If I Never Get Back

by Darryl Brock

  “Where’s that?” I said.

  “Above, by the pilothouse,” Harry said.

  “Pleased to see you fellers,” said Andy, standing unsteadily. The gag had left raw marks by his mouth. “All I’ve been hearing is how these sharps on board’ll clean up today.”

  “Let’s get to the grounds,” Harry said. “Before anything else happens.”

  We were almost to the gangplank when George sniffed noisily and said, “Where’s that coming from?”

  We stopped as the acrid smell of burning wood and paint reached us.

  “FIRE!” somebody bellowed above.

  A crush of people began to swarm around us. The narrow passageways jammed within seconds. Half-dressed men shoved furiously. Near us a woman cried out in pain and fear. I saw some of the deckhands we’d just fought forcing their way through, no longer concerned about us. A contagion of terror was about to erupt.

  “WAIT!” boomed Harry, brandishing his bat. “FIRST THE LADIES!”

  It was a generous use of the term, considering the women in question. To my amazement, it worked. He jangled their Victorian conditioning enough to halt the rush—and our cocked bats doubtless helped. Harry guided the disheveled woman to the gangplank himself and made sure others were allowed to pass to the front. “There’s time for all!” he cried repeatedly.

  He was nearly wrong. By the time we stepped on the gangway ourselves, tongues of flame licked high in the black clouds billowing from below. “Hurry, get off before the boilers go!” Sweasy yelled, voicing what we all feared.

  My feet no sooner touched the dock than there came an enormous CRUMP! The boat lurched violently, then a booming explosion hurled me forward. A fiery column erupted between the tall stacks, bending them outward; they toppled into the pall of smoke. The decks were buckling, the entire bow section a roaring inferno. Through the smoke I saw dim shapes plunging overboard.

  Along the landing a chorus of bells and whistles sounded. One horse-drawn fire pump arrived, then another. A neighboring steamer was hosed down to protect it from the searing heat. That was about all that could be done. The Mary Rae was doomed.

  “Say,” exclaimed an onlooker, “ain’t you the Red Stockings?”

  “We’re the Haymakers,” George told him.

  “Come on,” Harry said, pulling us away. “We face them in less than an hour.”

  We moved toward our wagon.

  “Singular how that fire broke out just when it did,” Andy said grimly.

  “Sure is,” I said. I had no idea how Le Caron had reached the Mary Rae so quickly or how he had managed to ignite the fire. But I hadn’t the slightest doubt he was responsible.

  “How’d you find me?” Andy asked as we rumbled away from the landing.

  I explained how we’d gotten the threatening note, lured Le Caron into the open but failed to capture him, and forced Andy’s whereabouts from the accomplice. I started to get the shakes as I thought about how close we’d come to catastrophe.

  “Thought I’d be stuck in there forever,” he said. “They seemed to figure that with me out of the match, we didn’t stand a sucker’s chance.”

  “Probably true.”

  “Naw, Harry’d’ve let you lick ’em again.”

  “I’ll be content letting you do it.”

  He grinned. “How’re the odds running?”

  “They dropped this morning,” I said. “Now it’s us to win by ten runs.”

  He whistled. “The ones I heard on that boat were plungin’ heavy on the Haymakers. Talkin’ tens of thousands. No wonder the odds fell some—but they’re still good for them.” He leaned close. “Sam, I think they’re playin’ other angles. I heard ’em say, ‘It’s in the bag, they took the money.’”

  “‘They’? Meaning Stockings?”

  He nodded slowly. Possibly it was my imagination, but it seemed that Sweasy, sitting nearby, was being studiously casual. I had a feeling he was straining to hear. “Any names?” I said.

  Andy shook his head and whispered, “But I heard one say, it cost a pretty penny, but he’ll deliver the game to us like on a tray.’”

  “Who’d they mean?”

  He hesitated, then, “They said the signal’d be for the first two tosses to go wild.”

  That left little doubt. Now I knew where Brainard had gotten his money.

  “We can’t tell Harry,” he whispered. “Acey’d be finished.”

  Sweasy shifted position, glanced our way. My mind raced. I tried to put aside shock and just deal with the logistics of the situation.

  “I may have an idea,” I whispered. “Don’t say anything yet, okay?” He looked relieved. “You bet.”

  It took us half an hour to crawl the last quarter mile west on Seventh. If we hadn’t been so banged up we’d have gotten out and walked—except that it wouldn’t have been any faster. Crowds swarmed every thoroughfare, jammed all sidewalks. The city seemed to have shut down completely, everybody surging to the Union Grounds. We tried to shield ourselves in the wagon but were soon recognized. Hiding our scrapes, we waved back to throngs clapping and cheering, yelling encouragement, reaching up to touch us, tugging at our clothes. We were their team, their champions, projections of themselves. I wondered if medieval knights had felt like this on their way to the tilting grounds.

  In the clubhouse a near-apoplectic Champion could barely speak when he saw us. Harry told him we’d gotten banged around a bit in traffic. Which was true enough.

  Brainard and Waterman had not accompanied us, for the simple reason that we couldn’t find them. I tried to read their faces as they listened to what had happened. I wondered if Waterman was in on the deal too. As usual, neither of them showed much. Deciding to tackle the toughest first, I approached Brainard, who worked his toothpick in irritation when I said I wanted to talk privately.

  “Ain’t the time, so close to the match.”

  “That’s exactly what we need to discuss. The match. And your future.”

  He eyed me warily and stood. We moved down the long room to a bench near the equipment closet.

  “Word has it you’ll sell us out today,” I said with brutal directness. “To show the deal is on, you’ll start with two wild pitches.

  The toothpick stopped moving. “Where’d you hear that?

  “Does it matter? Harry doesn’t know. Yet.”

  “Throwing off a match is a serious charge.”

  Very serious.”

  He stared at me, trying to determine, I imagined, what I wanted.

  “Asa, I’m not gonna make you tell me whether it’s true—”

  “Goddamn right you’re not!”

  “—but if you’ve got a deal with McDermott, it had better be good for life. You’ll be through with baseball.”

  “Horseshit.”

  “You think Harry will just forgive and forget? You think Champion won’t crucify you?”

  He worked at a piece of tape on the floor with his spikes.

  “Whatever the arrangement is,” I said, “we’re not losing today.”

  He glanced up, his eyes ironic, world-weary. “No?”

  “That’s right. I know the stakes are high. And I know better than you that McDermott plays rough and wouldn’t look kindly on a double cross. So here’s what you’re going to do.”

  “Look, Fowler, I’ve listened to—”

  “Quiet, we don’t have much time. You’re going to make those two wild pitches to open the game. Meanwhile I’ll tell Millar you were approached by gamblers and offered a bribe.”

  His eyes widened. “You what?”

  “We’ll start it circulating as a rumor. Maybe I can get him to print something. You’ll be vague, shrug it off as one of those things. I’ll line up police protection during the game and after. Look, Asa, if you did take money from them, for God’s sake give it back. You can forget what you owe me—I’ll even give the five hundred back if you need it.”

  The toothpick began waggling as Harry called us. Brainard rose and said, “Who
else you talked to?”

  “Nobody. Just throw your two pitches and I’ll take care of the rest. After we kick the Haymakers’ butts, I’m going to be scarce the next few days. You might do the same.”

  He gestured casually, brushing me away. But I sensed that he was calculating like mad.

  “Who’s the other?” I asked.

  He looked at me. “What?”

  “The other Stocking. Is it Waterman?”

  “Don’t you say that,” he snapped. “Fred’s on the square.”

  “Sweasy, then?”

  “I ain’t saying nothing to you about any of this,” he said flatly. “And I won’t.”

  Looking us over, his own face bandaged, Harry shook his head. We didn’t inspire confidence. Sweasy was hobbling, Gould was practically one-armed, and the rest of us bore marks from the fight. My shoulder felt leaden. I might be able to bat, but throwing was out of the question. Andy, ironically, had come out in the best shape among us.

  But we must have made a brave picture as we emerged in the sunlight. An earsplitting sound swelled from the crowd. Spectators clustered on the roof of the Grand Duchess, overflowed the new stand, clung to the fences, covered carriages and drays circling the outfield, and were packed outside the foul lines so densely it would have been impossible to sit had they wanted. Police worked to clear the diamond, a slow process.

  We warmed up methodically, no sleight-of-hand exhibitions today.

  I stood next to Sweasy while we waited for the Haymakers to appear.

  “Remember the guy on the landing?” I said. “The one who told me where Andy was?”

  “What about him?” Sweasy said.“He told me a few other things.”

  Sweasy fumbled an easy throw from George and looked at me with stricken eyes. “What’d he say?”

  I knew I had him then; how much easier he was than Brainard to crack. “He mentioned Acey,” I said casually. “And you.”

  “I didn’t go back on us!”

  “How much did you get?”

  “God Almighty.” His voice quavered. “I told ’em I wouldn’t throw off. They said they’d pay me just to listen to their proposition. No fault in hearing them out, was there? I turned ’em down!”

  The last piece clicked in place in my mind. “You stupid asshole, where’d you meet them?”

  “I can’t tell,” he protested. “I promised.”

  “What happened while you were gone?”

  He stood as if frozen. George yelled at him.

  “Throw the damn ball,” I said. “They set you up, didn’t they? They knew Andy’d be alone, and that’s when they took him. You couldn’t go to the cops because you’d compromised yourself. So you tried to put it all on me, sweet guy that you are.”

  “I didn’t know.” It was almost a whisper.

  “That’s right,” I said. “You didn’t know shit, so you ended up selling Andy out.”

  His eyes stabbed into mine, imploring. “You ain’t gonna tell him.”

  A gathering murmur came from the crowd, punctuated by loud cheers from the visitors’ area behind third, as a pennant-festooned omnibus rumbled through the carriage gate in right field and moved around the track.

  “It depends,” I said. “If we lose I’m gonna beat you to a pulp and go public with the whole shoddy story. How does that sound?”

  “We won’t lose,” he said nervously. “Not on account of me.”

  “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, why didn’t you say something?”

  “Forgot. Besides, there’s been no time.”

  “I’ll be back,” I said, and dashed off to the booth. There, things were a mess. Helga and the other women had lagged far behind, with Johnny off on the steamboat rescue. Now the four were frantically trying to catch up and serve hundreds of customers standing in line.

  “How’re we doing out there?” Johnny asked. He was drenched with sweat. A lump swelled his forehead where he’d taken a hit during the fight.

  I wrapped up some fries (square-bottomed paper bags hadn’t been invented, so we, like everybody, twisted paper to form cone-shaped containers, much the way flowers are wrapped) and a hamburger and poured an ice-cream soda into a glass (disposable cups didn’t exist either) and said, “So far it couldn’t be much worse.”