Trap Line - Carl Hiaasen [64]
“So she’s gone now.”
“Right,” said Lina.
“Do you remember,” Christine asked, “which hospital?”
“Flagler Memorial. But don’t waste your time up there.” Lina fished in her purse and came out with two quarters. She got a Tab from the vending machine. “The girl died, Miss Manning. While we were wheeling her downstairs to the ambulance, she died.” Lina took a sip from the can. “Her heart just went to sleep. It was the last thing left that was working right.”
“Sounds like a blessing,” Christine murmured.
“She must have been pretty important,” Lina added. “Chief Barnett hurried over this afternoon right after it happened. And that lawyer, Boone, he called about an hour after that. Wanted to know if it was true. Tell me, Miss Manning, was that Clayton girl related to some big shot, or what?”
Chapter 18
PITCHING isn’t all in the arm. Fifty percent is smarts. Look at Spahn or Robin Roberts. They didn’t have to dish it up at ninety-five miles an hour every time; hungry hitters go for the bad pitch. If you’ve got smarts, you make ’em hungry. Look at Tug McGraw. God, think of Reggie, corkscrewed at the plate after whiffing a third strike. A hungry hitter, always waiting on that fastball.
Breeze Albury slid lower into the bathtub so the steaming water puddled on his chest. He kept his eyes closed.
The fastball is an overhand pitch, of course. Ricky throws it straight over, so straight that his arm seems to brush his right ear on the way down. A lot will depend on how the bones mend. He’ll lose some speed, that’s only natural. May take a year or so to get the muscle tone back in the forearm. There’s a chance he’ll lose the slider altogether, unless the bones mend just right. Good slider depends on a healthy arm, depends on an arm that can come right back at you with the big fastball.
Albury reached for the bar of soap, fragrant and oval. He lathered his chest and shoulders.
You can’t keep this sort of thing from the pro scouts. Word gets around fast. There’s no sense pretending it won’t hurt Ricky’s chances. Who wants to gamble a bonus on a lame arm? There’s a Nautilus machine at the high school. Still, it would be better to have one at home, so Ricky wouldn’t ever have to wait. Could probably buy a secondhand one from a gym in Miami.
Albury dried off with a pink towel. He struggled into a pair of too-tight French jeans, pulled on a strange blue T-shirt, and walked out of the bathroom.
“Now, that’s much better,” pronounced Christine Manning, sitting on the edge of her bed. “I hardly recognized you in the hospital.”
“It’s been a bad week,” Albury said. She handed him a cup of hot tea with lemon. “Hope I don’t split these trousers.”
“Don’t worry. They belonged to my ex. I don’t know why I haven’t tossed them out.” Christine shrugged. “Come on, I’ve got dinner cooking.”
Albury followed her out of the bedroom, glancing sideways at himself in a full-length mirror. He felt like a fag in the silly jeans, but his appearance was an improvement over the haggard figure Christine had led from the elevator at Duval Memorial. Moist-eyed, shaking like a sick hound. God, what must she have thought? His state of embarrassment was not relieved by the fact that he had completely forgotten her name. The face and figure stood out with clarity from that afternoon at the jail, but her name had eluded him. Albury had remembered it just as they were climbing the rain-warped stairs to her second-floor flat in an old Conch house on Margaret Street.
“All I’ve got is leftovers,” Christine said. “Part of a tuna casserole.”
“It sounds wonderful.”
She still wore the forest-green dress but had untied the bow at her neck and kicked off her high heels.
“I’ve got some stuff in the medicine chest. Disinfectants or antibiotics. You ought to put something on that cut. Exactly what, I don’t know. First aid is not my specialty. However”—she spooned some casserole on Albury’s plate—“if you ever want to sue