Time Games Read online

  Mitch said, “I apologize, I was out of line with my lingo . . . Again, though, can you formulate a substantial distinction between the pending event and the previous one?”

  “And roll with it,” Pike said, thinking about it. “That’s not the worst thing you’ve said . . . Even though I’m not sure what it means.”

  “I’m not sure either,” Mitch said. “But keep it in mind.”

  “Yeah, right,” Pike said.

  ***

  It was after midnight when he finished with Mitch, and he had one final exam tomorrow, English.

  If it weren’t for the exam, he’d forget school and go to San Francisco tomorrow, try to get this over with. It wasn’t going away, it was becoming like a thorn in his side, especially with the time he was wasting trying to analyze all the what ifs.

  And he had promised Henry for a while now that he’d be on it . . . who at this point thought he was crazy, probably, but still . . .

  And there was Jeff.

  So he scheduled it for Saturday. With the one hour per one day ratio, San Francisco to Beacon, he’d be back for the movies with Jocelyn no problem. Yeah he might be a little worn out, but who couldn’t deal with that.

  He wasn’t too worried about the English final because Mr. Kesey was a reasonably cool teacher and let them pick one book, whatever they wanted as long as it was fiction, and over 200 pages, where they basically just had to describe the book back for the exam, and explain why they did or didn’t like it.

  Mr. Kesey said he’d been through enough years of kids not reading anything that was assigned, so he was down to this, read something. Pike wondered how that was going over with the principal and the rest of the English teachers, but Mr. Kesey was the kind of guy who didn’t seem like he worried about it.

  Pike chose The Amorphous Gambit by Willard Frankenthraller. He liked the guy’s style, where he kept switching back and forth between the mind of the killer, and the mind of the detective who was trying to figure him out and track him down. They both live in New York. The killer lives in a fancy high rise apartment near 5th Avenue and the detective lives in a beat-up one in the meat-packing district. Pike especially liked how the detective, even with all the bad stuff swirling around, still makes time to enjoy good restaurants and date beautiful women, though a couple times he has to cut those activities short.

  Anyway . . . he had a little time now, and some energy for it, and he decided it was as good a time as any to start looking for Audrey.

  Two hours later, he closed the computer. She was nowhere to be found, nor was Hailey, and Pike laid there in the dark most of the rest of the night, praying to God that what Andrea suggested so casually in those bleachers, might be keeping the Milburns alive.

  Chapter 13

  The most popular song in the country in October of 1989, if he was looking it up right, was called Ride on Time . . . by a group called Black Box.

  If you could believe it.

  Pike thought why not choose something different.

  There was Girl I’m Going to Miss You by Milli Vanilli, and also rounding out the list you had If I Could Turn Back Time by Cher, and Right Here Waiting by Richard Marx.

  This was getting a little weird, before Pike came to his senses and remembered he was going to use the radio station thingamajig, just like he was talking to Frankie about the other night, and he wouldn’t have to be selecting individual songs of the day, the DJ would do it for him.

  It was Saturday morning and he was cutting it a little close, still getting organized, but it should be okay. The real reason he was moving slow was this was a very unappealing venture. With Mrs. Milburn, it was tough for different reasons, but the finish line was so clear, so unmistakable, that you just went for it. The Henry brother thing seemed logical, but the fact was it was major unknown territory.

  He once again dialed up the California Museum of Top-40 radio, took a look at the San Francisco stations from back then, and went with his gut and selected one from the front of the dial, 620, KFCB. There was a morning DJ who had a nice voice, but there were too many commercials, so he settled on the mid-day guy, the Big Dave Burke show.

  That would hopefully take care of the timing, but the location was a little trickier. San Francisco was a definite big place and he didn’t know it, other than a few trips up there over the years, usually with some kid’s dad driving, so he barely ever paid attention to where they were.

  The idea of arriving in a stadium again was comforting. It had worked before a couple times, and even though he ended up in Orland instead of the minor league ballpark in Chico, it still got him there, so good enough.

  Pike was familiar with Candlestick Park, where the Giants played back in ‘89, as well as the 49ers. What he didn’t like about it was it felt like a remote area of the city, nothing around when a game wasn’t going on, and maybe some dangerous neighborhoods you had to go through to get to the north side of town, which he was learning from the map, was where Galileo High School was, as well as the Marina District where Henry and his brother lived.

  He dad had taken him to Cal football games in Berkeley, at least one a year when he was younger, and he liked it over there. He was pretty sure you could pick up a BART train then that took you under San Francisco Bay and into the city.

  So sitting there in The Box, close to noon now, Pike had the computer open to a photo of Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, and he cued up radio station KFCB for Friday October 27th, 1989.

  Which was hopefully the day before the Galileo football game in question.

  Pike was thinking, what else? He had some money on him, a sweater, a bunch of change if he needed to use the pay phones they had back then, a map of SF folded up and stuck in his back pocket. Some gum, which was always good.

  That should about do it, then. Everything except actually getting there.

  He took his spot in one of the bean bag chairs, turned up the radio show, got comfortable and, no reason for it but it just happened this time, he began reciting the alphabet slowly backwards.

  He’d gotten to T and was feeling the start of the familiar meditative state and it felt nice, and was letting himself get immersed in it.

  Unexpectedly, at that point, there was some noise developing outside, voices, muffled, but the guy sounded like Hannamaker and there was a female voice too that you couldn’t make out.

  Pike remembered that he’d told Jack he was making a quick trip up to the Bay Area in the morning, and obviously the guy took him literally, and how could you blame him.

  Since he figured he had some privacy, Jack now apparently was going to show someone the drums . . . The Box . . . hang out for a while . . . whatever else.

  There were two ways to go. You could stop what you were doing and say hi . . . or you could speed it up and beat it the heck out of here by the time they dropped over that wall.

  Pike decided Jack might not appreciate the first idea, being greeted out of the blue, and his friend might not either. Plus, then it would be pretty darn awkward to use The Box for what you needed it for, once they were here, since you didn’t routinely tell someone, Please wait on the couch for a few minutes, I have to time travel.

  So Pike went to plan B, fast, started the backwards alphabet again, and son of a gun, the shaking started and the snare drum was rattling and the high-hat was making a sizzle sound, and boom, there was a sensation like he was being sucked into a bright blue tunnel this time, but the feeling was mostly familiar, and he felt himself slipping away just as Hannamker’s voice got loud and one of his big boots braced itself against the outside wall of The Box.

  Chapter 14

  Pike was seriously alarmed for just a minute, because he ended up in water.

  As he opened his eyes, he was slightly relieved that he smelled chlorine, and even more relieved that his feet were touching the bottom of something, and his head was out of the water.

  He looked to his right, and there was a canyon and behind it green hills with areas of trees, and he looked to
his left and there was the upper rim of what was coming into focus now as Memorial Stadium, the football complex at Cal Berkeley, where he wanted to be.

  According to the numbers painted on the side of the pool, he was in three feet of water. It was a lap pool, there were lane lines marked by those floating plastic tubes that you see in races, and four or five people were presently swimming up and down.

  In fact some guy was coming at him at a pretty good pace, a serious looking lap swimmer with googles, fins and a cap, and Pike got to the edge and boosted himself out of the pool.

  He was wet from the waist down, and his feet were sloshing around in his shoes, but he figured he’d dry out soon enough.

  There was a lawn and there were a bunch people sitting around getting some sun, who looked like students, and Pike figured why not sit down for a few minutes and get your bearings.

  This was part of the college apparently, a nice swim facility with two pools and also a large hot tub he noticed now that sure looked good, except it might wear him out before he even got started.

  Even though they were lounging around on the middle of a Friday the students seemed focused, a lot of bulky-looking textbooks spread out on their laps. Pike realized they were probably going through finals too (if he had his timing right, which he wasn’t sure of yet) and a lot stickier ones, for sure, than he was dealing with at little old Hamilton High.

  Then he picked up on the fact that no one seemed to have phones or laptops, just like they hadn’t at that coffee shop in Orland. And this would be (hopefully) four years earlier than that. It was hard picturing a life where you couldn’t pull out something electronic, but the students seemed happy enough, and, he supposed, still ran around and laughed and dated and partied like anyone else.

  A pretty good view was opening up to the west, with the fog starting to lift and the bay and parts of the Golden Gate Bridge exposed, and Pike knew San Francisco was over that way and figured he better get a move on it.

  There was a little check-in station for the pool complex, and there was a gal sitting there who looked like she doubled as a lifeguard. Pike had obviously bypassed the station on the way in. He got up and asked her the date, and she had a bit of an accent, he couldn’t tell from where, but her answer was pretty clear, that it was October 2oth.

  God damn it.

  He’d missed it by a week, if he even had the year right, which this time he couldn’t bring himself to ask. It was getting too embarrassing, the way people reacted to that question.

  And what was he thinking--the students weren’t studying for finals obviously, they were in the middle of the semester. Meanwhile the lifeguard was talking to him about something else, which he hadn’t been hearing after being wrapped up in how do you kill a week now?

  What she was saying was next time please wear a swimsuit, but she had a smile behind it and she wasn’t going to write him up or anything. He told her don’t worry about that, and got directions to the BART train and also where he could get something to eat cheap, and she told him Top Dog on Durant Avenue, and pointed in that direction.

  She was right, the dogs were good, and you had a choice of about five types, which they grilled to order right in front of you, the whole place a hundred times better than the thatched roof job on the way to Uffington. You stood at a counter and it was tight, and some guy with a backwards Oakland A’s hat had a newspaper spread out, pretty obnoxious, but on the top of the page above the headlines Pike was able to confirm the year, 1989.

  Maybe it was because you were a block from campus, or maybe because it was a beautiful day out, sunny and warm for late October, or maybe just that he’d been too preoccupied to notice, especially until he had some food in his stomach-- but man, there were a lot of beautiful women around here.

  He wondered, could the current crop, the 2016 ones, be as attractive as as they are here at the moment, in front of him?

  He doubted it. It killed him to think that when he returned to Beacon these girls would be in their late forties, plenty of wear and tear on them at that point, a few of them even grandmas.

  But why think about that right now, appreciate it for what it was . . . and this was turning into some vantage point indeed.

  The dude next to him continued to hover over the too-wide newspaper so Pike decided to at least pick his brain. He asked him, did it show anything about high school football games that weekend.

  The guy was surprisingly friendly and put on his glasses and looked it up in the fine print on the inside back page of the sports section. He asked what school in particular and Pike said Galileo, over in the city, and the guy announced that yeah, they were playing Lowell tonight on the road.

  “Where’s Lowell?” Pike said.

  “Out near Stonestown,” the guy said. “You’re not from around here, I’m guessing . . . Most of your city schools over there, they don’t have lights, so they play on Saturdays, or else Friday afternoons.”

  “But Lowell does? Have lights?”

  “Yeah, they’re the rich public school. Same budget as all the rest, but they soak in the donations . . . They field pretty good teams, too. Don’t let anyone tell you rich kids can’t play.”

  “You seem to know a lot about it,” Pike said. “Did you play?”

  “Me? Nah.”

  Pike decided this guy might have an angle, and either way he could use as much help as he could get. He said, “I’m thinking a player might get hurt out there, one of these games . . . How would you stop that?’

  “You mean, like legislate it? Water down the rules so it’s safer?”

  “Well that’s a separate idea, and that might be good too . . .”

  “But what you’re asking,” the guy getting into it now, “how you keep a kid safe during the actual event? Like tonight?”

  “Something like that, yeah,” Pike said.

  “Well I could be wrong, but you don’t strike me like you played either . . . or you wouldn’t be asking that. Fact is, it’s a brutal sport. You can’t control it, too many variables.”

  Pike was wondering again how he might have blindsided Anthony in the Fresno game. Neither one of them saw each other? He might have to find out about that actually, just out of curiosity.

  “That’s what I’m thinking too,” Pike said to the guy. “Where’s Lowell at again though? You say . . . near Flint Town?”

  “Stonestown. A mall. Kind of a lame one . . . you thinking of checking it out?”

  “I don’t know. I kind of miscalculated, I have to kill a week. Might be something to do.”

  The guy fidgeted a little, and folded up the sports section. “You got wheels?” he said.

  “No, not here.”

  “Well . . . maybe I could give you a lift. I always enjoy a good high school battle.”

  The guy didn’t seem like a serial murderer or anything, so Pike said that’d be great.

  “I have to go to work first though,” he said.

  “Ah.”

  “But we got time, the game starts at 7:30, what I just read in the paper.”

  Pike was thinking it must be around 2, 2:30 now. “What kind of work?” he said.

  “I play chess . . . down on Telegraph.”

  “Dang . . . for money you mean?”

  “Yeah, it can be kind of a hustle. It pays the bills. The city tends to more lucrative. North Beach, Ghirardelli Square . . . you get the high-flying tourists over there. But there are pros and cons either way.”

  “So you don’t go to Cal?”

  “What would I want to do that for?” the guy said, looking at him funny.

  Pike left it alone, and the guy told him to meet him at 6:30 in front of Moe’s Books.

  Pike took his time the rest of the afternoon. He had a long look at the campus, very nice, different than Utah State which had been impressive too. There was a little more energy here though, it seemed like.

  At 6:30 true to his word there the guy was. He had a chessboard and a box of pieces and a clock under his arm. “
You did okay then?” Pike said.

  “About the usual. There’s an old guy I can normally count on on Fridays. Prides himself on being from Brooklyn, street tough and all. Good player back in the day but loses focus now in the endgame.”

  “So, is it speed chess, or what?” Not really knowing how that worked, but he’d heard of it.

  “Oh yeah. You can’t waste time with these people, you’d go broke.”

  Traffic into the city was bad, and the game had started by the time they got there. On the way over, the guy, now named Jerry, had been talking non-stop on a variety of subjects, all pretty interesting, but Pike tuned a lot of it out.

  One thing he was worried about, which seemed ridiculous at this point, was getting back in time for the movies with Jocelyn. He still was trying to get to know her, wasn’t sure how it felt about her, but one thing for sure, she wouldn’t appreciate him flaking out on her twice in a row.

  If he’d gotten here around 12:30 and had to stay for a week now, that would be translate to 7 hours of Beacon time, so at the minimum, he wouldn’t get home until 7:30, while he was supposed to pick her up at 7:00.

  You could probably maneuver that and pull it off, but it wasn’t how you scripted it.

  Bottom line, it would be great to get out of here before then, but the question, no more resolved than 2 weeks ago when he’d run into Henry at the gas station (and unbelievable that that was only 2 weeks ago in real time) was how would you?

  Pike supposed for starters you’d observe the guy playing tonight, in his last game where he wasn’t going to get hurt, you get a bead on him, his teammates, the coach, the whole nine yards . . . and maybe a lightbulb goes on.

  Pike and Jerry grabbed a seat on the top row of the home side of the field under the little PA announcer’s booth. Aside from everything else, it was interesting to see the difference between the style of play back then, and what Pike was used to.

  “Jeez,” he said to Jerry, at end of the first quarter, “no read-option, no spread? No 4 wides on 3rd down? . . . And they keep huddling.”