Beast of the Heartland and other stories by Lucius Shepard

Author:Lucius Shepard
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1-930815-10-7
Publisher: Electric Story
Published: 2000-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

Sports In America

While they waited for Milchuk to show, Carnes leafed through Sports Illustrated , the NFL Preview issue, and Penner checked out the baseball scores in The Globe . They were parked on Main Street in Hyannis, across from the Copper Kitchen, where Milchuk—so they had been told—liked to have his breakfast. It was a quarter to seven of a bitter September morning, a few raindrops spitting down and ridges of leaden cloud shouldering in off the harbor. Carnes, pinch-faced and wiry, with sprays of straw-colored hair sticking out from beneath his Red Sox cap, betrayed no sign of anxiety. But Penner, who had never done this sort of work before, shifted restlessly about, flexing his neck muscles, reshaping the folds of his newspaper, and glancing this way and that.

Christ, he thought, I don’t want this. He had been insane to go along with it. His mind had not been right. Too much pressure. Too much drink, too many sleepless nights. He would run, he decided, lose himself among the houses down by the ferry dock. His hand inched toward the door handle.

Carnes coughed, noisily turned the pages of his magazine, and Penner, stiffening, gave up any idea of running. He touched the pistol stuck in his belt, the envelope stuffed with bills in his windbreaker, as if acknowledging the correspondence between his salvation and another man’s extinction.

To strengthen his resolve, he pictured himself returning home, with Barbara warm and sweet in their bed, hair fanned out across the pillow, her cheekbone perfection evident even in sleep. Fifty grand, he’d say to her, tossing the money onto the sheet as if it were nothing. Fifty fucking grand. And that’s just for starters. Then he would show her the gun, tell her what he had done for her and how much he intended to do, maybe frighten her a little, make her understand that she might be at risk here, that the next affair might not be so readily forgiven, and that perhaps she had not chosen wrongly after all, perhaps this newly desperate, bloody-handed Penner was just the man to guarantee her summers in Newport and winters in Bermuda.

He gazed out the window, searching for favorable signs, something to restore his sense of purpose. Overhead, a pair of laced-together sneakers looped over a telephone line heeled and kicked in a stiff breeze, bringing to mind a gallows dance. The deserted sidewalks and glass storefronts with their opaque wintry reflections had the look of a stage set waiting for lights, camera, action.

“Y’see this article here ’bout the guy owns the ’Niners,” Carnes said with sudden animation. “Y’know, that guy DiBartalo.”

“Fuck the son of a bitch,” said Penner glumly.

Carnes folded his magazine into a tube and stared at him deadpan.

“Lighten up, willya?” he said. “Ain’t no reason you gettin’ nervous. The man shows . . . bing! We’re outta here.”

“I’m not nervous,” Penner said. “I just don’t feel like bullshitting seven o’clock in the morning ’bout some dumbass owns a football team.

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