The Velvet Badge, page 24
“How lucky is that?” the detective asked her and let his strong cop’s hand brush against her side.
“Know when to quit, Detective” the double-degreed scientist told him. “Remember, I’ve got a report to write. And we’ve both gotta look sharp at that noon Monday press conference.” Tagrowd remembered her looking pretty sharp last summer before they nabbed Son of Sam. “Don’t even think about it.”
Tagrowd got the point and turned away on a run-down heel.
“When do you need this?” she called to his shoulder.
“Would 10:30 be OK?” Remembering the mayor’s request for an early copy.
“Sure! But when do you need it?”
“Oh, yeah, right! Quarter to eleven?” he asked back. “At the latest?” And with those embarrassed last words, he slammed the door hard. So hard that, hitting its frame, it instantly rebounded and clipped the back of his head.
TAGROWD’S SECOND PRESS conference on the Greenbergér case went off without a hitch, greatly enhancing his reputation throughout the five boroughs and ending with Rainer receiving a Babe Ruth-style bear hug from Liebtag himself which, by default, left Tagrowd in the Lou Gehrig role, dying of embarrassment in the TV cameras’ cumulative cyclops eye’.
Badaracz met his partner as he slid off the rostrum, and found he was covered by a foul nervous sweat. His “Tough nut, buddy?” only put it mildly. So their joint attempt at a breakout seemed perfectly in order. The two ducked for cover, avoiding the heat of the room’s massed spotlights, cut a swath through the waves of miked reporters, hurried their way across the building’s marble lobby and, sighing their relief now that it was over, elevatored back to their bullpen’s tranquility, where a Magnavox showed a flickering “Days of Our Lives.”
Tagrowd knew right away that something smelled fishy. Here and there, he could see, a telephone receiver rocked on the floorboards. A body, bent double, crouched behind a desk. A cheap-soled work shoe, tucked in a corner, was squeaking out its presence. And on top of it all, more stupid than charming, a weird, high-pitched giggling bored into the eardrums—his tribute, it seemed, from his badly hidden colleagues.
Miodrag reached in his pocket for a handful of glitter. He flung it wide, like he knew there was no tomorrow, and took wing with a song that sounded a little bit too familiar to have been made up on the spot:
Come OUT! Come OUT!
Where-EV-er you are!
And meet the de-TEC-tive
Who’s earned his gold star!
Ready and waiting for this shopworn cue, forward from their hiding places they came, a troupe of burnt-out gray little men.
“OK, you morons,” Tagrowd smiled, in step with the spirit of this joyous occasion. Much to his comrades’ pleasure and amazement, he got right up and tried to party hearty, matching their dizzy spirits, almost man for man. They cracked open bottles of champagne, real ones for starters, then unleashed those little plastic jobs that spit out colored streamers. Tagrowd got his back slapped, not minding at all, and later, since it felt right, led the charge on a memorable drunk until a bleary-eyed Badaracz cried, “Gentlemen, GENTLE-men!”
“Whaddaya want?” demanded Glenn Wexler, the over-the-hill sergeant who had bagged Murphy’s feces.
“Gentlemen, please! Our chariots await!”
As, indeed, they did. “Oh, yeah, right,” Wexler remembered. A fleet of unmarked Plymouths, commandeered for the day with Liebtag’s blessing, whisked their hero away in style up to the Bronx and the stadium he loved, for a late Monday afternoon battle royal against the Milwaukee Brewers.
“Get your ass in the goddamn car,” someone told him, probably Badaracz, since Rainer felt woozy and swayed as he stood. “Don’t sweat it, pard, you’ll feel better in a bit.” And off they all lurched, a motorcade of five with tires squealing, weaving through traffic like bikers from hell.
“Wanna beer?” roared Glenn, spread-eagled in the back as they passed the U.N. “Got one already,” Miodrag said and switched on the siren which seemed to give Rainer a welcomed second wind and helped sail the cop flotilla up to the ballpark in record time. The sight of that colossus, white-washed outside since its gala 1976 reopening, always struck Rainer exactly the same way, as giving and good and something you could count on. They parked on the sidewalk, scattering fans, as the 4 Train tracks rumbled sweetly behind them.
Little Charlie DeCarlo, stationed by the Press Gate, was the officer on duty who sized up their party. “Is he OK?” he asked about Wexler.
“Sure,” Badaracz answered. “Never felt better in all his born days. And we got these here passes to sit in Liebtag’s box.”
Tagrowd hadn’t known that he’d died and gone to heaven, but here he’d just heard it. They’d be sitting by the dugout, next to his boys.
DeCarlo tapped his shoulder, love for a brother officer spilling from his eyes. “Way to go, pal! Have those papers write me up sometime!” then let them pass straight into the Yankee clubhouse.
Rainer began doubting he’d be able to breathe. The place smelled of sweat but was hardly unpleasant. Off in the distance, from far up over the field, you could just make out the sound of Eddie Layton, pounding away on his mighty Hammond organ. Batting practice had long been over and the players were already gone, about to take the field. The names still were taped above each of the lockers.
–JACKSON–
–DENT–
–GUIDRY–
–RANDOLPH–
The latest grand chapter in the city’s pinstriped glory.
“You guys tourists?” the clubhouse manager asked them.
“No, cops,” they all answered.
“Same difference. Get off-a my floors!”
COMING UP THROUGH THE gangway, whose concrete pavement ran slick with beer, then edging down to their fabulous seats, it slipped Rainer’s mind that he hardly ever traveled. He would never see Europe or canter with Bangkok’s Shetland pony bargirls. Like many a working stiff before him, Tagrowd opted for the homefield advantage whenever his hormones screamed for adventure, away from the tourists.
The stadium was packed, yet pregnantly silent.
A pushy little red cap showed them to their seats.
‘‘Christ, mid-September already,” Rainer nervously thought. Figueroa was on the bump, his team solidly ahead of Boston in the standings. “This can’t possibly last,” he decided.
“Yo, hot dog!” Miodrag shouted, the better to get their nosh on the road. But their tired honoree, who found he wasn’t really up for eating, didn’t much feel like sitting yet either. He stepped into the nearest aisle, which was mobbed, where he was recognized by some, though hardly by many, and strolled the short distance, no more than twenty feet, up to the wall that circled the field. He laid his synthetic summer tweed in the crook of his forearm and, standing right next to the WPIX Channel 11 color camera, took a few moments to breathe the scene in.
The plate ump chatted with Bamberger and Lemon, the afternoon contest’s two veteran skippers, the sunbaked diamond pulsing in greens and browns. When their chinwag ended, the detective’s deep-set gray eyes wandered slowly out over the outfield to the flash of the scoreboard, then leapt to the billboard ads, then higher still to the fancy white latticework crowning the bleachers and the rest of the park. The sky, as they say, was a high china blue. Puffed white clouds floated over the Bronx Courthouse beyond center field. A heartfelt chant of “LET’S GO YANKEES!” rose from the crowd. Rainer felt himself settling into peace as the pinstriped nine took the field.
None of the cops in that box had ever sat so close before. You could see everything! Unbelievable. They cat-called and cheered, burning cigarettes waving, when Reggie stretched his hamstrings, out in right field or gunned it to Piniella in left; when Figueroa delivered, high and tight; when catcher/captain Munson snapped it quick out to second or went around the horn; or even when Chambliss, the big first baseman, spit on the bag as Pepitone had before him in the ‘60s. .
ATTENTION,
attention,
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. . .
ladies and gentlemen. .. . .
now echoed out across the stadium. And announcer Bob Sheppard, the true velvet fog (forget Mel Tormé), asked his flock of 55,000 baseball-hungry souls to please stand and honor America by singing our National Anthem.
“This again, Jesus,” Badaracz grumbled.
“Hey, can it, will ya?” his partner explained just as Layton’s thundering Hammond swelled its lungs. The warm festive crowd began to rise, to their feet and the occasion. After a somewhat fuzzy start, which sounded like a shut-in singing in a shower, the patriotic strain’s concluding “BRAVE!” rang out sure and strong so that self-applause was decidedly in order.
—“Hey! Fuckin’ A!” Nettles yelled, pointing directly at them from third base.—
And while the folks in the stands were banging their hands together, a mouse of a girl, along with her father, made a wide-eyed approach to the mayoral box, and asked the detective to autograph their baseballs. It was something unimaginable only a week before. But now, Rainer thought, it really felt like something he could get used to.
—“That’s to ‘Lars and Amy,’” the dad specified.—
—“And make mine to ‘Little Faith,’” moo-ed the star-struck pre-teen.—
The Count, as Figueroa was known, started the game with a trademark brushback that brought the rivalry of the two teams out into the open. “BREWERS SUCK!” encouraged the home team fans, making the replays particularly gruesome as the score began to see-saw toward its eventual 4-3 Yankee victory.
Miodrag and Glenn got stinking. So, it was no surprise to anyone when Badaracz announced “I gotta go see a man about a horse” somewhere around the bottom of the fourth. “You comin’, Wexler?” he asked in the hammiest voice ever and giving the sarge a wink. “Hey, old timer! I’m talkin’ to you!”
Huh?”
“C’mon! Ya gotta go? I sure gotta.”
“Wha’? Somebody win?” Glenn asked groggily.
“Not yet, buddy. Come on and drain the snake with me.”
“Yeah? What about the other thing?” Tagrowd overheard.
“We’ll fix that too,” Miodrag said, hurrying. “Just grab your dick and let’s get goin’.” He looked pretty nervous and red-faced as well, which didn’t go down well with Miodrag at all.
The deliciously boozed pair edged out from their seats. “Mind your candy ass snow boots,” they told Rainer. The two seemed to take their time, doing the nameless other thing. When they returned, near the top of the seventh, bearing a tray spilling beers for all, their shit-eater grins wouldn’t quit, even when big bad Sal Bando popped out to second.
“What’s so damn funny?” Rainer demanded.
“Watch the ballgame,” they chuckled to themselves. It turned out to be excellent advice.
The Brew Crew had one away, with men on third and second when hitman Gorman Thomas stepped into the box, looking like a tree in size-14 shoes. “Watch this bastard,” Glenn cautioned, just as the Count wound up and threw, big surprise, his usual smoke. But this time Gorm, a first-pitch hitter, smoked it right back, straight up the line. You couldn’t see Nettles actually snag the ball, just a thick wall of dirt, where his face had met the ground with the slap on the bag to end the inning.
“Aww-righ’!” Glenn screamed, with the rest of the fans right behind him. And then the organ screamed as well, cranking out tunes starting with “Colonel Bogey” which kept the crowd on its feet for the seventh inning stretch.
ATTENTION,
attention,
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. . .
ladies and gentlemen. .. . .
Intoned silver-tongued Bob Sheppard.
“Did you fuckin’ SEE that?” Miodrag demanded.
“Hey, I may be stupid but I’m not blind!” Tagrowd shouted back, gladly hearing his buddies’ drunken play-by-play, while the Diamond-Vision scoreboard slow-mo-ed the action to enormous acclaim. “You know, boys,” he told them, while home-team fanatics, stadium-wide, were beginning to take their seats again, “I think I need a hot dog. Anyone else here want to come with me?”
“I don’t think so,” Badaracz told him, his face again slipping into its taunting comic gaze.
“God’dammit, what’s so funny?” the detective demanded for a second time.
“Watch the damn ballgame!” was still all they would say. And Tagrowd, feeling that urge to punch his partner’s lights out, turned to the field and saw one of his favorites, mighty Thurman, swinging away in the on-deck circle.
“Ya gotta earn a living,” Badaracz stalled. Then Sheppard’s pinstriped echo once again beat its drum in The House That Ruth Built.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. . .
ladies and gentlemen. .
PLEASE DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION. . .
attention. . ,
TO THE LOWER MEZZANINE. . .
mezzanine. . .
Munson was an ox, like all the greats. Hefting his lumber with no apparent effort.
YANKEE STADIUM WELCOMES. . .
welcomes. . .
IT’S NEWEST STAR. . . AND HONORARY
YANKEE. . .
““Listen up, pal,” Badaracz needled.
FROM THE NEW YORK CITY POLICE
DEPARTMENT. . .
-partment. . .
DETECTIVE. . . RAINER. . .
rainer. . .
TAGROWD. . .
tagrowd. . .
His colleagues circled ‘round him, pointing their fingers.
Munson grunted and seemed to dip his bat.
Then the whole paying crowd, the cream of this incredible dirty town, simply rose and cheered for Tagrowd, leaving the poor guy alone in the spotlight shuffling his feet, in their jackass shoes, wholly speechless. While also letting him understand how Hela had been right. Because today, he considered himself, the luckiest son of a bitch, on the face of the earth.
THERE WAS ONLY ONE way to cap this glorious afternoon. And that was why Tagrowd and friends climbed into their cop cars when the game had finished and sped south at more than 60 and soon could be spotted, just cooling their heels in the air-conditioned comfort of Mel’s Triple Topless (“THREE BIG CHESTS – EVERY HALF HOUR”).
Mel Swanky, prop., was the kind of guy who still wore a Ronald Coleman mustache and seemed to be tight with the PBA brass. “Hello, hello and WEL-come!” the owner greeted. “Let me get you all a beer! Ice-cold Buds! On the house!” A trio of saggers ran through their paces on the low wood stage. One, who had studied tap, attempted time-stepping to the Bee-Gees’ “Night Fever.” It was just sad.
“So, how’s business?” Miodrag inquired. Mel had already joined them at their table. “Seems a little empty.”
“Friggin’ disco,” Swanky muttered. “We still get the regulars, class-act gents like yourselves. But I don’t know, these kids today. They’re either out dancing with their tight pants or they boogie up the street to that cockamamie bar.”
Sergeant Wexler asked for ten singles, which their host provided, and stuffed a couple of them in the middle dancer’s G-string. “She’s not so bad,” the old man claimed. Detective Tagrowd seemed to like her too.
“Yeah, Filipinas,” Swanky began to muse. “I call them my ‘double-drawers,’ because they bring in the guys who love the Asians and ones who dig Hispanics as well. You gotta admit that’s a mighty rare talent!”
Miodrag, another closet bon vivant and poet, paid for their second round (one freebie per guest was the house limit), tipped the girls more than they were worth and got the low-down from Mel on his fiercest competitor.
“That place,” he sneered. “Well, it just shows to go ya. Not a boob in sight and they’re still packin’ ‘em in.”
“Decent eats?” Tagrowd wondered.
“Eats?” came the answer. “More like puke if you really want to know. Plus,” he blustered, counting up the damage, “first, you got your skimpy drinks; second, you got your hard-hat bouncers at the door, letting god knows who or what inside; third, you got some skinny broad, wailing her lungs out up on stage; and fourth, everywhere you look, they got pictures of JFK hangin’ on the walls with his friggin’ head blowed off. Now, I’m a Republican myself, but still . . .”
“Yeah, go figure,” Miodrag sympathized, since the other gent had run out of fingers. Bandsaw accident.
THEY ARRIVED AT THE restaurant at around 11:30, the group all happy, in a lit-up sort of way and Tagrowd especially, since the stripper he fancied made him sign her tush. “Yeah, speaking of food,” Badaracz had said.
The line at Peking Duck House snaked around the corner, out of the Cantonese red Mott Street glare. And while Rainer didn’t mind, Miodrag couldn’t stand the thought of waiting and stood away from his fellows, standing lit Camels curbside on their filters. It had been that kind of day and night.
“Had enough?” was his question to Glenn. “How about you?” his partner heard in turn. “Then all right, dammit. Police!” he shouted, clearing a path by flashing his badge. “Official business! Out of our way!”
“Ooh, how exciting” wheezed an oversized patron, grabbing Tagrowd’s arm as the coppers shot by her. “Hey, whoa there, fellah! Don’t I know you? Sure, you’re that detective on TV! You must be so proud. Congratulations!”
Miodrag gave her a tweak, just above the beltline. “Not as proud as he’s hungry, sister. You want to step aside? You make a better door than a window, y’know.”
Here the queue miraculously parted. And the entourage of cops, party of ten, strode up the steps like Christ come to cleanse the temple. Pleas for miracles broke from the crowd.
—“My sister got killed; never found the bastard.”—
“Know when to quit, Detective” the double-degreed scientist told him. “Remember, I’ve got a report to write. And we’ve both gotta look sharp at that noon Monday press conference.” Tagrowd remembered her looking pretty sharp last summer before they nabbed Son of Sam. “Don’t even think about it.”
Tagrowd got the point and turned away on a run-down heel.
“When do you need this?” she called to his shoulder.
“Would 10:30 be OK?” Remembering the mayor’s request for an early copy.
“Sure! But when do you need it?”
“Oh, yeah, right! Quarter to eleven?” he asked back. “At the latest?” And with those embarrassed last words, he slammed the door hard. So hard that, hitting its frame, it instantly rebounded and clipped the back of his head.
TAGROWD’S SECOND PRESS conference on the Greenbergér case went off without a hitch, greatly enhancing his reputation throughout the five boroughs and ending with Rainer receiving a Babe Ruth-style bear hug from Liebtag himself which, by default, left Tagrowd in the Lou Gehrig role, dying of embarrassment in the TV cameras’ cumulative cyclops eye’.
Badaracz met his partner as he slid off the rostrum, and found he was covered by a foul nervous sweat. His “Tough nut, buddy?” only put it mildly. So their joint attempt at a breakout seemed perfectly in order. The two ducked for cover, avoiding the heat of the room’s massed spotlights, cut a swath through the waves of miked reporters, hurried their way across the building’s marble lobby and, sighing their relief now that it was over, elevatored back to their bullpen’s tranquility, where a Magnavox showed a flickering “Days of Our Lives.”
Tagrowd knew right away that something smelled fishy. Here and there, he could see, a telephone receiver rocked on the floorboards. A body, bent double, crouched behind a desk. A cheap-soled work shoe, tucked in a corner, was squeaking out its presence. And on top of it all, more stupid than charming, a weird, high-pitched giggling bored into the eardrums—his tribute, it seemed, from his badly hidden colleagues.
Miodrag reached in his pocket for a handful of glitter. He flung it wide, like he knew there was no tomorrow, and took wing with a song that sounded a little bit too familiar to have been made up on the spot:
Come OUT! Come OUT!
Where-EV-er you are!
And meet the de-TEC-tive
Who’s earned his gold star!
Ready and waiting for this shopworn cue, forward from their hiding places they came, a troupe of burnt-out gray little men.
“OK, you morons,” Tagrowd smiled, in step with the spirit of this joyous occasion. Much to his comrades’ pleasure and amazement, he got right up and tried to party hearty, matching their dizzy spirits, almost man for man. They cracked open bottles of champagne, real ones for starters, then unleashed those little plastic jobs that spit out colored streamers. Tagrowd got his back slapped, not minding at all, and later, since it felt right, led the charge on a memorable drunk until a bleary-eyed Badaracz cried, “Gentlemen, GENTLE-men!”
“Whaddaya want?” demanded Glenn Wexler, the over-the-hill sergeant who had bagged Murphy’s feces.
“Gentlemen, please! Our chariots await!”
As, indeed, they did. “Oh, yeah, right,” Wexler remembered. A fleet of unmarked Plymouths, commandeered for the day with Liebtag’s blessing, whisked their hero away in style up to the Bronx and the stadium he loved, for a late Monday afternoon battle royal against the Milwaukee Brewers.
“Get your ass in the goddamn car,” someone told him, probably Badaracz, since Rainer felt woozy and swayed as he stood. “Don’t sweat it, pard, you’ll feel better in a bit.” And off they all lurched, a motorcade of five with tires squealing, weaving through traffic like bikers from hell.
“Wanna beer?” roared Glenn, spread-eagled in the back as they passed the U.N. “Got one already,” Miodrag said and switched on the siren which seemed to give Rainer a welcomed second wind and helped sail the cop flotilla up to the ballpark in record time. The sight of that colossus, white-washed outside since its gala 1976 reopening, always struck Rainer exactly the same way, as giving and good and something you could count on. They parked on the sidewalk, scattering fans, as the 4 Train tracks rumbled sweetly behind them.
Little Charlie DeCarlo, stationed by the Press Gate, was the officer on duty who sized up their party. “Is he OK?” he asked about Wexler.
“Sure,” Badaracz answered. “Never felt better in all his born days. And we got these here passes to sit in Liebtag’s box.”
Tagrowd hadn’t known that he’d died and gone to heaven, but here he’d just heard it. They’d be sitting by the dugout, next to his boys.
DeCarlo tapped his shoulder, love for a brother officer spilling from his eyes. “Way to go, pal! Have those papers write me up sometime!” then let them pass straight into the Yankee clubhouse.
Rainer began doubting he’d be able to breathe. The place smelled of sweat but was hardly unpleasant. Off in the distance, from far up over the field, you could just make out the sound of Eddie Layton, pounding away on his mighty Hammond organ. Batting practice had long been over and the players were already gone, about to take the field. The names still were taped above each of the lockers.
–JACKSON–
–DENT–
–GUIDRY–
–RANDOLPH–
The latest grand chapter in the city’s pinstriped glory.
“You guys tourists?” the clubhouse manager asked them.
“No, cops,” they all answered.
“Same difference. Get off-a my floors!”
COMING UP THROUGH THE gangway, whose concrete pavement ran slick with beer, then edging down to their fabulous seats, it slipped Rainer’s mind that he hardly ever traveled. He would never see Europe or canter with Bangkok’s Shetland pony bargirls. Like many a working stiff before him, Tagrowd opted for the homefield advantage whenever his hormones screamed for adventure, away from the tourists.
The stadium was packed, yet pregnantly silent.
A pushy little red cap showed them to their seats.
‘‘Christ, mid-September already,” Rainer nervously thought. Figueroa was on the bump, his team solidly ahead of Boston in the standings. “This can’t possibly last,” he decided.
“Yo, hot dog!” Miodrag shouted, the better to get their nosh on the road. But their tired honoree, who found he wasn’t really up for eating, didn’t much feel like sitting yet either. He stepped into the nearest aisle, which was mobbed, where he was recognized by some, though hardly by many, and strolled the short distance, no more than twenty feet, up to the wall that circled the field. He laid his synthetic summer tweed in the crook of his forearm and, standing right next to the WPIX Channel 11 color camera, took a few moments to breathe the scene in.
The plate ump chatted with Bamberger and Lemon, the afternoon contest’s two veteran skippers, the sunbaked diamond pulsing in greens and browns. When their chinwag ended, the detective’s deep-set gray eyes wandered slowly out over the outfield to the flash of the scoreboard, then leapt to the billboard ads, then higher still to the fancy white latticework crowning the bleachers and the rest of the park. The sky, as they say, was a high china blue. Puffed white clouds floated over the Bronx Courthouse beyond center field. A heartfelt chant of “LET’S GO YANKEES!” rose from the crowd. Rainer felt himself settling into peace as the pinstriped nine took the field.
None of the cops in that box had ever sat so close before. You could see everything! Unbelievable. They cat-called and cheered, burning cigarettes waving, when Reggie stretched his hamstrings, out in right field or gunned it to Piniella in left; when Figueroa delivered, high and tight; when catcher/captain Munson snapped it quick out to second or went around the horn; or even when Chambliss, the big first baseman, spit on the bag as Pepitone had before him in the ‘60s. .
ATTENTION,
attention,
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. . .
ladies and gentlemen. .. . .
now echoed out across the stadium. And announcer Bob Sheppard, the true velvet fog (forget Mel Tormé), asked his flock of 55,000 baseball-hungry souls to please stand and honor America by singing our National Anthem.
“This again, Jesus,” Badaracz grumbled.
“Hey, can it, will ya?” his partner explained just as Layton’s thundering Hammond swelled its lungs. The warm festive crowd began to rise, to their feet and the occasion. After a somewhat fuzzy start, which sounded like a shut-in singing in a shower, the patriotic strain’s concluding “BRAVE!” rang out sure and strong so that self-applause was decidedly in order.
—“Hey! Fuckin’ A!” Nettles yelled, pointing directly at them from third base.—
And while the folks in the stands were banging their hands together, a mouse of a girl, along with her father, made a wide-eyed approach to the mayoral box, and asked the detective to autograph their baseballs. It was something unimaginable only a week before. But now, Rainer thought, it really felt like something he could get used to.
—“That’s to ‘Lars and Amy,’” the dad specified.—
—“And make mine to ‘Little Faith,’” moo-ed the star-struck pre-teen.—
The Count, as Figueroa was known, started the game with a trademark brushback that brought the rivalry of the two teams out into the open. “BREWERS SUCK!” encouraged the home team fans, making the replays particularly gruesome as the score began to see-saw toward its eventual 4-3 Yankee victory.
Miodrag and Glenn got stinking. So, it was no surprise to anyone when Badaracz announced “I gotta go see a man about a horse” somewhere around the bottom of the fourth. “You comin’, Wexler?” he asked in the hammiest voice ever and giving the sarge a wink. “Hey, old timer! I’m talkin’ to you!”
Huh?”
“C’mon! Ya gotta go? I sure gotta.”
“Wha’? Somebody win?” Glenn asked groggily.
“Not yet, buddy. Come on and drain the snake with me.”
“Yeah? What about the other thing?” Tagrowd overheard.
“We’ll fix that too,” Miodrag said, hurrying. “Just grab your dick and let’s get goin’.” He looked pretty nervous and red-faced as well, which didn’t go down well with Miodrag at all.
The deliciously boozed pair edged out from their seats. “Mind your candy ass snow boots,” they told Rainer. The two seemed to take their time, doing the nameless other thing. When they returned, near the top of the seventh, bearing a tray spilling beers for all, their shit-eater grins wouldn’t quit, even when big bad Sal Bando popped out to second.
“What’s so damn funny?” Rainer demanded.
“Watch the ballgame,” they chuckled to themselves. It turned out to be excellent advice.
The Brew Crew had one away, with men on third and second when hitman Gorman Thomas stepped into the box, looking like a tree in size-14 shoes. “Watch this bastard,” Glenn cautioned, just as the Count wound up and threw, big surprise, his usual smoke. But this time Gorm, a first-pitch hitter, smoked it right back, straight up the line. You couldn’t see Nettles actually snag the ball, just a thick wall of dirt, where his face had met the ground with the slap on the bag to end the inning.
“Aww-righ’!” Glenn screamed, with the rest of the fans right behind him. And then the organ screamed as well, cranking out tunes starting with “Colonel Bogey” which kept the crowd on its feet for the seventh inning stretch.
ATTENTION,
attention,
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. . .
ladies and gentlemen. .. . .
Intoned silver-tongued Bob Sheppard.
“Did you fuckin’ SEE that?” Miodrag demanded.
“Hey, I may be stupid but I’m not blind!” Tagrowd shouted back, gladly hearing his buddies’ drunken play-by-play, while the Diamond-Vision scoreboard slow-mo-ed the action to enormous acclaim. “You know, boys,” he told them, while home-team fanatics, stadium-wide, were beginning to take their seats again, “I think I need a hot dog. Anyone else here want to come with me?”
“I don’t think so,” Badaracz told him, his face again slipping into its taunting comic gaze.
“God’dammit, what’s so funny?” the detective demanded for a second time.
“Watch the damn ballgame!” was still all they would say. And Tagrowd, feeling that urge to punch his partner’s lights out, turned to the field and saw one of his favorites, mighty Thurman, swinging away in the on-deck circle.
“Ya gotta earn a living,” Badaracz stalled. Then Sheppard’s pinstriped echo once again beat its drum in The House That Ruth Built.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. . .
ladies and gentlemen. .
PLEASE DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION. . .
attention. . ,
TO THE LOWER MEZZANINE. . .
mezzanine. . .
Munson was an ox, like all the greats. Hefting his lumber with no apparent effort.
YANKEE STADIUM WELCOMES. . .
welcomes. . .
IT’S NEWEST STAR. . . AND HONORARY
YANKEE. . .
““Listen up, pal,” Badaracz needled.
FROM THE NEW YORK CITY POLICE
DEPARTMENT. . .
-partment. . .
DETECTIVE. . . RAINER. . .
rainer. . .
TAGROWD. . .
tagrowd. . .
His colleagues circled ‘round him, pointing their fingers.
Munson grunted and seemed to dip his bat.
Then the whole paying crowd, the cream of this incredible dirty town, simply rose and cheered for Tagrowd, leaving the poor guy alone in the spotlight shuffling his feet, in their jackass shoes, wholly speechless. While also letting him understand how Hela had been right. Because today, he considered himself, the luckiest son of a bitch, on the face of the earth.
THERE WAS ONLY ONE way to cap this glorious afternoon. And that was why Tagrowd and friends climbed into their cop cars when the game had finished and sped south at more than 60 and soon could be spotted, just cooling their heels in the air-conditioned comfort of Mel’s Triple Topless (“THREE BIG CHESTS – EVERY HALF HOUR”).
Mel Swanky, prop., was the kind of guy who still wore a Ronald Coleman mustache and seemed to be tight with the PBA brass. “Hello, hello and WEL-come!” the owner greeted. “Let me get you all a beer! Ice-cold Buds! On the house!” A trio of saggers ran through their paces on the low wood stage. One, who had studied tap, attempted time-stepping to the Bee-Gees’ “Night Fever.” It was just sad.
“So, how’s business?” Miodrag inquired. Mel had already joined them at their table. “Seems a little empty.”
“Friggin’ disco,” Swanky muttered. “We still get the regulars, class-act gents like yourselves. But I don’t know, these kids today. They’re either out dancing with their tight pants or they boogie up the street to that cockamamie bar.”
Sergeant Wexler asked for ten singles, which their host provided, and stuffed a couple of them in the middle dancer’s G-string. “She’s not so bad,” the old man claimed. Detective Tagrowd seemed to like her too.
“Yeah, Filipinas,” Swanky began to muse. “I call them my ‘double-drawers,’ because they bring in the guys who love the Asians and ones who dig Hispanics as well. You gotta admit that’s a mighty rare talent!”
Miodrag, another closet bon vivant and poet, paid for their second round (one freebie per guest was the house limit), tipped the girls more than they were worth and got the low-down from Mel on his fiercest competitor.
“That place,” he sneered. “Well, it just shows to go ya. Not a boob in sight and they’re still packin’ ‘em in.”
“Decent eats?” Tagrowd wondered.
“Eats?” came the answer. “More like puke if you really want to know. Plus,” he blustered, counting up the damage, “first, you got your skimpy drinks; second, you got your hard-hat bouncers at the door, letting god knows who or what inside; third, you got some skinny broad, wailing her lungs out up on stage; and fourth, everywhere you look, they got pictures of JFK hangin’ on the walls with his friggin’ head blowed off. Now, I’m a Republican myself, but still . . .”
“Yeah, go figure,” Miodrag sympathized, since the other gent had run out of fingers. Bandsaw accident.
THEY ARRIVED AT THE restaurant at around 11:30, the group all happy, in a lit-up sort of way and Tagrowd especially, since the stripper he fancied made him sign her tush. “Yeah, speaking of food,” Badaracz had said.
The line at Peking Duck House snaked around the corner, out of the Cantonese red Mott Street glare. And while Rainer didn’t mind, Miodrag couldn’t stand the thought of waiting and stood away from his fellows, standing lit Camels curbside on their filters. It had been that kind of day and night.
“Had enough?” was his question to Glenn. “How about you?” his partner heard in turn. “Then all right, dammit. Police!” he shouted, clearing a path by flashing his badge. “Official business! Out of our way!”
“Ooh, how exciting” wheezed an oversized patron, grabbing Tagrowd’s arm as the coppers shot by her. “Hey, whoa there, fellah! Don’t I know you? Sure, you’re that detective on TV! You must be so proud. Congratulations!”
Miodrag gave her a tweak, just above the beltline. “Not as proud as he’s hungry, sister. You want to step aside? You make a better door than a window, y’know.”
Here the queue miraculously parted. And the entourage of cops, party of ten, strode up the steps like Christ come to cleanse the temple. Pleas for miracles broke from the crowd.
—“My sister got killed; never found the bastard.”—
