You guys think there's any chance that Houston is where Kim Ng gets her shot?
Pride welled in Reuben’s breast: Tal’s Hill. He’d started mowing the outfield when he was 17, and now Tal’s Hill was his. It was sad about old man Dimini, but his sudden death had left grooming the hill, the lovely crosshatch, open. It was rumored in the grounds crew that Tal himself had chosen Dimini to mow the hill, but now he was dead. Dimini’s widow had called that afternoon to tell Buster. Dimini had been killed by a pit bull owned by a Muslim. Buster turned to Reuben.
Now Tal’s Hill was his.
Mowing the cross hatch on the curve was art, and it had never looked better. When Reuben finished he stood, admiring the effect, his heart full and happy. Then he heard the voices.
“Baby,” she said, “what if we’re discovered?” The voice was breathy, sexy, with a foreign accent. What was it? Russian? French?
“Naw baby,” there was a pause. “it’ll never happen. Haven’t you seen the guys wearing fez on the club deck? When the Shriners built the stadium, they buried the ferret behind third base. McClane is ours.”
He knew the woman’s voice immediately: Pam Gardner. He wondered if she was wearing the black leather teddie that she wore around the office. The man he couldn’t place, it was a gruff voice, sinister. If only he could place the voice, so full of evil. His hands were damp where he gripped the mower.
Then he knew. Tal.
Now he knew why Tal had chosen Dimini, the old deaf guy, for grooming Tal’s hill. Dimini was deaf as a fence post. A cedar fence post. A cedar fence post, fresh cut by cedar choppers from Cedar Hill. Reuben knew now that in the original design for the MMPUS, Tal had planned a secret chamber beneath the flag pole where he could plot his ultimate, sinister design on behalf of the Shriners. He planned to make Kim Ng the general manager. Kim Ng, who he, Tal, could control like a puppet, and who in turn could pull the strings on the Grocer.
He had to get to McClane, to warn him. He had to tell McClane, who had been like his father, that he was being manipulated by Pam Gardner, by Tal, and ultimately by the Shriners. He also knew that Tal carried the 9mm Glock everywhere.
“Tal,” he heard Gardner’s breathy contralto, “what happened to the mower? It’s awfully quite out there.”
Reuben turned and ran, but then he heard them, coming from the gate in right field, the sound of mini scooters.
