“Do you think it’ll be done by tonight?” I asked. “Or do you need to come to the ball game with us, too? Ah, screw it. Sallie, better make that an even 40.”

We stopped at Canal Street on the 6 line. A team of aides came onboard to do debate prep. Clinton had rashly agreed to an afternoon debate with President Rudy’s chosen standard-bearer for Giulianism in New York. In a typically shrewd move, Giuliani had bypassed the existing dullish stock of conservative pols in the city, drafting instead an intriguing and oddly beloved figure, the subway dermatologist Dr. Jonathan Zizmor. Dr. Z had almost 100 percent name recognition and no attackable philosophy other than a deep belief in fruit peels and a lifelong opposition to dry, oily, or tired-looking skin. Rudy was positioning Dr. Z to run for mayor in 2014.

As the train hurtled up the East Side, Clinton prepped for his showdown with Dr. Z. We arrived at the 92nd Street Y just after 4 p.m., late but not so late as to seem really late by Clinton standards. The curtains parted at one end of the stage, and Mayor Bill stepped into the spotlight to a general, if somewhat perfunctory, applause. The curtains parted at the other end, and out stepped Dr. Zizmor, the famous Dr. Z, in a long white lab coat, with the odd half-smile, chin tipped up, familiar to every subway rider. The cheers for Dr. Z were from a smaller segment of the crowd, though louder, more heartfelt.

The moderator said, “Our first question is for Mayor Clinton—”

The questions had to do with the city’s bond policies in light of planned charter amendments, yada yada yada, a fat softball for Bill Clinton. Technical questions offered him the chance to do what he did best, what he did better than any politician of his generation—to convey his total mastery of the mechanics of the state, while nonetheless distilling each issue down to its plain essence, its moral, its morality. It was a vintage Clinton moment.

The moderator said, “Dr. Zizmor, your reply?”

The slightly goofy dermatologist fumbled at the podium. He smiled sheepishly. He said he wasn’t, like, some big kind of expert or anything. He said that to him, government was like the skin and the great people of the city were the person underneath the skin. He knew plenty of people who had chronic facial rashes or severe acne scarring or some other terrible skin issue but who underneath were good people, fine people, beautiful people. What he wanted was to apply the equivalent of his patented fruit peel and all-pore nutra-cleansing methodology to give the skin of the state a healthy, youthful, and long-lasting glow.

He grinned again and people cheered and I thought, My God, they love Dr. Z.

After the debate, we ordered Chinese food for everyone except the prosecutors, then took the subway crosstown on the S line and up to the Papp Theatre in the Park where Clinton would be reprising his extremely popular Polonius in Hamlet.

Early in the third act, I called Sallie at the Yankee game. He said, “You better hurry. It’s 6-5, Boston. We’re just about to start the seventh-inning stretch.”

I glanced at my watch and did some quick calculations. In the old days, the seventh-inning stretch had been little more than a ritualized shaking of the limbs while the PA played “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” the same at every park across the land. After the attack on the Twin Towers in 2001, however, the Yankees had added Kate Smith’s rendition of “God Bless America,” a military color guard, a flyover by F-16s, or a joint appearance by Liberty and Freedom, a pair of tame bald eagles who arrived wearing tiny executioner-type hoods, on giant staff-like perches. Since Rudy’s rise to the White House, the Yankee seventh-inning stretch had become ever more impressive and ambitious. There were marching bands and precision-drill teams, historical pageants and costume dramas, instructive one-act plays with titles like “That First Thanksgiving” or “Mr. Fulton’s Steamboat.” There were fireworks and floats and a flag as big as the whole outfield unfurled and held aloft in the hands of a thousand children from the Boys and Girls Clubs of Rockland and Sullivan counties. The fans loved it. And who could be against patriotism, in times like these? Nobody complained that the seventh-inning stretch now ran a solid hour. If the seventh-inning stretch was only starting now, I figured we could make it to the Yankee game in plenty of time.

I must say, I thought Clinton was only so-so as Polonius that night, a little too broad, a little too much mugging. Bill Clinton was obviously way overextended, trying to be everything to everyone, and it was starting to show. He muffed a line or two, and during one of the grand scenes at court, reached into his heavy robe and pulled out the crossword puzzle as Hamlet’s mother made a speech.

Clinton was stabbed behind the arras just after ten-thirty. We started for the Stadium, stopping only briefly to pick up three dozen pizzas.

We made it to the Stadium at the perfect and climactic moment in the game. The Yankees had the bases loaded, Derek Jeter at the plate.

It had been a long, hot day. But the night was cool. There was a breeze across the Bronx, and it was gorgeous in the Stadium. I sat in a row with Clinton and his bodyguards, Boris the gross hot-dog guy, and the acting coach. In the next row were more bodyguards, Reed, and his litigati. Behind them were the prosecutors who would be permitted by court order to ask one question per inning, two if the game went into extra innings.

The prosecutors tried to corner Clinton on some golfing ambiguity, but Reed was keeping them at bay. Clinton took out the crossword puzzle and put on his reading glasses.

He said, “You know, it’s funny, Charles. People think I’m lucky. Well, if I’m so lucky, how come I’ve never gotten a foul ball at a ball game? Balls get hit to everyone around me. But to me—to ol’ Bill Clinton? Nope, never.”

I started to say something just as the pitcher pitched. Jeter swung. I heard a crack. The baseball, lashed off to the left, streaked directly at Bill Clinton’s head. Clinton watched it come, tranquil and unmoving, cool as Cary Grant. The ball missed him by a fraction of an inch, hitting the lead prosecutor in the face just behind us. Cops and ushers came running over to the prosecutor’s crumpled bleeding form, calling for a stretcher on their radios.

Turning to the crossword, Clinton said, “See what I mean?”

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