Murder at the Foul Line (39 page)

I didn’t answer. A car rolled by; at the end of the block a drunk staggered, not sure where he was going. Nora said softly,
“Nat would have known.”

“Would have known what? That other people can play the game, too? I got the feeling he knows that already. It doesn’t seem
to bother him.”

“He would have known,” her words came slowly, “that he was expendable.”

I looked at her eyes. In my mind I saw those eyes, over the years, fixed on the weaknesses in the Knicks’ offense, the holes
in their defense. I thought about how, over each season, those weaknesses had been covered and those holes filled by skills
Nathaniel polished up.

“You were a great player,” I said. “A legend. But when you came out of school, you had nowhere to go.”

She stared at me steadily. A sheet of old newspaper brushed the sidewalk as it blew up to us, and then swirled past.

“Get out of my way,” Nora Day said. She cut around me, strode down the block.

I kept pace, said nothing, until finally, without slowing, she asked, “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“You have nothing.”

“That’s not true. My fault, I didn’t check you out the first time around, but I did today: you have a permit for a Smith &
Wesson .38. The one they found has no numbers, but still, where’s yours? Could you produce it if you had to?”

She wheeled on me, glaring.

“And your car,” I said. “Everyone in New York knows you don’t go up to the house in Connecticut during the season, but you
went that night. So your doorman here wouldn’t see you come in late, right? But the car—you took it out of the garage right
after the game. And then parked it on the street two blocks from here. The police can get your E-ZPass records. They’ll show
what time you actually left New York.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“I have a witness. A kid who was considering jacking your car, until he saw you walking toward it. About two a.m.”

“It’s still nothing. All of this, it’s nothing.”

“That won’t take you far. The police can see what I saw, once they look. They’ll figure it out, too.”

I said that, but I wasn’t sure it was true, if I didn’t point them in the right direction. Nora Day’s face stretched into
a cold smile. She turned, walked away without looking back. I
stopped where I was, watched her stride, arrow-straight, down the empty sidewalk. I wondered what it felt like to know, absolutely
know, what the right play was.

I never found out. At the diner the next morning I heard the news: in the middle of the night, on her way to her secluded
Connecticut home, Nora Day’s SUV, running much too fast over a deserted stretch of highway, had jumped off the road, hit a
tree, smashed like a tin can. Another tragedy for the Knicks, people said; my God, what are they, cursed? And it’s strange,
said the guy at the counter next to me, I thought she stayed in the city during the season, only used the country place during
the All-Star break, the summer, things like that. Yeah, said the waitress, pouring us both more coffee, and I read once she
was a real careful driver. Nathaniel used to go nuts anytime they had to go someplace together, because of how slow and careful
she took it, that’s what I read. Well, said the other guy, lucky they weren’t together last night. You can write off the Knicks
this season, he said, but with Nathaniel healthy next year, they’ll be back. This’ll be hard on him, but he’s got the stuff.
You think? said the waitress. I mean, she’s his sister. Well, sure he’ll miss her, the guy said, but he’ll find out he don’t
need her, as a coach, I mean. They both looked at me, but I was busy with my coffee. From the cash register by the window,
the owner nodded his agreement. Yeah, he said. Yeah, she was great. But she wasn’t indispensable.

Justin Scott

S
cottie Pippen elbowed him in the grill when the ref wasn’t looking, busted him so hard that Shorty felt tears swarming into
his eyes like he was still a little kid playing B-ball back in the projects.

“Wha’d you do that for?’ Shorty yelled, but the pack was already kickin’ downcourt and Pippen never heard. Must have been
an accident. Scottie was his friend. Besides, who played for blood in a charity National Basketball Association All-Star Game
at Madison Square Garden?

They were all his friends. All the stars. Chris Webber, Shaquille O’Neal, Karl Malone, Allen Iverson, Kevin Garnett, John
Stockton, Allan Houston, Latrell Sprewell. The top of the top, the best of the best. ESPN called them the finest ten players
ever in one game. Webber, O’Neal, Malone, Iverson, Garnett, Stockton, Houston, Pippen, and Shorty O’Tool, who had come a long,
long way from hooping ratball in the hood.

Some guys bitched about wasting their downtime on charity. Said they needed the rest. Who wanted to tear his ACL or bust a
finger for nothing? But their agents said do it, their business
managers said do it, and their publicity guys said do it. Even Shorty’s mother said do it: take folks’ minds off the gambling
thing.

Besides, All Stars got tons of TV face time; and dinner with the mayor; and lunch with the president. Then, down in Florida,
the whole Disney World wide open for them and their folks. Just for playing for free for fifty million fans national and twenty
thousand screaming in the Garden.

Loose ball! Shorty floated through the pack, scooped it like an orange in his huge hand. Too far out to shoot? Think so, Latrell?
He faked right, like he was heading in. Think so, Chris? He faked right again, like he was fading back.

Sprewell and Webber were still guarding air when Shorty powered off the floor. Jumper. In!

Karl Malone banged him on the butt. “All right, kid!”

They called him kid—not because he was the littlest, not at seven feet two inches—but the youngest. Always the youngest. Always
all-world game. Youngest varsity at Clinton, youngest starting center at St. John’s, youngest captain of the Knicks, youngest
All-Star ever.

He took a pass from Karl, passed to Allen Iverson, drove toward the basket, and went up to meet Allen’s pass back to him.
In!

“All right, kid!”

Youngest and dumbest. No denying Shorty O’Tool was newjack. The gamblers knew. They’d seen him coming.

What did people expect? Seeing his daddy gunned down,
right before his eyes, when Shorty was ten years old. Try and forget, his mama always said. He did try. Playing hoops made
it seem so long ago. But off the court, it still dragged him down. Off the court, bad memories stayed sharp as knives.

Dirty yellow Electra 225 ghetto sled rolling up. Driver doing a gangsta lean, low over the passenger seat. Shoulda known.
Shoulda warned Daddy. But he was too busy boasting how the teacher said he was so good in school. Besides, the scarface in
the Buick’s backseat wasn’t even wearing shades. No cap, no skully, nothing covering his face. Looked like just another permafried
crackhead grinning big and laughing loud. And Shorty grins back at the man, thinking it’s a joke, never knowing it’s a hooptie
ride, until the Tec-9 is pointing out the window.

Daddy holding his hand. Tec-9 sprays
bayaka-bayaka
. Still holding Shorty’s hand when the slugs thud into him, shaking his huge, hard body like kicks and punches. Still holding
Shorty’s hand as he starts to fall.

The scarface sees Shorty’s seen him. Opens up again to spray the kid, too.
Bayaka-bayaka
. Slug plucks Shorty’s sleeve. Another sears his cheek. But Daddy’s pushing him down, falling on him hard and heavy, protecting
him under his chest.

Bayaka-bayaka
. Daddy twitching and shaking, taking the bullets until the thunderous
boo-yaa
of a Mossberg twelve-gauge slams him to pieces like an earthquake.

What’d you see? said the boys in blue.

Nothin’, he saw nothin’, says Shorty’s mother.

“Yes, I did! I saw him, Mama, I saw him.”

The cops get a lady with a computer and when Shorty tells her what he saw, damn! the scarface is staring from the screen like
he was looking out his window.

Everybody sees them come home to Grandma’s in the police car. Grandma says, “Don’t you worry, child. You’ll be safe. God will
protect you on angels’ wings.”

“Like they protected his daddy?” Mama cries, bent over the table, her face all wet.

Grandma puts him to sleep on her couch, hugs him close and explains. “Your mama’s very sad. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.
Don’t you listen to her. You listen to me and listen hard. God will protect you on angels’ wings.”

“Why didn’t angel wings protect Daddy?”

“Your daddy was a great big man. Too heavy to lift. Angels protect little boys, like you, who done no wrong.” She passes her
hand over his eyes. “Sleep.”

That same night, when the boys in blue are still sitting outside the building in their car, a guy comes pounding Grandma’s
door. “They gonna getcha! They gonna wetcha!”

Mama and Shorty bail out, run for it before the gangstas cap him for a witness. Hiding out in men’s apartments. Couldn’t go
to family. The gangstas were waiting. They knew who’s Shorty’s grandma. They know his aunts. Ran all the way to the Bronx.

Scarface came to the Bronx.

Cops didn’t care. Court didn’t care. Social worker didn’t care. Maybe God cared. Maybe it was God who gave Shorty the eyes
to scope their rusted old deuce-and-a-quarter in time to drag his mother down into the subway. C train. A train. All the way
to Brooklyn.

L train. Caught sleeping on the late train. Cops dump them at the homeless shelter. Gangstas
own
the homeless shelter. PATH train over to Jersey City. Chilltown. Mama doing what she had to for any man who didn’t know them,
just to give
them a room to hide. Men who think she’s nothing but a skeegers giving sex for dope.

Finally there came a day when Shorty knew he couldn’t stand running anymore. And that very night, God sent a fire on angels’
wings, burned down a crack house and fried the gangsta who shot his father.

Like magic, all is well. Shorty and Mama go home. Shorty back to school, scared no more, back to B-ball—Clinton High, summer
leagues. No more jumping at shadows. No more seeing Mama afraid.

Told the St. John’s scout that he believed in God and owed Him and His angels big-time. Full scholarship! Turned pro in his
freshman year. Knicks. Champs. All-Stars.

Gamblers. Scarfaces following him around again. Just like when the gangstas shot his father, all those years ago. Wouldn’t
believe how much you could lose before they said, Pay up. Pay up. Pay up or die. Pay up—hey, relax, kid. No die. Shave a point.

Shave a point?
Shave a point
. This was the NBA, not some peckerwood college league. Shave a point? You crazy.

Three points. One missed jumper, for chrissake, Shorty. White guy named Joey. What’s the big deal? One little shot off the
rim. Wipes out a million bucks. You go home free, buy your mom another house.

He was newjack. Young and dumb. Maybe he shouldn’t have clocked the gambler. Couldn’t stop himself. All that stuff came up
about his daddy and he just clocked him.

Blood bubbling from his lips, white boy screaming he’d have Shorty killed. Shorty laughing, “You gonna kill a twenty-million
basketball star?” Busts Joey again. Feels so good he waxes the floor with him. Erased the past with the gambler’s face.

“I kill you,” Joey screams, spitting teeth. “You’re one dead nigger.”

Shorty laughs. He’s so far above this.

But
damn
if next day four hard-rock diesel dudes in a Lincoln Navigator don’t roll by the big house he bought his mama in Great Neck.
Great Neck! Strong Island!
Could not believe that he was looking over his shoulder again. Seemed so long ago.

But finally, today, all is well again. Things is dope. Because today Shorty’s playing with the All-Stars in Madison Square
Garden. No way Joey Cascone is moving on Shorty in the Garden. No way dudes in a Navigator are popping him anywhere, anytime,
nohow. Now Shorty’s rich. Now his manager hires security guys, guys with legal guns and headsets and earpieces watching his
back. Used to be Secret Service, said his manager. Watched the president’s back. Now they watch yours. You too valuable to
get smoked. So chill. Gambler Joe’s ass is waxed, says Shorty’s agent. All you got to do is get in the zone. Hold on to the
game. Everything’s cool. Just stay in your zone.

All is well, said his mama. Things is dope, at last.

Sprewell shot, missed. Shorty popped up for the rebound and the fans hollered as he wiped the glass.

Boom
. Another elbow. Shaquille O’Neal’s, so hard it felt like he’d cracked a rib.

“What are you doin’?” Shorty gasped. “It’s the lousy All-Stars!”

He wrestled the ball from Shaq, thinking, I’ll send you back to school, nigga, front of the whole damn Garden. He went around
him like Shaq’s dogs were nailed to the wooden floor.

Fast break!

Malone goes, “Gimme the rock!”

Shorty, Malone, Shorty, Iverson: pass, receive, pass, receive. Barrel down the lane. Up! And jam a deep, deep
dunk
!

The fans went wild. It felt like they’d shake down the Garden walls with their stompin’ and hollerin’. Folks had seen those
elbows—even if the ref was blind. They were rooting for Shorty O’Tool, who could take a hit and keep playing.

But it was getting harder to stay in his zone. His ribs ached. His lips stung. He could taste blood. And here Latrell Sprewell
came humming, like he was looking to bust him again. And the damn ref was looking the other way.

“What are you doing? Latrell?”

Latrell goes, point-blank, “Your mama’s a strawberry.”

“Oh yeah? Your mama’s a bag bride.”

“Your mama’s a buffer.”

“Your mama’s a skeegers.”

Then Shaq nailed him right to the floor: