W. Kinsella - Magic Time

McCracken was at the plate. As he dug in he sent a steady stream of words toward the mound. Though I couldn’t hear, I knew he was baiting Roger. Well, if we lost, there would at least be enough profits from the concessions to pay my employees off and buy Roger a bus ticket for somewhere not too far away. All I hoped was that the ball wouldn’t be hit to me.

McCracken, even though he was right-handed, hammered one down the right-field line on a 2–2 count. Byron actually ran in a step or two before he judged it properly; then he ran frantically down the line, his back to the plate. The ball nearly hit him on the head as it plunked onto the soft grass a foot outside the foul line.

Roger delivered a fastball in the strike zone.

It was, of course, the last pitch McCracken was expecting. Roger had thrown nothing but junk the whole game, using his fastball only as a set-up pitch, always, like McCracken, throwing it out of the strike zone.

McCracken swung just late enough to send a gentle fly to right-center. The center fielder waved Byron off and clasped the ball for the final out.

At our bench Roger wiped his face and hair with a towel.

‘You get the rest of the gate receipts and the concession money,’ he said. ‘One of McCracken’s men will count it with you.’

‘You didn’t bet against us, did you?’

‘Of course not. I bet it all on us. Which, incidentally, will increase your profits considerably. Even after I take my percentage.’

‘What if we’d lost?’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve left a town on foot with people throwing things at me.’

Roger collected his winnings from the mayor, and stuffed the envelopes and stacks of bills into his equipment bag. He settled his debts, then bought the entire team supper, plus unlimited ice cream, at the Springtime Café. He tipped Mrs. Grover twenty dollars.

Later, while Byron and I again turned our backs, he opened the safe and stuffed it full of bills.

‘I’ll be on the road before daylight,’ he said. He gave Byron and me an extra twenty each. At bedtime we said our goodbyes.

Though I was dead tired, I forced myself to only half sleep; I jumped awake every time the old house creaked in the night, and I was up and at the window as soon as I heard Roger’s step on the stairs.

As I suspected, he did not leave immediately, but took the gardening tools from the trunk and hoisted them to his shoulder, careful not to let them rattle. There had been a heavy thunderstorm about ten o’clock and the air was pure and sweet as spring water.

I was waiting by the Caddy when Roger returned, clothes soiled, his shoes ruined by mud.

‘You been in a fight, or what?’

‘I suspect you know where I’ve been,’ he said, keeping his voice low. He deposited the tools into the trunk.

‘I know a little about distances,’ I said.

‘When did you suspect?’

‘I measured your practice field out by the lumberyard. Sixty-one feet from the rubber to the plate. No wonder your arm’s big as a telephone pole.’

‘You figure on telling McCracken?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t lie for me. Do what you have to do, it’s okay. Just wait until morning. Also, remember that cheating is making your opponent do something you don’t have to do. We both pitched from the same distance. It was just that I’m used to that distance, and it took him a while to adjust.’

‘I’m not going to turn you in,’ I said.

Roger picked a chunk of mud off one of the tools and threw it on the street. He began to fiddle with the combination of the safe.

‘I’m not planning on blackmail.’

‘I appreciate talent when I see it. I’ve been working this scam for ten years. I’ve lost an occasional game, but no one’s ever cottoned onto my edge. I must be getting careless.’

He took about an inch of bills off the top of one of the piles and handed them to me.

‘You really don’t need to. Money can’t buy what I want.’

‘Which is?’

‘I want this girl to like me just the way I am.’

‘No, money can’t do that. But it’ll buy a hell of a lot of ice cream, and pay your college tuition for a semester or two.’ His face broke into that grin that could charm a bone from a hungry dog.

‘It’s all a matter of distances,’ Roger said from inside the Caddy. The sun was about to rise. The oranges and pinks of the sky touched the shimmering surface of the white Cadillac. ‘Chicago to Memphis is 537 miles. I’ll have a late breakfast at Perkins’ Cake and Steak on Elvis Presley Boulevard.’

Roger smiled again, reached his right hand up and out the window to shake my hand.

‘Maybe we’ll run into each other again, Mike. Be cool. Life’s all a matter of distances. Make them work for you.’

The window purred up and the car eased away, gravel crunching under the wide tires.

2 Contents Title Page Magic Time BY W. P. KINSELLA Copyright The Friday Project An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London W6 8JB www.harpercollins.co.uk This ebook first published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2014 Copyright © W. P. Kinsella 2001 Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2014 W. P. Kinsella asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. FIRST EDITION A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780007497577 Ebook Edition © July 2014 ISBN: 9780007497584 Version 2014-07-31 Prologue 1: Judging Distances ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE 2: One Road Runs Straight SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN 3: Fred Noonan’s Town ELEVEN TWELVE THIRTEEN FOURTEEN FIFTEEN SIXTEEN 4: Barry McMartin SEVENTEEN EIGHTEEN 5: Safe at Home NINETEEN TWENTY TWENTY-ONE TWENTY-TWO TWENTY-THREE 6: Magic Time TWENTY-FOUR TWENTY-FIVE TWENTY-SIX TWENTY-SEVEN Also by the W.P. Kinsella About the Publisher