“Well, did he?”
“No, but it’ll look that way. What happened was, after you saw us at Leininger’s I went home, but Acey kept drinking. He came up against the crowd he owes money to, and they wanted to collect. He couldn’t pay ’em, being as how he didn’t have the cash. They laid hands on him, saying they’d break his pitching arm. Acey fought loose and ran and hid at Maud’s, where he filled her ear all night with how bad Harry treats him and how nobody truly appreciates him.”
“Horseshit.”
“Well, you and I might think so. But that’s Acey. Anyhow, next thing he knew it was afternoon, past game time, and he was on the floor with the ugliest head of his life. He won’t say it, but I think Maud doped his whiskey.”
“I think I’m getting it,” I said. “After the Central Citys lose nearly four to one in the first game, she tips somebody that Brainard will miss the second one. So they bet on Syracuse to lose no worse than, say, two to one, and they clean up when it ends thirty-six to twenty-two.”
He nodded. “A whole lot of cash changed hands last night down on Vine. But I haven’t come to the worst yet.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Nope,” he said glumly. “Acey was in such a miserable state that he took it into his head he was washed up on the Stockings. He went over the bridge to Covington, still some drunk, and tried to sign on with the Live Oaks. First thing they did, naturally, was send word to Champion.”
“Oh, shit,” I said. “How’s Champion taking it?”
“He wants to fire Acey.”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“No? Last year he sure as hell put Jack Hatfield on public trial, then made sure it got printed in every sporting paper in the country. And poor Jack was only going back to the Mutes, where me ‘n’ him revolved from in the first place; it was the Stockings who made raids on other clubs. Anyhow, Acey’s in a tight spot, and he’s only got one thing working for him.”
“Harry needs him.”
“Even that might not be enough. No, it’s the win streak. The whole damn country is following us. You can be sure Champion doesn’t want that to end.”
“You think he’ll let Asa stay, then?”
“I reckon he’ll let him stew a bit, then allow Harry to talk him into giving Acey one more chance.” He took a cigar out and rolled it in his fingers without lighting it. “It’s the other part I’m hoping you’ll help with.”
“Jesus, Fred, don’t you think I’ve butted in enough with gamblers?”
“If Acey could just get some cash, there’d be no trouble.”
“How deep is he in?”
“Almost a thousand.”
I thought it over. Maybe the Elmira money was mine only as some sort of trust.
“This afternoon be okay?”
“You’ll lend it?” He looked surprised. “Sam, that’s a hell of a thing. Not many’d do it. Acey’ll stand good, sooner or later. You’re the cash article in my book.”
“A sucker is what I am.”
“Maybe a little of that, too,” he said wryly. “Acey brings it out in his pals.”
I expected a harangue from Champion, at least a pep talk from Harry, but instead it was business as usual in the clubhouse that afternoon. Brainard suited up, red-eyed and sheepish. The others were curious, but nobody asked what had transpired.
“I guess Fred told you this counts a lot with me,” Brainard said as we went out to the field.
“You were going to cover for me in Troy,” I said.
“I owe you.”
“Damn right.”
The Clevelands, termed by Millar the “second best team in the state,” looked snappy in white knickers and blue stockings patterned after ours. Allison’s younger brother Art played first for them. I was pleased to hear him ask Allison about all the crap he’d been reading. Allison looked chastened. He was back behind the plate today, catching Brainard.
The Clevelands were wound so tightly that they took themselves out of things in the first inning. Their errors plus our relentless hitting—capped by Gould’s drive over the fence—gave us a 9-0 getaway lead. The rest of the afternoon was a slugfest. Clouting seven more roundtrippers, we trounced them 43-27.
In the booth Johnny worked to exhaustion again, even though we had added another employee, Helga’s cousin Anna. We’d abandoned Cracker Jack as too much trouble, but now had french fries—Saratoga potatoes—bubbling in a pot of hot oil. We sold everything by the seventh inning, netting 212 dollars. Champion informed me I was an innovative genius.
That night Cait, Timmy, and I went to a concert in Lincoln Park. I didn’t see O’Donovan when I picked them up, and Timmy made no mention of their trip together. At first subdued, he brightened when I showed him the miniature sloop I’d bought for him in a toy store on Fourth.
“You’ll spoil him,” said Cait, watching him launch the little craft on the sailing pond.
“Good.”
Lincoln Park was a wonder. Although the Union Grounds lay just behind, I’d spent little time in the park itself; usually I bustled through one corner of it after taking the Seventh Street cars to Freeman. This night the trees were lit magically with oriental lanterns. A blaze of lamps framed the central gazebo, where the Zouave band played.
We rented a rowboat and circled the little island where in daylight children played with squirrels and rabbits, fawns and peacocks. Tim-my fell asleep under a blanket in the bow. I stopped rowing and we drifted silently on the dark water.
“I’ve been thinking,” I said, “about everything you told me of Colm.”
“Yes?” She faced me on the boat’s other seat, shadows playing over her.
“Did you ever think that he came back as another kind of bird?”
“Another?”
“A redwing blackbird, say, or something larger—an owl or hawk?”
“No, why?”
“Just asking.”
“I didn’t tell you all that Clara Antonia said.”
The throb I had heard before was in her voice. It was remarkably sexy, I decided. “What else?”
“She said that no matter how it might seem, death
