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A movement near one of the big summer houses caught his eye. Was that a side door that had just swung closed? Other than the guest house he stayed in, the houses out here weren’t generally occupied during the winter, unless someone decided to come for Christmas. Jerome Mason sometimes rented his house out; in fact, Kirk Williams had rented it last Christmas, and then Bliss and Granger had stayed there the following spring and summer. Quite a few locals made money over the winter by checking in on the empty estates. And sometimes teenagers liked to sneak in and cause random mischief.
Random mischief. That could have been his motto back in his teen years. And his minor league years. And all of his years up until two years ago, come to think of it.
“Hello?” he called as he jogged toward the side door where he’d seen movement. The house was modeled after a Tudor estate, with brick chimneys and dark wood gables. He couldn’t remember who owned this one, but it had to be one of the most expensive properties on the lake. Didn’t it have a French name? He noticed a security camera mounted on the corner of the house, but figured it was probably off this time of year. “Is someone there?”
He stopped, sweating in the cold morning air, and waited for an answer. All was quiet, but he could have sworn he saw movement inside the house. He couldn’t see a vehicle anywhere in the vicinity. If teenagers had come out here, there would be something—car, bicycle, skateboard. Besides, why would they come here in the morning? Breaking into summer houses was more of a nighttime thrill.
Wiping sweat off his face, he jogged back to the road. He made a pin of the location and sent it to Granger, the new town constable, whose official number was posted on the town website.
This is Billy Cooper. I was jogging past this house and thought I saw movement. What should I do?
I’ll handle it, came his quick response. Nice double-play at the end of game six against the White Sox.
Thanks. Got lucky.
Would he ever get used to people remembering what he did on the baseball field—good or bad? Probably not. Then again, he preferred that to when people remembered some of the shit he’d done off the field. Remember that night we…No. I don’t want to.
He picked up the pace, jogging out of the neighborhood and veering onto the highway, which was fairly empty at this hour. An occasional rig rattled past him, but he ignored them and focused on the road ahead, or the cloud of steam puffing from his mouth, or the tall pines and bare-branched maples towering over him on his right.
Low clouds seemed to touch the tips of the trees, and a cold mist swirled past him. He wondered if there was snow in the forecast, and realized that he should have checked before he jogged this far from his little guest house.
Eventually he found himself at Deuces, a roadside diner that doubled as a sports bar in the evenings. The open sign in one of the windows was lit, and another spelled out “Coffee,” although the last “e” was blinking on and off, as if trying to fully wake up.
Did that count as a “bar” that he shouldn’t go near? Was Pete going to find out and rip him a new one?
Fuck that. He’d been going to Deuces forever and he owed the owner a “hello.” Archie Dominguez was the one who had convinced Billy that he had enough talent to try to make baseball a career. He owed him a lot more than a “Hello.”
As soon as Archie caught sight of him, he came around the bar and flung open his arms for a big old hug. Archie had been born in the Dominican Republic, but wound up in Minnesota because his father had played for the Twins. Archie had played catcher for three seasons of AA before walking away from baseball while he still had functioning knees.
“Look what the kitty-cat dragged in,” he practically shouted. He was a large man with a big booming voice and an even bigger personality. A few people sitting at the bar turned their heads to see what all the fuss was about. Billy kept the hood of his thick sweatshirt right where it was.
He and Archie hugged, pounded each other’s backs, then shared a fist bump on top of that. “Superstar, back at the bar,” Archie crooned.
“Wouldn’t go that far,” Billy rhymed. They grinned at each other. Archie was only a few years older than Billy, but his hard-living ways showed in the deep lines alongside his mouth. He’d been thrown in the Lake Bittersweet jail—which was just a locked room in the firehouse—a few times for brawling at the Cue Ball. Now that he owned his own bar, he’d been able to avoid such arrests.
“Coffee?”
“Sure, man. I could use a kicker. I have to run all the way back.”
“Need a stretcher? I can rig one up.”
“I just might, now that you mention it.”
Archie poured him a big mug of coffee that smelled of the nutmeg he always added to the grounds. Then came cinnamon and a few spoons of sugar. Coffee Dominican-style, nothing like it. When he flashed a silver flask, Billy shook his head “no.”
This had happened last year, too. Didn’t Archie remember that Billy didn’t drink anymore? Or did he just choose to forget? Maybe he didn’t believe it was possible. Billy had run into that a few times with his old drinking buddies.
“I quit that shit two years ago, remember?” he reminded Archie as he accepted the mug.
“I know. Just testing.” Archie leaned back against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “Proud of you.”
“Thanks.” Embarrassed now, Billy stirred his coffee to dissolve the sugar. “But you go ahead, man. Do what you want.”
“Considering it’s my bar, I will.” Archie grinned to take the edge from his words. “When’d you get back?”
“Couple weeks ago.”
“Good season, amigo. You were fun to watch out there, when that idioto manager let you play.”
