“I-” Tommy’s voice caught, then he took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “I’m not looking for an autograph. I’m on a story.”

“What?” Reiser asked, looking up again.

Tommy took a step into the room, suddenly confident. “Yeah, I’m a reporter. See.”

He took the press pass from the pocket of his Sanguis Christi uniform jacket and held it out for Reiser to see.

Reiser frowned. “Christ, I can’t read that from here. Come on in.”

Tommy advanced into the room until he stood across Reiser’s desk. Reiser studied the pass, frowning. “You sure you didn’t steal that from your father?”

“No, sir. I’m Tommy Downs. I represent The Weekly Gospel.”

Reiser grunted. He seemed to notice Tommy’s Sanguis Christi uniform for the first time. “Catholic boy, huh?”

Actually, he wasn’t. Tommy’s father just didn’t want him in public school, and the really private private schools were just a little too pricey. Sanguis Christi fit the family budget, barely. But Tommy saw no sense into going into all that. He could discern approval radiating from Reiser when he eyed the uniform. He simply nodded vigorously to Reiser’s question.

“Well, I guess I can spare you a couple of minutes. Sit down.”

Tommy took the chair across the desk, and slipped the note-book out of his pocket. He opened it and poised his pen over the first page, and said, “Ummmm.” He realized that he didn’t know what to ask Reiser. He couldn’t just ask him if there was a secret ace on the Dodgers. Tommy suddenly had an awful thought. What if Pete Reiser were the secret ace?

What if all season long he’d been manipulating a lousy Dodger team, nudging things here and there with the awesome power of his mind, making a ball go through the infield here, making a batter strike out there, clouding a base runner’s mind so that he tried to go on to third where he was easily thrown out?

Tommy surreptitiously took a long, shallow breath.

He smelled nothing unusual, discounting the stale odors seeping from the locker room next door. Still, he was uncertain in this ability. It was new to him. He wasn’t sure how reliable-

Suddenly he realized that Reiser was frowning.

“Have I seen you before?” Reiser asked.

“I was in the locker room yesterday,” Tommy said, “getting background for my story.”

“Yeah, I remember you now,” Reiser said. “So, what’s this story you’re talking about?”

“Story?” Tommy repeated. “Sure. I was just wondering. Wondering if, ummm, anything strange has happened this season? Anything unusual?”

Reiser laughed. “Unusual? Hell, son, the Dodgers were in last place last year. This year we won the pennant. I’d say the whole damned season was pretty damned unusual. Um-” Reiser hesitated. “Don’t say ‘damned’ in your article. Say ‘darned.’”

“Yes, I understand. But what I’m getting at… what I mean…”

Reiser waited patiently. Tommy realized that the only way he could think of saying it, was just by saying it. “What I wonder is if you suspect that maybe someone on the team has some kind of power or ability that he used to help win ball games, like, maybe a secret ace or something?”

Reiser stared at him. “A secret ace? You think someone on the Dodgers is an ace?”

Tommy nodded. Reiser suddenly turned cold.

“Using an unnatural ability to win a ball game would be cheating,” Reiser said flatly. “What makes you think someone on my team would cheat like that?”

“I can-” Tommy shut his mouth. He was about to say, “I can smell him,” and then he realized how unbelievably dorky that sounded. Smell him.

Reiser just looked at him.

“I can-I can read their minds.”

“Really?” Reiser asked, apparently unconvinced. “Can you read my mind?”

Tommy shook his head. “No. Only the minds of wild carders. I can tell that they’re different than normal people. But, I’m, uh, I’m kind of new at it. I’m just learning how, so, especially in crowds, it’s hard to tell who’s who.” That much, anyway, was true.

Reiser nodded. “Okay. Well. I’ll tell you what. You’ve got your press pass. Hang around. Check things out. And come back to me first thing,” he emphasized, “when you discover who the secret ace is. Because I want to know, first thing, when you uncover him. All right?”

“Okay.” Tommy stood. There was no sense in questioning Reiser any longer. Reiser didn’t know anything, and couldn’t help the investigation. Tommy was sure of that.

“Remember,” Reiser told him. “You come to me first with the name.”

“I will.”

“Fine. Good luck, Tommy.”

“Thanks.”

Tommy trudged from the office, half-discouraged, half-angry. Not only hadn’t he advanced his investigation, he’d made himself look like a fool. Because he could tell, he just knew, that Reiser was patronizing him. He didn’t believe Tommy for one second. He didn’t believe there was a secret ace on the Dodgers, not at all.

Just another day in the dugout, Reiser thought, but of course, it wasn’t. Ebbets hadn’t seen a day like this since 1957.

The old park was jammed to over-flowing and the fans had cheered themselves hoarse before the first pitch was thrown. All the regular Dodger fanatics were present; the five-piece band known as the Dodger Symphony that played loud but almost unrecognizable tunes as they marched around the park, the guy on the third base line known as Sign Man, who could cause letters to appear on his blank piece of white cardboard, and all the thousands of normal (and abnormal) fans who’d experienced one of the great rides in baseball history as the ’69 Dodgers fought their way to the National League pennant.

Reiser, returned from the pregame conference at home plate with the umpires and Baltimore manager Earl Weaver, plopped down next to Fidel Castro in the Dodger dugout. “How’d he look warming up?”

“Drysdale? Caliente, boss.”

“He better be caliente,” Reiser said. “We need this one.”

Drysdale was one of the old Dodgers come home, probably to finish his career. He had started with the Dodgers in 1956 and put up some decent numbers for a fading team, as well as garnering a reputation as one of the meanest sons of bitches to toe the rubber. In one of the disastrous trades that marked the end of his general managerialship, Branch Rickey had traded him in 1960 to the Yankees for Marv Throneberry, Jerry Lumpe, and pitching legend Don Larsen who had thrown a perfect game in the 1956 World Series, then squandered his career on booze and broads. Drysdale had put up near Hall of Fame numbers with the Yankees, while only Throneberry had proved marginally useful to the Dodgers. When the Yankees disintegrated in the mid-1960’s, Drysdale went on to have some good years for the Cardinals. The Dodgers had bought him back in ’69 to help anchor the fine young pitching staff they were assembling.

He sauntered in from the bullpen, a towel wrapped around his neck to soak up the sweat he’d already broken. He was a tall, lean, big-jawed man with a ruthless disposition and will to win. He was one of Reiser’s favorites. Reiser knew better than to pep-talk him or pat his ass. That would just annoy him, take him out of the zone he carefully crafted where every ounce of concentration, every erg of energy, was geared toward one thing: throwing the ball where he wanted to throw it. That done, everything else would simply take care of itself.

Drysdale sat off to one side in his own world. The rest of the dugout was full of chatter, young men pretending they believed they belonged in the Series, veterans just enjoying their Christmas in October and hoping that it would last a few more days. Their energy was nearly palpable. Reiser thought that if you’d stick wires in their asses they’d light up the whole city.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,” the P.A. system blared, “please direct your attention to right field, where the first pitch will be thrown by a very unusual special guest. It will be caught by our own Roy Campanella, first base coach and Hall of Fame catcher from Dodger glory days!”