Jokers Wild Page 0,47

'40s and '50s, the man who had made the most hits, scored the most runs, and compiled the highest batting average in history, took a ragamuffin team that had finished last in 1968 and led them to first place with a miraculous combination of managerial insight and inspiration.

Tom Seaver, Brooklyn's only bona fide star, had pitched on that day in 1969, and beat Bob Gibson, 2-0. The Dodgers' runs had come, she remembered, on solo home runs by the elderly third baseman, Ed "The Glider" Charles. That game had clinched the division flag for the Dodgers, and they went on to beat Milwaukee in the National League's first divisional playoffs, and then demolished the vaunted Baltimore Orioles in the World Series.

Memories of the exultation of that day, when an entire city had roared a collective shout of glee, brought a smile to her face. It had been a rare moment, and, looking back, she wished that she'd been old enough to appreciate the absolute and pure joy, untainted by any other emotion or thought. She'd rarely experienced that feeling since, and never with tens of thousands of other people.

The loud crack of a bat meeting a ball brought her back to the present, and she wiped the smile off her face. These reminiscences weren't doing any good. Fleeing the perilous present by taking refuge in pleasant memories of the past was no way, she realized, to solve anything. Men were after her, and she had to figure out why. Well, actually she knew why. Obviously they wanted the books back. But how had they tracked her down so quickly? And why did they kill Gruber? No, that's not right. They thought she had killed Gruber. She hadn't. If they hadn't, and she knew that she hadn't, who had?

Something strange was going on and Jennifer was caught in the middle of it. She suppressed a shiver. Suddenly the sunlight wasn't as warm. The people around her didn't seem as innocent. Kien's men had tracked her to the Happy Hocker. They could very well track her here. Any one of these "Dodger fans" sitting around her could be a killer.

She glanced around and froze when her worst fear seemed to be confirmed. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the darkhaired man who had been watching her in the ticket line. He was sitting two rows behind her and to her right. He was pretending to be looking at his scorecard, but he was also surreptitiously studying her.

He could be the killer. At the very least he must be an agent of Kien's. Jennifer looked firmly ahead. What to do? She could, of course, go to the police. But then she'd have to admit that she was Wraith, the daring thief who'd made the front page of even the staid New York Times. They could probably protect her from Kien's men, but she'd end up doing hard time for the string of burglaries she'd committed.

She clenched her teeth as she saw from the corner of her eye that the man was moving toward her.

What to do? What to do? The frantic refrain ran through her mind, keeping pace with the pounding of her racing heart. Nothing, she told herself. Be calm. Do nothing. Deny everything. He can't do anything to me with all these people around.

Darryl Strawberry, the young right fielder obtained two years ago in a trade with the lowly Cubs, was putting on a show in the batting cage. Everyone's eyes were on him as he whacked balls into and over the bleachers in right, left, and center field. No one was looking at her and the man.

Fear knotted her insides as he set a large hand lightly on her shoulder and said, in an unexpectedly soft voice, "Wraith," and she utterly and totally panicked at his use of her alias and ghosted, leaving him with an astonished look on his face as he stared at her pants and shoes lying in a crumpled heap before her bleacher seat, and holding her shirt in his right hand.

She heard him blurt "Wait!" and then she was gone, sinking through the structure of the bleachers like a stone ghost.

An officious security officer waved the limo to a position behind the bunting-hung stands. Riggs opened the door, and his expression gave new meaning to cat and canary. Tachyon, his color already heightened by her ministrations and the heat of the day, turned an even more fiery red, and said in an