Read Dead Ball for Free Online Page A

was addressed to Cool.”
    “We figured it was just another gift from a fan,” Felix said.
    “You wouldn’t believe the shit I get,” Moss said. “Someone sent me a Toast-R-Oven. Note said, ‘DiMaggio’s streak is toast.’ ”
    “This is no Toast-R-Oven,” Marshall said, opening the top flaps of the box. “Give me a hand, Cool.” With Marshall’s help, Cooley reached in the box and, grunting, lifted out the headless lawn jockey.
    “Lovely,” Harvey said.
    “Wait till you see the note,” Marshall said, handing him a piece of white paper folded in thirds.
    Harvey opened it. The note was made up of letters cut from magazines and glued to the page:

    “ ‘DiMaggio evades apprehension,’ ” Harvey read aloud. “ ‘Do nothing in greatest game. Escape retribution.’ ” He looked up at the others. “Christ, that’s got to be the wordiest death threat ever.”
    “It’s kind of like a fortune cookie fortune,” Marshall said. “Without the cookie.”
    Harvey was confused. The threat’s verbosity had the effect of undercutting its menace. What psychopath bothers to use words like evade and apprehension ? On the other hand, the size of the jockey and the labor involved in transporting it suggested someone going to great and serious lengths to scare Cooley.
    Moss passed a huge hand across his forehead. “I’m one big-ass target. A big black buck with a forty-six-game hittin’ streak, a white girlfriend, and a Jewish bodyguard.”
    “You’ve got a white girlfriend?” Harvey asked.
    “Same as you, my man.”
    “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Marshall said. “It’s probably nothing to worry about. A prank. Remember what Hank Aaron went through in ’seventy-three and ’seventy-four. One good thing, Cool, is that they don’t know where you live.”
    “Not so fast,” Cooley said.
    Marshall twitched. “Excuse me?”
    Cooley picked up the brown paper bag at his feet, placed it on Marshall’s desk next to the headless lawn jockey, reached in, and removed a grinning lawn jockey’s head. Its rust-dappled red cap matched the torso’s vest.
    “Jesus,” Marshall said.
    While the others watched, Cooley leaned over the desk and placed it gently on top of the jockey’s body, where the irregular planes of the severed neck and body were perfectly joined.

4
    H ARVEY WAS AS SKILLED as the next person at avoiding his feelings. Actually, for the past six months or more he had been considerably more skilled than the next person. Now he stared at the reunited lawn jockey and felt nothing for a moment. It was as if none of this could possibly have anything to do with him. Then everything came slowly back into focus—Marshall’s office, the concerned faces in it, the headless figure on the desk. His slumbering instincts kicked in with the force of a controlled substance crossing his blood-brain barrier.
    “Where do you live, Moss?” he asked abruptly.
    “Cranston. In one of those developments.”
    “A gated community?”
    Cooley shook his head.
    “Does your house have a security system?” Felix and Marshall were now looking at Harvey as if he had just awakened from a coma and begun reciting Shakespeare.
    Cooley said that the first floor was wired.
    “Motion detectors?”
    “No. Just the doors and windows.”
    “Sound detectors? Pressure mats? Pressure switches on the stairs, anything like that?”
    “No, no, and no.”
    Harvey leveled a look at Marshall. “We’ve got to get him the hell out of that house.”
    “Hold on, Harvey,” Marshall said, holding up his hands to stop Harvey’s verbal onslaught. “Can you be so sure this threat’s serious? I mean, it’s just a lawn jockey.” Minimizing the very reason they had summoned him from his funk in Cambridge.
    “Marshall, this is not like getting a piece of garden-variety hate mail. We’re talking major-league harassment.” Out of the corner of his eye, Harvey could see that Cooley was registering this opinion of the danger to him