Brian watched the cards flash by, speechless with astonishment.
The guy who ran The Baseball Card Shop had what his dad called "a pretty country-fair" selection of old cards, but the contents of the whole store couldn't hold a candle to the treasures tucked away in this one sneaker box. There were chewing-tobacco cards with pictures of Ty Cobb and Pie Traynor on them. There were cigarette cards with pictures of Babe Ruth and Dom DiMaggio and Big George Keller and even Hiram Dissen, the one-armed pitcher who had chucked for the White Sox during the forties. LUCKY STRIKE GREEN HAS GONE TO WAR! many of the cigarette cards proclaimed. And there, just glimpsed, a broad, solemn face above a Pittsburgh uniform shirt"My God, wasn't that Bonus
Wagner?" Brian gasped. His heart felt like a very small bird which had blundered into his throat and now fluttered there, trapped.
"That's the rarest baseball card in the universe!"
"Yes, yes," Mr. Gaunt said absently. His long fingers shuttled speedily through the cards, faces from another age trapped under transparent plastic coverings, men who had whacked the pill and chucked the apple and covered the anchors, heroes of a grand and bygone golden age, an age of which this boy still harbored cheerful and lively dreams. "A little of everything, that's what a successful business is all about, Brian. Diversity, pleasure, amazement, fulfillment... what a successful life is all about, for that matter... I don't give advice, but if I did, you could do worse than to remember that now let me see... somewhere... somewhere... ah!"
He pulled a card from the middle of the box like a magician doing a trick and placed it triumphantly in Brian's hand.
It was Sandy Koufax.
It was a '56 Topps card.
And it was signed.
"To my good friend Brian, with best wishes, Sandy Koufax," Brian read in a hoarse whisper.
And then found he could say nothing at all.
6
He looked up at Mr. Gaunt, his mouth working. Mr. Gaunt smiled.
"I didn't plant it or plan it, Brian. It's just a coincidence... but a nice sort of coincidence, don't you think?"
Brian still couldn't talk, and so settled for a single nod of his head. The plastic envelope with its precious cargo felt weirdly heavy in his hand.
"Take it out," Mr. Gaunt invited.
When Brian's voice finally emerged from his mouth again, it was the croak of a very old invalid. "I don't dare."
"Well, I do," Mr. Gaunt said. He took the envelope from Brian, reached inside with the carefully manicured nail of one finger, and slid the card out. He put it in Brian's hand.
He could see tiny dents in the surface they had been made by the point of the pen Sandy Koufax had used to sign his name... their names. Koufax's signature was almost the same as the printed one, except the printed signature said Sanford Koufax and the autograph said Sandy Koufax. Also, it was a thousand times better because it was reat Sandy Koufax had held this card in his hand and had imposed his mark upon it, the mark of his living hand and magic name.
But there was another name on it, as well-Brian's own. Some boy with his name had been standing by the Ebbets Field bullpen before the game and Sandy Koufax, the real Sandy Koufax, young and strong, his glory years just ahead of him, had taken the offered card, probably still smelling of sweet pink bubblegum, and had set his mark upon it... and mine, too, Brian thought.
Suddenly it came again, the feeling which had swept over him when he held the splinter of petrified wood. Only this time it was much, much stronger.
Smell of grass, sweet and fresh-cut.
Heavy smack of ash on horsehide.
Yells and laughterfrom the batting cage.
"Hello, Mr. Koufax, could you sign your cardfor me?"
A narrow face. Brown eyes. Darkish hair. The cap comes off briefly, he scratches his headjust above the hairline, then puts the cap back on.
"Sure, kid." He takes the card. "What's your name?"
"Brian, sir-Brian Seguin," Scratch, scratch, scratch on the card.
The magic: the inscribed fire.
"You want to be a ballplayer when you grow up, Brian?" The question has the feel of rote recital, and he speaks without raising his face from the card he holds in his large right hand so he can write on it with his soon-to-be-magic left hand.
"Yes, sir. "Practice your fundamentals." And hands the card back.
"Yes, sir!"
But he's already walking away, then he's breaking into a lazy run on the fresh-cut grass as he jogs toward the bullpen with his shadow jogging along beside him"Brian? Brian?"
Long fingers were snapping under his nose-Mr. Gaunt's fingers.
Brian came out of his daze and saw Mr. Gaunt looking at him, amused.
"Are you there, Brian?"
"Sorry," Brian said, and blushed. He knew he should hand the card back, hand it back and get out of here, but he couldn't seem to let it go. Mr. Gaunt was staring into his eyes-right into his head, it seemed-again, and once more he found it impossible to look away.