Binding Arbitration (4 page)

Her long dark lashes met her cheeks and her voice wobbled over words that had much of the emotion sucked from their core. “Because my child is dying from Leukemia, and you might be the only chance he has to live through the rest of this year.”

Strike two.

It was the second sucker punch I’d received today. My chest felt like someone had dropped a two hundred-pound barbell across it, when I didn’t have a spotter. When I caught my breath, I took in her serious bearing. Whatever I had anticipated this meeting would be about, it wasn’t some concocted story to see me again or even to blackmail me. She might’ve tried to check the volatility of her words, but the fear that washed her face was right below the surface, ready to erupt from her quivering lips.

She blinked in rapid succession before looking at me. She was angry and hurting and there were other emotions I couldn’t read in her fathomless eyes. But none of that could appease the beast raging in me. “You kept the kid?” I seethed.

“No one knows about your relationship to my ‘kid’ and I’d prefer it to remain that way. All I need is a blood sample to eliminate you as a viable marrow donor, so I can move onto other international sources.” She stilled her shaking hands on the table. “If you’re a match, and you want to do something for someone other than yourself, the whole process is anonymous.”

“You kept the kid all these years, and you never told me. You are one cold-hearted—”

“You listen, Mr. Band-Aid, and you listen carefully. I’ll speak painstakingly slow, and I won’t use any prodigious words.”

Her glare captivated me, she reminded me of a tigress circling its unsuspecting prey.

“I did you an enormous favor by walking away. I knew you didn’t want any distractions. The most important thing in your world was a shot at the majors, and I gave it to you. Nothing to care about except…” She bit into her lips. “I knew what you wanted. I never once asked you for a damn thing.”

“Until now,” I grumbled.

“Listen, I never sang you a sob story while I walked the floors with a sleepless baby. I never contacted you when I busted my butt and still came up short. I never sold the story to the tabloids, when I didn’t have rent money or my son needed new shoes. I never did a single thing, except once, for a very short time, I was dim-witted enough to care about you more than I did my own future.” She looked around, recalling herself. “For that, and all the other things I didn’t do, you’re going to give me that blood sample. I knew you once…” She shook her head. “I thought I did, anyway. I know you have some decency in you, somewhere, and you wouldn’t let an innocent child; even if he is mine, suffer.”

I had a son, a son who needed me. The heartache was so acute I wanted to reach across the table and choke her so she wouldn’t be able to speak another word of the truth I had refused to acknowledge, the one true regret of my thirty years. She was the only thing that hadn’t gone off exactly like clockwork. I had planned seduction and conquest and all I’d gotten for my troubles was yearning and consternation.

It was unconscionable, what I’d done, but what haunted me was how easily I’d set it all aside. If the media got a hold of this story, no amount of charity work would redeem last year’s
People
magazine’s Most Influential Sportsman.

I had never shirked a responsibility in my life. But seeing her reminded me I wasn’t the man I’d been raised to be, or even half the man I wanted to be.

“Be honest with yourself.” Her voice wavered. “You didn’t want him. I understand you had another plan for your life, but whether you wanted him or not is irrelevant now, because he’s here. He’s a major part of my world, and I’m going to lose him, if I can’t find some way to save him.” I watched her gulp down the lump in her throat and perhaps a piece of her pride, in which she seemed wrapped like armor. “I can’t stand to ask you of all people, but I love him enough to suffer any indignity to give him one more minute of life.” As she slid the form back toward me, the first tears skimmed down her cheeks. “That’s why you should give me the blood sample.”

In that solitary moment, the moisture of her tears washed away all the built up barriers that made her the woman she was today. And what sat before me now was the vulnerable, beautiful girl that I almost once...

Some of my anger washed away on the tide of her tears. I couldn’t deny a thing she’d said. I hadn’t had the guts to show up for court, so I’d signed the Termination of Parental Rights forms. I’d thought she was giving the kid away and I couldn’t stand witness to it. But she’d always had an inner strength, and I should have known she would have found a way to keep her child, if she had a mind to. “What’s his name?”

She pulled out a five-by-seven snapshot and laid it over the lab request. “Cass Christian Tucker.”

I looked at the photo; a small smiling face stared back at me. He was missing some teeth, but he had a single dimple. It was a face as familiar to me as my own, except he had his mother’s eyes. I traced his smile before I looked at Libby. “Tucker?”

“Yes, Tucker. You were too busy signing autographs, I suppose, to show up for a hearing.” She looked away and sighed. “I didn’t think he should suffer the disappointment of looking you up someday. If by some miracle you’re a match, we can say it was random. Cass’ doctors don’t know who you are. They’ve assured me the person’s identity would remain that way. If you do this for him, for me, you’ll never hear from us again. You know I can keep that promise.”

But she’d eliminated me and kept the kid, she knew him from the moment he was born, he probably loved her and hated me. Now, aren’t those the most selfish things to think? But I thought them, and I reveled in the fact I’d been wronged by her again.

I let time tick off as I gathered my thoughts. “But I would know he exists.”

She nodded. “You knew you had a child somewhere.”

“Yes, but I didn’t think he was with you.” I ground out.

She drew in a sharp breath. “I see.” She bit down on her lips again. I could sense her weighing what she wanted to say. “You feel the need to punish me because I had the guts to stick it out and keep and care for what was mine.”

“You should have told me you kept him instead of leading me to believe you were giving him up for adoption.”

“Those documents severed your parental rights. There was no indication of adoption. You received bad legal advice.”

I acquired an interest in the label on my beer bottle. “My lawyer never saw the papers. If the club found out that I had an illegitimate kid they might have rescinded my contract. Baseball is America’s game, and we’re supposed to be squeaky clean.”

The center of my forehead became her sole focus until her blazing eyes met mine. “You believed what you wanted to.”

“Yeah, and I believe I should be cautious around you. Who knows what kind of a scam you’re running. Maybe you want the blood to prove paternity.” I pushed the computer form back.

“If you can look at that photo and doubt he’s your kid then you might need more than your head examined.”

“Maybe all your after is some money.”

“I always knew about your filthy money. Pay attention, jock-boy. Do I look like I need it?”

I’d examined her thoroughly. She didn’t exude destitute- little-girl-barely-getting-by. Her designer watch fit too precisely to come from a street vendor on Randolph and State. The pearl David Yurman necklace that hung between the folds of her silk blouse skimmed across her breasts at just the right length. I had paid for enough jewelry to know quality.

“Maybe you invented this crap so you can screw around with my head again.”

“If your head is screwed up, it has absolutely nothing to do with me. I spent only one night with you, and we weren’t playing mind games, from what I remember. Don’t flatter yourself into believing I’m here out of anything more than life-or-death desperation.” Her words drew my attention back to her face, her perfectly highlighted hair, her flawless complexion and makeup.

No, the evidence suggested she didn’t need cash. But it didn’t seem plausible in my mind that she had money of her own. There was no wedding ring; it was one of the first things I’d noticed. “Did your boyfriend set you up?”

She closed her eyes, mumbling words under her breath before looking heavenward. “I worked and paid for everything I have. For Christ’s sake, I graduated from the same Big Ten University as you. Did you think I was living in a trailer park with Billy Bob?”

I couldn’t get a word out.

She laughed at my shocked expression. “You did, didn’t you? You are such an egomaniac. Did you think I didn’t have it in me to pick myself up, dust off the worn knees of my jeans and go on when you didn’t speak to me at graduation?” Her voice quivered. “You’re still a conceited, spoiled, spineless bastard.”

I’d been too shocked to speak to her that day. She’d said she was taking classes here and there, but… “You went out of your way to make me believe you were a cutter, and not a whole lot more. How was I supposed to act when I saw you walk across the stage with a growing belly?” I rubbed my jaw in agitation.

“How about manning up? They teach that at spring training?”

“My mother and father were there. If I had spoken to you that day—sooner or later they would have figured it out.”

“Over the years, I sometimes wondered if I made the right decision about involving you in Cass’ life, but you’ve solved all those doubts today.” Her mouth narrowed and her eyes crinkled. “All you ever talked about was your grand plans, as if being a professional baseball player was the equivalent of finding the cure for AIDS, or winning the Nobel Peace Prize.”

I sat up straighter in my chair and moved toward her, trying to get in an angry retort of my own.

“You wanted me to be only a cutter. You used me and threw me away like the trash you thought I was. I know you saw me waiting under that oak tree for you after graduation. I had every intention of telling you I was keeping my baby. But when you got there, you put your overly-educated girlfriend holding out for her MRS. Degree in your sports car, and you didn’t have the guts to look me in the eye. Even if I wasn’t the woman you wanted—what kind of a man would completely ignore the woman carrying his child?”

I ran my hand along my jaw-line; the calluses on my fingertips matched my callousness back then. I’d ignored her, acting out of a sense of hurt and betrayal. I’d wanted to give her a taste of her own medicine. “You were supposed to go to that clinic in Indianapolis in March. You promised you would do what I wanted. You disappeared, not leaving me a single word. I had no idea how to find you.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “That’s what it all boils down to. I was the first person to refuse you and mean it?” She reached across the table and swiped my glasses off my face. The Oakley’s sailed across the table and over the edge, shattering.

“You told me no before that.” In spite of the black eye, I smiled my cockiest grin. “Eventually, you said yes.”

She regarded my eye. “It appears that someone has recently emphasized what a crass pig you are. And for the record, I was drunk. You didn’t ask, you just took what you felt entitled to for time invested in the cutter girl who wouldn’t put out.”

I reached across the table and locked her forearm against the tacky tabletop. “You might have been a little tipsy, but you climaxed every time I did. I took that as a definite sign of agreement.” I released her arm in increments, letting her know there was truth in what I’d said.

She moved to her feet abruptly, she dug her nails into the table to maintain her balance. She looked down her aristocratic nose at me. I felt her quiet determination not to spill another tear in front of me. “I can’t imagine we have anything else to say to each other. The doctor’s name and information is on the form. If you care to help Cass, do so.” She leaned over the table, placing that superior pout across her lips. “If not, go fuck yourself, Palowski.”

She picked up her belongings and walked to the bar where she threw some money down for the bartender. They spoke a few hushed words before a deafening silence thundered through me.

She never looked back. I willed her to. But she’d never bent to my will before. Why would she start now? But I was going to teach little Libby Tucker that no one walked out on Aiden Banford Palowski unless I was of a like mind. And thus far, there was a colossal abyss separating her way of thinking from mine.

The ump flipped off his mask and danced a little jig on the bar top.
For its one, two, three strikes you’re out—

“Shut up,” I bellowed.

The two suits at the bar turned and examined me and my lunacy. The bartender just laughed.

—At the same old game.
He sang, straightening his bow tie.

4

EVIDENTIARY HARPOON

Evidence given and then retracted with the sole purpose of prejudicing the defendant in the eyes of the jury.

Elizabeth 3 p.m.

It felt so much worse than I expected, seeing him again. The only consolation was that he looked shoddier than I expected.

Don’t get me wrong. He was still one of the most beautiful men I’d ever seen, but he looked tired. Maybe it was just the shiner, but there was some vulnerability in his eyes that I’d never seen before. Something was weighing on him, and had been for awhile, from the look of him. It could’ve been his career, or even the bimbo he was marrying. But I certainly had no reason to spill tears over it, so why was I crying?

My phone buzzed. I pulled my head off my tear-soaked briefcase as my Indian cabdriver extended a tissue. I focused my bleary eyes on my caller ID, although I already knew who it was.

I was on the edge of losing everything, and Matt Caster had threads of my survival dangling from his fingertips. He was going to see how he could make his puppet dance. “Elizabeth, why was Tony Accardo booked this afternoon without his attorney at his side?”

“Because, Mr. Caster, I cannot be in two places at once.”

“Well, wherever you were, you weren’t at Cook County.”

I bit my tongue. “Judge Foreman was gone for the day anyway; there was no way to avoid a night in county. He’s not the first Harvard Grad to spend the night on the city’s dime.”