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36

In the dream, Connerfor the pitch At which ti for hoood bunt Conner had to start running before he knew if the bunt was down That was the tough part It required guts Faith

The pitch And Conner ran His feet caught in the mud He strained to put one foot in front of the other Tyranny was at hoain, she aving him off He tried to run, barely able to move, not able to tell if he elcomed at home or not

He fell, facefirst in the mud He tried to see, to blink the mud out of his eyes Where was the ball? Had the bunt been laid down? He tried to get up, couldn&039;t ht of eternity held hi ay, a voice called, Conner&039;s na hiot to get out of here"

Conner&039;s eyes popped open, tried to focus He saw Otis shove aside Rocky&039;s desk like it was made of foam rubber Otis knelt at a cabinet behind the desk, opened the botto

Conner faded briefly, eyes crossing He felt his body being lifted, ar His head cleared How many times had he been knocked cold in the last few days? He looked around He was being carried Fat Otis toted hi bodies lay around the office Rocky looked so srief washed over Conner He forced it down into his gut, cut himself off from it "Put me down"

"We don&039;t have tiether," Otis said

"I can walk"

Otis put him down Conner wobbled on his feet a uy holding the DiMaggio card and darted for Rocky&039;s desk

Otis yelled, "Dammit, come on!"

"One second" Conner rifled the papers on Rocky&039;s desk until he found what he was looking for The Japanese had taken the card but left the Monroe letter in the plastic bag Conner snatched it just as Otis grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the office Conner stuffed the letter in his pocket

The warehouse was a uys The strip club orse The bar was on fire They coughed their way through and out the open door into the street They passed a group of deter the other way The street flickered in the red lights of the eency vehicles More sirens in the distance

Now Conner understood Otis&039;s hurry The place craith cops (there were already one squad car and a brace of unifor traffic away from the fire), and neither Conner nor Otis was inclined to stick around and ansard questions There was still plenty of confusion, but soon they&039;d get organized

Otis had parked his Lincoln just beyond the fire trucks They drove in a randoer seat, every one of his nerves frazzled Pensacola suddenly looked like a town he&039;d never seen before, full of strangers and ene was understandable, Playerz and Rocky swept away in a blazing storm On a whim For a baseball card Conner&039;s life had revealed itself as a surreal, cos Look at the silly ured he must have only been out of it a few minutes It had seemed like days "What happened?"

"Shit," Otis spit "I was hoping you could tell me" Otis relayed his side of it After the car wash, Otis had run some errands, taken care of Rocky&039;s business When he returned, he&039;d found Playerz a s, bloody wreck He&039;d run back to find Rocky, only to find his boss shot full of lead Conner had survived by du off Otis He&039;d been loyal to Rocky EveryJaw set The vein in his neck throbbing time like a bass drum

"Tell me what you know about this," Otis said "So I knoho to kill"

Conner spilled the story It didn&039;t occur to hi back The Electric Jenny, the Japanese, the DiMaggio card The whole shooting match Otis asked the obvious questions Conner answered Otis said he didn&039;t think Rocky had pissed off any Japanese dudes, not that he knew of

"I don&039;t think it&039;s a vendetta," Conner said "It&039;s the baseball card They killed another guy for it too" He told Otis about Folger and the bungalow

"This is fucking bullshit" Otis sla wheel "Nobody kills a bunch of people and burns down a fucking strip club for no fucking baseball card"

Any collectible is only worth what soht Conner But the price wasn&039;t just uys must know there&039;s a reward for it"

Otis&039;s eyes flaot to find these "

Conner didn&039;t say anything

"No, no, no, no" Otis shook his head "Don&039;t you shut down on me I&039;m not in the mood for your Conner Saht up to your ass"

"What are you talking about?"

"Your damn attitude Like you ain&039;t involved You knohat your problem is?"

"Jesus" America &039;s new pastime Tell Conner Samson his problem

"You ain&039;t a team player"

"Fuck you"

"It&039;s true That&039;s why you got kicked off the college baseball teaet kicked off the team," Conner said "I flunked out"

Otis went on like he didn&039;t hear "Rocky was -ti to sit around with my thumb up my ass, then you&039;re screwed in the head Now you better tell hty wrath Otherwise, the only motherfucker around here to vent on is you"

"I have one idea," Conner said "So"

"Then call the phone"

37

She couldn&039;t escape the hangover

She tried lying on the couch, then sitting up, lying in bed She sprawled on the floor, tried standing in the shower under cold water She dried off, returned to the couch Nothing helped Joellen Becker&039;s head thundered, her stoe herself that would abate thein front of her like a rapidly deflating balloon didn&039;t help matters She refused to return to her disht of it made her stomach heave She&039;d need to track down so If she stayed in the States, there wouldn&039;t be ain Better prospects out of the country She&039;d had an offer froh for women down there Worse in the Middle East

What would her daddy general think if he could see Joellen Becker now?

The phone rang, like sonic beah her ears to melt her brain She didn&039;t want to answer Why bother? But she squirmed off the couch, held her head, picked up the phone before the machine clicked on "Yeah?"

"This is Conner Saht about that a second "So what?"

"I&039;m at the Waffle House across from the mall," Samson said "Why don&039;t you co of killer Japs are so crazy to get their hands on this Joe DiMaggio card"

"Do you have the card with you?"

Sa up

Did Samson know? If so, how much? For some reason he still needed her So he didn&039;t have the whole story He had the pieces of the puzzle but couldn&039;t ether Conner Samson still needed Joellen Becker