The Spoiler Read Online Free Page B

stepped out of the box, surveyed the stands behind the first base side—where Amanti and Brunner sat—and then crossed himself again.
    The Glens Falls pitcher, a bullish man with a huge chaw of tobacco in one cheek, stepped off the mound, stared down Gutierrez, then spat in the infield dirt.
    The pitcher went to his delivery. Gutierrez took a wide-sweeping swing at a sucker pitch. Strike three. A small, fat man cursed in Spanish and kicked at the bleachers.
    I could write him up, Lofton thought, and Randy Gutierrez, whose career is going nowhere, probably would never know. Speaks English, but with an accent thick as mangoes are sweet, and sure as hell can’t read it. But focusing on Gutierrez would be too narrow; the story would be trashy. He wanted something better.
    From where he sat, Lofton could see the sweep of the field, the iridescent blue and black of the evening sky beyond the low, shattered skyline of Holyoke. He looked from the Amanti woman away to the recreational fields beyond. Another game, between two local American Legion teams, was being played in a field nearby. Often they received better coverage in the Holyoke paper than the Redwings.
    MacKenzie Field, where the Redwings played, was next to Holyoke High, part of the city’s recreation department. A high school track ran through the outfield. The outfielders complained about it. They had to field skidding balls off the crushed cinder. Rather than dive to catch a low liner, the fielders often let it fall in for a hit.
    He made a few notes, but there was no way he could get it down, no way he could separate the cars moping along the dirty streets from the men jabbering in Spanish in the stands behind him from the players who struggled on the sparse, shabbily tended turf. No way he could separate himself from Tenace, from the bitter hard-core fans.
    He went back to studying Amanti. She had a shadowy presence and did not seem quite real. Tony Liuzza, the younger of the two owners, the lawyer, was not at the park today. He seldom was except on promotion nights. Amanti sat close to the other man, Jack Brunner, but not so close as to touch him. There was a small space on the gray bench between the two. Occasionally Brunner leaned forward, touching her on the knee and calling attention to something on the field. She would respond, nodding her head as if she did not quite hear him. She had the same preoccupied look while watching the action.
    The crowd started to thin. The Glens Falls team, an aggressive Chicago franchise, hit the ball hard, stealing bases and making Holyoke look, if possible, worse than they were. Lofton watched Coach Barker. The man had lost his fatherly mood. He stormed onto the field, a showman’s gesture, and waved the reliever off with his hand. He called over to the first baseman. To that player’s surprise, Coach Barker handed him the ball, pointed to the mound, and went over to play first base himself. A good move, thought Lofton. The game was lost. Might as well entertain the fans.
    During the break the Amanti woman suddenly left Brunner. She touched Brunner on the shoulder first. Brunner glanced back, nodded his thick head, and she left. She walked up the stands toward Lofton. Though he had been wondering when she would come, he was still surprised when she stopped in front of him and introduced herself. He glanced to the press box, but Tenace and the others could not see him from this angle.
    She did not seem as good-looking up close as she had from a distance. A dark woman with dark hair, she had unsettling blue eyes and a splotchy birthmark on her left cheek. She stood in front of him awkwardly, but even in her awkwardness there seemed something feigned, something rehearsed. Her eyes did not settle on him but skirted the crowd. He asked her to sit down. She shook her head.
    â€œI saw you in the press box. You’re a reporter?” she asked, though her inflection suggested she already knew the