in boxing back in the fifties.”
“What if it’s true, though?” DiMaggio said.
“You want him, he’s yours,” Dowd said.
It took him six weeks in Jupiter and Houston, most of the time spent in Houston. It wasn’t a mugging, and it wasn’t an attempted rape. It was a hit on the Cassidy girl, ordered by the stepfather of the Houston gymnast, an ex-con named Verne Maywood. There was finally a night in one of Maywood’s favorite honky-tonks. DiMaggio had been drinking there a week, watching Maywood get shit-faced, even buying him a couple of rounds of drinks. This night he followed him out and got into the parking lot in time to watch a guy step out from behind Maywood’s pickup and start beating him with a tire iron.
“You owe me sixty-five hundred, boy,” Tire Iron said. “And as you have probably guessed, you’ve officially worn my ass out with your excuses.”
Maywood was rolling on the ground, whimpering, still covering up against blows that had stopped for the time being. He said something DiMaggio couldn’t hear.
“
Yes
, right here,” Tire Iron said. “Right here and right now, goddamnit.”
“I promise you,” Maywood groaned. “A check tomorrow.”
Tire Iron got into a beat-up Grand Prix and drove off. DiMaggio was able to get the license plate. The car belonged to another ex-con, this one named Bobby Ray Bonner. It was easy enough to find out he and Maywood had been in prison together. DiMaggio called the Jupiter police in the morning, Jupiter called Houston. By the next day, Bobby Ray had given up Verne Maywood, and that night there was some wonderful television footage of the two dumb asses screaming at each other in front of a Houston courthouse.
The next Sunday night,
60 Minutes
devoted a whole show to the attack on Kim Cassidy, built around DiMaggio’s investigation. Now he was the sports snoop. He was the one you called when you had the kind of problem the Knicks had now with Ellis Adair and Richie Collins.
So Ted Salter, the president of Madison Square Garden, had called. And now DiMaggio was in New York trying to catch a glimpse of a rape victim, feeling like some shitheel reporter himself, all because he’d let Salter talk him into it.
Salter was the Yankees’ vice president in charge of broadcasting the one year DiMaggio played there. When the Madison Square Garden cable network bought Yankee games, Salter moved over there, finally ending up president of the network. DiMaggio was vaguely aware that the Garden once belonged to Paramount Communications, along with Paramount’s movie and television companies and publishing houses. Then there were takeovers and sales and finally the last company to buy everything kept the movie and television companies but sold the Garden, the Knicks, and the New York Rangers hockey team to the Fukiko Corporation of Tokyo. DiMaggio seemed to recall that Fukiko was the product of some big Japanese merger. Salter went with Fukiko and became president of the Garden.
He called DiMaggio in Jupiter the night he found out about the charges against Adair and Collins. He was moving fast, he told DiMaggio. “Remember?” he said. “I always liked to move fast.”
“Find somebody else,” DiMaggio said. “Fukiko must have people who do this sort of thing.”
“I don’t really know the Japs yet,” Salter said. “I’m not saying I don’t trust them. Hell, what they’re paying me, I’d do the geisha thing, walk on their backs if they asked. But I don’t
know
them. And I certainly don’t know their lawyers. I’ve got to have somebody I can trust here, so I make sure I look like I’m on top of this fucking thing. I’m not asking for a lot of your time here. Remember that time in Florida, that woman saying those three Mets jumped her booty? I don’t remember the exact dates, but it seems to me it started in spring training and the whole thing was wrapped up before Opening Day.”
“Cops did that.”
“I’m not putting the Garden and my
“What if it’s true, though?” DiMaggio said.
“You want him, he’s yours,” Dowd said.
It took him six weeks in Jupiter and Houston, most of the time spent in Houston. It wasn’t a mugging, and it wasn’t an attempted rape. It was a hit on the Cassidy girl, ordered by the stepfather of the Houston gymnast, an ex-con named Verne Maywood. There was finally a night in one of Maywood’s favorite honky-tonks. DiMaggio had been drinking there a week, watching Maywood get shit-faced, even buying him a couple of rounds of drinks. This night he followed him out and got into the parking lot in time to watch a guy step out from behind Maywood’s pickup and start beating him with a tire iron.
“You owe me sixty-five hundred, boy,” Tire Iron said. “And as you have probably guessed, you’ve officially worn my ass out with your excuses.”
Maywood was rolling on the ground, whimpering, still covering up against blows that had stopped for the time being. He said something DiMaggio couldn’t hear.
“
Yes
, right here,” Tire Iron said. “Right here and right now, goddamnit.”
“I promise you,” Maywood groaned. “A check tomorrow.”
Tire Iron got into a beat-up Grand Prix and drove off. DiMaggio was able to get the license plate. The car belonged to another ex-con, this one named Bobby Ray Bonner. It was easy enough to find out he and Maywood had been in prison together. DiMaggio called the Jupiter police in the morning, Jupiter called Houston. By the next day, Bobby Ray had given up Verne Maywood, and that night there was some wonderful television footage of the two dumb asses screaming at each other in front of a Houston courthouse.
The next Sunday night,
60 Minutes
devoted a whole show to the attack on Kim Cassidy, built around DiMaggio’s investigation. Now he was the sports snoop. He was the one you called when you had the kind of problem the Knicks had now with Ellis Adair and Richie Collins.
So Ted Salter, the president of Madison Square Garden, had called. And now DiMaggio was in New York trying to catch a glimpse of a rape victim, feeling like some shitheel reporter himself, all because he’d let Salter talk him into it.
Salter was the Yankees’ vice president in charge of broadcasting the one year DiMaggio played there. When the Madison Square Garden cable network bought Yankee games, Salter moved over there, finally ending up president of the network. DiMaggio was vaguely aware that the Garden once belonged to Paramount Communications, along with Paramount’s movie and television companies and publishing houses. Then there were takeovers and sales and finally the last company to buy everything kept the movie and television companies but sold the Garden, the Knicks, and the New York Rangers hockey team to the Fukiko Corporation of Tokyo. DiMaggio seemed to recall that Fukiko was the product of some big Japanese merger. Salter went with Fukiko and became president of the Garden.
He called DiMaggio in Jupiter the night he found out about the charges against Adair and Collins. He was moving fast, he told DiMaggio. “Remember?” he said. “I always liked to move fast.”
“Find somebody else,” DiMaggio said. “Fukiko must have people who do this sort of thing.”
“I don’t really know the Japs yet,” Salter said. “I’m not saying I don’t trust them. Hell, what they’re paying me, I’d do the geisha thing, walk on their backs if they asked. But I don’t
know
them. And I certainly don’t know their lawyers. I’ve got to have somebody I can trust here, so I make sure I look like I’m on top of this fucking thing. I’m not asking for a lot of your time here. Remember that time in Florida, that woman saying those three Mets jumped her booty? I don’t remember the exact dates, but it seems to me it started in spring training and the whole thing was wrapped up before Opening Day.”
“Cops did that.”
“I’m not putting the Garden and my
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