Chapter 12 – Joey Flowers
I
wasn’t certain if Mikey was in any shape to mingle with the crowd near the concession
stand, so I followed him. I thought it would be somewhat embarrassing for him
if Phil or Tucker had to arrest him for being drunk and disorderly, not to
mention an annoying distraction from the game for everybody else. I doubted
that Mikey knew they were cops. He wasn't from Kildeer. Both were out of uniform, and he walked right
by them. I used to think most cops could spot another cop in a crowd, but I
guessed that that was just mythology that I somehow picked up from watching too
much television.
*
* *
“You
see those two mooks over there Joey? Frank whispered to Clara. She had to lean in and stretch up to even hear
him. Why was he calling her Joey? Clara was just curious enough to play along. Frank
made a small, almost imperceptible gesture at Phil and Tucker hanging on the
backstop as the opposing team took the field for a pregame to warm up.
Clara
nodded eagerly at Calabrese as she looked over at Phil and Tucker. “Those two
are cops. They might be locals or feds, but they are cops for certain.”
“How
can you tell?” Clara said with amazement.
“They
are too clean cut for one thing. But more importantly look at how they see
everything, all the time. Overly observant, I mean. See those two watching each
other’s backs. Probably partners. Notice that they have barely spoken to
others. I counted twenty guys that said hi to them. They just gave them all a head
bob and a smile. Their body language says they’re sheep dogs and the rest of us
are sheep. Plus, they have been chatting with each other exclusively for over
fifteen minutes. Either they are going steady or they are cops. Cop will hang with other cops. Not civilians Joey, except in the line of duty. They have
their own culture, cop bars, cop diners…sort of like we do. Capeesh?”
Clara
nodded her head slowly. What Clara and I both discovered later was fascinating.
Joey Flowers was the son of Guido Antonio Flowers, Frank’s driver. Before Frank
went to prison the last time, he was training Joey to take his place in Tony
Accardo’s organization. When we looked at photographs of the young man, I could
see a resemblance in the hair style, small stature etc. When you put a ball cap
on Clara and stared at her through the lens of dementia, she could pass for a
young hit-man-in-training.
Clara
also seemed to sense that she was some type of surrogate. She played along with
Frank. Whether this was out of intellectual curiosity or for her own
protection, I couldn’t say. But she was artful in this endeavor and should have
been an actress.
Rico,
who had been sitting beside Frank the entire time, looked over at Clara with
wide eyes.
“So,
Joey, why don’t you send one of the boys over for some footlongs, eh?” Frank
playfully nudged Clara in the ribs. Clara expelled air suddenly and again
nodded at Frank, who had seemingly gone back into a chemical fog for a second
or two.
She
hopped off the bleachers and motioned to Rico to follow her. They intercepted me near the concession
stand. There were a lot of people milling around before the game started. I was
in a state of frustration because I had somehow lost sight of Mikey.
* * *
In
the woods to the west of the ballpark a lone figure was watching the pregame
rituals from a tree stand that was set up the night before. He put the rifle up
to his shoulder and glassed the area around the field. The gun was an old
favorite that he had bought years ago, a Marine Springfield 1903 rifle, a 30.06
with scope. The sun was setting now. Nobody knew he was in the stand. His
position was selected to make him invisible, masked by the sun’s glare.
He
noticed the two off-duty officers. He was not a student of cop body language. He
recognized both from his past. He had gone to high school and occasionally drank
beer with them as a teen. They were both hometown boys, who returned to Kildeer
after graduation from a police academy located thirty miles to the north. It
took them both five years of working at other small towns to pull full-time
positions back in Kildeer, the ole hometown. But here they were. “Here all of
us are again.” he thought.
But
officers Jennings and Davidson were not his targets tonight. Tonight,
he was getting paid to make a little noise and create some mayhem. Just enough
confusion to stop the game before it starts.
* *
*
Near
the concession stand I looked for Mikey Bevins. I was trying to figure out how
he had suddenly disappeared. Mikey had been wearing a bright blue windbreaker
over a polo shirt in this heat and sea of orange and green attired fans. He
should be easy to spot, I reasoned. Clara tapped me on the shoulder and I jumped.
I hate it when I do that.
“Whoa,
didn’t mean to spook you. You haven’t bumped into Mike yet?” Clara said patting
me on the back a bit to calm me down.
“What
is going on with that big dude?” Rico asked politely. “Why does he keep calling
you Joey?”
“You
had a conversation with Frank?’ I said, as I looked around for Mikey.
“So,
his name is Frank?” Rico said more-or-less to himself.
“Look
at me, both of you! Right now, Frank doesn’t have a babysitter until someone
finds Mike.” Clara explained. “So, I don’t have a lot of time.”
“Mikey!”
I corrected her. “He prefers to be called Mikey.”
“I
called him Mike when we first met. He didn’t say anything to me about that.”
Rico countered.
“Oh
my God! Will you both just focus on me right now. Jax listen to me.” Clara
pleaded.
“Roger
that.” I affirmed.
“For
some reason, Frank thinks I’m another person named Joey. He has been explaining
things to me. But he doesn’t know it’s me. It’s almost like he is reliving some
memory.”
“Well,
that sounds like it could turn into something borderline creepy to me.” I
muttered. “What kind of things?”
“My
grandfather used to do that all of the time with me when I visited him in the
rest home.” Rico interjected, trying to be helpful. “He kept thinking I was my
father. Maybe he thinks you really are someone else.”
“Someone
named Joey?” Clara said skeptically. “Look, I’ve got to get back to Frank.
Rico, buy some hot dogs. I’ll pay you back. When you see me around Frank, call
me Joey.”
“You
got it!” Rico lumbered over to the concession stand.
I
had become engrossed in finding Mikey again. Then I saw him stumbling around
behind the men’s restroom area.
“There
he is.” I pointed him out to Clara. I noticed that he suddenly had frozen in
place.
Clara
grabbed both of my hands and said slowly and calmly. “I just sent Rico over to
buy hot dogs. Go get Mike…”
“Mikey,
you mean Mikey.” I corrected her.
“Jaxon,”
she growled. “I swear to God…Just get him back over to Frank and tell him that
I think the sedative is wearing off and that he needs to go back to Happy
Meadows.”
“Okay.”
I replied and smiled vacantly to mask my anxiety because I was a little
confused about why she was so agitated.
“Good.
Good boy.” She said it like I was her Labrador retriever. Yep, it was a little
hurtful. But I knew I was going to get a hot dog, so all was forgiven.
“And
what will you call me when I’m around Frank?” She said like it was the first
question of a pop quiz.
“Um,
boss?”
“Joey!”
she said. At that moment, I thought she also shrieked. But I was mistaken. It
was Mikey that was shrieking. It was nearly inhuman. Then it became obvious to
me. He had seen a mouse. I ran towards him.
* *
*
At
nearly the same moment a shot was fired just west of the ballpark. James Cody
hadn’t noticed the shadowy figure creeping up on him because he was preoccupied
with shooting out one of the stadium lights at the ball field before they came
on. Cody fell from his tree stand. First his rifle tumbled. Then he fell after
it eight feet to the ground.
He
died instantly from a .38 caliber head wound. The shooter turned and walked
back half a mile to his car parked on a dirt road. The sun continued to set.
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