess. Or maybe Deets would be alive.’ She poked around in her Cheerios with a spoon. Quinn recognized that flip didn’t strike the right tone. If she was to stay on top of this exchange, she needed to ease off her usual sass. ‘I wasn’t there. OK? He was a really sweet boy. He didn’t deserve that.’
Her voice broke then. Tears surprised her by springing up so quickly and forcefully. She came out of her seat. Jim Tanner adjusted his own chair and she fell onto his lap like she used to as a child. He held her. Only after a minute had passed did she grasp that she was way too big for him now, and for the kitchen chair, and she struggled back up. She wiped her eyes and sat back down in her seat.
Jim Tanner was too stunned to speak.
Quinn could tell that her dad was fighting to find a way back into the conversation. Questions, worries, doubts swarmed through him.
‘The police want to speak to you,’ he managed to say finally. ‘I promised you’d call in the morning. I got a card. Name and number.’
Throughout the day, she had feared a tap on the shoulder. A badge in her face. Handcuffs. A squad car. Making bail. Who knew how to do that? She imagined calling her dad from jail. That the cops were willing to wait for her to call lightened her burden. She might pull this off, get away scot-free. Fingers crossed and hope to die.
‘You have to call them, Quinn.’
‘I will.’
‘You were the last to see him alive, they said.’
‘The killer had to be the last person, Dad. The last time I saw him, Deets was fine.’
‘Yeah. Were you going out a long time?’
‘Not long. He was in …’ She stopped herself, partially overcome, partially aware of a sleight of hand inside her head. ‘He was in Social Studies.’
‘College kid.’
She wanted to tell her dad that she had a boyfriend who was a university student, that she’d come up in the world. He’d be proud of her that way, perhaps be more receptive to her guy. Yet the notion was seriously out of whack – Dietmar was dead. He lost his life working for her. Not something she could talk about to her father.
‘Yeah,’ Quinn acknowledged.
Jim Tanner decided to warm up the spaghetti and meatballs for his daughter whether she wanted the meal or not. He knew something about a young person’s appetite. If he put good food in front of her, she’d devour it. She thought she wasn’t hungry because she was sad and upset, but she might find out differently.
‘You used to watch baseball a lot,’ her father said.
‘The Expos, yeah.’
‘The local boys, too. The juniors.’
‘Not so much anymore.’
‘We used to play catch a lot, you and me.’
‘Fun. Good times.’
‘I played baseball in the old days.’
‘You played third. Catcher, a bit.’
‘Second-string. First string at third. I enjoyed watching the old Royals.’
‘We have the Expos now, Dad. The majors. Not Triple-A anymore.’
‘You think I don’t know? That Rusty Staub, he’s a good one. Like the man said, “What’s a staub? And why do we need a rusty one?” I like that joke. Mack Jones, he’s gone. I liked him. I like this new kid, Parrish.’
‘He’s a hunk. He’s so gorgeous. My god.’
‘That I don’t know. And Barry Foote. He’ll be good.’
‘You like third basemen and catchers.’
She didn’t know why he was going on about this. Probably he just needed to talk. Or, he was working his way around to something, which might have to do with her and her dead boyfriend and the police.
‘The Royals had Drysdale one year. Dick Williams, he’s a manager in the bigs. I remember when they brought him in to play short for the Royals. He joined the team in Havana. Had a good first game. Two hits. One a double. A spark plug, Sparky Anderson, he played second. He’s a manager now, too. That guy with the TV show, Chuck Connors, he played first.’
She was beginning to wonder if he wasn’t having a breakdown.
‘Are you all right, Dad?’
‘Jim Dandy. You?’
‘I’m fine,’ Quinn said. ‘Maybe a few guys on the Expos today will be managers tomorrow.’
‘You never know. Tommy Lasorda. He’s a manager now. He pitched for the Royals. A lefty. He took Drysdale under his wing when he was here. I could coach third base for the juniors, Quinn. I got asked.’
‘What?’ So that was it. ‘How did this come up?’
‘I been asked before. I said no. I got asked again.’
‘When?’
‘Tonight.’
‘Who by?’
‘The field manager called me. Gus Jornet. You know him?’
‘I know him. He’s a …’ She stopped herself. He looked at her. ‘Dad, I’m not allowed to swear in the house, right?’
‘I promised your mother.’
‘So I don’t. Neither do you. Maybe on the shop floor you swear. I bet you do. Maybe in the lane a word comes out of my mouth. It’ll happen. But I’m going to swear this one time in the house—’
‘No, you’re not,’ he corrected her, forgetting how stubborn she could be, and what little authority he’d exercised through the years.
‘Jornet, Dad, the manager, he’s a …’ Once again, she stopped herself. She would have thought otherwise, yet when push came to shove, she did not have the audacity. ‘The c-word, Dad. Not the one for a man.’
‘Quinn! Don’t you dare say that word!’
‘I didn’t!’
‘Get it out of your head!’ He shook the spoon at her, the one he was using to stir the meatballs. Red sauce splattered across the floor.
‘Dad! Watch what you’re doing!’
‘Get it out of your head!’
‘All right! I didn’t say it. But that’s what he is. Coach Jornet is a c-word. The word for women.’
‘Oh, will you please—?’
‘Ask yourself, why am I saying that? Think. He used to coach the juvenile team. Before that, the midgets. How old are they, Dad? How old? Think. I hung around those teams. Your daughter. Around that age, I had a clue. Since then, I had it confirmed. Confirmed, Dad! Coach Jornet is a c-word for women.’
He stared at her, then went back to stirring the meatballs in their sauce. He turned on the burner under a second pot to boil water for the noodles. ‘I’ll kill him,’ he said.
‘I took care of it,’ she told him, the words out before she could stop herself.
He looked over his shoulder at her. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing.’
He turned. For once in his life, he stared her down. ‘What does that mean, Quinn?’
‘Nothing! I broke into his car. He left his wallet in the glove box during games. Safer than the clubhouse, which is like an open invitation to thieves. Money, credit cards, driver’s license, the whole nine yards. I took his wallet and went down to the expressway. I ripped his stuff into bits and dropped them off the overpass, like confetti. The money, too. I wasn’t taking nothing that belonged to that c-word for women.’
He gazed at her and pictured her doing all that and wondered who this woman could be. Not his little girl. ‘When he asked me, years ago, to coach, I didn’t want to interfere in your life. You were at the ballpark a lot back then. I didn’t want to be in your way. I thought I should be home for you, when you came home. You’re older now. I thought, maybe it would be all right now. Me, coaching third.’
‘Dad.’
‘Don’t worry. I won’t. I might kill him instead.’
‘Don’t do that, either. Like I said. I took care of it. I left his wallet on a railway track. Oh, and maybe I keyed his car a little.’
‘You keyed his car? Who are you?’
That made them both laugh, through tears flooding their eyes.
‘Don’t do anything, OK? I don’t want you in jail. I need you around. For your spaghetti.’
‘You’re growing up. Spaghetti goes good with red wine.’
‘I’m underage, still.’
‘Right. If you’re underage, I’m the middleweight champion of the world.’
‘Really? You think you can take Monzón?’
‘You know Monzón? He’s a great champ.’
‘You can take him.’
‘Not in this lifetime. But saying that makes you not underage.’
‘That makes no sense.’
‘Cops on my doorstep looking for my daughter makes no sense.’
‘Dad, come on, I’ll call them. But there’s nothing I can tell them.’
‘Red wine. In the pantry. Pour.’
She went looking. ‘Is this that homemade stuff from the Italians down the lane? It’s terrible!’
‘How do you know it’s terrible? It is, but how do you know?’
‘They let us kids drink it. They don’t think it’s wrong. It’s a different culture.’
‘Top shelf. A real bottle with a real label. Not the rotgut from down the block.’
‘Thank God.’ She found it.
‘Tonight, we’ll be a different culture. Your mom enjoyed red wine.’
‘Did she?’
They so rarely mentioned her. They both thought of her constantly and yet kept those reminiscences private.
They had a good time. When they both headed off to their bedrooms, they were rosy and laughing. Quinn had to promise to call the police in the morning, which put a damper on her mood as the dizziness in her head hit the pillow.