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“Now that sounds like a plan, young Michael Stick with that one,” Sea to me It’s my turn to bat”

CHAPTER 60

DODGER STADIUM

DOWNTOWN LA

RAYMOND BOWIE, ARMS FILLED with beers, had to open the glass door of the luxury suite with his butt in order to get out onto the patio

“That’s OK, guys Really I got it,” he said sarcastically to the three folks co the field-side railing

“Here, let hten the load, bro,” his best friend, Kenny Cargill, said, winking as he grabbed a brew for himself and his wife, Annie

“Hey, you’re welco

It had been a whopping twelve grand for Ray to rent out the Dodger Stadiu at the end of the month for a finance job on the East Coast Kenny, Ray’s oldest and best friend, had introduced him to Denise, had helped him to turn his life around It was the very least he could do

Ray’s wife, Denise, was sipping her Coke when they heard the crack Down on the field Dodger second baseman Mark Ellis took off as the frozen rope of a line drive he’d just hit skidded off the grass in right and headed for the corner Ellis made the turn at first, then laid on the speed as the Giants’ right fielder scooped it

Oh, no! Ray thought The right fielder co

uldn’t hit for shit, but he had a gun for an arels, was holding its breath as the ball lasered toward second

Ellis’s headfirst sprawl and the ball arrived si swept toward Ellis’s outstretched left hand But no! At the last instant, Ellis pulled his hand in He sailed past the bag and, at the final moment, hooked it with the toe of his spike The uame tied, 3–3 in the seventh, and now they had a runner in scoring position!

The whooshing freight-train roar of the crowd rose and then rose again as the Giants out, toward the mound Lincecu taken out!

Ray’s breath caught as the air crackled with the hair-raising energy of fifty thousand people going nuts all at once Annie pulled the Dodger-blue bandanna she earing off her head and started whipping it around as the stadium DJ busted out the “Ya’ll ready for this?” anthem