The Setup Man (18 page)

I call Bil.

“Johnny, my man! How’s San Diego? Seen any donkey shows yet?”

“That’s Tijuana, Bil.”

“Same difference. What can I do for you?”

“I left a few things in the clubhouse in L.A. One is a three-ring binder, white plastic, with some investment information inside. The other is a little Buddha statue from the Japan trip. It’s about two inches tall, made of dark stone.”

“I have the Buddha.”

“Why didn’t you pack it with my stuff?”

A pause. “Let’s call it a tip.”

“A tip? You stole my Buddha as a tip? That’s wrong in so many ways. Do you know anything at all about Buddhism?”

“I know I like that statue, and I know it’ll look good on my desk. And since you’re not going to be around at the end of the year, when the staff tip pool comes in, I figured it was my right.”

“Your right?” I could strangle him. “What about the binder? Did you take that, too? Are you looking for investment advice now? So you can invest the tips you’re not getting?”

“Sheesh. Cool your engine, Adcock. I don’t have your binder. I never saw a binder. And believe me, I would have. I would never leave anything in L.A. Their clubhouse guys are rats.”

“Are you sure? Did you see anyone snooping around? Maybe two guys, thick around the neck—”

“I’m sure,” Bil says. “You owe me an apology.”

I hang up.

An ironed jersey hangs on the bar, number 39. The Padres’ usual home uniform is white with brown-and-blue trim and
letters—not a bad getup—but today we are wearing reproductions of a ghastly throwback from the early eighties. Let me be clear: I was on board with the retro thing when it was about the forties and fifties. Those were tasteful styles, and especially acceptable now that baggy trousers are back in vogue. But the eighties? What is worth remembering about nut-tight pants, knee-high Ozzie Smith stirrups, and misshapen caps? Even without the recent revival, no one will ever forget the Pirates’ wedding-cake hat, with those flat black sides and yellow pinstripes. A child molester would feel self-conscious in one of those.

Tonight’s Padres jersey looks like it belongs to an office softball team. The sleeves are dark brown and longer than usual, sewn onto a white vest front, where the word “Padres” is spelled out in sixties-futuristic letters, like we are the baseball team from Tron. Yellow piping trims the sleeves and neck. It is a pullover, so there are no buttons or placket. It is the most hideous getup I’ve ever seen. Funny thing? I remember this exact uniform from my boyhood. The road version had a brown vest front and canary-yellow sleeves with matching yellow trousers. Thank God we’re playing at home tonight.

Leaving the new uniform on its hanger, I change into a pair of workout shorts and head to the weight room. I sit down at the ergometer, dial in my resistance, and begin to row. The wheel hums, the plastic-wrapped cables slapping against the steel of the machine. My ribs ache from the beating, but playing baseball for twenty years is a kind of beating, too. My muscles—even those thin, smooth ones between the ribs—know that the only option is to heal, because tomorrow there will be another workout. And the day after, and the day after that, world without end, amen. The next time you take a beating, think of me. That is how I feel from the All-Star break on, from July to October, every single year. Used to be that players
let themselves go during the off season. Now we are expected to stay in shape twelve months a year. This is probably good for the heart and lungs, but it gives the body no time to heal. Surgery has taken the place of rest. A friend of mine, a pitcher, recently saw a movie with his kid about robots in a martial-arts tournament. The kid loved it, but my buddy said it was eerie. Doesn’t take much to imagine our pubescent GMs sitting in skyboxes controlling robots with joysticks. Jacked-up tin men might lack charisma for the postgame interviews, but think of what you could save on hotel rooms.…

I am twenty minutes into my workout—five kilometers of glassy lake water if you believe the erg’s LCD—when I get some company. A couple of outfielders, Ray Thomas, Jr., and Floyd Witherspoon, stake out a bench. I’ve faced both a number of times. Thomas I own—he’s something like 0-for-6 with three strikeouts, lifetime, against me. Witherspoon is the opposite: in April, on the Bay Dogs’ first trip to San Diego, he burned me for a homer. I nod, they nod back, and Witherspoon lies down on the bench. For all the posturing and grabassing that goes on in a big-league clubhouse, there are a few inviolable rules. One is that if you agree to spot a guy on the bench, you’d better pay attention. No checking your phone or the TV monitors—too much is at stake. Both lifter and spotter need to be locked in, to block out their surroundings. For this reason it’s pretty easy to eavesdrop on bench-press conversations. I turn back to my erg, spin up the flywheel, and listen in.

“You still with that chick?” Thomas asks Witherspoon.

“Hell, yes.” Witherspoon grunts, pushing two hundred pounds of iron off his chest. “Best damn thing I ever did.”

“Tell me her name again.”

“Alejandra Sol.”

“Spanish pussy, huh?”

A clank as Thomas guides the bar home.

“Nigga, there’s plenty of shit you don’t know about me.”

“Tell me this: how does your wife feel about Alejandra Sol?”

Now the two men share the kind of contagious, full-throated guffaw you might think was innocent bonhomie if you didn’t know the substance of their conversation.

“For real, though,” Thomas continues. “Your girl keeps it hushed up?”

“Oh, absolutely. We have a weekly schedule. The neighbors think she’s the maid.”

“You gave her a key to your condo?”

“It’s safe. This is our thing.”

“I know, I know.…”

Now the men shift places, and Thomas takes the bench. He’s smaller than Witherspoon, and I hear the scrape of metal as they remove a few plates.

Thomas heaves his first rep with a loud exhalation. “Do they got black girls?” he huffs.

“They got all kinds. You should call. Did I tell you homeboy sent me a free sample the first time?”

“For real, free?”

“One night on the house.”

“I better do this.”

“You’re gonna thank me.”

At batting practice I feel like the girl who misread the party invitation and showed up underdressed. On the visitors’ side of the diamond, my former teammates pace around in their handsome road grays while I wiggle my shoulders, adjust my hips, put a finger under the band of my cap—none of it feels right. I grab a bat and get in line behind the cage. I have not had a real at-bat in years, but something tells me that if I ever gave up BP, I would be called to the plate the next night. Bases loaded, two outs, the full deal.

My turn comes up and I hustle into the cage. I nod to the guy on the mound, who happens to be Chuckie Householder, the Padres manager. Householder is one of those old men who believe throwing batting practice is the secret to a long and healthy life. A small but dedicated cohort of big-league coaches subscribe to this philosophy. Clearly it’s a way to avoid other types of exercise, because Householder looks like the Kool-Aid man, stubby little arms and legs coming off a big, round middle. His windup is more like a lean-back—remember Fernando Valenzuela?—and I worry that on every follow-through he is going to lose his balance and crash into the L screen. Somehow he gets the ball over the plate.

I take my cuts, nothing spectacular. One of my flies hits the
warning track in right-center, the deepest part of the park, but one of my new teammates hauls it in. A long out is still an out: I repeat this to myself every night. The main reason I take BP is to remember how it feels to be the batter.
Know thy enemy
, said the wise Chinese. And because I am such a miserable hitter, it gives me a helpful sense of confidence on the mound, remembering how I struggled that afternoon in that same batter’s box. Don’t get me wrong, it is a false confidence—my opponent on the mound is a sixty-year-old man with type-two diabetes—but there is a whole industry built around false confidence. They call it sports psychology.

Even though I am allowed twenty swings, I leave the cage after ten. The pain on my right side has grown worse. I start to wonder if I might have a cracked rib. It’s too soon to down another Champion’s Tea, so I decide to visit the trainer for a mummy wrap. Going to the trainer is never an easy decision, because it means admitting you are injured, which can have contractual implications. What I need, to be perfectly honest, is a corset. Something with whalebone ribs and two rows of eyes up the back. I’m smiling about this, the thought of wearing a corset under the ridiculous future-retro Padres uniform, when I hear someone calling my name.

It is Jerry Díaz, the Bay Dogs’ young backup catcher.

“Hey, Johnny, remember me?”

“I was traded yesterday, Díaz.”

“Crazy,” he says. “It seems like forever. How you been?”

“Been better, to tell you the truth.”

The kid frowns. “I know how you feel. I got traded once in the minors.”

I consider telling him, like I told Marcus, that the trade is not the reason why I feel like shit, but I decide to hold my tongue in the interest of letting this howdy-do run its course.

“So, yeah,” he says, “I wanted to ask you about something.”

“Shoot.”

“My buddy Chris was just called up from Tucson. He’s your new fifth starter.”

“Yeah?” I hope my indifference isn’t too obvious. “I’ll have to look out for him.”

Díaz reaches around and pulls a glossy business card from his back pocket. “He found this in his locker, inside a pretty little envelope. Thought it was a birthday card.”

Recognizing the silhouette of a familiar Latina, I hand the card back to Díaz. “Throw it away,” I say.

“Why?” he says. “Who is Alejandra Sol?”

This is the question of the day—although it seems young Díaz and I are the last to know.

“Forget about it,” I say. “And even if you did call, you won’t get that girl. It’s a scam, a bait and switch.”

He moves closer, puts his catcher’s glove over his mouth like we are having a discussion on the mound that we don’t want the TV cameras to see. “But, Johnny, man, I’m
lonely
.…”

And there you have it, ladies and gents, the reason why this is the perfect racket. On the one hand, you have the aw-shucks crowd, the Díazes and Lucks, who call the number on the card because they are curious or lonely. On the other, you have the old pros, men like Floyd Witherspoon, who know exactly what they are getting and no doubt appreciate the convenience of a calling card and the promise of a free first night.

The real problem for me is that I don’t know where to put Frankie Herrera. Why would Frankie, a happily married father of two, a hero in his ancestral village, have risked everything for a romp with a working girl? George Luck is proof that you never really know about these things, but Frankie’s own wife didn’t believe he would pay for sex. And she knew he was no angel.

Because I feel bad for ruining Díaz’s party, I offer him a bit
of advice. “Why don’t you hit the bar at the Hard Rock Hotel after the game? It’s right next door, and I hear it’s a honey pot. Take Hamilton with you—that guy is up for anything.”

He brightens a little. “Will you come, too?”

“We’ll see. I got into some trouble last night.”

“I was going to say! The side of your face is all …” He winces.

“But throw that card away.” I pause. Something tells me I’m wasting an opportunity. “On second thought, how would you feel about doing me a favor?”

“A favor?” He squints. “You mean with”—his voice drops to a whisper—“you mean with a
case
?”

“That’s right. Any interest?”

For a moment, he says nothing. Then his face begins to shine. “Johnny, man, you won’t regret this. My grandfather was a criminal defense lawyer, so I know all about being discreet. Not just that, but I also can collect evidence, find witnesses—I’ve been training for this my whole life.”

I exhale, hope I’m not making a big mistake. I lead him away from the batting cage, into foul territory up the third-base line, where we can talk in private. “I want you to call the number,” I say when we’re out of earshot. “Pretend you want a girl.”

“You want me to go undercover, with an alias and all that?”

“No, I want you to use your real name. Say you’re a ballplayer.”

He looks at me skeptically, but I know he’s not going to argue. He knows this is his best chance to impress me.

“Sure, I can do that. Do you want me to … you know … do her?”

I laugh, because I hadn’t thought of that part. “You’re going to have to pretend that’s what you have in mind or they’re not going to send a girl. But when she arrives, don’t touch her.” I
look him in the eye. “This part is important. We need her trust. Tell her you’ll pay for her time, but you just want to talk.”

Díaz nods rapidly. “Totally, totally …”

“I’m serious, Díaz.”

“Don’t worry, Johnny. I get it.”

I can see the love behind his eyes, the faith I don’t deserve. I have been up and down the state for the better part of a week, and what do I have to show for it? A dead porn producer, a trashed hotel room, a couple of bruised ribs …

“Call me when you have a date,” I say. “This is a three-game series, so you don’t have a lot of time. You’ve got my cell number?”

“Relax.” Díaz gives a toothy smile. A bit of swagger is starting to well up in him. That’s a good thing. He’s going to need it.

To say I’m uneasy about taking him on would be an understatement. I’m worried for his safety, but also worried he’ll fuck everything up. Neither feels very good.

“Listen, Díaz,” I say. “I’m not doing this right; I need to give you some background.”

“Eh, just the facts,” he says in what I guess is a police-detective voice.

It’s going to be an adjustment working with a partner. I tell myself that I had no choice, that the case was leading me to Díaz. Without question it will be helpful to have someone fresh at my disposal, someone who can pose as a john but can’t be traced back to me.

“There was someone else in Herrera’s car,” I say, “a prostitute named Ana Velásquez, who was calling herself Alejandra Sol—and there are more Alejandra Sols. They are being sold to baseball players. The guys behind this are violent and dangerous as hell, Diaz. We cannot fuck around.”