Murder Is My Racquet (35 page)

Tom was an altar boy, but he wasn’t crazy.

A PEACH OF A SHOT

D
ANIEL
S
TASHOWER

T
hey have to turn back after two blocks because Jane has forgotten to hit the switch for the dog door. This has happened twice in the past three weeks. Franklin wants to keep going. “So he does his business on the linoleum,” he says. “It’s not the end of the world.” In the end she wears him down, as she always does, and he turns the car around.

He stands in the kitchen doorway with his arms folded. “Why do we need a dog door that has to be turned on and off, anyway? They don’t even have the simple decency to call it a dog door. A ‘canine entry system,’ if you please. Jesus. Like he needs a retinal scan or something to do his business in the yard.”

Franklin starts jingling his car keys while Jane freshens the water bowl and arranges the chew toys in a half-circle. “Is sweetums gonna miss Mommy?” she wants to know, straightening the dog’s collar. “Is sweetums gonna miss his mommykins?”

“Enough,” Franklin says, tapping the crystal of his watch. “You treat that mutt as if—”

Her look freezes him. He lets his hands drop. “I just meant that you treat him better than me. Can we get moving, please? Jarrett said eleven.”

Jane takes her leave of the dog and they climb back into the Taurus. Franklin drives hunched forward, with grim purpose. “Remember what I told you,” he says.

“The divorce isn’t final. I know. I’m not supposed to ask questions about the cupcake.”

“Kaylie. She’s a nice girl. Smart.”

“I’m sure she is. I have no doubt. In fact, that’s just what Alice was saying on the phone the other night, you know, when she finished crying her eyes out. Everything’s fine, she said. It’s twenty-three years of my life down the tubes, but it’s all right because the cupcake is a very nice girl.”

Franklin’s hands tighten on the wheel. “Please. These memberships don’t come up every day. You know how often these memberships come up? Never. This is a one-in-a-million chance. A real dipsy-doodle, Jarrett says.”

“No kidding? A dipsy-doodle? That’s so vivid! He’s partner material for sure!”

He doesn’t answer, and neither of them speaks again until they reach the front gates. Franklin, still trying to make up time, takes the first speed bump too fast. He hears something smack on the undercarriage and curses under his breath. Jane’s hands go out to brace herself against the dashboard. “Take it easy,” she says. “We wouldn’t be late in the first place if you hadn’t spent all morning in the bathroom. With that goop.”

He sets his jaw and guides the car over a second bump.

“I don’t know why you use that stuff, anyway. You’re not fooling anyone.”

“It’s called making a strong first impression. Putting my best foot forward.”

“What first impression? You see Jarrett every day. The cupcake, too, for that matter.”

He is trying to be reasonable. “Look, this is like an audition. A test drive, if you will. There are certain to be other members hanging around. Jarrett will introduce us. At the next membership council they’ll talk about us. About our suitability.”

“That Franklin Walbert seems to be a decent fellow. If only his temples weren’t so gray.”

His eyes go to the rearview mirror. “It projects a sense of strength and vigor. They want fresh blood.” He glances at her as he swings the Taurus into an empty spot. She is wearing her hair in schoolgirl braids, with bows of red yarn. She asked him once, years ago, if the style was too young on her.

“Just don’t mention the situation,” he says, flipping the door locks. “About the divorce. Let sleeping dogs lie.”

“All
right
,” she says. “You’ve only told me about fifty times.”

Franklin pops the trunk and grabs the racquet bags. He turns and heads for the reception doors in a rolling, forward-canted walk, as if moving across the deck of a wind-blasted ship. Jane has to trot to keep up. “Hey,” she calls after him. “Slow down. You’re killing me with all the strength and vigor.”

Jarrett and Kaylie are waiting in the lobby. Kaylie is seated on a lime-colored banquette with her legs crossed, tugging at a white ankle sock. Jarrett is leaning against the far wall, which is papered in a dark tartan meant to suggest Turnberry or St. Andrew’s. Jarrett’s eyes dart to the clock over the door. The clock’s face shows a whimsical sketch of a drunken swell in a top hat
and monocle, tripping over a sign that reads “Tee Many Martoonies.”

“Sorry,” Franklin says, shifting the tennis bags to extend his hand. “A thousand pardons.” He rolls his eyes at Jane, following several paces behind. “Had to check on the dog. I’ve told her a million times—”

“No problem,” Jarrett answers, with a note of forced geniality. “We’d better get right onto the court, though. They won’t hold it for us. Club rules.”

“Right,” Franklin says. “Of course.” He nods at Kaylie. She is cool, slim and elegant in a sleeveless knit dress with navy accents. Her bare arms are tan from a beach holiday. She smells of coconut. Franklin introduces Jane with a detached, apologetic air, as though she is a last-minute replacement for someone more suitable.

“So nice that you could join us,” Kaylie says, as Jarrett leads the way out onto the court. “I hope you’ll have time for a drink afterward. They have one called a Tanqueray Topspin. You really must try it.”

“I have tried it,” Jane says. “Many times.”

“Have you? But I thought you weren’t—”

“With Alice.”

Franklin, walking behind with the bags, narrows his eyes and presses his lips together, the equivalent of a swift kick under the table.

“Oh,” Kaylie says carelessly, “then you know all about it.”

They are less than ten minutes late getting onto the court, but the delay gives a sense of hurry to the first few minutes of play. Jarrett suggests that they skip the warmup volley, though Franklin can tell that he’s already loosened up at the practice wall.

Franklin and Jane drop the first two games without scoring a point. Kaylie is quick at the net and has a long reach; Jarrett has a solid forehand but not much else. Her speed complements his power, but there is a curious formality in their play. They are at pains not to run into each other.

As the set progresses, Franklin and Jane begin to pick up their game. Franklin is a strong player, and made varsity in college. He hasn’t played much since, but he can still send a thunderbolt up the line when he gets his feet planted. Jane is sluggish and heavy-footed; she doesn’t address the ball so much as deflect it, as though trying to swat away a bothersome insect.

Franklin doesn’t mind losing, but he doesn’t want to look bad doing it. He begins coaching Jane from the baseline, in a voice loud enough for the others to hear. He wants to sound cheery and supportive, to show what a good sport he is, even when saddled with an inferior partner. He keeps telling Jane to cover her clay. “Watch it, honey,” he says. “Don’t forget to cover your clay.” He has an idea of how people are supposed to talk at a tennis club, and it seems to involve the use of phrases cribbed from Wimbledon announcers of the Rod Laver era. “Bravo!” he cries at one stage, as Jarrett sends a winner across the forecourt. “Peach of a shot!”

“Why are you talking like that?” Jane asks him, as they switch sides after the first set. Franklin and Jane have taken only one game, and her composure is fraying.

“Like what?” he asks, wiping the handle of his racquet. He is watching Kaylie as she takes a long swallow of some bottled iced tea drink with a dancing elf on the label. Tangerine-Raspberry Glee.

“Like what?” he asks again.

“Oh, I say, chaps! Spot of bother with Jerry over Saulier. The Archies are pounding the hell out of the air.”

“That’s not what I sound like,” he says, but he keeps quiet through the next three games.

By the fourth game Franklin has found his serve and it keeps the set competitive. It pleases him to feel the ball thundering off his racquet, and he takes a secret pleasure in watching Jarrett flailing after an ace, wrong-footed and off-balance. He imagines that Kaylie will see him in a whole new light. Perhaps she will talk about it at the office. “You should see this guy on the court. He’s got a cannon in that arm!”

The set is tied at three games when Franklin begins crowding Jane at the net. He keeps riding her heels, reaching around to stab at the drop shots. “Stay back,” she says, after their racquets tangle on a return. “You’re all over me.”

“Sorry,” he says, in his carrying voice. “Try to cover your clay.”

“If you say that one more time, I will kill you,” she says. “I swear to God.”

Jarrett and Kaylie take the second set, and the game turns in the third. Franklin’s arm is tired and Jane has grown timid and fretful after catching a ball on the shoulder. Jarrett is impatient to finish. He says something about clearing the court for fresh players. Earlier he had been taking something off the balls he hit to Jane, now he smacks them straight up the gut. She can do little more than get out of the way.

They’re down a break when Jarrett sends a two-handed smash up the middle. Jane can’t move in time. The ball catches her on the side of the head, right at the jawline below her ear. Her racquet clatters to the ground and her hands fly to her face. Kaylie is around the net in a heartbeat; Jarrett runs off the
court for a towel and some ice. Two players from the next court run over to see if she’s all right. Jane is embarrassed by the fuss. She works her jaw muscle and says she’s fine. She was just startled, is all.

Franklin has been strangely quiet during all of this. He doesn’t know quite what to do or say, and he recognizes that Jarrett’s remorse over the incident has given him an edge. Now, as Jane smiles and declares herself fit to play, he gathers himself to be magnanimous. “Don’t worry about it,” he says to Jarrett. “These things will happen.” Turning to Jane, he says, “Next time, cover your clay.”

She picks up her racquet and slams it against his head with every ounce of strength she can muster. It is a peach of a shot. A real dipsy-doodle. Franklin is dimly aware of the red clay rushing toward him, of the voices raised in alarm, of the expression of mute horror on his wife’s face. He perceives these things as if from the window of a passing car.

For the first time in many years, he feels as if he has all the time in the world. His mind is lit up from within, calling forth moods and mementos long since lost to the clutter of shopping lists and spreadsheets and canine entry systems. He sees his mother in a long calico dress, glancing backward over her shoulder as she reaches to hang a piñata. He hears his father’s steps heavy on the wooden porch, indignant over the discovery of a broken taillight. He tastes the coppery bite of a new retainer as he presses his lips against those of his seventh-grade girlfriend, huddled behind the splicing table in the audiovisual room. He fingers the three dollars in his pocket as he stands outside the house, waiting for a ride to the hobby shop. He feels his grandfather squeeze his hand goodbye that last time.

His thoughts take a bad bounce and he finds himself at the beginning of that terrible year. He sees it all—the doctor moving slowly toward him along the corridor, the grim face, the shake of the head, the pink balloon slipping from his fingers and floating lazily to the ceiling. He recognizes this for what it is, the moment when the game turned. He swats it aside. No point in arguing a bad call.

Franklin’s head strikes the ground and there is now a great deal of blood coming from somewhere. He is aware of this but it does not interest him much. For him, it is a winter day in Columbus. He is in his dorm room, sophomore year. There is a poster over his head, Picasso’s Don Quixote, and the gooseneck lamp on his desk has a large jagged chip in the plastic shade. He has just walked Jane back from the library, but she is already on the phone, telling him that she misses him.

There is a Browns game on. Nick Skorich’s last year and Brian Sipe’s first. Franklin is trying to listen through an earpiece without letting Jane know that he is listening. “What did you say?” he asks.

“I’m just saying that it’s going to be great. Thanksgiving.”

“Of course it’ll be great. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Oh, you know. You meeting my parents. That whole
parent
thing. But it’ll be good. Great. I have no clams whatever.”

Franklin reaches for the transistor and spins down the volume. “What?”

“I said I have no qualms about it. You and my father will get along great.”

“That’s not what you said. You said clams. You said you have no clams whatever.”

“I did not.”

“Yes, you did. Clams.”

She giggles. “I didn’t.”

“You did. You said you have no clams whatever.” He swings his feet onto the desk. “Why don’t you have any clams? This worries me, I have to admit. What if I want clams? Will we be able to get them if we need them for some reason?”

Jane is laughing now. “Stop it. That’s not what I said, I said qualms.”

“Have it your way. I’ll just qualm up.”

Phipps hands off to Pruitt and Pruitt fumbles, but Franklin does not care. A beautiful girl is on the other end of the phone laughing at his wry manner and telling him that she misses him. If he were to press the phone closer to his ear, he would hear a certain strident tremolo in her voice that might alarm him, but he is not listening for that now. He adjusts his earpiece and turns the radio back up.

He has no clams whatever.

To the uninitiated, tennis is a genteel sport, steeped in white clothes, lemonade, and polite applause. But to those who truly love and know it, the deceptively well-mannered lawn game can be a secret hotbed of all manner of criminality and even extreme violence—as revealed all too clearly in common sport terminology like “overhead smash” and “killer serve.” Now award-winning editor Otto Penzler presents shocking and mind-teasing tales of murder and detection on and off the court by fourteen of today’s finest authors of mystery and suspense fiction.

Lawrence Block
’s “Terrible Tommy Terhune” spotlights a temperamental champ who’s the master of the serve but can’t quite manage his rage… in “Six Love” by
James W. Hall
, the father of a court prodigy goes to homicidal lengths to erase a very personal shame…
Mike Lupica
’s “The Rematch” combines the game’s reigning bad boy, a hated umpire, and a highly unsportsmanlike abduction… a surprising source tries to force a superstar to throw the big match in “Close Shave” by
Ridley Pearson
… and
Lisa Scottoline
’s “Love Match” keeps score on a friendly tennis lesson between two cops that leads to the discovery of a chilling crime.