by Tim Green
Jalen spun and saw the shiny gold badge of one of New York’s finest.
85
THIS TIME THERE WAS NO one to make a mess and save the day. Daniel and Cat and her mom didn’t even know Jalen was in trouble, and the policeman’s grip was like an iron claw.
“Heard you’re a runner.” The cop chewed his gum loudly and spoke in a tone that suggested he was about to burst out in laughter.
Jalen shrugged.
The usher who’d spotted him arrived and showed the cop a picture of Jalen that someone had taken from his TV interview after the first White Sox game, sunglasses and all.
“That’s him. I spotted him.” The usher swelled with pride.
“Good stuff,” said the cop, and off they went, not to the owner’s box where Jalen expected, but down into the guts of the stadium, where Jalen had been with Yager on their first trip and just yesterday with the GM.
They stopped outside Joe Girardi’s office, and the cop knocked. Jalen was confused because it seemed odd that the team manager would leave the game to attend to Jalen. When Jalen entered under the firm hand of the policeman, he was surprised to see Foxx, with his feet up on the desk, staring at him hard.
86
THE GM’S EYES SWIRLED WITH a mixture of bitterness and triumph. “Thought you’d outsmart me?”
He tapped the side of his head and chuckled. “Not likely. You think those glasses covered up what you’re doing? The Yankees would be embarrassed if the team got caught stealing signs. If the team is embarrassed, I’ll look bad. You’re not going to make me look bad. Neither is Yager.
“Besides.” Foxx grinned. “I’ll prevail eventually. I told you. It’s all about smarts. You can sit down. You’re not going anywhere.”
Jalen took a seat in front of the desk and removed his glasses. Joe Girardi had pictures of his wife and children all around. On the wall was a picture of him with George Steinbrenner’s son Hal and the World Series trophy.
“JY can’t hit without you.” Foxx said. “His skills are gone. It happens. He’ll move on, and you? You’re finished too.” He swung his legs down from the desk and stood.
“Lucky calamari. Who came up with that?”
The GM crossed the room and reached behind the flat-screen TV resting on a shelf. He fiddled with something, then held up a TV cable for Jalen to see before stuffing it in his pocket.
The GM pulled open the office door and paused. “Calamari gives me diarrhea.”
He closed the door behind him with a soft click.
Jalen tried to listen for the sound of his footsteps, but the door was thick.
He waited a few moments, then tried it. The handle turned. Soft and slow, Jalen kept turning it. He couldn’t believe his luck, and he laughed to himself at Foxx thinking he was so smart only to forget something so simple and stupid.
Jalen eased the door open a crack. Nothing happened.
He gathered himself to run, then swung open the door.
“Peekaboo.” The NYPD officer smiled up at him from a chair in the hall.
Jalen knew his face must have changed color, but he thought quick. “I have to use the bathroom.”
“No problem.” The officer led him to a bathroom and waited outside.
When they returned to the manager’s office, the officer closed the door behind him. Jalen stood looking around. He remembered a James Bond movie and examined the air vent. No way could he fit through. There was no other way out.
Jalen’s breathing became short and shallow. Yager could be up at any time.
Then he remembered Cat’s phone. Foxx hadn’t taken it. Jalen fished it out of his pocket and fumbled with the button to turn it on. It asked for Cat’s code: 1923. Jalen entered it and the screen came to life.
He dialed Cat.
She might know what to do.
87
“I DON’T MIND YOU CALLING, but you gotta be careful with that battery.” That was how Cat answered her mother’s phone, in a hushed voice.
“He got me,” Jalen said.
“Who? What are you talking about?” Cat’s whisper rose.
“Foxx. They found me, Cat. Every usher in the stadium was looking. They did a sweep. I tried to run, but I ran into some guy and tripped and a cop got me.”
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Foxx put me in Joe Girardi’s office.”
“So, you’re still here,” she said. “That’s good.”
Jalen could feel her thinking. “There’s no way you can get me. The cop is right outside the door. I already tried.”
Jalen knew she was thinking. He heard the crowd cheer in the background. “What happened?”
“Joe Ros just made a diving catch on a foul ball.” Cat spoke in a regular voice. “He nearly fell into the TV camera pit.”
“Is the inning over?”
“Yes.”
“Is Yager gonna be up?” Jalen asked.
“Yes.”
“Cat, what are we gonna do?”
“I’m thinking, Jalen.”
“Think faster.”
“You’re the genius,” she snapped.
“Cat, please . . .”
Jalen looked around at all the pictures of famous people, the baseballs and bats on the shelves, the pictures of men with trophies and Joe Girardi’s family. Here he was, at the center of it all—the lifeblood of the Yankees—but he might as well have been in a spaceship, cut loose from the world.
He gave his head a short shake, because he wasn’t cut loose. He was connected to Cat.
Then she spoke, excited and joyful. “I got it.”
Jalen clenched the phone and waited.
88
“IS THERE A TV IN the office?” Cat asked.
Jalen’s heart sank. “There is, but Foxx took the cable.”
“He is smart,” Cat said, her voice hushed again, “but so are we. Is there a charger there? An iPhone charger?”
“I don’t know. What’s it look like?” Jalen felt panicked by the question, because iPhones weren’t part of the life of a boy whose father ran a bankrupt diner.
“A white cable,” she said, “maybe black, with a little thingy on the end like a flat tab no bigger than a pencil eraser. Look for a plug in the wall or on the desk, an electric socket that has maybe a little square thing plugged in it that has that cable. The cable isn’t much bigger than a thick piece of spaghetti.”
Jalen’s throat tightened. He saw nothing of the kind.
“Why do we need it?”
“For the power,” Cat said. “We need to FaceTime, but it will use up all the battery.”
“FaceTime?” The term rang a bell, but that was all.
“With iPhones you can talk and see the person too,” Cat said. “It’s like Skype. It’s instant video. Trust me, Jalen. This will work. You have to find a charger cable.”
“Yeah, well, what if there isn’t one?” Jalen kept looking around the room. There were plugs on the wall and even a bank of them under the desk, but no cords like she was describing.
“Nothing,” he said, exasperated.
“There has to be,” she hissed. “Is there a computer?”
“Yes, on his desk.”
“Check that,” she said. “Is there a cable plugged into it?”
Jalen saw the thick white spaghetti strand, and his heart leaped. “Yes. It’s here.”
“Awesome! Plug it into the slot in the bottom edge of the phone.”
Jalen fumbled with the cord and plugged it in, proud. “Done.”
“Super. Is it charging? Do you see a little lightning bolt? Upper-right corner of the screen, right inside the little battery icon.”
“Uhh, no,” Jalen said. “I see the battery. It’s red and it says fourteen percent.”
“Maybe you have to boot the computer. Wait, forget it. Yager’s up.” Cat sounded suddenly frantic. “Just hang up. I’m going to FaceTime you. Just hit the green button to accept the FaceTime call when it rings. Hang up, Jalen.”
Jalen fumbled with the phone. His fingers were unsure, but he hung up and waited in the vast silence of the office.
The phone beeped sharply at him, like an angry electronic insect. Jalen accepted the call. Cat’s face appeared. She had earbuds in, as if she were listening to music on the phone. She still spoke low but forcefully. “Okay, good. Now, you watch. I’ll point this at Fanale. When you see it, you tell me. I’ll signal to James.”
The screen flung around, and Jalen saw the White Sox pitcher on the mound.
“Good?” she asked.
“Yes, I see him.” Jalen was so flustered, he couldn’t think.
“What’s the pitch? What’s the pitch?” Cat’s voice screeched at him.
Fanale wound up.
“I don’t know, Cat!” Jalen yelled at her as Fanale delivered a ball. “Stop barking at me. I can’t just flip it on like that!”
“Well, you need to.” Her voice softened, maybe because it was a 1–0 count. “Please, Jalen. Please. I want this for you.”
Jalen swallowed and tried to focus. “Cat, show me the scoreboard. Try to hold it still.”
“Okay. I am.”
Jalen tried to breathe deep. It was the bottom of the seventh. One out. A runner on first. White Sox still had a 3–2 lead. Fanale had already thrown eighty-eight pitches.
“Okay,” Jalen said, “now show me the pitcher.”
She adjusted the phone just as Fanale shook off the catcher. He shook him off again before nodding.
“Jalen?”
“Trying,” he said.
Fanale wound up and threw.
Jalen heard the pitch smack the catcher’s mitt and the ump bark, calling a strike.
“James is looking at me.” Cat sounded like she might cry. “And I don’t know what to do.”
“Just keep the phone still.” Jalen heard his voice as if he were outside of himself. He absorbed what he saw. Fanale nodding. Fanale looking off the runner on first.
“Fastball!” Jalen exploded. “Four fingers, Cat!”
The phone jiggled.
A bat cracked.
The crowd cheered.
“Cat! What happened? What happened?”
Jalen shook the phone, joy flooding him.
Cat’s face appeared, grinning enormously. “You did it! James—”
The screen went black.
The phone powered down.
A battery figure appeared briefly with a red line before Jalen saw nothing.
He sat alone, breathing loud, as dread surged through his veins like poison.
He had no power, and no way to recharge the phone, but Yager would still have one final at bat.
89
JALEN SCOURED THE OFFICE, TRYING to be as neat as he could. He began to sweat because he realized that out in the stadium the clock was ticking away. Pitches were being thrown, outs made, balls hit, everything bringing the lineup back toward a final Yager at bat. The desk drawers were locked and he thought about trying to force them open, but he knew that—combined with the dirt he’d taken—would sink him as a thief no matter how things turned out. Also, he didn’t see anything he could use to force them open anyway.
“Think, Jalen. Think.” His words fell dead around him.
He turned the computer on and off, remembering what Cat said and realizing that he needed the password to boot it up and engage the USB power supply.
“Password,” he said aloud.
This was Joe Girardi’s office and his own computer. There was no need for anything crazy. He’d just do something simple, like Cat’s phone code: 1923, when the Yankees won their first title.
Jalen tried that.
Nothing.
He looked around at the pictures, and his eyes fell on a blown-up image of Girardi with the number 28 on his back, celebrating with his team. Twenty-eight was the manager’s number, so he tried Joe28, then Baseball28, Girardi28, then Yankees28.
Nothing.
He tried Password, then Password1, then Password28, and Password1234 before banging his head down on the desk. He was so close. It was right here in front of him.
He was only a password away.
He opened his eyes and looked at the wall. The picture of Girardi and Hal Steinbrenner stared back at him, grinning.
“Twenty-seven,” Jalen said. “Not twenty-eight, twenty-seven.”
Joe Girardi had been number 27 when he won the World Series.
Jalen straightened up and began typing.
It took several attempts, but it was Baseball27 that finally did it.
The machine booted up. The phone buzzed. Jalen picked it up and saw the battery picture with a big white lightning bolt filling its center.
A few moments later, he powered up the phone and dialed Cat.
90
“WHAT HAPPENED?” CAT WAS FRANTIC. “Jalen, where were you?”
“I had to get the power on. Forget that now. What’s going on?”
“Bottom of the ninth,” she said, turning the camera in her mom’s phone toward the field. “Gardner struck out. Hall’s on first and Tollerson’s up. We’re still down by a run. They put Robertson in to close the ninth.”
Jalen saw the former Yankees pitcher on the hill for the White Sox. He closed his eyes. The numbers were all there. The 34.4 percent strikeout rate jumped out at him, as did Robertson’s home and away ERA. He was twice as effective at home, and this was no longer his home. While David Robertson was known for his wicked curve, Jalen knew it was the cutter he’d recently brushed up on that made him even more dangerous. He’d hit ninety-six miles an hour with his fastball, but typically it came in between ninety-two and ninety-three.
“He uses a curve,” Jalen told Cat. “That signal is just to draw a big C in the air with your finger.”
“Got it,” she said.
“If I can read it.”
“You will.” Cat didn’t sound entirely confident.
Jalen watched as Tegan Tollerson fell behind on an 0–2 count and fought to protect the plate, fouling three balls before Robertson sat him with the curve. Jalen felt like he wasn’t close to knowing the pitches with Robertson, but there were two outs now, and he couldn’t help that giddy feeling that Yager might not have to bat a fourth time. He’d be three-for-three. Perfect. He’d get his contract, and it’d be a happy ending for them all.
Hutt went to the plate and popped one over the third baseman’s head for a single on the first pitch. Jalen swallowed hard.
He needed to focus on the pitcher, not how great things would be if Joe Ros didn’t get on base. The Yankees catcher could also knock it out of the park, ending the game that way. That was what Jalen began to root for. Joe Ros let two fastballs go wide, neither of which Jalen predicted.
“You getting it?” Cat asked.
“Just keep the picture on Robertson.” Jalen propped the phone up against a paperweight on the desk and grabbed his hair with both hands. He had to stop wishing for Joe Ros to hit a home run or be called out and focus on the pitcher.
Robertson threw a curve that Joe Ros fouled.
Jalen tugged at his hair, willing his genius to kick in.
“One and two count,” he said aloud, closing his eyes to see the billboard of numbers. When he opened them, he wanted to say fastball but was glad he didn’t. It was a cutter that Joe Ros let go, a ball inside, making it a 2–2 count.
Jalen studied Robertson as he prepared to throw.
“Curve,” he whispered.
It was a curve. Jalen had it.
Joe Ros hit it, dropping it perfectly into the left field hole over the shortstop’s leap, loading the bases.
Then the unthinkable happened.
91
IT WASN’T FOXX BARGING IN on him.
It wasn’t the phone going dead or Cat being dragged off by security guards as he’d been.
It was Robin Ventura, the White Sox manager, approaching the mound with Carlos Rodon in tow. Rodon was the young first-round pick from a couple of years ago on a steady climb.
“Oh, boy,” Cat said into the phone. “What do you know about him?”
“Lefty,” Jalen said, trying to dig up the numbers in his brain, knowing he was in trouble if he had to start predicting pitches immediately. He hadn’t even gotten Robertson figured out, and now he had to start all over. “Decent fastball. Been working on his changeup, but his best pitch is a slider. Against James on the right side of the plate, that thing will be filthy, looks just like a fastball, then breaks low and inside at the last instant.”
“Can you predict it?” Cat asked.
“I have no idea,” Jalen said.
“But sometimes you get it right away, don’t you?” Her voice cracked.
“Sometimes.” Jalen clenched his teeth and watched Rodon throw three warm-up pitches before Yager stepped to the plate.
“Anything?” Cat asked.
“Just keep it steady, Cat.” He was annoyed by even the slight movement of the camera.
“Have fun, Jalen,” she said in her hushed voice. “Remember you told me Jeter said, ‘Have fun’?”
Rodon threw a strike, fastball on the high side, but down the middle. Yager swung late and missed.
“How could this be fun?” Jalen asked bitterly.
“Because it is.” Cat was being her usual stubborn self. “It’s baseball. It’s just a game.”
Jalen laughed. He couldn’t even express how much more than a game this was. It was silly that she didn’t see it. He kept laughing; it had him now in its grip.
“What’s so funny?” Cat sounded annoyed.
Rodon threw that dirty slider. Yager swung and missed, making it 0–2, a nearly impossible situation. Perfect for Foxx, though. It would show that Yager’s recent run was really just a final burst of light before it ended, a nostalgic glimpse of what he used to be before Foxx pulled the plug to make way for the future: Charlie Cunningham, the strapping young infielder.
“Jalen, he’s looking at me,” Cat said. “Please. Give me something. Anything! You’ve got to try.”
“Anything?” Jalen kept laughing, nearly crazy now, because he felt he would cry. Then he saw something, or thought he did. He couldn’t be certain, but he said, “Sure. Anything. Fun, right? Give him two thumbs-up.”