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decide between his fastball and his slider, Evers’s phone buzzed in his pocket.
    Can’t even watch the game in peace.
    “Yello,” he said.
    “Who’m I talkin’ to?” The voice of Chuckie Kazmierski was high and truculent, his I’m-ready-to-fight voice. Evers knew it well, had heard it often over the long arc of years stretching between Fairlawn Grammar and this seat at Tropicana Field, where the light was always dingy and the stars were never seen. “That you, Dino?”
    “Who else? Bruce Willis?” Beckett missed low and away. The crowd rang their idiotic cowbells.
    “Dino Martino, right?”
    Jesus, Evers thought, next he’ll be saying who’s on first and I’ll be saying what’s on second .
    “Yes, Kaz, the artist formerly known as Dean Patrick Evers. We ate paste together in the second grade, remember? Probably too much.”
    “It is you!” Kaz shouted, making Evers jerk the phone away from his ear. “I told that cop he was full of shit! Detective Kelly, my ass.”
    “What in hell are you talking about?”
    “Some ass-knot pretending to be a cop’s what I’m talkin’ about. I knew it couldn’t be real, he sounded too fuckin’ official .”
    “Huh,” Evers said. “An official official, imagine that.”
    “Guy tells me you’re dead, so I go, if he’s dead, how come I just talked to him on the phone? And the cop—the so-called cop—he goes, I think you’re mistaken, sir. You must have talked to someone else. And I go, how come I just now saw him on TV at the Rays game? And this so-called cop goes, either you saw someone who looked like him or someone who looks like him is dead in his apartment. You believe this shit?”
    Beckett bounced one off the plate. He was all over the place. The crowd was loving it. “If it wasn’t a prank, I guess someone made a big mistake.”
    “Ya think ?” Kaz gave his trademark laugh, low and raspy. “Especially since I’m talkin’ to you right fuckin’ now.”
    “You called to make sure I was still alive, huh?”
    “Yeah.” Now that he was settling down, Kaz seemed puzzled by this.
    “Tell me something—if I’d turned out to be dead after all, would you have left a voice mail?”
    “What? Jesus, I don’t know.” Kaz seemed more puzzled than ever, but that was nothing new. He’d always been puzzled. By events, by other people, probably by his own beating heart. Evers supposed that was part of why he’d so often been angry. Even when he wasn’t angry, he was ready to be angry.
    I’m speaking of him in the past tense, Evers realized.
    “The guy I talked to said they found you at your place. Said you’d been dead for a while too.”
    The guy next to Evers nudged him again. “Lookin’ good, buddy,” he said.
    On the JumboTron, shocking in its homely familiarity, was Evers’s darkened bedroom. In the middle of the bed he’d shared with Ellie, the pillowtop king that was now too big for him, Evers lay still and pale, his eyes half-lidded, his lips purplish, his mouth a stiff rictus. Foam had dried like old spiderwebs on his chin.
    When Evers turned to his seatmate, wanting to confirm what he was seeing, the seat beside him—the row, the section, the whole Tropicana Dome—was empty. And yet the players kept playing.
    “They said you killed yourself.”
    “I didn’t kill myself,” Evers replied, and thought: That damn expired Ambien. And maybe putting it with the scotch wasn’t such a great idea . How long has it been? Since Friday night?
    “I know, it didn’t sound like you.”
    “So, are you watching the game?”
    “I turned it off. Fuckin’ cop—that fuckin’ ass-knot—upset me.”
    “Turn it on again,” Evers said.
    “Okay,” Kaz said. “Lemme grab the remote.”
    “You know, we should have been nicer to Lester Embree.”
    “Water over the dam, old buddy. Or under the bridge. Or whatever the fuck it is.”
    “Maybe not. From now on, don’t be so angry. Try to be nicer to people. Try to be nicer to everyone. Do that