“I’ll pull everything back.”

“You’re my good luck charm, Billy-boy.”

And the kid, grinning: “I’m your good luck charm.”

“Yeah. Now listen…”

It was funny and creepy at the same time. The Doo was intense-leaning forward, eyes flashing while he talked. Everything Wenders had said about him was true, but he left one thing out: The Doo was a competitor. He wanted to win the way Bob Gibson did. Like Gibby, he’d do anything he could get away with to make that happen. And the kid was eating it up with a spoon.

I almost said something, because I wanted to break up that connection. Talking about it to you, I think maybe my subconscious mind had already put a lot of it together. Maybe that’s bullshit, but I don’t think so.

In any case, I left them alone, just got my butts and walked away. Hell, if I’d opened my bazoo, Dusen would have told me to put a sock in it, anyway. He didn’t like to be interrupted when he was holding court, and while I might not have given much of a shit about that on any other day, you tend to leave a guy alone when it’s his turn to toe the rubber in front of the forty thousand people who are paying his salary. Expecially when he’s up for the big two-double-zero.

I went over to Joe’s office to get the lineup card, but the office door was shut and the blinds were down, an almost unheard-of thing on a game day. The slats weren’t closed, so I peeked through. Joe had the phone to his ear and one hand over his eyes. I knocked on the glass. He started so hard he almost fell out of his chair, then looked around. And I saw he was crying. I never saw him cry in my life, not before or after, but he was crying that day. His face was pale and his hair was wild-what little hair he had.

He waved me away, then went back to talking on the phone. I started across the locker room to the coaches’ office, which was really the equipment room. Halfway there I stopped. The big pitcher-catcher conference had broken up, and the kid was pulling on his uniform shirt, the one with the big blue 19. And I saw the Band-Aid was back on the second finger of his right hand.