Double Play Read online

  For my son, Ty—strong, smart, and, best of all, kind

  —T. G.

  To Bella, who can become anything she wants

  —D. J.

  1

  THE POLICEMAN TIGHTENED HIS GRIP on Jalen’s arm.

  Jalen just grinned.

  Up they went in a fancy elevator reserved for the Yankee Stadium VIPs. Down a hallway lined with team offices, all lit up. People bustling by gave them curious glances. Jalen supposed the offices stayed busy into the night when there was a game, and there had been a game, another victory for the Yankees.

  Jalen’s grin was born from something bigger than a win, even though the Yankees were his team. His was the grin of someone whose life was about to change. Someone who’d won the lottery or unexpectedly inherited a fortune from a long-lost relative. It was the smile of the kid who’d gotten the lead role in a play, or the MVP trophy at the team banquet. He wanted to share his joy, and he wished the policeman would ease up on his arm.

  “Everyone looks happy about the game.” Jalen smiled up at him, but the massive officer remained stone-faced. Of course, how could the policeman have known that Jalen’s ability to predict the next pitch in an MLB game—or any game, for that matter—had helped the Yankees win this one?

  They stopped outside a pair of dark, tall wooden doors. Jalen thought the officer was reaching for one of the heavy chrome handles, but instead he knocked. After a moment, he knocked again and a stern voice ordered them inside. The Yankees GM, Jeffrey Foxx, sat behind a mahogany desk which was as broad as a boat. A telephone was pressed against his ear. Foxx pointed, not to the chairs, but to an empty space on the thick rug in front of the desk as he finished his call.

  “You never were good at poker, Don,” Foxx said. “You’re bluffing, and I’m going to double down. Good luck.”

  The GM hung up the phone with anger in his eyes. Even though Foxx was sitting behind a desk, Jalen felt his power.

  The policeman finally let Jalen loose. He flashed a smile up at the officer while rubbing the blood back into his arm.

  “Thanks, Jimmy,” the GM said to the cop. “You can wait outside.”

  Suddenly Jalen hated to see the enormous policeman go.

  “How about you take those sunglasses off so I can see you?” Foxx hadn’t blinked.

  Jalen had forgotten about his glasses. He removed his hat and pushed them up onto his dark, curly hair. His eyes adjusted to the brightly lit office. In the window behind the desk, the stadium lights burned white and the empty field glowed emerald-green, a rare bit of color in the concrete city.

  “Those were so no one could see what you were up to, right?” The GM’s frown deepened.

  Jalen adjusted the glasses. “I guess.”

  “You guess.” Without warning, the GM smacked his hand down on the top of the desk with a noise like the crack of an ax.

  Jalen jumped.

  Foxx leaned forward, planting his hands on the desk as if he was preparing to pounce. His voice was a low, nasty growl. “Son, I have no idea why you’re standing there smiling. You are in a world of trouble.”

  2

  JALEN’S SMILE CRUMPLED.

  “Do you think what you were doing is okay?” Foxx waved his hands toward the stadium behind him. “For a twelve-year-old kid to steal signs in a major league game? Did you think I was going to sing your praises for helping James Yager save his career?”

  “Well . . . it worked.” Jalen felt a tremor in his voice and his mouth dried like dust. “You won, right? That’s what you want. That’s what everyone wants.”

  “Without cheating.” The GM smacked the desk again. “If I was going to cheat, I certainly wouldn’t do it with a snot-nosed kid. Now, you’ve already stolen from this stadium, you’ve trespassed in this stadium, and we can add cheating in this stadium to the list.”

  Jalen tried to swallow. His father would kill him for stealing, and it hadn’t felt like stealing when he did it. “It was just some dirt.”

  “Dirt you were told to return. Dirt you got from going out onto the field when you had no right to do so. Do you know what they do with boys who commit crimes? Boys from broken homes?”

  “My home’s not broken,” Jalen somehow managed to say, even though the defiance he felt didn’t sound as serious as he intended.

  “Oh, no? A mother who married your dad so he could get a green card, then poof, she just disappears? Sounds pretty messed up to me.”

  Jalen felt like he’d been slapped.

  “Yeah, I know all about you.”

  Jalen narrowed his eyes, thinking hard.

  “Chris.” The name came—and the twitch in Foxx’s grin told him he was right. Chris Gamble was a brute, a big jerk who happened to be a teammate and classmate of Jalen’s.

  “It doesn’t matter how I know,” Foxx continued, “but I know.”

  “I didn’t steal any signs.” Jalen raised his chin. “I don’t have to.”

  Foxx snorted. “Oh, really? What do you do? Read a crystal ball?”

  Jalen bit his tongue. James Yager had insisted that he not tell anyone how he did what he did. It was nearly impossible to explain anyway—a hurricane of numbers and intuitions flashing across his brain. Jalen curled his lower lip up under his top teeth.

  “Nothing, huh?” Foxx sneered. “How about I give you a little push in the right direction? See, I know what this is all about . . . all this talk about lucky calamari and some grand reopening of your father’s restaurant—a guy who doesn’t have two nickels to rub together, a man who can’t pay his bills one week to the next. You steal the signs to help Yager, and he tweets and whatever else he does to get his fans—my team’s fans—to flock to this crummy little diner in Rockton. I know exactly what’s going on, I just don’t know how, and that’s where you come in.

  “You’re going to tell me how this whole thing works, and then I’m going to expose Yager for the fraud he is. I’ll put him on the waiver wire. Maybe Los Angeles or San Francisco will pick up half his salary. I’ll eat the rest to get rid of him.”

  Jalen couldn’t believe the GM’s smile as he said, “The Yankees will move on with my new prospect—a kid who’ll be better than Yager by July.”

  That gave Jalen a jolt, but he reminded himself of just how popular JY really was. He might be toward the end of his career, but he was adored, and not just by Yankees fans. Any fan of baseball had a soft spot for JY, an all-around good guy with an all-star résumé.

  “People won’t let you do that,” Jalen said hotly.

  “Oh, no?” The GM leaned back, cracked a knuckle, and folded his hands together. “You haven’t seen my guy! And think about how your father is gonna feel when I press charges against you.” Foxx ground his teeth. “You might think, ‘Oh, I’m just a kid,’ but this isn’t Rockton. You can bet I know plenty of police like Jimmy, and plenty of judges.”

  Jalen’s mouth fell open. It didn’t seem possible, but when he spoke, it came out as weak as a kitten’s whimper. “You can’t do that.”

  “Oh, yes.” Foxx’s smile grew. “Oh, yes I can.”

  Just then, without warning, the office door flew open.

  3

  JAMES YAGER STILL WORE HIS uniform, spikes and all. Only his hat was missing, and his brown eyes were bright with anger and emotion.

  Foxx stood up behind his desk. “You don’t just barge in here.”

  “You don’t hold a twelve-year-old kid against his will,” Yager shot right back, and the words hit home.

  Foxx sputtered. “He’s . . . I’m trying to determine whether or not to have him arrested and press charges.”

  “Charges?” JY shot a look at Jalen, then put a protective hand on his shoulder.

  In the doorway, Jalen saw the faces of h
is friends, Cat and Daniel, along with Cat’s mom, and the giant policeman towering over them.

  “Trespassing,” said the GM, nodding at the officer, who nodded back. “Stealing.”

  JY snorted. “There’re two dozen reporters downstairs wanting to see the kid with the lucky calamari. You want me to tell them he’s being detained by you because he took some dirt? Come on, Jeffrey, look at yourself. It’s over. We won, and you’re gonna have to get used to me being around for a while longer.”

  Foxx’s face flamed red. Jalen had run across his kind before—customers in his father’s diner, a notorious social studies teacher who prowled the lunchroom at school. Foxx was a man used to giving orders and seeing them carried out. He was the kind of person who believed he was always right and would become furious when others didn’t believe it too.

  Foxx pointed a long, tan finger at JY. A thick gold bracelet drooped from his wrist. “You won’t be around here for another day. You’re done. Finished.”

  JY blinked, then recovered, smiling. He spoke softly and calmly. “We had a deal. Everyone knows about it. Tom Verducci quoted you on SI.com. The media’s going crazy downstairs. They love it, the wily old rabbit’s back in the briar patch.”

  Foxx smiled right back. “Right. We had a deal that if you batted a thousand in these last three games I’d extend your contract. No one thought that was possible. I looked at it as a public relations novelty—like giving out bobbleheads—to create some excitement and send you off into the sunset.”

  “But then I actually did it.” Yager let go of Jalen’s shoulder. He clenched his fists and jutted out his chin. “I batted a thousand. Three games in a row.”

  “Not quite.” Foxx angled his head and his eyes flicked at Jalen. “He did it, by stealing signs. Cheating wasn’t part of the bargain, and you know how the owner feels. Honesty means everything to Mr. Brenneck. And the media? They’re a pack of jackals. They’ll snap up whatever scraps you fling at them. A cheating scandal is a lot tastier to them than a comeback story about a kid with some rubbery squid doused in ketchup. A scandal is sirloin steak to those animals.”

  “Yeah, except you’re wrong, Jeffrey.” JY put his hand back on Jalen’s shoulder. “He didn’t steal anyone’s signs.”

  “And we can prove it.” Everyone’s eyes turned toward Cat. She had marched herself into the office and stood only a pace behind JY.

  Foxx laughed out loud at her. “You think anyone cares about what some goofy kids say? You think Mr. Brenneck is going to listen to a word anyone says over me?”

  “I sure do.” Cat’s blue eyes sparkled with confidence. She held her head straight and, like her mom, was so pretty that she unnerved most people.

  Foxx wasn’t most people, though, and he snickered.

  Cat looked back at her mom before she said, “He’ll listen to my stepdad. He was Mr. Brenneck’s frat brother at Yale, wasn’t he, Mom? The frat was Deke or Dirk or something?”

  Cat’s mom drifted into the room, tall and straight and elegant in a black silk blouse and pleated cream-colored pants. She extended a hand to the GM in a casual greeting. On her other hand a rectangular diamond as wide as a dime glinted in the light. “I think we may have actually met once, Mr. Foxx. In Scotty’s box.”

  Jalen knew that Mr. Brenneck’s name was Scott, but by the look of surprise on Foxx’s face, he didn’t imagine many people called the owner by his first name, let alone “Scotty.”

  “He’s such a teddy bear . . . Scotty.” Cat’s mom had deep blue eyes like Cat, and they seemed to glitter with glee. “I’m certain he’ll at least give us a chance to explain. Maybe you should too? I only mention it to be polite.”

  Foxx looked like he was choking on a fishbone. His face turned colors, and no words came out. Finally he managed to scowl and speak. “And just how is this kid helping JY without stealing signs?”

  “Tell him, amigo!” Daniel barked at Jalen from the doorway, where he still stood in the shadow of the policeman. “My man is a baseball genius.”

  “Oh, really?” Foxx’s scowl deepened.

  Jalen knew the GM was quite proud that people sometimes referred to him as a genius. Foxx was one of the youngest GMs in major league baseball, and many people attributed the rapid rise to his smarts.

  “Yeah, he really is. He can tell you what the next pitch is gonna be!” Daniel waved his hands in the air. Spit flew from his mouth, and he didn’t seem to notice the GM’s displeasure. “He doesn’t need signs. He just knows. My man, he’s just a genius!”

  “So!” Foxx raised his voice, staring at JY now. “You admit that this kid told you the pitches?”

  “He did.” JY nodded. “To help me out of my slump.”

  “And when I had him in Girardi’s office, he used his phone to call this young lady.” Foxx pointed at Cat. “And she flashed you some secret code?”

  “Yes, when you had him locked up.” JY scowled. “That’s how we did it.”

  Foxx smiled a toothy smile and angled his head at the officer in the doorway. “Now I have a witness. You admitted it.”

  “Jalen told me the pitches,” JY said. “So?”

  “So, that is cheating! And you, James Yager, are finished.” Foxx thumped his hand on the desk.

  4

  “THAT IS NOT CHEATING,” YAGER said, not sounding entirely confident.

  “Oh, but it is,” said Foxx. “That’s worse than stealing signs. You used electronics to convey the information. That is specifically against the established rules. There was a memo from the MLB chief of operations in 2000 prohibiting the use of electronic devices to convey information that gives any club an advantage.

  “So, you were cheating.” Foxx grinned wider still. Then his face dropped in mock seriousness. “We may have to forfeit the game. Probably the only decent thing to do.”

  “We didn’t need the phones. We only used them because you had Jalen locked up.” Cat pointed a finger at the GM.

  “He was sequestered, not locked up,” said Foxx. “And that was the New York City Police, not me. It was that or take him to the station. I think I was being a sport by allowing them to keep him in Joe’s office. Either way, James, I think you see this is over. Best for all if you stand down and retire with some grace. What a send-off, right? Batting a thousand and winning your final game with a two-run RBI? Doesn’t get much better.”

  “So you’d overlook the whole thing with the phones?” JY asked. “Because you really don’t care about that.”

  “Why make things messy? Say you want to retire and go peacefully.” Foxx raised his eyebrows. “I respect you, James, for what you’ve given for this club. It’s just that it’s time. You know it, I know it, and I’m sure Mr. Brenneck agrees. It’s about the numbers.”

  JY tilted his head and spoke softly. “I gave you numbers, Jeffrey.”

  “But it wasn’t you.” The GM spoke just as softly, and he nodded at Jalen. “It was him, and he can’t be there for you every game.”

  “Oh yes, he can!” Cat announced. “JY and I already have a deal. School ends next week, and Jalen can help out all summer.”

  Jalen’s head snapped around. They had talked about putting some kind of a deal together, but it was all just an idea. Cat was bluffing, but JY wasn’t giving anything away either, so Jalen stayed quiet.

  “So, we’re back to whether or not you want to give Jalen the chance to show how he can do this without stealing signs,” JY said. “Because if he can do it without seeing the catcher give a sign and then let me know what pitch is coming with a simple hand gesture, it isn’t breaking any rules at all. It won’t create even the hint of a problem, because he’s not stealing signs.”

  No one moved. The room remained silent until there was a scuffle in the hallway and a young woman in a skirt appeared, with messy long hair and dark-framed glasses that had somehow gone crooked on her face. She slipped past the policeman into the room and pointed at Jalen. “Boss, I’m sorry, but we really need this kid. The press is making all kinds of
noise.”

  “Hi, Glenda,” JY said pleasantly, and it was obvious he knew the woman well. “I was just telling Jeffrey that.”

  “Yeah, they’re bonkers down there.” She chuckled and smiled at JY before blowing a strand of hair from her face with a puff. “Whew.”

  “The press!” The GM glowered.

  “Uh . . . Boss, I was just . . . letting you know. They, uh . . . Okay.” The woman straightened her glasses and turned to go.

  “Wait!” Foxx gave a deep sigh. “Take him. Go. All of you. Out of my sight.” He pointed at the door.

  “So, we’re good?” JY asked. “You’re giving me my extension?”

  Foxx spoke so low Jalen could barely hear him. “I am not good, and I have no idea whether or not I’m giving you an extension. That depends on a lot of things.”

  Foxx got louder. “No, you go have your press conference. Say whatever you want, but from me, it’ll be ‘No comment.’ Let’s just see how you make out.

  “Good luck, James. You’re gonna need it.”

  5

  “WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO say?” Jalen asked as they rode the elevator back down.

  Yager shrugged. “I’m thinking.”

  “I’d like it if you told them I’m . . . you know,” Jalen said, “a baseball genius.”

  Glenda gave Jalen, then JY, a puzzled look.

  JY turned away. When the elevator bell dinged, he let Glenda off before answering Jalen. “It’s lucky calamari.” He kept his voice low. “That’s it. Just luck. Got it? Nothing else. I need to get that contract extension signed.”

  Jalen opened his mouth. “But—”

  JY silenced him with a raised finger. “Shh. Think about this: it’ll help your father, this ‘lucky calamari’ thing. The focus will be on his restaurant, not you. We’ll promote the grand reopening tomorrow night, and people will swarm to the place for some lucky calamari. It’s about your dad, right? This whole thing? That’s what you said.”

  Jalen looked at his friends, searching for answers. Seeing himself in their eyes, he knew what he had to do.