Free Third Strike by Philip R. Craig

leaned across the table and narrowed my eyes at him. “Okay,” I said. “No more bullshit, no more evasion, no more changing the subject. I want you to tell me what I’m doing down here, whether it embarrasses you or not.”
    He took a long pull from his wineglass, then set it on the table. “I’m not embarrassed,” he said. “I’m scared, is what I am. I haven’t been scared since I quit baseball. I’d forgotten what a crappy feeling it is.”
    I started to speak, but he held up his hand. “If they catch me,” he said, “they’ll kill me. I can’t prove that to you, but it’s what I believe. It’s how I feel. I’m scared to death. That’s why I whacked the back of your knees. This isn’t me, Brady. I stopped being scared as soon as I stopped worrying about where my fastball was going to end up. I don’t hurt people. I don’t believe in it. But I hit you. More wine?”
    I shrugged, and he topped off my jelly glass.
    He refilled his own glass full from the earthenware jug. “The other night,” he said, “the night I called you? Um, when was that?”
    â€œYou called yesterday,” I said. “That was Thursday.”
    â€œOkay,” he said. “This happened Wednesday, then. High tide was around midnight. I was down at the pond fishing. Out on the end of the dock where we just were, right next to that house we were looking at. Guy named Mumford, I think his name is, owns it. The one we were watching. He’s a rich doctor of some kind, only comes down in the summer. I like to fish off that dock where we were, next to Mumford’s place. It’s a great spot for flounder, the way the currents curl in there. The flounder move into the pond this time of year, and from the end of the dock you can catch a mess of ’em just dropping a hand line, nice dinner-plate size. Clams or mussels for bait. So I’m out there on the dock, got my little kerosene lantern beside me, nice night, sky full of stars, big full moon, flounder biting good, and then I see this big boat coming through the jetties into the pond. Oh, must’ve been sixty, sixty-five feet long. I didn’t think too much about it, lots of rich people, big boats around here, but then, what got my attention, soon as this boat passes through the cut it doused its lights. I could barely hear its engines, they’re so quiet, just burbling. Even so, I didn’t think too much about it. The flounder were biting good and it was none of my business. But still, it was unusual, you know?” Larry arched his eyebrows at me.
    I nodded and waited for him to continue.
    He splashed more wine into our glasses. I didn’t bother to object.
    â€œI’m not sure why,” he said, “but when that boat turned off its lights, I blew out my lantern. It seemed like it was going to pass right in front of me where I was sitting there at the end of the dock, so without thinking about it I kind of crouched down behind a piling. There was something sneaky about the boat, evil, almost, going slow and quiet like that, no lights, and it made me nervous. I could see that there were some men on the deck. They seemed to be looking around, kind of studying everything, watchful, suspicious, you know? It was pretty obvious they didn’t want anybody to see them, and that made me duck my head down even lower.”
    â€œDid you catch the name of the boat?” I said.
    He shook his head. “Never got a look at the transom.”
    â€œMake or model?”
    â€œI don’t know much about boats,” he said. “All I know is, this one was white, and it was a big fancy one. Had those gizmos twirling on top of the cabin. Radar, I guess, and lots of antennae and stuff.”
    â€œOkay,” I said. “So what happened?”
    â€œWell, like I said, the boat kind of spooked me. It wasn’t just the fact that it was running