Big Leagues (35 page)

She rolled the Jeep’s window down as Winston
slid his open.

“Forget something?”

“No uh, media was called in. I guess I’m the
first one here.”

That didn’t surprise her. Outside of herself
and a couple of players, every other member of the organization
lived in Summerlin or Henderson.

His eyes lit up. “Is this about a new
outfielder?”

She shrugged. “Hope so.”

He gave her a thumbs-up and lifted the
gate.

Cat hustled all the way through the tunnel, to
the elevators and up to the fourth floor without encountering a
single member of the cleaning crew. As she flipped on the office
lights, she heard a click and a hum. She jumped and slammed her
back against the wall.

Air conditioner.

She slumped off the wall and shook her
head.

Calm down, Cat.

She unlocked her door and plugged her laptop
into the docking station. While she waited for the screen to
appear, she drummed her fingernails on the arm of the chair. The
welcome chord jingled through the room and out to the
cubicles.

HIGH STAKES

By: Catriona McDaniel, Chips Former Senior
Beat Reporter

It started with a dream. A city in the Mojave
Desert with a dream of sitting in the stands. A sportswriter from
Seattle with a dream of discovering the truth. A boy from the Bay
Area with a dream of playing under the lights.

Erich König had a dream, too. The dream of
success. A businessman for fifteen years before coming to Las
Vegas, he perfected the formula to achieve his dream: win at any
cost. He had another formula, too, the chemical concoction for a
designer drug created at Königetix Research. It goes like this.
Promising players enter Hohenschwangau clubhouse and roll up their
sleeves for a weekly B-12 injection from their trusted team
physician. They leave the clubhouse as the doped victims of a
synthetic amphetamine, masked and therefore undetectable in the
league’s drug screenings. On the field, the Chips are strong
baseball players with keen concentration and an aggressive edge.
When the game is over, they’re unknowing lab rats with a nasty case
of withdrawal and deteriorating organs. The side effects are a high
price to pay for success, but Erich König is playing with house
money.

Oberpfalz Lab labeled the drug XT-736. The
media will coin the drug the König Conspiracy. Future generations
might deem the drug was the payoff pitch to baseball’s innocence.
We have to look at the history and ask the question—what innocence?
We’re long from the days when baseball was a sunny afternoon
pastime. This isn’t the same game children play in parking lots and
cornfields. It’s a ruthless testing ground for boardrooms and
underground laboratories. After a century of bribes, fixes,
gambling and drug abuse, the gate was wide open for Erich König to
join the playing field.

Las Vegas. Brad Derhoff. Jamal Abercromby. They
started with a dream. Erich König gave them a nightmare.

Cat had churned out the article while waiting
for the late night meeting. A part of her wanted to upload it to
the website, run out of the building and never look back.
Career-wise, it would be suicide, although even if Commissioner
Ramirez returned her call, it was no guarantee she’d get the story.
In fact, he’d no doubt hand her byline over to a
veteran.

Still, if she published the piece without
giving the league a heads-up, she risked burning a bridge in the
industry. There were other bridges, of course—local newspapers,
national outlets and websites around the world that employed
sportswriters. None of these jobs could compare to working for a
real team.

The trade deadline was in thirty-six hours.
Even for a late night, it was surprising that the commissioner was
incommunicado, so much so that Cat wondered if higher-ups had
another number for him.

Cat debated contacting various names in the
league directory, but the more she played these conversations out
in her head, the more she realized her only choice was to go
straight to the top. She couldn’t risk her words being distorted
through the chain of command, or worse, being intercepted by a
friend of Erich König’s. Thanks to his charm and many bank
accounts, the Chips owner had made a lot of friends in high places
on his way into the game.

Erich’s charisma didn’t work on everyone in
baseball, though, which was why Cat knew the commissioner was her
only option. If the whispers were true, Joseph Ramirez wasn’t a fan
of the league’s newest owner. Although the commissioner and the Las
Vegas playboy weren’t pulling each other’s hair on the front page
of tabloids, the grapevine had reported he and Erich had first
clashed during the designing stage of Hohenschwangau Stadium. The
commissioner believed the gambling motif to be in bad taste, and
more than one informer from the Owners’ Meetings had leaked the
fact that the commissioner was annoyed about the casino
sponsorship. Though the rumor had yet to be proven, some baseball
aficionados claimed that Commissioner Ramirez never officially
accepted the Chips’ inception.

The sources were unconfirmed, but the sports
bar gossip was enough to make Cat confident the baseball boss would
take her claims seriously. That is, if he ever called her back on
her—

Where’s my cell phone?

When she unzipped the side pocket of her
Burberry bag to take it out, she saw the potholder but no phone.
The indispensable piece of evidence was still nestled inside. She
gently removed the potholder and placed it out of harm’s way, next
to the keyboard. The potholder fell open to display the syringe.
She moved her wallet around and checked in the plaid pockets. Her
phone wasn’t there. She checked again, digging to the bottom.
Wallet, lip gloss, tampon, cough drops … no phone.

How could I be so stupid?

The one time she’d forgotten to double check
before she left the house and—Cat gave her head a little slap. Then
she reached into the inside pocket and pulled out the cell phone
from a pouch where she’d crammed it after calling the
commissioner.

She held her breath as she checked for a
signal, fearing her reception had been intentionally
compromised.

This isn’t a TV show and the Chips aren’t the
NSA; they’re a freaking baseball team. Erich König cannot
countermand a cellular tower … can he?

Nope. Five bars of signal, just no missed
calls. Her eyes drifted to the laptop. She thought about how often
she monitored her Chips e-mail account, even when off duty. She
wondered if Commissioner Ramirez did the same. His confidential
e-mail address was listed next to the phone extension. Before she
could even reach her keyboard, she’d composed the message in her
head. Her hands trembled as her fingers punched each
letter.

Commissioner Ramirez:

As you know, I was recently hired as the Chips’
senior reporter after the passing of Brad Derhoff. I have reason to
believe Brad’s death wasn’t a suicide. I think he and I have made
the same discovery regarding the team. Information obtained from
Dr. Kevin Goodall’s office points to an illegal performance
enhancer being disguised as a B-12 supplement and being dispensed
to the players without their knowledge. This information lists the
drug’s side effects, which may relate to Jamal Abercromby’s death,
as well. It’s imperative we speak immediately. Please call me at
559-555-0526 as soon as you read this message, no matter what the
hour.

—
Catriona McDaniel

She quickly scanned the short paragraph for
spelling errors and hoped it didn’t scream of a drunken practical
joke.

No joke, but I could use a drink.

She flagged the message as urgent and slammed
the send button. The computer beeped and an error notification box
popped up.

“Subject is empty. Are you sure you want to
send the message?”

She drummed her fingernails on the mouse
pad.

What would get the old coot’s
attention?

She brought her chipped nails back to the
keyboard and opted for
Urgent situation with Las Vegas Chips
over the spammer catch phrases. Her shaky index finger felt for the
send button again, and another error box responded.

“Ugh, what now?”

“Unauthorized transmission. Your server has
terminated the connection.”

She reread the error.

Unauthorized?

Alarm put her senses on high alert and knotted
her stomach into a Hohenschwangau Pretzel. They were onto her. She
couldn’t thought-bubble a positive spin on this one, nor could she
assure herself she didn’t hear footsteps outside the office door.
She held her breath and listened. The thumps weren’t a paranoid
delusion, they were real this time.

“Maria?”

The footsteps became louder.

Closer.

“Dustin?”

Perhaps it’s just a janitor coming to empty the
trash can.

Clomp.

Or maybe it’s Mr. König coming to tell me to
empty my desk.

Clomp.

The footsteps stopped. Her eyes dropped to the
key evidence still sitting on her desk, as obvious a focal point as
a dish of candy. She reached over and crammed the syringe into the
deep pockets on the front of her sweaterdress. Cat’s throat began
to swell as the doorknob turned. The door opened at such a
dramatically slow speed. In her favorite horror movies, the action
would be accompanied by a bone-chilling creak. Instead, the door
didn’t make a sound. It was what waited behind the mahogany frame
that sent a ripple down Cat’s spine.

Every inch of her went numb. The head of
security stood in the doorway, his belt’s mysterious holster now
empty, its contents pointed at her. Cat couldn’t take her eyes off
the very large gun, gripped firmly in his right hand.

I suppose that’s the point.

She heard a voice from behind the
trigger.

“Evenin’ there, Red. I think it’s high time you
and me had us a little sit-down.” She tore her eyes away from the
firearm, then shifted her focus from his stout fingers to his black
eyes. “M-Mr. Snow, hi. I was just killing uh-time in my office.
Dustin called me and said there’s a trade announcement.”

“Uh-huh. ‘Killing, uh,
time
.’ Is that
what you call trying to email the commish?”

Cat stared at him and blinked a few times.
“Joseph Ramirez? I just wanted—”

“Shut it. I may be stupid but I’m not dumb.” He
leaned on the door jamb. “You’ve been snooping around here all
week.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Red, you might be better lookin’ than all the
whores in Nye County, but you can’t lie for shit. Why couldn’t you
just leave it alone? Damn it, I even liked you. You’re different
than the rest of these front office dicks.”

He waved the gun behind him.

“Most of them can’t even tell ya my name, but
you call ‘mister,’ that’s cool. I thought we were the same. I don’t
want to have to hurt you.”

“I like you, too.” He didn’t react to that, so
Cat continued. “Nobody’s gotta hurt anybody. I don’t know anything,
really. I won’t say a word.”

He scoffed. “Yeah. That’s what Derhoff
said.”

“Derhoff?”

“That pansy reporter had his nose stuck in the
air. He sneered at me since his first day here, but there he was
begging me to keep my secrets. When I told him I didn’t need a
confidant, the snob turned to God for help.”

A tiny gasp escaped her lips. She slapped her
hand over her mouth.

Otis leaned over.

“Ironic, since I had to wait until the wife and
kiddies left for church to murder the godless bastard.” He said it
without a hint of remorse. In fact, with the gleam in his eyes and
half-smile on his lips, he looked almost proud.

“I thought it was suicide.”

“I guess it was in a way. He had a choice to
take the pills nice and easy or wait ’til the fam came home; then
I’d shove them down his fucking throat after putting a bullet
through the missus’ face.” He laughed. “It’s true what the papers
said; Derhoff really was a family man.”

Cat stood on wobbling legs and took stock of
his position in the doorway.

“Now, now, you’d do well to pop a squat and
listen up. I ain’t seeing no scene-ario where you can make it
through this doorway past me.”

She swallowed hard, not taking her eyes off
him.

With a hearty laugh, he added, “After all, I’m
bettin’ if ya had any ninja moves, ya woulda done put the hurtin’
on that mugger.”

She blinked twice and answered him with a
defiant tone. “He wasn’t a mugger.”

“No, he wasn’t. He was supposed to be a
lesson.”

She steadied herself with a hand on the corner
of her desk. “Excuse me. I’m leaving now.”

“Are ya deaf? I said we’re gonna have a little
bull session, about company policies and whatnot.”