The Closer Read Online Free PDF Page A

outside was old and brown. He wondered if the inside was brown too, and the furniture also, to conceal its age.
    He went to the front house. A thin elderly man answered his knock and led him back to the bungalow. And yes, other than having no air conditioning ("Don't need it here," the man explained), the interior was virtually the same. Almost as if, along with himself and his luggage, Terry had flown the bungalow in Texas to Oakland.
    "How much?" he asked the man as they stood inside.
    "Seven hundred a month."
    "I'm a ballplayer. No telling how long I'll be here."
    "Seven hundred a month," the man repeated. "For whatever time you're here."
    Terry thought. How lucky to find this place, on his very first afternoon. But then there was Rick's apartment complex to consider. It certainly would be nice to live there. Regardless of the cost. After all, wasn't he in the big leagues now? And yet, who knew how long he'd remain? The way he'd pitched lately, it might not be more than a week or two. Regardless of his association with Rick.
    "I'll take it," he told the man.
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    Terry's feelings of elation certainly didn't subside once he rode to Oakland Stadium with Rick. As they neared the parking lot entrance, he was absolutely thrilled by his first glimpse of the edifice. It looked colossal, bigger than any stadium he'd ever seen. And he loved its outline in green and gold, Oakland team colors.
    Once inside, they walked to the team locker room, where he was further thrilled at the sight of his white uniform shaded in green and gold, with Number 20 and Landers stitched on its jersey back. Twenty minutes later, after donning the uniform, he was again thrilled when he stepped onto the splendidly manicured field for the first time, for pregame drills, and gazed up at the tens of thousands of seats surrounding him. And then meeting with Rick, the catchers and other pitchers as they reviewed scouting reports on that night's opposition batters, from Texas.
    Texas. The mere mention of that name and his euphoric state of mind began to unravel. He started to feel tense, his stomach knotting, at the irony that this was their opponent in his very first game. Even with all the distance he'd traveled this morning from El Paso, he couldn't get away from Texas. He quickly questioned his choice of living quarters. Maybe instead of the bungalow, he should have selected something entirely different, something in no way related to his time in Texas.
    But those were his thoughts before the evening really got bad—before Ronnie Laker, the Oakland starting pitcher, was knocked out of the game in the third inning—before Laker's replacement, Chaz Stewart, got shelled too—before Terry found himself on the mound at the start of the top of the fifth inning.
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    The score was already 12-1, Texas of course leading, when Terry fired his first pitch. It was a knuckler so far outside and in the dirt that it bounced past catcher Chris Bailey, all the way to the backstop. Once the umpire tossed him a new ball, Terry turned toward the outfield and took repetitive deep breaths. Considering that the afternoon had been cool, the evening inside the stadium was surprisingly warm, certainly no excuse for the chill he was feeling. Maybe he was simply in a state of shock.
    He fired another knuckler. This one headed straight for the batter, in the right-hand box. Fortunately, the pitch was so slow that he could easily duck out of the way, which didn't keep him from glaring out at Terry.
    "Better throw a strike," he muttered to himself after more repetitive deep breaths. He did. Another knuckler. Over the middle of the plate. The batter swung and connected. Terry didn't need to turn around and look, the sound of the bat told him where the ball was headed. He finally did look, and saw that left fielder Elston Murdoch hadn't even moved. A spectator at the very top of the left field pavilion caught himself a souvenir.
    "Great," Terry mumbled. "First batter in the