The Shining Girls

Dan ^{11 SEPTEMBER 1992}

This is perspective. Being on planes. The world teeny tiny beneath you and far away from a girl somewhere below, as unreal as the flotsam of clouds washed up on the blue of the sky.

This is a whole other universe, with very explicit rules about how things work. Like sensible instructions on what to do in case of disaster. Inflate life vest. Fit the mask to your face. Assume the brace position. As if any of that would make a difference if the plane went down in flames. If only the rest of life had such facile placebos.

Keep your seatbelt buckled. Return your tray table to the upright position. Do not try to flirt with the flight attendants unless time is on your side and you still have all your hair and ideally also a seat in business class and a pair of shiny loafers slipped off and neatly set to one side in all that extra leg room, the better to show off your cotton-rich designer socks, my dear.

This is the last time he gets a seat at the front of economy, where he’s in ear-shot of the champagne being offered behind the curtain and the smell of real food instead of soggy turkey rolls. Especially on the red-eye.

‘Now they’re just rubbing it in,’ he mutters to Kevin. But Kevin doesn’t hear him because he’s plugged into his Discman, the earbuds leaking bass-heavy fragments that come out uglier and more distorted than the actual music even, and flipping through travel stories about impossibly out-of-reach hotels in the inflight magazine. It leaves Dan alone in his head, which is, frankly, the last place he wants to be. Not with her in there.

Distraction is temporary. Oh, he can write out notes, lose himself in player statistics (whoever said sport was stupid never worked through the algebra of batting averages and RBI), but his thoughts loop back like a dog gnawing at a sore on its flank. Worst of all – and this is how pathetic he’s become – pop songs make sense.

None of which makes his chances any better than Kevin’s of holidaying at a five-star ski resort in the French Alps with Hollywood starlets. It’s like his divorce all over again. The hardest part of which was not the despair and the betrayal and the horrific things they said to each other, but that splinter of unreasonable hope.

It’s completely inappropriate. He’s too jaded, she’s too young, they’re both too fucked up. He’s confusing sympathy with infatuation. If he waits it out, it will numb itself. It will go away. He just has to be patient and avoid being a reckless idiot. Time heals. Crushes let up. Splinters work their way out. Doesn’t mean they don’t leave scars that itch.

There’s a phone message waiting for him at the hotel in St Louis when he gets in. Another pleasantly anonymous room with offensively inoffensive wall art and a view over a parking lot. The only difference between this room and every other one he’s ever stayed in is the red flashing light on the telephone. It’s her, his heart says. And he says back, Shuddup. But it is. Breathless, excited. ‘Hey, Dan, it’s me. Please call me back as soon as you get this.’

Press one to replay. Press three to call back. Press seven to delete. Press four to save.

‘Hi,’ she says, sounding fresh and wide-awake at 2 a.m. ‘What took you so long?’

‘Me? You’re the one who hasn’t been answering the phone.’ He doesn’t tell her that he tried her from outside the press room, during the yawn-inducing ninth inning. And again from a payphone outside the bar where the guys went for drinks after the presser, where he sipped a Diet Coke and tried to muster enthusiasm for the conversational highlights replay of Ozzie Smith stealing another base or Olivares’ crazy inning. ‘Did you see the way he plinked Arias in the second?’ Kevin raved.

Or that he’s listened to her message six times in between. One-fourone-one-one-one. You’d think he’d be more excited that his team won.

‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I went for a drink.’

‘With Fred?’

‘No, dumbass. Let that go already. With one of the editors of Screamin’ magazine. She’s interested in the Murder Diaries story.’

‘Do you think that’s a good idea? On top of everything else you’ve got going on?’ Are there degrees of neutral? He tries to gear-shift up. He’s seen television reporters do it. Politely disengaged but with an arched eyebrow.

‘It’s a long-term thing. I can send it in when it’s ready. If it’s ready. If I feel like it.’

‘So, tell me how it went with the baseball card lady.’

‘It was very sad, actually. It’s not really a retirement village. More of a nursing home. Her husband was there to meet me. He owns a Ghanaian restaurant in Belmont. He says she has early-onset Alzheimer’s, even though she’s only in her sixties. It’s genetic. Her mind comes and goes. Some days she’s really clear and others she’s not there at all.’

‘And when you saw her?’

‘Not so much. We had tea and she kept calling me Maria, who was a girl in one of the adult literacy classes she used to teach.’

‘Ouch.’

‘But her husband was great, we talked for about an hour afterwards. It’s like the letter said. Her mom was murdered in 1943, really horrible case, and when the cops finally got round to returning her possessions to the family, there was a baseball card in with the stuff they said they found on her body. It was with her aunt and uncle for a long time and when they passed, it came to her.’

‘So which card was it?’

‘Hang on, I convinced the woman in the front office to make a copy for me.’ There is the sound of paper being dug out of a bag. ‘Here. Jackie Robinson. Brooklyn Dodgers.’

‘Impossible,’ he says automatically.

‘That’s what it says.’ She’s defensive.

‘And she died in 1943?’

‘Yes. I got a copy of the death certificate too. I know what you’re going to say. I know how unlikely it is. But hear me out. There have been killing partners before, right? The Hillside Stranglers were cousins who raped and strangled women in LA together.’

‘If you say so.’

‘Trust me. I think this is part of it. My case. It could be a father-and-son team. An older psychopath who mentored a younger one. Not necessarily related, I guess. He might be ninety years old now, he might be dead. But his partner’s carrying on the tradition of leaving something on the body. Vintage killers plural, Dan. It’s the younger one who attacked me and Julia Madrigal and who knows who else. I’m gonna go back to the early boxes we set aside. This could go way back.’

‘I’m sorry, Kirby. It’s wrong,’ he says, as gently as he can.

‘What are you talking about?’ she demands.

Dan sighs. ‘Do you know what a ghost ballplayer is?’

‘I’m guessing it’s not the obvious. No horror-movie hauntings of the dugout. The skull-faced fielder, the devil who pitched the flaming hell-ball—’

‘Correct,’ he cuts her off.

‘I don’t think I want to hear what you have to say.’

‘You probably don’t, and that’s too bad. The most famous one is a guy called Lou Proctor. He was a Cleveland telegraph operator who inserted his own name into the Indians’ box score in 1912.’

‘But he didn’t exist.’

‘As a real person, but not as a ballplayer. It was a hoax. They picked it up in ’87 and expunged it from the records. Seventy-five years’ worth of his fifteen minutes. There’ve been others that weren’t premeditated. Sloppy record-keeping, somebody gets a name wrong, makes a typing error.’

‘This is not a fucking typo, Dan.’

‘It’s a mistake. She’s wrong. You said it yourself, the poor woman has Alzheimer’s, for God’s sake. Listen to me. Jackie Robinson only started playing in the major leagues in ’47. First black player to do so. Had a shitty time of it. His own team tried to sabotage him. The other teams used to try to gouge his legs with their shoes as they slid into base. I’ll look it up, but I promise you, no one had even heard of him in ’43. He didn’t even exist as a ballplayer yet.’

‘You’re so damn sure of your statistics.’

‘It’s baseball.’

‘She might have got it mixed up with another card.’

‘That’s what I’m saying. Maybe the cops did. Maybe it was sitting in somebody’s attic for years. Didn’t she say she was raised in foster care? And it got thrown together with a bunch of other junk up there.’

‘You’re saying there was no card.’

‘I don’t know. Was it in the police report?’

‘They weren’t great at keeping records in 1943.’

‘Then I’d say you’ve got your hopes pinned on something that doesn’t exist.’

‘Crap.’ She throws it off, lightly.

‘Sorry.’

‘Whatever. No big deal. Back to the drawing-board. Give me a shout when you get home. I’ll see what new looney-tunes idea I can come up with to entertain you.’

‘Kirby—’

‘You think I don’t know you’re just indulging me?’

‘Someone fucking has to,’ he says, losing his temper right back at her. ‘At least I’m not trying to exploit you for my third-rate film project.’

‘I can do this on my own.’

‘Yeah, but then who would listen to your crazy theories?’

‘The librarians. They love crazy theories.’ He can hear the smile in her voice. It makes him grin back.

‘They love donuts! There’s a difference. And there aren’t enough day-old baked goods in the world to put up with your crap, trust me.’

‘Not even glazed?’

‘Or cream-filled or double-dipped in chocolate with rainbow sprinkles!’ he shouts into the phone, waving his arms, as if she could see him.

‘I’m sorry for being a jerk.’

‘You can’t help it. You’re in your twenties. It comes with the territory.’

‘Nice. An age diss.’

‘I don’t even know what that means,’ he grumps.

‘You think there might have been another baseball card?’

‘I think you should take it as interesting, but not helpful. Start a wild-card box where you can keep your crazy theories, and don’t let them get in the way of what’s real.’ Like this, he thinks.

‘Okay, you’re right. Thank you. I owe you a donut.’

‘Or a dozen.’

‘Good night, Dan.’

‘G’night, whippersnapper.’