Read Online Jump by Mike Lupica - Free Book Online

of the bastards chasing her. But she felt safe all of a sudden in this car, for some reason she couldn’t understand.
    “I’m listening,” she said.
    She sat there studying him, seeming to relax a little bit. “I’m listening,” she said, and that was it. She had long, elegant fingers, resting on top of the gym bag in her lap. DiMaggio always noticed people’s hands.
    They were waiting for the light at Lexington Avenue. DiMaggio said, “Where to?”
    “That’s your idea of an explanation?” She made a halfhearted move for the door handle.
    “I just wanted to give Rudy some idea …”
    “West Side,” she said. “Do you have a first name, Mr. DiMaggio?”
    “I don’t like to make a big thing of it.” He smiled at her, then told her his first name. “Do you follow baseball?”
    “No.”
    “No use explaining then.”
    “I don’t follow you.”
    “Don’t try. Usually when people press me, I tell them to look it up in
The Baseball Encyclopedia
, if it’s that important.”
    Giving her a routine, just to keep talking.
    Keep her in the car.
    “What do you want from me?”
    “The Knicks have hired me.”
    She leaned forward as soon as he said it. “Hey,” she said to Rudy. “Hey, you.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Rudy said.
    “Pull over anywhere, please.” She leaned back, said, “The Knicks, Jesus.”
    “Lady, we’re in the park,” Rudy said.
    “I don’t care. I’ll walk.”
    DiMaggio said to her, “Just listen to me for one second before you get out. I’m working for the Knicks because they want to know what happened.”
    “I told the police what happened.”
    “I know,” he said. “I come into this believing
you.
Thinking they did it.”
    Hannah Carey gave him a sarcastic “Thanks” for his effort.
    Rudy hadn’t stopped, but she didn’t seem too worked up. She had her hands back on top of the bag and was looking out the window. So DiMaggio kept going. “The Knicks aren’t necessarily on their side. And I’m not on anybody’s side. I just wanted to meet you, talk to you.”
    “Why?”
    “I’m going to be around. I don’t want you to think of me as the enemy.”
    “Why can’t the police handle this?”
    DiMaggio stared at her. You couldn’t help it. Hannah Carey was better-looking in person, blond hair cut even shorter than it had been in the picture Salter had given him. Her blue eyes were so light they seemed to have faded somehow, like old denim. He stared and tried to see her with Adair and Collins, wondering how it came to that.
    As if looks ever had anything to do with it. DiMaggio thought: No wonder women think we’re such assholes. Now he said, “Because these things are a bitch for the police. Because a lot of time has passed. Because the police may come out of this convinced that it happened just the way you said it happened and still throw up their hands, say, ‘We can’t make the case.’ I don’t have to worry about that. The people who run the Knicks, they don’t want the case. They want the truth.”
    “They have it. It’s in the report. It’s all over the papers now.”
    DiMaggio said, “I’m going to be the second opinion.”
    They got to Central Park West. Rudy said, “Do you still want me to stop?”
    She said, “Yes.”
    DiMaggio said, “You don’t live here.”
    “No,” she said. “I don’t.”
    “I’d like to talk to you again.”
    Rudy had come around, giving her the full treatment. He opened the door and Hannah Carey got out, not saying anything. So DiMaggio got out, too.
    “What do you say? A cup of coffee sometime. Anything you don’t want to tell me, blow me off, don’t tell me. I’m easy.”
    Hannah, studying him now, said, “I don’t think so.”
    DiMaggio shrugged.
    “Think it over. I’m at the Sherry-Netherland. Like I said, I’m going to be around.”
    “I’ll think it over.” She gave him a quizzical look. “Mr. Second Opinion DiMaggio.” She walked north on Central Park West, the park on her right, swinging