The Setup Man (13 page)

“Is pasta just for kids?”

“Dad, pasta is all carbs.”

“I know that. I went to college.”

“I’m carb-neutral.”

“What does that mean, anyway?”

“It means you have to offset every serving of carbs with something else. You can choose between protein, fat, and vegetables.”

“And you don’t choose fat very often.”

She looks to make sure I’m not joking. “No, I don’t.”

“So why don’t you have a salad with your pasta?”

“How about I order my own salad,” she counters, “but we split a pasta?”

“Izzy, I weigh two hundred pounds. Have a heart.”

“Fine, I’ll get the kids’ size.”

“Why, because you’re a kid?”

“Dad!”

“I’m just saying, when was the last time you ordered off the kids’ menu?”

“At Angelo?”

“Anywhere.”

She stops and thinks about this—God, could I love her any more?—and finally says, “I still get a Happy Meal sometimes at McDonald’s.”

“Wait a minute—you won’t eat a full plate of pasta, but you will eat a burger from McDonald’s?”

“I take off the bun. It’s called a Skinny Mac—my friend Jenna invented it.”

I hold my tongue the rest of the way to the restaurant, while Izzy tells me about a boy named Kurt, the current heartthrob of her eighth-grade class.

“I don’t even think he’s handsome. He’s too hairy. Jenna said he started shaving in sixth grade.”

“Sixth grade, really? You should stay away from him.”

Izzy bites her lip. This was not the answer she was hoping for. I can see her recalculating behind those wide brown eyes.

“Are you sure?” she says.

“Of course I’m sure. The sooner hair grows on the face, the sooner it falls off the head. And I wouldn’t want you to have a bald husband.”

“I’m not going to marry him! We’re just—”

She stops. Too late.

“You’re just what?”

“I haven’t even kissed him, Dad.” Suddenly it looks like she is going to cry.

“Relax, honey. I was just joking.”

“No, you’re right. He’s too mature.”

I start to say that was not my point, but then I realize it was. Isabel is still a girl—and I say this objectively, not just as a protective father. She got her period last winter, when she visited me in San José, but I only know because of the way she pranced self-importantly to the bathroom every hour, clutching a bright-pink LeSportsac in one hand. Her body has barely begun to change. She grows taller all the time, but she looks like an eight-year-old on stilts.

“Listen, Izzy, I’m sure Kurt’s a nice guy. I shouldn’t pass judgment until I meet him.”

“You sound like Mom. She’s always saying things like ‘You
shouldn’t pass judgment.’ But only after I start passing judgment. If I just talked about how nice he was, how gentlemanly and all that, she would tell me I wasn’t being careful enough. There’s not much in between, you know?”

“Unfortunately, life is like that.”

We take a table in the window, and I persuade Izzy to order a normal-sized plate of spaghetti marinara. The tomatoes in the sauce, I argue, cancel out the noodles. I order eggplant parmigiana, and I promise to supplement her tomatoes with some of my eggplant if she feels tempted to eat more pasta. We have to keep the equation in balance, I say. I sense that she appreciates the effort.

“Tell me about the new play,” I say. “Is Kurt in drama with you?”

“No, he plays water polo.”

I cringe. At my high school, the water-polo team worked out in the mornings before class, and then wandered around bleary-eyed all day. A sport that explains bloodshot eyes at 8 a.m. is attractive to a certain type of guy. We used to joke that they traveled to road games in the Mystery Machine.

“Tell me, does he …” I pinch together my thumb and forefinger and raise them to my lips.

“Does he get high? Probably, although he says he doesn’t. Jenna says his brother has a prescription.”

What kind of world is this, I wonder, where kids score their pot from a sibling with a medical condition?

“You have every right to be skeptical,” I say. “When I was in high school, people bought their pot from water-polo players.”

“Did you?”

“Sometimes. But I was stupid.”

“In health they told us that pot rots your brain. The boys were all laughing and saying they didn’t care.”

“You should care.”

“But pot doesn’t rot your brain. Does it?”

“No one knows. They haven’t studied it much.”

“Come on, Dad.”

“Is my brain rotten?”

“That’s what I’m asking you.”

I have to think about this. Did smoking pot in high school rot my brain? Hard to say. What difference would it make if I lost a few IQ points? I didn’t exactly choose a heady profession.

“I got lucky, Izzy. Suppose I topped out at triple-A. Then where would I be? It would be a shame if a couple dozen bong hits in high school made the difference between selling sporting goods and curing cancer.”

Who knows what young Isabel Adcock may decide to be? If she chooses law or physics or diplomacy, she may need those mental edges, the ones that weed sands off.

“I stand by my first advice,” I say. “Be wary of Kurt.”

Izzy sighs. “I know you’re right. But I still want him to ask me out.”

“I thought you said he wasn’t good-looking.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty much a god.”

“They always are.”

“Was Mom like that?”

“Your mom is a beautiful woman, but she wasn’t dangerous like this Kurt kid, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Were you dangerous for her?”

I realize this is the question she’s been meaning to ask all along. Screw Kurt. Maybe there is no Kurt.

“Yes,” I say, “but neither of us knew it until much later.”

“That’s not fair,” my daughter says, and I know she means to be generous, to say that it isn’t fair for me to accuse myself of a crime I could not have foreseen. But it is fair. One way
or another, justice is always done. Just ask Frankie Herrera. I don’t expect Izzy to understand. I didn’t understand it myself for a long time.

“Yeah, it’s too bad,” I say lamely. “But if your mom and I hadn’t done what we did, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you.”

“She says that, too.”

“She does?”

Izzy catches my eye. “Among other things.”

Another day, another one-run game. This time we were losing the whole way, which means that yours truly, the Bay Dogs’ new closer, did not pitch. I text Luck and tell him to meet me in the players’ parking lot at eleven-thirty. He texts back,
Why? What happened?
But I’m not going to give him the news over the phone. I don’t care how normal he thinks it is to be dating a prostitute. That kind of information should never be encoded into waves and sent around. Someone may be listening—the FBI, the NSA. Also, it’s just bad mojo, hanging your dirty laundry from a telephone wire.

Luck is late—probably lingering in the clubhouse to bask in the warmth of a victory. It is a tough year to be a Dodger. Even with one of the highest payrolls in the majors, the Dodgers are ten games out of first place. The local media are furious, disgusted. But a chill still moves up my spine as I stand outside the stadium. As a kid, I used to come to this very spot, a chain-link enclosure beyond the left-field bleachers, and stand around after Sunday matinees with my friends, waiting to ask the players for autographs as they emerged from the clubhouse: Valenzuela, Guerrero, Scioscia, Sax. We used to say how great it would be when we got driver’s licenses and later curfews and could come here after night games. Of course, by the time
we got our licenses, we were more interested in stalking high-school girls than professional baseball players. Now, twenty years later, I have finally made it back. The same orange “76” ball is rotating above the gas station at the edge of the economy lot. The stadium lights have been cut to half-power to save a few bucks while the janitors sweep beneath the seats. This is my favorite time at the ballpark—any ballpark—and it doesn’t matter if I have won or lost the game. Either way, the pressure is off. For a little while, you can pretend it is all still magic.

My phone buzzes and I see a message from Bethany. Attached is a photo of the dead girl from the morgue in San Mateo. It’s not a pretty sight: her face is smashed on one side, cheekbone caved, skin lacerated. I can’t tell for sure if I’m looking at Alejandra Sol.

At eleven-forty-five, George Luck comes out. He is wearing his usual polo shirt tucked into Levi’s 501 jeans. Braided belt, boat shoes—you couldn’t pick him out of a lineup of suburban dads. You would never guess he pays for sex. Or maybe you would. The pervert is never actually the guy with the scraggly white beard. Just look at our politicians.

“Hey,” Luck says, “sorry I’m late. Skip had words for us.”

“No kidding. I would have thought he’d be happy with the W.”

“You would think so. It was reverse psychology. He said we won disgracefully, that we were a disgrace to the franchise, something like that.”

The Dodgers’ new skipper had made his name managing clubs in the American League, where keeping score requires all your fingers, and sometimes your toes.

“How does he figure?”

“We scored two runs. Again.”

“Last I checked, it only takes one to win.”

Luck’s Benz coupe is last year’s model, but it still smells new.

“I have some good news,” I say. “I talked to Ana’s new boss, and he has agreed to honor your deal.”

“What deal?”

“The deal. Your financial arrangement.”

“Oh.” Luck’s face falls. “No word on Miguel? Did I tell you he is actually Ana’s uncle? Sorry if I wasn’t clear about that.”

“For Christ’s sake, Luck. You asked me to find out who was tailing you, and I did. Your tail was a little shit who was going to blow out your front window.”

“That’s it?”

“You don’t like your windows?”

Luck is antsy, tapping the steering wheel with his thumbs. “Miguel still hasn’t picked up his phone,” he says. “I tried him all morning.”

“Well, I am sorry.” I pause there. I don’t want to say more, but I get the impression Luck is not connecting the dots here.

“You like sushi?” he says.

“Sure.”

We drive through a warehouse district east of town, taking a hard right onto an unlit street where trash is stacked on the curbs for a.m. pickup. There are few cars and zero pedestrians. My alarms start to go off, but then I remember who I’m with. I can smell the sanitizer gel Luck spread on his hands before he left the clubhouse. You know the expression “Danger is his middle name”? Luck’s middle name is probably “Checklist.” Or maybe “Insurance.” Danger avoids him like vampires avoid light.

He parks in front of a concrete loading dock where well-dressed professionals are sitting at bistro tables. Ties are loosened; hair is down. Even though it is after midnight, you get the feeling these people just got here. Fresh, frosty Sapporos
sweat on the tabletops. The steel doors behind the dock have been rolled open. Warm yellow light fans out across the alley.

“Funny little place,” Luck says as we get out of the Benz. “You know that Japanese infielder we had last year? He told me about it. Those guys have a sixth sense.”

It is true: Japanese players could find good sushi in Lubbock, Texas. It’s like the embassy gives them a guide.

We get a table inside. My chair is made of stacked corrugated cardboard. It feels like a hay bale, but it holds. Luck orders green tea, miso soup (he does not drink). I tell the waitress I’ll have the same. I want to maintain a clear head. I have a theory about the Frankie Herrera case that I want to test out.

“You ever heard the name Luisa Valdez?” I ask Luck.

“No.” He snaps apart his chopsticks. I can’t tell if he’s evading me.

“How about Alejandra Sol?”

Now Luck sets down his chopsticks. “What is this, an inquisition? I asked you to get me out of trouble, not to make things worse. Aren’t you supposed to provide relief?”

“To a point.”

“Where did you get ‘Alejandra Sol’? That’s Ana’s name!”

“Her what?”

“Her working name, stage name, whatever. It’s the name on her cards.”

“Does her card look like that?”

I pull the card I found on his door from my pocket and hand it to Luck.

“Where did you get that?” he says.

“George,” I say, “I have some bad news. Ana is going to be out of town longer than she thought.”

Thank God for green tea. Turns out I need all my mental faculties and then some to persuade George Luck not to desert the Dodgers and fly up to the San Mateo County Coroner’s Office. He swears there is no way the dead girl could be Ana. Why would she be in a car with another man—let alone another ballplayer? They had a deal. They were exclusive. And besides the deal—she loved him! Why would she sneak around with Frankie Herrera? It was not her in the car, he insists, and viewing the body would surely confirm this.

“You can’t just leave,” I say. “You’ll get fined by the club and maybe the league.”

“You left for a couple of days.”

“That’s different. I had permission.”

“I don’t care, let them fine me. I have to see the body. You said your girlfriend can get us in?”

“Wait.” I pull out my phone, thumb through the gallery, and hand it to Luck. “I want you to know,” I say, “that I hope this is not her.”

Luck’s face clenches up like a fist, and it looks like he is going to cry.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen, Adcock. Me and Ana, we had a deal!”

“I’m sorry, George.”

I ask Luck to drop me at the team hotel. He nods but says nothing. I want to tell him that the silver lining is that we are closer to cracking the Frankie Herrera case. But I have a feeling it won’t cheer him up to know that he and Herrera were sleeping with the same prostitute.

“I’m sure she was a lovely girl, George.”

“I won’t ever love again.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. She was the one.”

“But, George, she was a hooker—”

“I’m not normal.” Luck looks at me and his eyes are wet. “You don’t understand. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Of course there is,” I say. “And you are normal, George. A little peculiar, but normal.”