“I’m fine,” Nighthawk said. “I’m just fine.” He turned to Croyd and smiled. “I’m really going to enjoy this game.”
And he did.
It was the fourth inning and the White Sox were leading the Cincinnati Reds 2–0. Spot Poles, who turned out to be a speedy outfielder and lead-off man, had walked in the first inning and then scored when Charleston, who was hitting fourth, right after Joe Jackson, tripled to deepest center. Charleston then homered in his second at bat. No other Sox player had done much at the plate, but no one else had to. Williams was on his game, and was throwing heat. He had a perfect game going through four innings and had struck out seven of the twelve Reds who’d come to the plate, including their own black players, the veteran shortstop John Henry Lloyd and Cuban-born outfielder Cristóbal Torriente. No one was touching Williams and maybe no one on the White Sox dared to boot a play purposely.
Not only was the game itself entertaining, but in the bottom of the first, a couple of latecomers went down the aisle, right past Croyd and Nighthawk, to the front row of boxes. A man and woman, both expensively, even extravagantly, dressed in the fashions of the day. Croyd noticed them first as they passed by. He poked Nighthawk in the ribs, and started to rise, but Nighthawk laid a cautionary hand on his arm as he watched Charlie Flowers and Dagmar take their seats.
“Keep an eye on them,” he whispered. “And let’s enjoy the game.”
It was a crisply played match, over in little more than two hours. In the eighth inning Shoeless Joe Jackson made an incredible running catch, preserving Williams’s perfect game. Williams waited on the mound to shake his hand as they headed for the dugout.
Croyd shook his head. “Is Jackson really trying to throw the game?” he asked in a low voice.
“Some say that he was in on the fix, but didn’t play like it, double-crossing the gamblers.” Nighthawk shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe he couldn’t help himself from catching the ball. Maybe he couldn’t let his teammates down in a game like this.”
It was the only bit of help Williams needed to retain his perfect game. He struck out the side in the ninth inning, and the 2–0 score held up. As Williams was mobbed by his teammates for pitching the greatest game in World Series history, Charlie Flowers stormed up the aisle, a scowl plastered on his face, dragging Dagmar by the hand behind him.
Nighthawk and Croyd looked away, watching out of the corners of their eyes until they passed.
“Let’s go,” Nighthawk said. They followed at a discreet distance up the concrete stairs.
They stayed behind the couple, sheltered by the crowd rushing out onto the streets to celebrate the victory. Nighthawk’s face was grim. He’d just witnessed one of the most incredibly historic sights of his life, and now they had to wipe it all away to mend the time line and preserve their present. It wasn’t a small thing, this breaking of the baseball color line decades before Jackie Robinson. It had tremendous implications, social, political, and economic, for his people, not to mention that it righted a great wrong that had kept deserving men from performing at the highest levels of their chosen profession. Nighthawk had no idea what possibly could have triggered the historic change and, even though it was positive, he and Croyd had to wipe it away. To erase it. To bring back an injustice that would harm the social fabric of the entire nation. He had to blink back tears, this time tears of frustration and rage. But he would remember. He would remember the two hours or so of perfection, just a second or less in eternity, but something of beauty and grace that was an accomplishment for the ages.
They followed Flowers and Dagmar to the line of horse-drawn carriages waiting outside the park. The two time travelers climbed into the seat of an enclosed coach, Flowers shouting an address to the driver. Before he could pull away from the curb, Nighthawk and Croyd leaped into the coach themselves, taking the seat opposite.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Croyd said, smiling.
Flowers stared at them blankly for a moment, until recognition appeared in his eyes. “You’re—” he began, stopped, began again. “You’re those guys from the poker game. What the hell?”
“We’ve come after you,” Nighthawk said, “to return you to our time.”
Flowers stared at him. “What?” He shook his head. “Fuck. No. I like it here. I know important people. I am important people!”
“You help fix the World Series, Charlie?” Nighthawk asked coldly.
“What if I—I mean, what the hell you talking about?”
“Come on, Charlie, it’s in all the history books.” Nighthawk paused. “Although I don’t recall reading your name in any of them.”
“Well, you will.” Flowers flushed. “It was half-assed until I signed on—”
Croyd shook his head. “You’ve got to go back, Charlie. You both have to go back. Our present is being torn apart. History is getting all messed up …”
“Who cares?” Flowers snarled. His face was dark with rage and suddenly he was holding a pistol in his hand. He still had an athlete’s reflexes. “I don’t give a goddamn. I was never very good at history. Let those lousy bastards take care of themselves. They fucked me over when they had their chance, well, fuck them, twice as hard—”
Dagmar, sitting next to him on the seat, had quietly taken a cosh out of her bag. She smacked Charlie hard, on the side of the head. His eyeballs rolled up and he sagged limply on the seat as Nighthawk and Croyd looked on.
She turned to them. “Oh, take me home. Take me home, please!” She started to cry. “I hate it here. It’s so hot and dirty. There’s no television, the movies have no sound! And the food is terrible. Nothing is gluten-free, they don’t even have sushi. Oh, please, please—”
Croyd gestured briefly. Nighthawk could see the rainbow ripples pass between him and his targets, and then Dagmar and Flowers were gone, leaving piles of clothes and a pistol behind them.
“Jesus,” Nighthawk said, “that’s it? They back in our present?”
Croyd nodded in satisfaction. “Yep. That’s it. Standing on Michigan Avenue in 2017 naked as jaybirds. Or jailbirds, in Charlie’s case. Let the son-of-a-bitch explain that.”
“All right then,” Nighthawk said. “Let’s go find a mirror.”
“No place like the Palmer House,” Croyd said.
The desk clerk at the Palmer House didn’t bat an eyelash when Nighthawk and Croyd booked a room for the night, sans suitcases. Nighthawk, acting a part as Croyd’s valet, informed him that their luggage would be delivered later that evening.
It made sense for them to return to the Palmer House. A hotel room provided the requisite privacy to make the jump, not to mention the necessary mirror. It also served as a ready source of clothing and other necessities for the newly arrived travelers. And both Nighthawk and Croyd were hungry. The hot dogs they’d had at the stadium had been a decent snack, but what they really needed was a good meal, which was just a phone call to room service
