Blue Screen E-Book

Robert B Parker

• Herausgeber: No Exit Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: A Sunny Randall Mystery
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 276

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Buddy Bollen is a C-list movie mogul who made his fortune producing films of questionable artistic merit. When Buddy hires Sunny Randall to protect his rising star and girlfriend, Erin Flint, Sunny knows from the start that the prickly, spoiled beauty won't make her job easy. And when Erin's sister, Misty, is found dead in the lavish home they share with sugar daddy Bollen, there doesn't seem to be a single lead worth pursuing. But then Sunny meets Jesse Stone, chief of police in Paradise, Massachusetts, under whose jurisdiction the case falls. It immediately becomes clear that Jesse and Sunny have much in common. While searching for the killer, they learn an awful lot about each other-and themselves. Tracking Misty's murderer reveals a host of seedy complications behind Erin's glamorous lifestyle as well as Buddy Bollen's entertainment empire, made up of shady film deals and mobsters out for revenge. But in a world where there's little difference between the good guys and the bad, exposing the killer could prove to be Sunny's undoing.

Leseprobe

Buddy Bollen is a C-list movie mogul who made his fortune producing films of questionable artistic merit. When Buddy hires Sunny Randall to protect his rising star and girlfriend, Erin Flint, Sunny knows from the start that the prickly, spoiled beauty won’t make her job easy. And when Erin’s sister, Misty, is found dead in the lavish home they share with sugar daddy Bollen, there doesn’t seem to be a single lead worth pursuing. But then Sunny meets Jesse Stone, chief of police in Paradise, Massachusetts, under whose jurisdiction the case falls.

It immediately becomes clear that Jesse and Sunny have much in common.

While searching for the killer, they learn an awful lot about each other-and themselves. Tracking Misty’s murderer reveals a host of seedy complications behind Erin’s glamorous lifestyle as well as Buddy Bollen’s entertainment empire, made up of shady film deals and mobsters out for revenge. But in a world where there’s little difference between the good guys and the bad, exposing the killer could prove to be Sunny’s undoing.

Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) has long been acknowledged as the dean of American crime fiction. His novels featuring the wise-cracking, street-smart Boston private-eye Spenser earned him a devoted following and reams of critical acclaim, typified by R.W.B. Lewis’ comment, ‘We are witnessing one of the great series in the history of the American detective story’(The New York Times Book Review).

Born and raised in Massachusetts, Parker attended Colby College in Maine, served with the Army in Korea, and then completed a Ph.D. in English at Boston University. He married his wife Joan in 1956; they raised two sons, David and Daniel. Together the Parkers founded Pearl Productions, a Boston-based independent film company named after their short-haired pointer, Pearl, who has also been featured in many of Parker’s novels.

Robert B. Parker died in 2010 at the age of 77.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR ROBERT B. PARKER

‘Parker writes old-time, stripped-to-the-bone, hard-boiled school of Chandler… His novels are funny, smart and highly entertaining… There’s no writer I’d rather take on an aeroplane’–Sunday Telegraph

‘Parker packs more meaning into a whispered “yeah” than most writers can pack into a page’–Sunday Times

‘Why Robert Parker’s not better known in Britain is a mystery. His best series featuring Boston-based PI Spenser is a triumph of style and substance’–Daily Mirror

‘Robert B. Parker is one of the greats of the American hard-boiled genre’–Guardian

‘Nobody does it better than Parker…’–Sunday Times

‘Parker’s sentences flow with as much wit, grace and assurance as ever, and Stone is a complex and consistently interesting new protagonist’–Newsday

‘If Robert B. Parker doesn’t blow it, in the new series he set up in Night Passage and continues with Trouble in Paradise, he could go places and take the kind of risks that wouldn’t be seemly in his popular Spenser stories’– Marilyn Stasio, New York Times

THE SPENSER NOVELS

The Godwulf Manuscript

Chance

God Save the Child

Small Vices*

Mortal Stakes

Sudden Mischief*

Promised Land

Hush Money*

The Judas Goat

Hugger Mugger*

Looking for Rachel Wallace

Potshot*

Early Autumn

Widow’s Walk*

A Savage Place

Back Story*

Ceremony

Bad Business*

The Widening Gyre

Cold Service*

Valediction

School Days*

A Catskill Eagle

Dream Girl (aka Hundred-Dollar Baby)*

Taming a Sea-Horse

Pale Kings and Princes

Now & Then*

Crimson Joy

Rough Weather

Playmates

The Professional

Stardust

Painted Ladies

Pastime

Sixkill

Double Deuce

Lullaby (by Ace Atkins)

Paper Doll

Wonderland (by Ace Atkins)*

Walking Shadow

Silent Night (by Helen Brann)*

Thin Air

THE JESSE STONE MYSTERIES

Night Passage*

Night and Day

Trouble in Paradise*

Split Image

Death in Paradise*

Fool Me Twice (by Michael Brandman)

Stone Cold*

Killing the Blues (by Michael Brandman)

Sea Change*

High Profile*

Damned If You Do (by Michael Brandman)*

Stranger in Paradise

THE SUNNY RANDALL MYSTERIES

Family Honor*

Melancholy Baby*

Perish Twice*

Blue Screen*

Shrink Rap*

Spare Change*

ALSO BY ROBERT B PARKER

Training with Weights

A Year at the Races (with Joan Parker)

(with John R. Marsh)

All Our Yesterdays

Three Weeks in Spring

Gunman’s Rhapsody

(with Joan Parker)

Double Play*

Wilderness

Appaloosa

Love and Glory

Resolution

Poodle Springs

Brimstone

(and Raymond Chandler)

Blue Eyed Devil

Perchance to Dream

Ironhorse (by Robert Knott)

*Available from No Exit Press

JOAN:resembling or suggesting a fable; of an incredible, astonishing nature.

1

Many people in Massachusetts thought Paradise was the best town in the state to own property in. Many people in Paradise felt that Stiles Island, off the tip of Paradise Neck, was the best place in town to own property. And most people on Stiles Island thought that an estate called SeaChase was the ugliest piece of property in the country. A few years back, a bunch of gunmen had blown up the causeway that connected Stiles Island to Paradise Neck, and pillaged the island. Only one of the gunmen got away, but he took most of the cash with him. Some people died, and the whole thing caused a selling panic, which a young man named Buddy Bollen was pleased to exploit. He had a ton of cash from some obscure dot-com deal, which he had escaped with when the dot-coms went belly-up. He bought half a dozen of the island’s biggest estates, demolished them, and built a single estate said to be bigger than Luxembourg.

A security guard in a blue blazer stopped me at the gate to SeaChase.

‘Sunny Randall,’ I said.

He checked his clipboard and nodded.

‘May I see some ID please?’ he said.

I gave him my driver’s license, and my detective’s license. He studied them.

‘It says Sonya Randall on here,’ he said.

‘That’s my real name. But I hate it. I go by Sunny.’

He looked at me and at my license pictures.

‘Well, you’re better-looking than your pictures,’ he said.

‘Thank God for that,’ I said.

He looked in at the floor in front of the passenger seat where Rosie was lying on her back with her feet sticking up and her head resting on the transmission hump.

‘What’s that?’ he said.

I was offended, but I was calling on twenty trillion dollars and I tried not to show it.

‘That’s an English bull terrier,’ I said.

‘I thought they were bigger than that,’ he said.

‘Standards are,’ I said.

I could hear the haughtiness in my voice and tried to sweeten it.

‘Rosie is a miniature bull terrier.’

He nodded as if that explained everything.

‘Sit tight,’ he said. ‘I’ll call ahead. Check on the name confusion.’

I waited. From the front gate I couldn’t even see the house. On the other side of the gate was a white drive that looked to be made of crushed seashells that wound out of sight behind a big rock outcropping. With the car window down, I could hear the surf somewhere and smell the sea. After a time the security guard came back to the car.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Follow the driveway up. Somebody’ll meet you at the house.’

‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘Dog’ll have to stay in the car,’ he said.

‘She has no interest in going into the house,’ I said.

He nodded again and looked down at Rosie through the window.

‘No offense,’ he said to her.

Rosie was thinking deeply about other things and paid no attention to him. The guard stepped back to the guard shack, and in a moment the big gates swung open and the guard waved me through. The driveway went up and around a curve and up and around a reverse curve and up and, there, facing a big circular drive, was SeaChase. It looked like pictures I’d seen of Mont-Saint-Michel.

‘Good heavens,’ I said.

Rosie opened her beady black eyes for a moment and looked at me and closed them again and returned to the long thoughts she surely was thinking. So much for Mont-Saint-Michel.

Another blue blazer was waiting for me under a portcullis. I opened my window.

‘Ms. Randall?’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘ID please.’

I gave him the ID. He studied it and my face. He seemed willing to let the Sonya question slide.

‘The dog will have to wait in the car,’ he said.

‘She prefers to,’ I said. ‘Where do I park?’

‘Right here is fine,’ the blazer said. ‘And leave the keys if you would.’

‘Not if I’m leaving the dog,’ I said.

He thought about that.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Pull it up there.’

I did, and cracked the windows.

‘Bye-bye,’ I said to Rosie. ‘I’ll be back soon.’

Rosie seemed okay with that. I got out and locked the doors.

‘Are you carrying a gun?’ the blazer said.

‘I am,’ I said.

I opened my purse and showed him the short .38.

‘Great conversation piece,’ I said. ‘Excellent for picking up guys.’

He smiled politely. ‘I’m sure you have no trouble,’ he said and took me to the front entrance.

It was a double door, probably ten feet high and ten wide, oak and wrought iron. The blazer rang the bell and one side of the door opened. There was a black man in a blazer.

‘Ms. Randall,’ my escort said.

The black man nodded.

‘Buddy is in the theater,’ he said.

I followed him into a two-story entry hall with a stone floor and oak-paneled walls. There were swords and shields and pieces of armor hung decoratively on the walls. A huge staircase wound up to the floors above. At the first-floor landing was a bigger-than-life-sized painting of somebody in a maroon velvet smoking jacket. His tie was untied, and the collar of his shirt was unbuttoned, with the points draped over the lapels. He held an enormous cigar and looked magisterial, except that his face was that of a fleshy boy. His unformed boyishness was apparently so insistent that even the subsidized art couldn’t conceal it.

‘Mr. Bollen?’ I said.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Wow,’ I said.

The black blazer made no comment. He led me around a corner and through some French doors and into a small lobby. There was a popcorn stand and a Coke machine and a counter where you could get Jujubes or Sky Bars. Beyond the lobby was a movie theater with six rows of red leather seats and a full-size screen. In the middle of the second row, not wearing his smoking jacket, eating some popcorn and drinking from a huge paper cup, was Buddy Bollen.

‘Sunny Randall, Buddy,’ the blazer said.

Bollen looked around.

‘Whoa,’ Buddy said. ‘Whoa ho, not bad for a private dick, Sunny.’

I thought I’d start with demure.

‘Nice to meet you, Mr. Bollen,’ I said.

‘Buddy,’ he said. ‘Everybody calls me Buddy. Even the fucking centurions call me Buddy. Right, Randy?’

‘You bet, Buddy,’ the black centurion said.

‘Sit down, Sunny. Randy, get her some popcorn, a Coke, whatever she wants.’

‘I’ll pass,’ I said. ‘Thanks anyway.’

I went down the aisle and sat beside Buddy. His portrait had clearly idealized him. He was short and pudgy, and smoking a big cigar, which looked silly in his soft, adolescent face.

‘You want something stronger, maybe? Jack D? Johnnie Blue?’

‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘Could we talk about why I’m here?’

‘Hey, Sunny. All business. Cuter than a ladybug’s ass, and all business.’

Demure was getting harder, but I held to it.

‘You’re very kind,’ I said.

‘Ready to watch a movie with me?’

He drank from his paper cup.

‘Coke,’ he said. ‘All I drink. Classic Coke. Keeps me sharp.’

He grinned and drank some more, looking at me over the rim of the paper cup like a gleeful ninth-grader. The lights in the theater went down. I hadn’t seen Buddy do anything. A long, silent shot of grassland came up on the screen. The wind ruffled the grass gently. We could hear it. No other sound. A small figure appeared in the distance, running toward us through the grass. As the figure came closer we could see that it was a woman. Closer still and we could see that she was amazing-looking. She was very tall and muscular, with perfect features and wonderful thick hair, and an easy, smooth stride as if she could run forever. She wore a leopard-skin bikini and high-laced moccasins, and carried a short stabbing spear like the Zulus used. On she came. We could hear her footfalls now, and the rustle of the tall grass as she ran through it, and the sound of her breathing, easy and deep as she came straight into the camera until she seemed to run into the lens, the tiny muscles moving under her smooth skin, and then she was too close and the image blurred and over the blur came the name ERIN FLINT, and it held as we listened to the sound of her breathing, and faded and the title came up: WOMAN WARRIOR. And that held and then the screen faded to black and all we heard was her heavy breathing and then the movie itself came up with the front credits running over the opening scene. The producer was Buddyboll Entertainment.

It was awful. Something about a female superhero in an unspecified outdoor setting, during an unspecified time past. Erin Flint said her lines as if they were transliterated from a language she did not speak. There was some sort of storyline about Erin rescuing the man of her dreams from a series of evildoers, all of whom appeared to be bare-chested weight lifters. Five minutes into the movie, I was identifying with the evildoers. By the end of it I was nearly suicidal. Buddy watched the movie as if it were Hamlet. Leaning slightly forward, breathing through his mouth, grunting and nodding at some of the screen moments, he was like someone rooting for the home team.

When it ended the lights came up as silent and unbidden as they had gone down at the start. Buddy ate some popcorn, still staring in a kind of selfless reverence at the blank screen. Then he turned to me.

‘Huh?’ he said. ‘How about that? You like that, Sunny?’

‘The opening sequence was breathtaking,’ I said.

‘Is she something, or what?’

‘She’s something,’ I said.

Buddy tipped some ice from his big drink cup into his mouth and chewed on it. When he was through, he smiled at me.

‘And she’s mine,’ he said.

‘Would that be in the contractual sense or the, ah, main-squeeze sense?’

He laughed a kind of hee-hee laugh and rubbed his hands together.

‘Delicate,’ he said. ‘You are fucking delicate, Sunny.’

I smiled modestly. He nodded, rocking slightly in his chair.

‘We are, you might say’ – he winked at me – ‘if you was delicate, that we are an item.’

‘Congratulations,’ I said. ‘To both of you.’

‘Oh, hell,’ he said. ‘I’m no prize.’

He laughed hee-hee again.

‘But I’m rich!’

‘That’s one way to judge a prize,’ I said.

‘It is, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Goddamn it, that’s right. It is.’

I nodded. I felt envious of Rosie sleeping happily on the floor of my car. Buddy looked at his watch.

‘Let’s grab some lunch,’ he said. ‘And we can talk.’

Lunch.

2

Lunch was served by a young black woman wearing a waitress costume, in a room that looked like an upscale diner, complete with counter and stools. We sat at the counter. Buddy had two cheeseburgers and some fries. I had some tomato soup.

‘Now here’s the deal,’ he said. ‘You know I own a ball club?’

‘I do,’ I said. ‘Connecticut Nutmegs. Finished last in the National League in their first year. Your best player hit .281.’

‘You like baseball?’

‘Not very much.’

Buddy shrugged. ‘Well, you do your homework,’ he said.

‘The sportswriters say that you don’t have a big enough market to make a go of it.’

‘Show me a rich sportswriter, someday,’ Buddy said. ‘I got a National League team halfway between Boston and New York. Lot of people like National League ball, but all they got is the Sox and the Yankees. The Nutmegs are a natural rival for the Mets. Look at a map. They can draw on all of Connecticut and Western Mass and Eastern New York State. Once I make them good, they’ll pull in people from Vermont, Rhode Island.’

‘You seem to have done some homework, too,’ I said.

‘I didn’t get this rich by being stupid,’ he said. ‘Nothing generates fan interest like a winning club. And I’ll get there.’

He put the end of a french fry into the pool of catsup on his plate and stirred it a little before he bit off the catsup end.

‘I told my front-office people to go get me the players we need, whatever it takes.’ He pointed at me with the truncated french fry. ‘But I need to generate a little interest while we’re getting good.’

I nodded. I had been with Buddy Bollen for two and a half hours. My teeth hurt.

‘So,’ Buddy said. ‘Sunny. Here’s the deal. You seen Erin Flint; she did all her own stunts in that movie.’

‘It looked like she did,’ I said.

‘She’s an athlete,’ Buddy said. ‘World-class. She was track and field in college, threw the javelin, and basketball and softball. Lettered in all of them.’

‘I used to row,’ I said.

‘Yeah? We’re in post now on Erin’s new picture, biography of Babe Didrikson.’

He paused long enough for me to gasp with excitement. But I couldn’t muster it. I nodded.

‘You know who she was?’

‘Great female athlete,’ I said.

‘The female Jim Thorpe. Played baseball, everything. Exhibition games against major leaguers, she was great. Hit home runs – amazing woman.’

‘And Erin is playing her?’

‘Who better?’ Buddy said. ‘Her sports achievements, her romance with George Zaharias. It’s going to rock.’

‘Who plays Zaharias?’ I said, just as if I cared.

‘Ben,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that great?’

‘Ben?’

‘Ben Affleck. The chemistry between them. Don’t sit too close to the screen. You know?’

‘Wasn’t Zaharias a professional wrestler?’ I said. ‘Huge?’

‘Ben plays big,’ Buddy said.

‘Of course,’ I said.

‘So here’s the kicker,’ Buddy said. ‘You’re going to love this. I’m going to sign Erin to play center field for us.’

‘Us?’

‘The Nutmegs.’

‘Erin Flint?’

‘She can do it,’ Buddy said. ‘You should see her. She looks like Willie Mays out there.’

‘Willie Mays?’ I said.

‘Absolutely.’

‘You really think she can play in the big leagues?’ I said.

‘You better believe it, Sunny. I’m announcing the week after the World Series. Give the talk shows a chance to hype it all winter.’

‘You think there will be any sort of negative reaction?’

‘Hell, it’ll be like Jackie Robinson. Of course there will be. That’s part of the beauty of it. But I’ll be on the side of the angels all the way.’

‘You think she’ll be in any danger?’

‘That’s where you come in,’ Buddy said.

‘I’m supposed to protect her?’

‘You’re the one, Sunny.’

‘How about all the security people here?’ I said.

‘They’re men. Erin wants a woman. You can go places with her where men aren’t supposed to go. And Erin’s a, ah, whatchmacallit, a feminist.’

‘And how did you choose me?’ I said.

‘I had you checked out. I liked what I learned.’

‘Thanks.’

‘And part of the job, of course, is to keep Erin in line.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning she’s kind of, ah, headstrong. Sometimes she forgets that she’s a public figure now.’

‘Does she drink?’ I said.

‘Not enough to worry about,’ Buddy said.

‘Drugs?’

‘God no. No drugs. No red meat. Her body’s a freakin’ temple, you know?’

‘Sex?’

‘Hey, Sunny. She’s my girlfriend.’

‘I know. But I’m just trying to figure out what I should prevent her from doing.’

‘She represents me and Buddyboll, and she’s the short-term salvation of the Nutmegs,’ Buddy said. ‘She can’t embarrass me, or the company, or the ball club.’

‘And if she starts to, I’ll know it when I see it, and stop her before she does.’

‘On the money, Sunny.’

Buddy hee-hee’d with pleasure at his rhyme.

‘You want the job?’

‘Sure,’ I said.

3

Back in my loft I gave Rosie her supper, poured myself a glass of heart-healthy wine, and called Tony Gault in LA, where it was still only three o’clock.

‘Sunny Randall,’ he said. ‘Good memories.’

‘Me too.’

‘You ever think about the fact that Sunny rhymes with money, and Randall rhymes with scandal?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Which is why I’m a big-deal Hollywood agent, and you’re a small-town gumshoe. What’s your best memory?’

‘How you couldn’t unfasten a bra,’ I said.

‘Okay,’ Tony said, ‘sure. But once we got past that …’

‘Not bad,’ I said. ‘I need a little information.’

‘You called the right man,’ he said. ‘Lay it on me.’

‘Erin Flint,’ I said.

He laughed.

‘Woman Warrior,’ he said.

‘I saw the movie,’ I said.

‘The full title, not Woman Warrior: The Final Battle, or Woman Warrior: The Return, or Woman Warrior: The Ultimate Evil?’

‘Nope, just Woman Warrior,’ I said.

Rosie gave a nasty, demanding yap. She was in front of me, staring at me with a laserlike accusation. After she ate supper she got two rice crackers for dessert. I had forgotten them.

‘What the hell is that?’ Tony said. ‘You still have that overgrown guinea pig?’

‘My Rosie,’ I said. ‘Wait a minute, I forgot her dessert.’

I went and got two crackers and gave them to her one at a time, adroitly, without losing a finger.

‘There,’ I said to Tony. ‘I gather then that Erin has made several Warrior Woman movies.’

‘Yeah, sure, it’s a huge television franchise. She does a couple a year.’

‘The movie was awful,’ I said.

‘Yeah, and so is she. But people love her.’

‘She’s something to look at,’ I said.

‘Too big and sinewy for me,’ Tony said. ‘She appeals to guys who like to be spanked.’

‘I understand she has a new picture coming, a feature about Babe Didrikson.’

‘Yeah, she’s been banging the producer, who, now that I think, is from out your way.’

‘Buddy Bollen.’

‘That’s right, by God you are a detective. Anyway, he’s spent a fortune, which I gather he can spare, on the movie and will spend another fortune promoting it.’

‘That’s what I was hoping for when I took up with you,’ I said.

‘And instead you got ecstasy.’

‘Or something,’ I said. ‘Is there buzz on the movie?’

‘Sure,’ Tony said. ‘It’s a given, of course, that Erin Flint is an Olympic-level fucking pain in the ass.’

‘Artistic temperaments can be hard,’ I said.

‘Artistic?’ Tony said. ‘Artistic is a joke word out here anyway, and in Erin’s case deserves to be. She’s got the artistic sensibility of a horseshoe crab. For Christ’s sake, she thinks she’s important.’

‘Of course she does,’ I said. ‘Everyone tells her she is.’

‘But nobody means it,’ Tony said.

‘You represent her?’

‘Hell, no,’ Tony said. ‘She’s in the life’s too short folder. We represent the director.’

‘He happy?’ I said.

‘No.’

‘Is she as good an athlete as they say?’

‘I heard she was,’ Tony said. ‘She does most of her own stunts except the dangerous stuff. She’s the franchise, they don’t let her do dangerous stuff.’

Rosie came over and glared at me again and did another hideous yap.

‘Excuse me,’ I said to Tony and put the phone down and spread my hands firmly as if I was making a safe sign, and said, ‘That’s it!’

Rosie looked at me silently for a moment. Can’t blame a girl for trying. Then she turned away and jumped up on the couch, made several circles, and lay down.

‘Have you heard anything about her playing baseball?’

‘Baseball?’

‘Men’s major-league baseball,’ I said.

‘Nope, haven’t heard that. But Buddy’s got a team, right?’

‘Tony, you amaze me,’ I said. ‘Nothing startles you.’

‘I’m a Hollywood agent,’ he said. ‘And it makes a kind of perverted Hollywood sense. The movie will promote the baseball team, and the team will promote the movie. And she’ll be the star of each. Man, talk about synergy.’

‘You think it will work?’

‘No, of course not. But everyone out here will think it’s smart, until it all tanks, and then they’ll deride the whole idea.’

‘What would make it work?’ I said.

‘Good movie, good team,’ Tony said.

‘And both depend on Erin,’ I said.

‘Tank City,’ Tony said. ‘What’s your interest?’

I told him. As I talked, I heard him laughing softly.

‘What?’ I said.

‘I’m just wondering whether you’ll shoot her or not before it’s over.’

‘She’s that bad?’ I said.

Tony was quiet for a moment at his end of the line. When he spoke again, the laughter was still in his voice.

‘Unlike you and me,’ he said, ‘you and Erin are not a good match.’

4

Buddy Bollen brought Erin Flint to my loft in South Boston. I watched out my window as the limo pulled up and a black Expedition pulled up behind it. A member of the Blue Blazer Corps got out and opened the door and Buddy got out with Erin Flint. They walked across the walk and into the front door of my building, and shortly thereafter into my loft.

Wow.

She was everything she was supposed to be and more. She was actually taller and better-looking in person, with great hair and perfect skin. She towered over Buddy Bollen. And, sadly, me. Rosie got off my bed and came trotting down to see who was there.

‘Hi,’ I said to Erin, ‘I’m Sunny Randall.’

‘You’ll have to put that dog somewhere,’ Erin said. ‘I don’t like dogs.’

‘Her name is Rosie,’ I said. ‘She lives here.’

‘I don’t give a fuck,’ Erin said, ‘if her name is Oprah Winfrey, I don’t want her around me.’

‘Then go outside and sit in the car,’ I said.

Erin stared at me as if I had spoken Algonquin. Then she stared at Buddy. Then she looked at me again.

‘Do you know who I am?’ she said.

I wasn’t sure I had ever heard that actually spoken aloud before. Rosie apparently sensed the absence of simpatico and went back to my bed and jumped up and began to scratch up a nice lie-down spot on my bed.

‘Well, do you?’ Erin said.

‘I do know who you are,’ I said. ‘Thanks for asking.’

‘Well, are you going to put the dog someplace?’ Erin said.

‘No.’

‘Erin,’ Buddy said.

‘Fuck you,’ she said to me. ‘I’m out of here.’

Buddy stood in the doorway. He looked like a dumpling blocking her way.

‘I want you to stay here, Erin,’ Buddy said.

‘Get out of my way,’ Erin said.

On the bed, Rosie was lying with her head on her front paws, watching us beadily with her black, oval eyes.

‘Shut up,’ Buddy said. ‘You’re staying.’

Erin seemed to stiffen. She didn’t look at me.

‘Sit down,’ Buddy said, and pointed to one of the chairs at my table by the window.

Erin seemed frozen.

‘Now,’ Buddy said.

Erin turned suddenly and walked quickly to the chair and sat down. Buddy gestured me toward another chair with a gentlemanly sweep of his arm.

‘No,’ I said. ‘You take that one. I’ll sit here.’

He smiled at me.

‘Establishing your turf early, Sunny?’

‘I like to sit here,’ I said.

Buddy sat across from Erin. Erin was rigid in her chair. Staring at nothing. I sat on a stool and rested my elbows on the kitchen counter.

‘Erin’s an artist,’ Buddy said. ‘She has an artistic temperament. It’s part of what makes her Erin, but it needs to be guided.’

Rosie apparently sensed that the action was over and the rest would be blah, blah. She still lay on the bed with her nose pointed toward us and her chin on her paws. But her eyes were closed. I envied her.

‘I don’t like dogs,’ Erin said.

‘I explained the plan to you, Sunny,’ Buddy said. ‘And we agreed that Erin needed somebody to help her concentrate on what she needs to do.’

‘And that person has to be a woman.’

‘Men are good for fucking,’ Erin said. ‘And not much else.’

‘Some men,’ I said.

Erin’s face brightened stiffly.

‘Yeah, lot of them aren’t good for anything,’ she said.

I smiled at Buddy. He didn’t appear offended.

‘So I hope you folks can work together. My people tell me you’re the best woman I can get to do this work.’

‘Good help is hard to find,’ I said.

‘So talk to each other,’ Buddy said. ‘I want this to work.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘First things first. If you get me, you get Rosie. You don’t have to love her. But you have to be nice to her.’

‘I don’t like dogs,’ Erin said.

She had not looked at me since Buddy had intervened.

‘I don’t care,’ I said. ‘It’s a package. Rosie and me, or nothing.’

Erin didn’t speak.

‘That’s fine,’ Buddy said. ‘We can live with that.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘And I’ll need some reassurance that in matters of security, my judgment prevails.’

‘I don’t want her telling me what to do,’ Erin said to Buddy.

‘I will try to do what’s in your best interest,’ I said to Erin. ‘And, if I take the job, I do not wish to be fighting with you every day.’

‘Of course,’ Buddy said. ‘That’s fair.’

‘Do you have any questions?’ I said to Erin.

She finally looked at me again.

‘Are you married?’

‘Not at present,’ I said.

‘Got a boyfriend?’

‘Not at present,’ I said.

‘You live alone?’

‘With Rosie,’ I said.

‘You straight?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

She nodded as if all that was crucial.

‘You don’t look very tough to me,’ she said.

‘It depends on your definition,’ I said. ‘If you mean can I swap punches with a two-hundred-pound man who knows how to fight? No. If you mean could I shoot him if needed? You bet.’

‘You have a gun?’

‘Yes.’

She was silent.

After a time, she said, ‘You ever shoot anybody?’

‘Yes.’

Again she was silent. During the silent periods she would look away. She made eye contact when she spoke.

‘You date much?’ she said.

‘Sufficient to my needs,’ I said.

‘Do you have sex?’

I smiled and didn’t answer. I understood that Erin thought she was supposed to ask questions and she was asking the only ones she could think of.

‘You have been married, though?’

‘Yes.’

‘Divorced?’

‘Yes.’

‘They’re bastards, aren’t they?’

‘Richie wasn’t a bastard,’ I said.

‘So how come he dumped you?’

‘Nobody dumped anybody,’ I said. ‘We just couldn’t make it work and we finally gave up.’

Buddy was fidgeting in his chair.

‘So, Sunny,’ he said. ‘You ready to start?’

‘I can’t wait,’ I said.

5

Erin lived with Buddy Bollen at SeaChase, and while she was there she was protected by Buddy’s security people. When she left I went with her, and some of her staff joined us. It took a considerable staff to help her be Erin Flint. She had a personal assistant, a personal trainer, a personal nutritionist, a chef, a publicist, a hairdresser, a makeup artist, a nurse/EMT … and me. Everyone but me occupied a wing of SeaChase, next to the gym. Every day she went to Taft University and worked in the indoor cage with a hitting instructor Buddy had requisitioned from the Connecticut Nutmegs.

Today, like most days, I sat in the stands near an indoor batting cage and watched Erin work with the hitting instructor. Erin’s personal assistant, Misty Tyler, was on one side of me. And her personal trainer, a woman named Robbie, sat on the other side of me. A kid who had pitched for Taft the previous season was pitching to her, and a lean, bald guy with big hands was standing outside the wire batting cage, watching. His name was Roy Linden.

‘Don’t pull off the inside pitch,’ he said.

Erin wore a tight-fitting black tank top and white short shorts and some sort of spiked baseball shoes. She had on gloves and a blue bandana folded and tied around her head as a sweatband.

‘Well, what the fuck am I supposed to do?’ Erin said. ‘Tell him not to throw it inside, Roy.’

‘Remember what I told you about clearing your hips,’ Roy said.

‘So how do I do that without bailing out?’

‘Don’t clear with your feet,’ he said. ‘Look.’

He stood outside the batting cage with a bat and showed her.

‘If you can’t turn on it without bailing,’ Roy said, ‘don’t swing at it.’

‘You want me to strike out?’