The Big Bounce jr-1 Read online

  “He’s good,” Mr. Majestyk said. “You know?”

  “Kell,” Ryan said. “He was a good ballplayer.”

  “You know, he got over two thousand base hits while he was in the Majors?”

  “Two thousand fifty-two,” Ryan said.

  “Did you know they had a sign outside his hometown? Swifton, Arkansas. You’re coming in the sign says ‘Swifton, Arkansas-The Home of George Kell.’ “

  Ryan took a sip of beer. “I don’t know if I’d want a sign like that. Some guy comes along, he knows you’re away playing ball, nobody home, he goes in takes anything he wants. Or you’re in a slump and some nut fan throws rocks at your windows.”

  “That could happen,” Mr. Majestyk said. “But when a guy is good, like Kell, you got to be able to take a lot of crap and not let it bother you. So a guy throws a rock. So you get the window fixed. Listen, you hit three thirty, three forty like Kell, the pitchers are throwing crap and junk at you all the time and it’s worse than any rocks because it’s your living, it’s what you do. You stand in there, that’s all. When they come in with a good one, you belt it.”

  “Or wait them out,” Ryan said.

  “Sure, or wait them out. But either way you got to stand in there. Maybe if you’d stayed in,” Mr. Majestyk said then, “I mean, in baseball, maybe they’d be putting a sign up for you one of these days.”

  “Sure.”

  “I mean if you didn’t have the bad back.”

  “You want to know something?” Ryan said. “Even if I didn’t have it, I never could hit a goddamn curve ball.”

  Nancy saw the movement at the far end of the lawn: the figure briefly in the orange light and out of it, out of sight for a moment, now moving across the yard to the deep shadows of the pines, and her finger continued to stroke the edge of her hair, down across her brow. She sat comfortably with her feet on the inside edge of the ottoman, her knees up in front of her. She didn’t move. She wondered momentarily why he was being so sneaky about it. All he had to do was walk across the yard to the house. When she saw him again near the swimming pool, her right hand came away from her face.

  The hand dropped to the side table and, without groping, curved around the hard, smooth handle of her target pistol.

  Nancy waited. She began to wonder if he had circled to the back of the house. There was no reason he would, unless he wanted to look at the garage or the street, just to be sure. There were no sounds, inside or out.

  She waited, because she knew he would appear again. She also knew-sitting, facing the sliding glass door that was sixteen feet from the front edge of her chair, her eyes on the glass now and not moving from it-exactly what she was going to do.

  There were no sounds. Then a faint sound. A scraping sound on the wooden stairs. She saw his head appear, a dark shape against the sundeck, his shoulders, his body. He stood for a moment looking down at the yard. As he turned to the door Nancy brought the pistol up in front of her and laid the barrel on her raised knees. As he opened the door, sliding the glass gently, and started to come inside, Nancy said, “Hi, Jackie.”

  She heard him say, “Is-” or something that sounded like that but no more. With the pistol held straight in front of her at eye level, held on him dead center, she fired four times and continued to fire as he stumbled back to the sundeck and went down, and she would have sworn she heard the sound of glass breaking on the patio, as if someone had dropped a glass or a bottle.

  Nancy pulled herself out of the chair she had been sitting in for over an hour. She walked out to the sundeck wondering if his eyes would be open or closed.

  “What’re they taking McLain out for? Jesus Christ, a couple of hits and they pull him.”

  “They were hard-hit balls,” Ryan said. “Both of them.”

  “So they get a hold of a couple.”

  “The leading run on second,” Ryan said, “they got to be careful. Say, you know what time it is?”

  Mr. Majestyk looked at his watch. “Quarter of ten. I’d leave him in. How many hits they got off him?”

  “About six.”

  “Six hits. What-all singles? You don’t hit this guy solid.”

  They watched the manager walk back to the dugout. McLain remained on the mound, throwing the ball into the pocket of his glove.

  George Kell said, “Well, it looks like Denny’s staying in. He’s got his work cut out for him now. Two on, the potential leading run on second.”

  Mr. Majestyk was pulling himself out of his reclining chair. “The best part,” he said, “and I got to take a leak. You need a beer while I’m up?”

  “I’m all set.”

  “You want a highball? Whatever you want.”

  “I was supposed to meet somebody at nine thirty,” Ryan said.

  Mr. Majestyk swung his feet down. “I thought you already met her.”

  “No, I was going to. Then I thought I’d see a couple of innings first.”

  “Is she going to be sore at you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you care?”

  “Well, I ought to talk to her sometime.”

  “It’s up to you.”

  “I better do it,” Ryan said. “Get it over with.”

  Someone, Nancy decided, should do a piece on Jack Ryan for the Reader’s Digest. “The Luckiest Character I Have Ever Met in My Whole and Entire Life.”

  At first, looking down at Frank Pizarro, she was startled, disappointed, and finally angry. But, she decided, as she dragged Frank into the living room and slid the door closed, it wasn’t all bad. This one deserved it as much as Ryan. She had to be philosophical, accept minor disappointments like a big girl. She didn’t have Ryan, but she had his buddy, and the buddy should serve the purpose just as well. He was dead and she had killed him.

  The trouble was, she wasn’t sure if windows weren’t more fun after all.

  She turned on every light in the living room, then the kitchen light and the desk lamp in the den. She picked up the telephone, then put it down and moved quickly to the table next to the big chair. She had almost forgotten the props. She took her wallet, a watch, a pearl necklace, and several pins from the table drawer and stuffed them into Frank’s pockets. In her mind she heard a policeman or someone say, “He was in your room?” And her own voice answering, “I heard him, but I didn’t make a sound. I waited. I didn’t go downstairs until I thought he’d gone. I don’t know what made me take the gun. I’d bought it and I was going to give it to my boss as a present. Mr. Ritchie.” She smiled at this touch. Great. Especially if it got in the papers word for word. “My boss.” Or “Uncle Ray.” That might be better.

  Nancy was in the den, once more about to dial the phone, standing just inside the door and looking out into the living room and this time when she replaced the phone, she stepped back inside, out of the doorway.

  Wow. Jackie was coming in from the sundeck.

  She gave him time to take a good look at Frank Pizarro. She took a breath and let it out slowly and straightened the V-neck of her shorty pajamas and stepped into the living room as Ryan was getting up from his knees. She watched him step over Frank Pizarro’s legs and saw his gaze raise abruptly.

  “Late again,” Nancy said. “Aren’t you?”

  “I guess I am,” Ryan said. “Do you know he’s dead?”

  She nodded and was aware of Ryan’s gaze holding on her. “He came to ask for more money,” Nancy said. “If I didn’t give it to him, he said he’d tell the police about you.”

  “You had a conversation and then you shot him.”

  “When he came at me. After.”

  “You happened to have a gun.”

  “When he knocked,” Nancy said. “I didn’t know who it was, so I got the gun first.”

  “Have you called the police?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What’re you going to tell them?”

  She kept her gaze locked with his. “That I shot a prowler.”

  “Then, tomorrow,” Ryan said,
“your picture’s in the paper.”

  “I didn’t think of that.”

  “You might even get it in a magazine. Life maybe.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “You wear dark glasses wherever you go and people point to you and say, ‘That’s the one.’ “

  “Really?”

  “Somebody in Hollywood sees the nice-looking little girl with the nice little can and the long hair who shot a man in her millionaire boyfriend’s beach house and you’re there.”

  “Hey, neat.”

  “Ray’s in a mess because his wife and everybody knows what he’s been doing, but you can’t worry about Ray now, can you?”

  “Those are the breaks,” Nancy said.

  “You wouldn’t need any fifty thousand. You shoot a cucumber picker and find happiness.”

  “Sort of a Cinderella story,” Nancy said. “I like it.” She seemed to be picturing it, nodding, as she stepped in front of the big chair and eased into it, sliding low in the seat.

  “How many times did you shoot him?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t count.”

  “You shot him coming in.”

  “No, I heard him. But I didn’t come out of my room until I thought he had gone. Then when I got downstairs, he was waiting for me.”

  “You shot Frank coming in the door,” Ryan said. “Seven times. He didn’t knock. He walked in.”

  Nancy put on a little surprised look. “That’s right. Because I left the door open for you. But he did knock.”

  “What I mean,” Ryan said, “you didn’t mean to kill Frank.”

  “Of course I didn’t mean to kill him.”

  “You thought it was me coming in.”

  “Sure.”

  “You meant to kill me.”

  Nancy sat quietly in the chair. “I did huh-why?”

  “I guess there are a lot of reasons,” Ryan said. “But mainly because you thought it would be fun.” He waited, moving to the ottoman and sitting down in front of her.

  “Was it?”

  “It was all right.”

  “But not what you thought it would be.”

  “Isn’t that funny?”

  Her eyes followed him as he rose now and moved toward the den. “Where are you going?”

  “Call the police.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “You might get it wrong.”

  “You tell on me, Jackie, I’ll tell on you.”

  Ryan paused in the doorway. He felt tired and shook his head slowly. He said, “Hey, come on, okay?”

  “I mean it. I’ll say you were with him. I’ll tell them about the wallets.”

  “All right,” Ryan said. “You tell them about the wallets.”

  He went into the den and picked up the phone and she heard him say to the operator, “I’m calling the state police.” There was a long silence. She heard him say, “I want to report a shooting,” and a silence again. Then the sound of words: “Out at the Pointe… Ray Ritchie’s place… Huh?… No, you’ll see when you get here.”

  As he came out to the living room she said, “All right for you, Jackie. Boy are you going to get it.”

  With his foot Ryan pushed the ottoman over to the walnut console model TV that he could get a hundred and a half for and fooled with the dials until the picture came clearly into focus to show McLain still in there. George Kell said, “Two on, two out, top of the ninth.” Ryan eased down on the ottoman.

  Nancy leaned over the arm of the big chair to watch him for long seconds, almost a minute.

  “Jackie?” she said, and waited. “Jack, you nifty lover, hey. What if I tell them you came in and surprised him and you had a fight. Do you see it? You even look like you were in a fight.”

  Nancy waited.

  “I’ll tell them you saved my life. You pulled him off me and-listen-while you were fighting I got the gun. Then he was about to hit you with something, the poker, and I had to shoot him.”

  Her eyes opened with the little surprised look. “Hey, Jack, then we both get our pictures in the paper. And in Life-a big picture of us wearing real neat sunglasses. And then both of us get in the movies! Wouldn’t that be it?” She opened her mouth and her eyes, faking it a little but actually taken with the idea.

  Ryan looked at her. He waited until he was sure she was watching him and listening and he said, “I’ve been in the movies.”

  He looked back at the TV set, at McLain bringing up his leg and throwing from the shoulder with a man on base. The son of a bitch was good, but he could sure get in trouble.

  “Listen, I’m serious,” Nancy said. “It can work. It would be more fun with somebody else.” She waited, watching him. “Listen to me, will you? Look at me. This could be great. We tell them what happened and in a couple of days we take the car and go-wherever you want, just go. Jack, listen to me!”

  McLain looked over at the runner on first, paused, and delivered his pitch. “Fastball inside and a little high,” George Kell said.

  “We can make it look good,” Nancy said. She paused, thoughtful, before pushing herself out of the chair. “We’ll say he was violent. In fact”-her hands went to the V-neck of her shorty pajamas-“before I got to the gun, he grabbed me and tore my pajamas off.” Her hands came down, ripping the front of the pajama top to the hem. She held it open and said, “Jackie, look what he did.”

  Ryan looked. He nodded and looked back at the set again.

  Nancy was thoughtful for a moment. “Then, all of a sudden, he went psycho and started smashing things.”

  She used the poker from the fireplace, bringing it up swinging at the painting over the mantel, hacking at it and smashing the light fixture. She destroyed a glass cabinet in the living room and worked her way into the dining room, smashing every piece of glass and crystal and china she saw: vases, ashtrays, figurines, a mirror vanished in a sound of splintered glass. She shattered the entire floor-to-ceiling thermopane that faced the sundeck, chopping away the fragments of glass that pointed jaggedly out of the frame. She saved the lamps until last, smashing them one by one, the room becoming dim and finally dark. Only the flat white glow of the TV picture remained.

  A silence followed. Nancy stood near the big chair in her torn shorty pajamas. She stood motionless, the silence lengthened, and the voice of George Kell said, “All tied up in the bottom of the ninth with Detroit coming to bat. If they’re going to put something together now’s the-”

  Ryan turned off the sound. He sat hunched in the white glow of the picture tube. Behind him, Al Kaline silently swung two bats in the on-deck circle.

  He said to her, “Have you broken everything?”

  She seemed to nod. “I guess so.”

  “Then, why don’t you sit down?”

  “Jackie-”

  “No more, all right? If you say any more, I think I’ll bust you one and I don’t want to do that.”

  As Al Kaline stepped into the batter’s box and took his stance, touching the end of the bat to the plate and digging a foothold with his spikes, they heard the first thin sound of the siren far up the Shore Road.

  “Sit down and relax,” Ryan said. “There’s nothing more to think about.”

  Nancy curled slowly into the chair, leaning on one of the arms and resting her face in her hand. She stared out at the swimming pool and the lawn and the orange pinpoint of light against the night sky and a finger began stroking the soft, falling edge of her dark hair.

  Notes

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