“I’m sorry.”
“For God’s sake, it’s an election year. Stick with it. Please. After November, I’ll have a slot for a new deputy attorney general. What a homecoming to Tallahassee that would be, huh?”
“Well, thank you, but a quiet private practice seems very attractive. I’ve heard from a couple of good firms.”
“In Florida? They can wait. I’ll speak to them….”
“No, one is in Chicago, the other in Boston.”
The best surgeons were in Boston. That was what he had said the second night, their last night, as they embraced under a waning moon on the roof of her old Conch house. Boston, he had said.
“DAD, WHEN YOU WERE in the Navy, was it integrated?”
Breeze Albury had been staring out the window. Beyond the city lay the busy harbor. He had found the fishing port without trouble, between the Navy yard and a marina for pleasure boats. They were trawlers, bluff, rough-cut boats that looked as though they could take whatever the sea demanded. The men who ran them would be of the same breed.
“Integrated? Sure, I guess so. Why?”
“You told me back on the Rock that this doctor was the brother of a guy you were in the Navy with. I don’t remember you ever mentioning any black sailors, that’s all.”
“Did I ever tell you I told you everything?”
Ricky laughed, a big, tanned, and rawboned kid about to become a man. He looked good, except for the cast on his arm. He had been thrilled by his first plane ride and the appraising attentions of a couple of young stewardesses. The hotel and its indoor swimming pool had equally impressed him. First-class, all the way to the World Series, Albury had promised him.
“Doctor will see you now.”
The surgeon’s handshake was dry and firm. Albury liked him instantly. He cut off the cast and spent a long time examining Ricky’s arm.
“Exactly how did this happen?” The question caught Albury unaware. The doctor seemed angry.
“Well, I was riding my bike …” Ricky began.
“No, Rick, I’ll tell him.”
Albury told him the truth. The doctor ran a palm across his forehead.
“Had to be something like that. There’s damage to the rotator cuff and the whole shoulder, as well as to the lower arm itself.”
Then he turned to Ricky.
“You’re a fastball pitcher, son?”
“Yeah.”
“His slider is real good, too,” Albury interjected.
“I hate fastball pitchers.”
Ricky looked at the doctor in alarm. The doctor smiled.
“Two reasons. One is that I never could hit a real fastball. Second reason I hate ’em is that the Red Sox never seem to have any. The pitching is pitiful, year after year.”
“Ricky’s going to pitch for the Orioles,” Albury said.
“If I thought that was true, I’d say let’s cut the damn thing off now and save us all a lot of grief later.”
Ricky laughed delightedly. He sobered when the doctor told him he would have to have an operation, spend several days in the hospital, and then begin lengthy therapy.
“Do it,” Albury commanded.
“Tomorrow morning,” the doctor said.
A nurse came and, over Ricky’s protest, installed him firmly in a wheelchair. Albury turned to leave as well, but the doctor called him back.
“Mr. Albury …”
“If it’s about money, don’t worry. I can give you a big deposit.”
“No, it’s not that. I just would like to know a little more about your son. For example, how important is baseball to him?”
“It’s his life.”
“I see.” The doctor seemed unsure how to proceed. “In that case, I think it’s important that you understand that the injury is acute. I think we can confidently say he will recover the use of his arm. Even full use. But as for pitching …”
“Ricky will pitch again.”
“I hope so; we’ll have to see.” The doctor said it in a way that meant it might never happen.
“Look,” Albury insisted. “You’re the best in the country, aren’t you? They told me you were the best.”
The doctor studied Albury levelly through quick black eyes.
“I’ll do the surgery. Then I can refer you to some good people in Miami to supervise the therapy and rehabilitation. It will be expensive.”
“Forget Florida. We’ll be living here from now on. You’re all the doctor Ricky is going to need. And a few years from now, on Opening Day, you and I will go together to watch him pitch.”
“But do you have a place to live … a job?”
“Not yet.” The money would last until he found something. He still remembered how to tie a Windsor.
“I would like to work with your son. I really would; it might make a difference. And I have some friends down at the wharf.”
“Fishing?” Albury laughed. “Why would you suggest that?”
“Well…” The doctor seemed embarrassed. “The accident happened on a fishing boat, didn’t it? You’re tanned, your hands are calloused … you look like you just came off the docks. I guess I just assumed …”
“I don’t know a damn thing about fishing,” Breeze Albury said quietly.
“Oh. Sorry.”
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1982 by Carl Hiaasen and Bill D. Montalbano
cover design by Karen Horton
ISBN: 978-1-4532-1067-3
This edition published in 2010 by Open Road Integrated Media
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New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
Carl Hiaasen, Trap Line
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