HARVEY HADN’T FALLEN ASLEEP until three in the morning. At five he had been jolted awake by a nightmare in which he had pulled a corpse out of a whirlpool, to discover that it was Mickey. She had opened her eyes and said, “I’m only kidding.” He sat up in bed. Rudy was gone, Mickey might be going, and he didn’t know how much longer he wanted to play the game of baseball.
He did not remember the point at which anxiety deferred to sleep, but at ten Friday morning the phone rang inside his brain. Wanda, who had been sleeping on his head, leaped to the windowsill. Harvey’s hand sampled several objects on the nightstand before finding the pertinent one.
“It’s Linderman,” the voice barked.
“’Scuse me?” Harvey mumbled.
“Wake up. I’m down at the ball park, but I’ll be through soon and I thought you might meet me for a drink in half an hour.”
Harvey located his tongue. “At ten in the morning?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. So have a cup of coffee with me. Plan to be there.”
“I was planning to spend the morning trying to figure out who killed Rudy.”
“Good. That’s exactly how I plan to spend mine.”
Harvey suggested Mandy’s, a bar on the Brown University campus with plastic Tiffany lamps.
“Nice place,” Linderman said. “We pinched a couple hookers there last month. Imagine that, taking advantage of young college boys.”
“Imagine,” Harvey said.
Harvey had been at Mandy’s for twenty minutes, seeing how many sips there were in a Bloody Mary, before Linderman lowered himself into the booth, beer in hand. The butt of a police Magnum rode up under his armpit, beneath a red and green plaid sports jacket. An archipelago of grease stains ran down the front of his white polo shirt.
“Something keep you at the park?” Harvey asked.
“I was over there,” Linderman said, indicating a booth in the far corner of the lounge. “Watching you.”
“That’s just great.”
“It’s interesting what you can tell about a guy, watching him like that.”
“So what’d you learn?”
“That you don’t like Bloody Marys very much and that the service in this place is lousy. Your waitress never came over to see how you were doing.”
“What’d you really want to know?”
“Some guys get nervous,” Linderman said.
“About?”
“About knowing something about who killed Rudy Furth and not saying.”
“You’ve been watching too many old movies, Linderman.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you seem a little nervous now, Harvey.”
“Some guys get nervous about being told they know something about who killed Rudy Furth and are not saying. I expected you to have all the goods at this point.”
“I’ve got some.” Linderman pulled daintily at his beer.
Harvey waited, then said, “Maybe you’ll tell me someday.”
“It’s your move, Harvey.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“I was hoping something might’ve come to mind since we talked the last time.”
Harvey spread his hands.
“All right,” Linderman said, bringing both palms down on the table. “Maybe this’ll jog your memory. The preliminary report from the coroner says that Rudy was killed by a combination of asphyxiation by drowning and Cleavon Battle’s bat.”
Harvey’s head jerked at the name of the Providence Jewels’ first baseman. “Cleavon Battle?”
“Cleavon Battle’s bat,” Linderman corrected him. “We don’t know who was holding it.”
“How do you know it was Cleavon’s bat?”
“That one was easy. The soft spot in Rudy’s skull was perfectly consistent with the sweet part of a Louisville Slugger. It could’ve been someone else’s bat, but Battle used it in the game that night, and it was gone by the morning, and no one can find it.”
Harvey felt ill.
“Your fingerprints were all over the place,” Linderman said.
“Now wait a—”
“Don’t have a seizure. So were everyone else’s. There must’ve been two dozen sets of pawprints around the whirlpool, none of them much good. And there was enough hair lying around to weave a bath mat. Head and pubic. Looks like the whole damn team sheds. The only blood we found was Rudy Furth’s. Don’t tell anyone I told you, Harvey, but a clubhouse is a nice place to commit murder.”
“My lips are sealed,” he said sourly.
“The M.E.’s people say there was a slight bruise under Rudy’s eye, probably fresh, though God knows what ten hours in a whirlpool’ll do. He didn’t have a mouse when you saw him after the game, did he?”
“No. I would’ve remembered it.”
“So let’s say there was a struggle before someone beaned him with Battle’s bat. But we’re still nowhere unless we can figure out who wanted to pick a fight with him.”
“Not Cleavon.”
“If it was him, he’d have to be pretty stupid to use his own bat and then tell us he can’t find it. You know a sharp dresser named Ronnie Mateo?”
“Funny you should ask. On the night Rudy was killed, he spoke to me for the first time.”
“Did he say anything of lasting value?”
“He tried to sell me some necklaces.”
“Figures,” Linderman said. “I hope he didn’t make a sale.”
“So you know something about Ronnie Mateo?”
“We’ve become pretty well acquainted over the years.”
“How’s that?”
“You ever hear of Bunny Mateo?” Linderman asked.
Harvey made the connection for the first time. “He’s a gangster.”
“Correct. In Providence, Bunny’s the gangster. Now here’s your bonus question: What’s Ronnie’s relationship to him?”
“I pass,” Harvey said.
“Ronnie’s his half brother, and he’s sort of a simpleton. He’s the guy the other guys send out for espresso, get the idea?”
“How dangerous is he?”
“As far as we know, he’s not a leg-breaker. Shoplifting is more his speed.” Linderman sipped his beer again. “He’s the kind of guy we pick him up, we let him go, we pick him up, we let him go. He’s small time, and there’s never enough evidence to book him, anyway. He covers his tracks, or someone else covers them for him.”
“You think Rudy was mixed up in gambling or something?”
“I don’t think so. We checked around, and there’s been no funny betting action on Jewels games. Nothing in Vegas, either.” Linderman found a Marlboro, lit it, and just held it in his cupped hand. “Anyway, Harvey, you know as well as I do that a relief pitcher can’t throw a game. Think about it. A starting pitcher can do it; he’s scheduled to pitch, and he controls the game. But a reliever doesn’t know when or if he’s going to get in the game, so he can’t control it. If Ronnie Mateo’s in there somewhere, it’s not gambling. Which is why I want to ask you about typewriters.”
“Typewriters?”
“We found three IBM Selectrics in Rudy’s house. The kind of machines that certain people have a habit of removing from offices without permission and selling on the street for five or six bills a pop. Any reason you can think of why there were three typewriters in his place and three thousand dollars in his pocket?”
“You said there was one thousand dollar bill.”
“There were two more just like it in his pants pocket. We found them when we went through his clothes.”
“Jesus,” Harvey said. He pulled the celery stalk out of his drink and snapped it between his teeth.
“Three thousand bucks is a lot of money to be carrying around, even for one of you glamour boys. Now let’s say that the money is tied to the typewriters. What I can’t figure is why a guy pulling down big league money would want to get involved with a penny-ante operation in hot typewriters. What do you think?”
Harvey shrugged. “What does Ronnie Mateo think?”
“Thinking is not something he does real well. He says he doesn’t know anything about typewriters, doesn’t know anything about Cleavon Battle’s bat, doesn’t know anything about anything. Meanwhile, I’m holding nothing in my hand.” Linderman looked at his cigarette, which had yet to reach his mouth, and put it out. “Do you know anything about Rudy and Ronnie I need to know? Rudy and Ronnie—gee, sounds like a nightclub act.”
“All I know is Rudy said Mateo once tried to sell him some color TVs.”
“What was Rudy planning to do, open a department store?”
“Tried to sell him. Ronnie tries to pitch everyone on the team. And you don’t know for sure where Rudy got those typewriters.”
“I’m thinking your roommate didn’t live up to his end of some deal,” Linderman said.
“You’re guessing.”
“It’s more fun than waiting for the killer to come to your home and turn himself in.” Linderman cocked a forearm and glanced at his Timex. “What else? Was Rudy sleeping with any of the players’ wives or anything like that?”
“You asked me that in the clubhouse.”
“Is it a crime to repeat myself?”
“You’re the one in law enforcement. But the answer is no, not that I know of.”
“Then let me ask you about another nightclub act—Rudy, Harvey, and Mickey.”
“Mickey Slavin?”
“No. Mickey Mouse,” Linderman said. “I understand both of you were planking her.”
“You understand wrong,” Harvey said, wincing at Linderman’s choice of words. “Who told you that?”
“A teammate of yours, and which part do I understand wrong?”
“Both parts. Rudy wasn’t ‘planking’ her, and I’m not either. We have a relationship.”
“Oh, a relationship,” Linderman said. “Well, how come this teammate of yours told me that both you and Rudy were in her drawers?”
“I did tell Bobby Wagner that, because I thought it was true once. I was wrong.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because Mickey told me two nights ago I was wrong.”
Linderman fixed him with a weary look, giving Harvey time to realize he’d just admitted that he hadn’t learned the truth about it until after Rudy’s murder.
“Okay, but give me a break,” Harvey said.
“You can tell me if the two of you were fighting over the same broad, Harvey. I’ll find out, anyway.”
“Are you trying to tell me that if Rudy had been sleeping with Mickey I would’ve killed him?”
“I’m not telling you anything. I’m just asking.”
“You’re out of your mind if you think I had anything to do with this. Is that why you got me here this morning?”
“Now hold on—”
“If I’m the best suspect you’ve come up with, I don’t know how the hell you’re ever going to find out who killed him.” Harvey downed the watery remains of his Bloody Mary and slammed the glass on the table.
Linderman was busy tugging a few singles from his wallet to pay the bill. “Tell me,” he was saying as he searched his pockets for change, “does she look as good in bed as she does on television?”