Robert Barnard: Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Vol. 133, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 805 & 806, September/October 2008

Rue saw his hand come out of his coat pocket, saw the glint of sunlight off steel, and knew at last exactly what was about to happen.

Though really, she’d known from the start.

Judge Landis didn’t notice, nor did Captain Mansfield beside him, or any of the fans around them. Just as Chase had predicted, every eye, every camera, was focused on the field, on the battle between pitcher and batter.

Rue went into her windup.

Enjoy your last hurrah, she thought.

“Can you do it?” he asked.

Rue nodded.

“You sure? Be a bad idea to miss.”

“I can hit him,” she said.

“In the head?”

She didn’t answer.

Chase frowned, then made a face and shrugged. “Okay, yeah, that’s a lot to ask. But we’ve got a ton riding on the Cubs this year, and they have a straight shot through the Series if the Babe’s not right.” He paused. “Would be a great exacta, but that’s okay. You just plunk Ruth good, put him on the ground, and we’ll take care of the rest.”

“What do you mean — the rest?”

For a moment his face darkened, but he got hold of himself. “Don’t worry about that,” he said.

They sat in silence for a few moments. Then she said, “If I say yes, I’ll be able to keep pitching?”

“Garr-annn-teeed.” He looked calm now, relaxed, as if he’d just put a penny into a gumball machine and knew the gum would soon come rolling out of the chute. “The next commish will know who’s really in charge.”

He paused, thinking about it. “Might even be, no one will want the job.”

“All right,” Rue said. “I’m in.”

Chase smiled.

“Garr-annn-teeed,” he said again.

The most famous man in America standing at home plate.

The crowd bellowing with anticipation.

The cold-eyed old Czar on his feet like everyone else, as still as death in his black coat and black hat.

The man in the aisle beside him, teeth shining white, something half-hidden in his hand.

The girl on the mound, awaiting an oncoming storm only she knew about.

The long, breathless moment preceding the pitch.

Rue rocked back, raised her hands above her head, broke them apart, hurled herself forward with the controlled violence that always ended with a fastball whistling across the plate. Only not this time. This time, in the middle of her motion, she stumbled.

Or seemed to stumble.

Her arm whipped forward and she released the ball, just as the toe of her spikes caught on a chewed-up patch of ground and she fell flat on her face.

Lying there, unmoving, she heard the dull, solid thump. There was a moment’s pause, as if the world itself was holding its breath, and then the silence was broken by a woman’s high-pitched shriek. This was followed by the upwelling, frightened sound of the crowd.

Rue got slowly to her feet. She took her time looking over, because she didn’t really need to. She knew what she was going to see.

But she had a role to play, so when she did look, she found herself running towards the stands. The commissioner of baseball was standing there, his face ashen as he stared down at something lying at his feet.

Chase, glazed eyes half open, an enormous purple knot sprouting from his left temple.

Rue scrambled over the railing and dropped to her knees beside the stricken man. Her face was full of shock and concern as she put her mouth close to his ear.

“To answer your question, I can hit anything I want to,” she whispered, “ where I want to.”

He blinked, and his lips moved, but no sound came out.

“And I always have a choice,” she said.

She got back to her feet and moved closer to Landis. He was hanging on the railing with both hands.

“It’s him,” she said so only he could hear. “Chase. I didn’t get a chance to warn you — it happened too fast.”

Rallying himself, the commissioner spoke to the cops who had congregated around his seat. It only took them a few seconds to find the knife pinned under Chase’s body. That got everybody’s attention.

When he was gone, heading to the hospital under the law’s watchful eye, Rue looked up at the Czar. After a moment he gave a brief, reluctant nod.

“Thank you,” she said, and went back to work.

It was the day before the big game, the “Battle ’tween Teen and Titan,” in the words of one poetic scribe, and Judge Landis was exhausted.

He’d had enough. The New York dailies and out-of-town papers alike had been mad with excitement and anticipation for days. Reporters from as far away as Seattle and Santa Fe had been ringing his telephone off the hook. It was all he could do to keep his opinions to himself for one more day.

So the last thing he needed was to see the girl, the cause of all this tumult, walking into his office and perching on the edge of his desk as if she owned it.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her.

She didn’t answer at once, but there was an expression on her face that he’d never seen there before. She looked, he thought suddenly, like someone who’d just won the World Series.

“Miss Thomas,” he said, struggling to keep his temper, “we have nothing further to talk about.”

“But we do,” she said.

And then, leaning forward so he’d hear every word, she told him what it was, and what they were going to do about it.

“Think you can get one over this time?” Babe Ruth asked her.

Rue grinned. They were standing midway between the mound and the plate. The players were back in their positions, and the crowd, quiet and subdued now, was focused on the field again.

“Sure,” she said.

“Good. Then let’s give them a show.”

He turned away, then looked back over his shoulder. “Hey, kid.”

She waited.

“Heard that old windbag Landis was going to toss you out after the game.”

Rue shook her head. “You heard wrong. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yeah?” The Babe looked surprised. “Glad to hear it, ’cause you can throw.”

“And you can hit, Jidge,” she said.

He laughed and headed back to the plate. Got right into his stance, no fooling around this time. Jimmy Connelly signaled fastball, and Rue threw one.

The bat whipped around, and there was a sound like a cannon shot. The ball streaked upward and headed towards the Pacific Ocean.

The crowd let loose. The Babe dropped his bat and watched the blast leave the yard before starting his laughing, clownish circuit around the bases. Rue, stone-faced, held up her glove and waited for the ump to toss her a new ball.

But inside she was smiling. Sometimes, she knew, you just had to give the fans what they’d come to see.