Free The Setup Man by T. T. Monday

make a big show of kneeling and crossing themselves, muttering prayers in Spanish even before they reach the front of the line. When my turn comes, I put my left hand on the casket and bow my head. A few seconds later, I straighten up and walk over to the widow.
    “I’m so sorry,” I say. “We’re all going to miss him.” I lean in to give her a hug—the polite kind, where you pat the other person’s back and leave room for the Holy Spirit. But as I’m patting, I feel something between my legs. For a minute I think it’s one of the twins horsing around, but then I realize it’s the widow’s hand. She’s cupping my balls. Or maybe grabbing them. I can’t tell if it’s a gesture of flirtation or aggression. I lean back. The look on her face offers no clues. Her wide, dark eyes are intent; her mouth is tight and small. The expression could mean “Let’s fuck” as easily as “I own you.” Sometimes the two go hand in hand. Or balls in hand, as the case may be. I would never sleep with her, but I’m tempted. Six years and two babies since she made that film, and she hasn’t lost a drop of the juice. But even if she’s coming on to me—it’s a funeral, what does she expect?
    “Any progress?” she whispers.
    “Stay tuned,” I say. “It’s early days.”
    This is not the answer she was hoping to hear. She squeezes my nuts.
    “What the—?”
    “Work faster,” she says.
    I understand she’s upset, so I repeat my promise to do everything I can, adding (because she has me by the balls) that I will work as quickly as possible, but that, like her late husband, I am a professional ballplayer with a busy schedule.
    With her other hand, she reaches up and strokes my cheek.“Oh, Adcock,” she whispers, “I know you won’t let us down.” She gives my balls one last tug, then lets them swing free.
    The team has chartered a bus to take us home from the funeral—home being the ballpark, where batting practice awaits. I’m slouched in a rear seat, reading the paper, when the phone rings.
    “You need to get your ass down here,” Marcus says.
    “I’m on the bus,” I say, “but I’ve got my bike at the park. Let me see if I can sneak away for a few minutes.”
    “No—I’m not at the restaurant.”
    “Where are you?”
    “L.A.”
    “L.A.?”
    “Yeah, I found Bam Bam.”
    “No shit, that was fast. How is he?”
    “He’d be a lot better if he wasn’t dead.”
    “How do you know he’s dead?”
    Marcus snorts. “How do I know? Because I just fucking shot him, that’s how.”

14
    After my shaky debut as a closer, Skipper doesn’t owe me any favors. But when was the last time you needed a favor from someone who actually owed you one?
    “My daughter is sick,” I say.
    Skipper is halfway through his customary pregame plate of linguine. Today is Wednesday, which means clam sauce. I wince as he slurps the greasy noodles, pausing every so often to chew a rubbery morsel of gray mollusk.
    “I’m gonna call bullshit here, Adcock.”
    “Skip, I promise—”
    “Spare me. We both know it.”
    Skipper slurps. “But I’ll tell you what,” he says, “let’s make a deal. We go to L.A. the day after tomorrow.”
    “Right. But you know, I keep thinking about Herrera, wondering if he got to say goodbye to his kids—”
    “I talk, then maybe you talk. Got it?”
    I nod.
    “How about this. How about I let you go—I can repeat that disgraceful lie about your daughter if you like, or I can come up with something better—and then you rejoin the club when we get to L.A.”
    “What’s the catch?”
    “The catch is that when you come back you quit this pussyfooting and man up to the role I gave you.”
    “You mean being the closer?”
    “Don’t be an idiot, Adcock! What the hell were you doing out there? You may have fooled the frigging Padres, but you didn’t fool me. I know you were trying to throw the game. And let me remind you, that is a capital offense.”
    Skip played for the Reds in the