Eagle, Kathleen (17 page)

"Did
you play on the Dream Team?" a tanned, tow-headed boy named James asked,
wide-eyed and worshipful after watching Reese's shot kiss the backboard and
slide through the net.

"Nope."

"Make
the All-Stars?"

"Twice."

"Get
any endorsements?"

"Do
you eat rice?" Reese passed the ball to James, who took a shot and missed.

"Huh?"

"I
was on a rice box."

"Riiice..."

"It's
good stuff. I eat it myself."

"Did
you ever play against Michael Jordan?"

"Sure
did."

"Did
you ever beat him?"

"Nobody
can beat Michael Jordan," said a chunky redhead called Bigger, whose
freckles overran his perfectly round face.

"Uncle
Reese did," Derek claimed. "Didn't you, Uncle?"

"Once
or twice, but it was more like the Mavericks beating the Bulls. It's a team
sport. You've gotta pass the ball." He passed the ball to Bigger.
"Now what do you do?"

The
boy twitched his nose like a rabbit, glanced at Derek, his teammate, then up,
up, up at Reese. "Pass?"

"Do
you have a shot?"

"I
can't shoot. I'm terrible." But the boy hoisted the ball two-handed,
positioning it over his right shoulder for a shot.

"It
didn't look that heavy a minute ago," Reese said. "There must be
something wrong here. Do you have a shot?"

"I
think I'm too far away."

"If
you think so, you're probably right."

"I
should pass the ball." And he heaved it to Reese, taking him by surprise.

"Whoa,
hot potato here—" Bounce, bounce, quick signal to Bigger to keep moving
while Carter danced around him. "Get it while it's hot. No, you're not rid
of it yet. While I'm doing the tango with their big man here, you cut to the
basket, fast. Their defense is asleep, right?"

"They're
watching you."

"They're
watching me, that's right, because I'm in position."

But
so was Bigger, enraptured now with the attention and eager to please. A bounce
pass completed the give-and-go play, and Bigger shot the ball. It ricocheted
off the backboard into Reese's hands.

"Instant
replay," Reese announced with another bounce pass. "Take the shot
again, only this time, visualize. See it in your mind. Look up there, now. It's
a big hoop. Two balls can fit through there at once. The ball you've got in
your hands is going to go through that hoop. Imagine it dropping through."
The second shot dropped through, and Reese whipped a high five on the small,
triumphant hand. "Nothing but net."

"Can
you stuff the basket?"

"Do
a windmill tomahawk," James pleaded.

Reese
obliged with a flashy overhand dunk. His delight in the soprano cheers was
written all over his face.

"Don't
be hanging on my hoop, Bro-gun," Carter grumbled as he grabbed the
rebound. But he fell against the backboard support and lost the ball to Reese.

"You
need to pad that pole," Reese said, chuckling. "Somebody's liable to
separate a shoulder. Hey, where's my team? Who's guarding me?"

"Dad
is! C'mon, Dad!"

"You
wanna keep me from shooting, you trap me." Reese positioned two opponents
toe-to-toe with him behind the basket. All four of their feet would have fit
into one of his Nikes with room to spare. "You get on me like flies on
watermelon juice. I try to move, you're there. You trap me at the edge of the
floor, I'm out of bounds."

"We
can't trap you!"

"Yeah,
you're too big!"

"If
I run over you, somebody calls me for charging. Helen! Sarah!" Reese
motioned to the women to come on down. "You're the refs."

Helen
laughed. "What if I don't know the rules?"

"You
just call 'em like you see 'em," he told her as he in-bounded the ball.

And
within moments she stuck two fingers in her mouth and blew her whistle.
"No fair!"

Each
player turned, looked, scowled, scanned the perimeter of the court for
culprits.

"That
means foul," Helen explained as she sashayed across the lawn to the court,
carrying herself with new authority. "Alicia gets some free throws."

"Free
throws!" James protested. "You don't have free throws in pickup
ball."

Reese
hoisted Alicia onto his shoulders and motioned for the ball. "How
many?"

"As
many as it takes." Helen stood behind the basket, folded her arms, staked
her claim. "That's how I see it."

Reese
grinned as he lifted the ball to Alicia on the tips of his fingers.

"Nice
whistle."

Their
eyes danced with each other.

"Nice
too-hard-to-pinch."

The
game continued until everyone had shot and scored, passed the ball seven ways
from Sunday, switched teams, and tried again. After several games, Carter's
team finally reached the magic eleven points first, and Reese flopped on the
grass and called time. He tossed the ball to Bigger. "You guys give a good
workout."

Carter
bent over him, hands braced on knees, sweat dripping off his face in great
dollops. "You okay?"

"Yeah."

"You
sure?"

"I'm
fine." Reese sat up, stretching. He'd barely broken a sweat. The boys were
still bouncing the ball on the court. "Hey, I'm fine. No problem."

"You
look a little flushed. Alicia, get your uncle some water."

"Don't."
The quiet order was for Carter. "I run every day, Carter.
Every
day."
The hard edge dropped from his voice for his niece. "You'd
better get your dad some water, honey. He's the one who's huffin' and puffin'
here." He tapped his brother's small belly roll with the back of his hand.
"Look at you."

"Yeah,
well, I've got a club membership, but I haven't been using it much." He
gave Reese a pointed look. "But I don't have any kind of—"

Reese
raised a warning hand. "Don't crowd me, Carter."

"Hey..."
Carter's hands went up, too, in defense. "Just a little brotherly
concern."

"I'm
feeling crowded. Your friends had me..." He rolled his shoulders as though
he was trying to stretch his space. "Trying to box me in right away is
what it felt like."

"Preston
was your friend." Reese's scowl forced Carter to amend, "Classmate,
then, and he's a good man. He looks ahead. He..." The sales pitch was
obviously missing its mark. "Your buddies were the jocks, right? Most of
them are lucky to get a job parking cars."

Reese
waved the vague insult-by-association away. "What's with this
Darnell?"

"What
do you mean?"

"He
reminds me of a turkey buzzard, the way he sort of looks at a guy like he's
dead meat. I was glad he didn't stay for dinner."

Sarah
laughed as she exchanged glances with Helen.

"He's
okay," Carter insisted. "He's sharp, really sharp. Knows the gaming
business. He's worked for Ten Star for a long time, in different places."

"Indian
gaming?" Reese asked.

"Gaming
is gaming."

"And
vultures are vultures. What did the old man have to say about these guys?"

Carter
shrugged. "He was talking about running against Preston next time around.
No way could he beat Preston, no way in hell. Dad was living in the nineteenth
century, fighting all those old battles that nobody cares about anymore."

"What
about Darnell? What did Dad have to say about him?"

"What
difference does it make, Reese? Dad didn't get it. He didn't understand that
gaming is a business. It takes a businessman to run a business, and Bill
Darnell is a businessman. I've learned a lot from him. All of us have."

"I
didn't much like the way he talked to you, but maybe that's just his way,
huh?"

"It's
just his way." Carter reached for his wife's iced tea. "You've got
your way, he's got his."

"What,
you don't like the way I talk to you?" Reese reached over and punched
Carter's shoulder. "I'm your older brother. You got those other guys to
call you 'sir.' It's up to me to keep you from getting a big head."

Carter
looked surprised at first. For a moment he cast about for a comeback, and Helen
thought he'd taken offense, but then the smile came, the blush, the basking in
his brother's ribbing, in the big man's claim on him.

"So
who gets to keep
you
in line?" Carter took a swipe at Reese's hair.
"You must be up to a size fifteen here. Where do you get hats that
size?"

"Same
place I get my shoes, boy. A big man has his stuff tailor-made."

"See
what I'm stuck with?" Carter said to Helen. "You were smart to get
out while he was still buying hats off the rack." And to Reese, "But
you're just friends now, right? Helen's your token friend who's not a
jock."

"Leave
them alone, Carter," Sarah said. "Let them be friends if they want to
be friends. Maybe we can see how it's done."

"Ah,
she wounds me. I married her. Twice, just to show her I really meant it. Still,
she wounds me." He handed Sarah the iced-tea glass he'd drained.
"Friends don't do that, honey. Only wives do that."

Sarah
got up from her chair.

"Hey,
I'm just kidding." He reached for her arm, but she stepped away. He gave a
pitiful excuse for a smile. "Just kidding."

She
nodded. All eyes were lowered. The children were still playing noisily while in
silence all four adults tried to wish the joke away. The basketball hit the
backboard, the rim, the slab, slab, slab.

"I
was just going to make more tea."

"Actually,"
Reese remarked as he uncoiled himself from the grass and rose to his feet,
"I promised Helen a drive through the Hills before the sun sets, then a
visit to Deadwood."

"Deadwood?"
Helen didn't remember any such promise, but it sounded like relief.

"I
haven't been there in years, and I hear it's quite a gambling town again.
Thought I'd take a look at the competition. I've become something of a
businessman myself since I hung up my..." Reese smiled. "Jock
gear."

"That
was fun, wasn't it?" he said, slipping Helen an apologetic smile as he
turned in the driver's seat to back down the driveway. "Now, how do we get
to I-Ninety north from here?"

"We're
really going to Deadwood?"

"We're
really going to have some kind of fun on your day off."

Deadwood
was not Helen's idea of fun. As a gambling mecca, it was small, but it predated
Las Vegas, and gambling wasn't fun. It was work. "It was fun watching you
play basketball with the kids," she said. "I'll bet your basketball
camps are well attended."

"I
have a waiting list of kids who want to come, especially at the junior high
level. We give what we call scholarships, although it has nothing to do with
being scholarly. It has to do with having the will but no way. For kids who
have money, seems like the more we charge, the better their parents like it. It
works out fine. And thanks for doing this with me."

She
looked back at Carter's showplace as they pulled away. "I enjoyed it. I've
never met Sarah. She's very nice, and very..." A light went on in what was
probably a bedroom window, and she wondered where Reese's brother would spend
the night. Pair-a-Dice City, probably. "She's frustrated, but I think
she's also worried about Carter. She said something about him owing a lot of
money. Have they mentioned that to you?"

"No.
You mean, like credit cards?"

"She
didn't say. And she didn't say
we.
She said
he
owes too much
money, and she said he trusts the wrong people. Wonder what she meant by
that."

Reese
snorted. "I wouldn't trust Darnell with my weekly garbage."

"Darnell
is Ten Star's man. He trained Carter. I think it was a show of tremendous
confidence when they put Carter in at Pair-a-Dice City rather than Little
Pair-a-Dice."

"Does
he do a good job?" He lifted his hands from the steering wheel, cut off
her too-quick affirmative. "Forget that he's my brother. Do you think he's
good at his job?"

She
weighed her answer. "I think he's very well qualified."

"You
don't think he got the job just because his father was on the council?"

"I
don't know about that. Sarah became very defensive when I suggested that maybe
people assumed he might have had just the slightest edge. She pointed out that
he has plenty of qualifications, and she's right."

"He's
got a good education," Reese allowed. "That boy's smart. Ambitious,
too."

"He's
also very good with people, with planning, with organizing, with—"

"I
hear you. What is it that he's
not
good with?"