“Well, that’s all you have to worry about. Just yourself. I’ll be watching. Everything. Understand?”
He nodded.
The omnibus halted near the visitors’ bench. The Haymakers emerged in jaunty new uniforms, no longer their old-fashioned brown cords but now a splash of patriotic colors: red caps with white peaks, white pants and shirts, red belts, blue stockings, tan canvas shoes. They looked confident. And mean as ever.
I studied them: Clipper Flynn tossing his blond locks and posturing before the Troy rooters; the King brothers already swaggering and shooting us hard looks; agile Bellan moving with lithe grace; Cherokee Fisher smiling sardonically at jibes from the crowd, many of whom had cheered him last season when he pitched for the Bucks; and Bull Craver, whose eyes sought mine before he turned away to take Fisher’s warm-ups. I had the same feeling I remembered in Troy: we’d need everything we had to beat them.
As cops finished clearing the field, I informed Millar that Brainard had been offered a bribe.
“Jupiter!” he said. “How’d you know? He tell you?”
“Not exactly, but it’s no secret by now. Ask him yourself. Others may have been approached too. Haven’t you heard the rumors?”
“There’ve been nothing but rumors for days now. Morrissey’s supposed to have twenty thousand dollars on the Haymakers.”
“He’s here?” I asked quickly.“No, but our friend McDermott is.”
I followed his gesture and saw the red-haired gambler standing behind the Haymaker bench staring darkly at Andy. That was good. It meant he hadn’t been in touch with Le Caron—although I wasn’t optimistic enough to think that the latter had been trapped in the fire. Andy’s your first surprise, Red Jim, you bastard, I thought. Not getting the ransom is your second. And with any luck your third will come when we win big and you lose even bigger.
“Who’s next to him?” I asked, eyeing a short dapper man in a white summer suit.
“McKeon, Haymaker president.”
Christ, another Irishman. It seemed they ran everything.
“Given the situation, a cop or two near the benches might be good,” I said. “But I’d rather not bother Champion with it.”
Millar gave me his owlish look. “Chief Mercil’s here. You think there’ll be trouble?”
“The odds still with us?”
He nodded. “Latest I heard from Vine was that eastern money was pouring in on the Haymakers to finish no more than nine runs behind.”
Almost a cinch bet, even with Andy on hand and Brainard—I hoped—playing to win. We’d barely taken them in Troy—and we hadn’t started out with a pregame brawl. With all the angles he thought he had going, McDermott must have bet every dime he could find.
“There’ll be some real anxious bettors, then,” I said. “And a lot of sore losers.”
“Understood,” Millar said, and went off to find the police chief.
Ten minutes later uniformed cops stood conspicuously behind the players’ benches and scorer’s table. I felt about as secure as I was likely to that afternoon.
“What were you doing at that big steamboat fire?” Millar asked. “People swear they saw the nine there—carrying bats, even—just about the time the boilers blew.”
“Just passing by,” I said. “On our way here.”
“By way of the landing?” When I didn’t elaborate he sighed. “Well, that’s more than I got from Harry and the rest.”
“How so?”
“They all said, ‘What fire?’”
The umpire Harry proposed was Joe Brockway of the Great Westerns. I’d seen him play and ump; he was accurate, fair, and respected locally. Surprisingly, the Haymakers accepted him with no quarrel. Brockway, a tall man with thinning sandy hair and sunburned skin, flipped a coin, which landed in Troy’s favor. Craver waved us to the plate first with a peremptory gesture. Harry came away looking sour.
“Those fellows require another lesson,” he told us.
The Haymakers surprised us by starting Fisher at second and pitching Charlie Bearman, a player we hadn’t seen in Troy. His slow warm-ups looked easy to hit. As if to confirm it, George pounded his first pitch through the infield for a single and promptly stole second. But Gould and Waterman popped up, and Allison’s liner was snared by Bellan at third. We’d been whitewashed in the first. Not a good beginning.
As the Haymakers came in, McDermott stood clapping beside McKeon, his eyes on Brainard.
Now was the pitcher’s moment. I’d seen him note the cops and glance at me. Now I studied him in the box. His motion looked jerkier than usual. His warm-ups came high and low. Allison went out to talk to him.
The leadoff Haymaker stepped in—and took a pitch ten feet over his head. The crowd groaned. Twelve thousand pairs of eyes fastened on Brainard. His next pitch went completely behind the hitter. McDermott, grinning broadly, leaned close to McKeon. Was the whole Troy club in on the fix?
Brainard worked the hitter to a full count, then gave up a sharp single to center. Mart King, up next, did not lift the bat from his shoulder. He walked on four pitches. Enough, Acey, I thought. The runners advanced on a ground out. Another grounder scored a run. Then the roof caved in. Flynn swatted a curving drive down the line that Andy misjudged. Craver smashed one in almost exactly the same place. Andy, breaking late, couldn’t reach it in time. Steve King’s blow to the right-center gap scored the runners. Bellan lofted an easy fly to left. Andy, completely rattled by then, dropped it. The disease spread as Mac muffed a routine fly and Waterman, usually the most reliable of infielders, let a pop-up slip off his hands. By the time we got the third out, I felt sick. For the first time I regretted my new scoreboard as a white 6 appeared beneath our 0.
“You okay?” I asked Andy. The Haymakers would have scored only once had his errors not opened the gates.
He shook his head, his cheeks burning. “I feel queer and I’m not seeing right. I didn’t eat and I—”
“You didn’t what?”
“They didn’t feed me on the boat. I haven’t had anything since yesterday. I think it’s making me dizzy.”
“Jesus,
