The Spoiler Read Online Free

Lofton.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThe Amanti whore, over there.” Tenace nodded in the direction of the first base stands, where Amanti and Brunner always sat, behind the dugout of the opposing club. “Yeah, she sent a kid over. Said she wanted to talk to the guy from the Globe . The one who did all the specials.” Tenace smiled.
    The Springfield reporter laughed again, harder this time. Lofton paused at the broken door, propped full open with Tenace’s cooler.
    â€œWhat’s the reliever’s name?”
    Tenace told him, and Lofton left. He headed toward the top of the stands. He was irritated with Tenace, or maybe with himself. Sometimes he did not like being laughed at. But the Springfield reporter, Rhiner, was still young, baby-faced. Maybe when he looked at Lofton, he knew he was looking at himself in fifteen years. Lofton lit a cigarette, drawing on it fiercely now, and smoked it all the way down.
    Lofton sat high in the bleachers, in a place where he could study both the field and the Amanti woman. Though Tenace had said she was looking for him, Amanti hadn’t approached him, at least not yet. She had walked up to the concession once, then stood around as if waiting, but Lofton had stayed in his seat. He was not quite sure he believed Tenace; the scorer liked to play games. Besides, if she really had something to tell him, it would be best to let her make the first move. Meanwhile, he made notes, questions he should ask Sparks, obvious stuff he did not even need to think about. The idea of a more wide-ranging story, something that would capture the flavor of the team and the town, intrigued him.
    As he sat, he jotted down names. Brunner. Liuzza. Amanti. Tenace. He wrote the names as they came to him, trying to visualize the faces, marking down bits and scraps of their histories, whatever he knew. It was an old journalist’s habit, partly, but it was something he had done as a child, too, writing down the names of his teachers, of girls in the neighborhood, of major league ballplayers, imagining their faces, their lives. The names, the people would come alive in his dreams, the faces changing, until by the time he woke up the faces no longer went with the names, and he didn’t know whom he had been dreaming about. The same type of thing still happened to him sometimes. The street corner he stood on would suddenly look, except for some small, mysterious difference, like every other corner. He would not know where he was or whom he was going to see. A second later everything would occur to him at once, a tangle of names, of alleyways, in which he was immediately lost.
    He added another name to his list. Dick Golden. Earlier that day he had talked to Golden, the Redwings’ general manager. Golden had pitched with the California Blues for a season, then been drafted by the army. It had happened during the Vietnam War, and Golden had refused to go. Lofton remembered the San Jose Star carrying stories on the business. It wasn’t a matter of principle, Golden had said. He didn’t have an opinion on the war either way; he simply wanted to play ball. Lofton remembered a follow-up story, a few years later, about Golden’s handicapped wife. Golden had aged since the time of the newspaper photos. The aging was surprising, distressing. Lofton remembered admiring Golden, rooting for him. Now, though the man was a few years younger than Lofton, he looked older. Though he still carried the same good looks, there was a hardness in his face, a hardness in his eyes—a gray look that was almost empty at times, as if he looked at you from someplace far away, or maybe did not even see you at all. Only occasionally, and then only for brief instants, could you catch a glimpse of the talented, innocent kid Golden had once been.
    â€œI keep track of the paperwork, chase the kids off when they try to sneak in,” Golden had said as they stood together during practice, watching the Redwings