Sacrifice Fly Read Online Free PDF

Ray,” Edgar said. “It’s only the Mets. Geez, what is the matter with
     you tonight? You sure you didn’t have a bad day at work?”
    “My day was fine, Edgar.”
    “Bull dinkey. C’mon. You can tell me.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “You’re
     the only one around here tells me anything.”
    I looked into Edgar’s desperate eyes and felt like going back to the other end of
     the bar. Instead, I took a deep breath and said, “I was over on South Third and Driggs
     today, looking for one of my students.”
    “Isn’t that the block where the cops found a DB this afternoon?”
    “How did you…?” Edgar had a police scanner. Also illegal. “I called it in.”
    “You? Called in a DB?”
    “The DB…” I said, “… the dead body was my kid’s father.”
    “Shit,” he said. “They know who did it?”
    “Not unless I missed something in the last couple of hours.”
    “You find the kid?”
    “No.”
    “Think he did it?”
    “See, Edgar,” I took the remote and put it back under the bar, “that’s why no one
     around here tells you shit. You run your mouth too goddamned much.”
    He raised his hands, put a sad look on his face, and said, “Sorry.”
    The sound of beer bottles hitting the bar came from behind me. One of the ball-slapping
     ladies was holding up two fingers. When I walked the two beers over to her, she said,
     “And two shots of Jack.”
    I poured them and told her the round was on me.
    “Why’s that?” she asked.
    “To apologize for men everywhere.”
    She looked at the two shot glasses and smiled. “It’s a start.”
    I went back to work. Busy work: moving the bar rag around, washing out pint glasses,
     and cutting up lemons and limes. All the while, keeping one eye on the floor behind
     the bar. One overlooked spill or piece of ice and I could find myself on my knees
     and calling it an early night. I looked over at the ball game and then at Edgar, who
     was giving me the wounded-puppy look.
    “I’m sorry, Ray,” he said. “You know I get excited about this stuff. I don’t know
     the kid, I just—”
    “Okay, Edgar. Relax. I didn’t mean to jump down your throat. It’s been a long day.”
    “No, no. I should be apologizing to you. I mean, it’s your student out there, missing.”
     He looked up at the game, and with his eyes still on the TV, he said, “What’re you
     gonna do now?”
    “About what?”
    “About the missing kid. His old man getting killed.”
    “Edgar, you miss out on the last five years of my life? I’m not a cop anymore.”
    “Yeah, but…”
    “But what? You think this is—” Just over Edgar’s shoulder, the front door opened and
     Mrs. McVernon walked in. What was she doing back here? I came in over an hour ago
     and she went home. She gave me a small smile and gestured with her finger for me to
     join her at the other end of the bar. Maybe she came in to save me from Edgar.
    “Is everything okay?” I asked.
    “I need a favor,” she said, fingering the small gold replica of her dead husband’s
     badge that hung from a chain around her neck. She did that whenever she wanted to
     remind her audience of her husband. “It’s a big one, I’m afraid. So you feel free
     to just say no.”
    “Okay.”
    “I just got a phone call from Billy,” she said.
    It took me a second. “Morris?”
    “Yes.”
    “And…?”
    “You know he has his yearly barbecue with the boys?”
    My old partner’s “Q” was the social event of the spring for about fifty or sixty cops
     each year. I’d missed the last couple.
    “Yeah,” I said, not wanting to talk about it. “What about it?”
    “Well … it’s this Saturday … and he’s having work done on his house that’s lasting
     longer than the contractors said.”
    I nodded. I looked down the other end of the bar, hoping a thirsty customer would
     give me a way out of this conversation. No luck.
    “So,” Mrs. Mac continued, “he wants to have the Q here.”
    “Here?”