– Let’s get to it.

He stands up, pulls out a pair of thin rubber gloves, and goes across the hall to Russ’s door, which he can’t open because, of course, the bad guys locked it behind them. But that’s OK because whoever looked out the window while I was flopping around left that wide open. One of the uniforms goes through the window and opens the door.

I stand in the hall and watch Roman do his thing and I am thoroughly impressed. He goes through the place like a machine, telling the uniforms what to touch and what not to touch. He pokes and pries into every corner and dusts for prints and gets the job done in a way that makes you happy to be a taxpayer. Then he’s finished. He closes the door to Russ’s apartment and slaps a police seal across the jamb. He gives me his card and tells me to call right away if anything else happens and to have Mr. Miner call him immediately if and when he returns. Then he and the uniforms leave and I sit down on my couch and wish I had a cocktail and Bud jumps up in my lap and I remember the fucking key in his box.

I can’t sleep. I lie in bed and think about Russ and the tracksuits and their pals. I think about Detective Roman telling me not to worry. I think about not having a job and I think about the money I owe. I think about the key. I think about the key a lot.

When I remembered the key, I froze. The cops had just left and part of me was screaming to go after them with the key, but I froze instead. Who knows what the fucking thing is and why Russ put it there? But he entrusted it to me. Granted, he didn’t tell me about it, or the fact that some guys might be looking for it and I might be getting beaten up. So fuck him. And so I grabbed the key and ran after the cops, but they were gone by then. In the end, my head was in too many knots to do much good thinking, so I put the key back in Bud’s box and, since I was so beat, I tried to hit the hay.

But with all the shit I’ve been through today, I can’t get to sleep. Or keep from thinking about a drink. I haven’t gone to bed without at least a nightcap in quite a while and I’m not sure how to go to sleep without it. I try to read a bit. I try to watch TV. I end up back in bed, staring at the ceiling.

I can’t take it. I get up and dig in a desk drawer and take out an old brass pipe. Carefully, I break it down into its several component parts and scrape the weed resin from each one. I collect the resin on a fold of paper, reassemble the pipe, form the resin into a gummy ball, drop it onto the screen, and light up. A resin high is not an up high. There just isn’t much helpless giggling involved. Likewise it is not a lightweight high. It is not for amateurs. Fortunately, I’m not looking for laughs and I have years in this business: I am an experienced professional.

I take the smoke in extra deep and hold each lungful for as long as I possibly can. If this doesn’t work I’m screwed for sleep and I don’t feel like taking any chances. I putShotgun Willie on the CD player, turn off the lights and hop into bed to finish smoking. Bud hops up on the bed and I let him stay. His food thingy is empty. I’ll need to fill it in the morning. Willie has the greatest voice for getting high to. I can’t believe the shit that happened today. I’m starting to drift; the resin is doing its job. I suck down the last hit, put the pipe on my nightstand and burrow in under the covers. I always sleep on my side in a little curl, Bud settles into the space between my knees and my stomach and we both fall asleep.

The nightmare is always the same. I play center field for the San Francisco Giants. It’s my rookie season and we’re playing in game seven of the World Series against the Oakland Athletics. I have excelled all season long, batting over.300, hitting 34 homers, knocking in 92 RBI and competing for a Gold Glove. I am a shoo-in for Rookie of the Year. We’re playing in Oakland, it’s the bottom of the ninth and I just sacrificed in the go-ahead run in the top of the inning. Now the A’s have runners at second and third with two out. Our one-run lead is hanging by a thread.

I roam center field. My teammates range around me. I feel safe. I have that great big-game feel in my stomach: half tight, half loose. In the dream, I know everything about all the guys in the game, not just the ones on my team, but the A’s as well. I know everything about the whole league. I have a season’s worth of memories, all 162 regular season games plus the postseason.

The batter steps up. His name is Trenton Lane. I played against him in the minors. He’s a beast, a right-handed third baseman that loves to hit heat. On the mound we’ve got our left-handed closer, Eduardo Cortez. Eddie throws nothing but fire and hasn’t given up a run in the playoffs. The crowd loves it. The guys on the field love it. I love it. This is baseball.

Trenton has arms like an ape. Anything outside he’s gonna pound, so Eddie will try to drill him inside. Out in the field we’re all shading to left, hoping for a pop-up. The play is at first. The A’s have speed on the bases, a single will score both the tying and winning runs, so if Trenton hits anything playable, we’ll go for the out at first and get this thing over with.

Trenton is in the box. Eddie goes into his windup, a huge, slow delivery to the plate that takes forever. Then the ball explodes from his hand at ninety-eight miles per hour. And it moves. Eddie’s pitch is perfect; it bursts out of his hand looking like it will hit the outside of the plate, then darts inside. To hit heat like that, you have to guess where the ball will be when it reaches you and start your swing just as the pitcher releases it. Trenton starts his swing in time and his guess is dead-on. He’s leaning back in the box with the bat choked in tight against his body and he lays wood right on it. The guy is a monster. Even handcuffed by a pitch like that, he launches the ball skyward.

It’s coming at me. When itflys off the bat, it shoots up at the kind of angle that screams pop-up and on any given day, it’s a ball that should fall just short of the warning track in right-center. But today the wind is up. It’s blowing out from behind the plate and as I start drifting back to the wall I can see the ball get caught up there, dancing and blowing out on the currents. The left fielder, Dan Shelton, is moving in. But I call him off: I have the ball. This is my ball. I know the runners are streaking to beat out a single. I know that cocky bastard Trenton is moving slowly down the first base line, waiting to break into a home run trot. But this is no home run ball, I can see that. This is no homer. It’s gonna be close because the wind is really moving it around up there, but this is no homer. The play is gonna be right at the wall. If I’m not perfect I’ll flub the catch, it’ll drop in, and we’ll lose the game.

The ball carries farther than I thought it would. It’s going over. It’s a homer. The crowd is screaming, willing the ball over the wall. I have sudden visions of Carlton Fisk waving his arm, willing his home run fair.

I put on a burst to the wall and jump, stabbing my glove into the air, and feel the comfortable thump of the ball coming to rest in the woven pocket of my glove. I drop to the ground, cradling the ball, my ball, my World Series-winning fucking ball. And the Oakland Coliseum goes berserk. I am mobbed by my team. The rest is a blur leading to the champagne-drenched locker room.

There are microphones and celebrities and a call from the president and Eddie wins the Series MVP and drags me up to the podium and says he wants to share it with me. Someone brings my folks back to my locker and they’re both crying and we hug and laugh and gradually things start to settle down a bit. I’m twenty-two. I’ve spent four years as a Minor Leaguephenom and now I’m a star in my Major League rookie season. I have everything I ever wanted and my whole life is waiting for me and it just sparkles. My parents head for home, the strangers clear the locker room and I start to get undressed.