Emails asking about the annual trip to the Caribbean for two weeks at an all-inclusive with hookers and booze as soon as the season was over. Pictures from previous years’ trips. The bill for this year’s trip. After Uncle Al died.
Which explains why none of the coaching staff showed up at the funeral.
He would’ve wanted us to go, Salazar told me last night when I called to ask him about the trip. We went every year. Earned our team vacation, so we took it.
When I pointed out that the team finished with the worst record ever recorded in professional baseball, he chuckled, told me I had a lot to learn about the game, and hung up.
I didn’t fire him.
He fired himself. I just made it official.
No sense in dragging out the inevitable, and I did give them all severance packages, even if they didn’t deserve them.
What’s the difference in having a new coaching staff lined up beforehand in the off-season? We’d still need to do the same work whether I fired them all this morning, or waited until we had replacements lined up.
Except I know exactly what the difference is.
Two differences, actually.
One is that I’m pretty certain some of the emails I found on Uncle Al’s computer mean that he was involved in a scheme to fund next season through a massive gambling operation that at least two of the coaches were also in on.
The other is, firing the coaching staff pissed off Tripp Wilson enough that he had to kiss me.
I’m really not an expert in personal relationships, but even I know that’s not quite normal. And I don’t think I mind.
Not at all.
Except, naturally, for the part where I shouldn’t be kissing my president of operations. I grab the jockstrap I’ve been dusting with, also known as my cover for figuring out if this desk has any hidden compartments triggered from the outside, because my mom loved secrets and compartments.
She grew up here. In this building. In the ballpark next door.
Uncle Al’s letter said they used to crawl around all over the ballpark hiding treasures.
Is it wrong to want to find a few more bits of my mom in the place that turned her into the woman who wanted to live overseas, spying for the CIA?
There’s a knock at the door, and I straighten. “Yes?”
A dark-haired, blue-eyed man pokes his head in. He’s in a red Fireballs T-shirt, black athletic pants, and white sneakers, and the combination of arm muscles and dimples make it click.
“Cooper Rock?” I guess.
One dimple gets deeper. “Mornin’, Ms. Valentine. Just wanted to say welcome to the Fireballs.”
“Thank you.” I’d ask what he’s doing here in the off-season, but I’ve studied all of the players on the team in the last two weeks, and I know he lives nearby year-round and is loyal to a fault. Interview after interview, he deflects How do you feel about the Fireballs losing so much? with Hey, that’s my favorite team you’re talking about. Tomorrow’s another game.
“You got a minute?” he asks.
“Sure.” I gesture to the couch.
He eyeballs the orange paisley monstrosity like it’s a death trap in danger of spontaneously bursting into flames and spraying us all with flesh-eating bacteria, then rocks back on his heels and grins at me again with a quick fist-thump to his chest. “Gotta stand. Better for the ol’ ticker. Anybody tell you yet that the coffee in here sucks, but the hole in the wall a block down makes a hazelnut latte that’ll make you weep tears of joy?”
“I have no intention of firing you. Kissing up isn’t necessary.”
His grin gets bigger. “Ma’am, when you’ve got my kind of ego and track record, you don’t really worry about getting canned.”
“And your kind of agent?”
“He’s a dick. I should fire him, but he keeps getting me endorsement deals for bandages and dog kennels and therapists. You know, all the stuff you need to heal your wounds.”
It’s actually impossible to not smile back at Cooper, which also puts him on my not to be trusted radar. “What can I do for you this morning, Mr. Rock?”
He turns the puppy dog eyes on me. It’s like he has the handbook for make Lila as suspicious as possible. “I just wanted to put in a good word for my buddy Logan Stafford. I know his arm isn’t what it used to be, but the dude’s got this presence. He’s like that wise uncle that nobody wants to admit they need. Always knows what to say in the locker room after we get our asses whooped. You ask me, he belongs in the dugout, not the bullpen. Get him in there calming guys down between innings, helping us all focus, and I bet you a thousand bucks we win ten percent more of our games right off the bat.”
I remind myself that most of these guys really do just care about baseball. That it’s not about infiltrating the front office so they can stage a coup, which I can freely acknowledge is paranoia talking.
But there’s a lot of money in baseball.
Money, power, and fame make people do bad things.
I’ve been around money for years, but there was little power and no fame involved with it.
Now, I have all three, which changes everything.
“What do you want to be when you can’t play baseball anymore, Cooper?”
“Dead,” he replies with a cheeky grin.
And again I’m struggling with my lips tipping up, but I make myself stare him in the eye until he blinks.
And then he’s still smiling, but it’s rueful. “You sound like my brother.”
“What do you tell him?”
“This game’s in my soul, Ms. Valentine. If I’m not on the field in the majors, I’ll be coaching the little squirts. And if I ever can’t coach, I’ll be right back in this office begging for a job. And if you won’t give me one, I’ll go work at a bar and grill with the baseball channel on twenty-four seven. And if I can’t do that…” He shrugs. “Then maybe I’ll sell Fireballs fan art on Etsy. It’ll be ugly, but it’ll be Cooper Rock originals. That’ll be enough to pay for my season tickets, hot dogs, and beer.”
“That’s very focused of you.”
“I know who I am. And I know where the best cookies, muffins, and donuts in the whole state are too, so if you’re into dessert, you know where to find me.” He winks.
Is every man in this state a walking hormone?
His eyes suddenly go round. “Whoa. Didn’t mean dessert that way. Would’ve made the same offer to a dude in your shoes. Cross my heart. Not that I—okay. Time to stop talking. Gonna go hit some balls. Wait. By balls, I don’t mean—you know what? Never mind.”
He cuts himself off, shaking his head, and darts back out of my office. I can hear him muttering shit fuck hell until the elevator dings in the lobby.
I can relate to that feeling.
It sums up very nicely what it’s like to inherit a baseball team.
A baseball team that comes with a president of operations who can kiss a woman like he means to deliver ten thousand orgasms before the night’s over.
I toss down the jockstrap again and close my office door.
If I were in New York, I’d make up an excuse to have a business meeting with Knox, who’d bring Parker along, who would yell at me for not telling her that I was working with Tripp Wilson, and then promptly demand all the details.