Murder Is My Racquet (16 page)

Flushed with pleasure, Webber dipped in a modest little bow. That was the kind of shot that had earned him the prized moniker
Bobby the Backboard
. That kind of shot would get him past Duchamps and all comers, on to the national tour and the big time.

“Love–forty. Match point, Mr. Webber,” boomed the umpire.

As Webber turned back toward the baseline, his right shoe went slack. Peering down, he spotted a broken lace trailing from the cheek of his lucky Reebok. He caught the umpire’s eye and signaled for a time-out.

Coach Deke Hardeman appeared at the bench with his axe jaw jutting, arms bulging force, and a new lace drooping from his ham-sized hand. Webber took the strand with a somber nod, striving to match the coach’s fierce, muscular silence.

Propping his foot on the bench, he flicked out the broken lace. Quickly, he strung the replacement, yanked tight, and worked a double bow. He stepped on the foot, testing, and then tossed the ruined scraps aside.

Before he could make it back onto the court, a horrified shriek stalled Webber.

“You can’t leave those lying around, Bobby. Jee-zuz.”

Turning, Webber watched Earl Emerson dash onto the court, scoop up the broken lace strings and stuff them hard in the pocket of his grass-stained jeans.

Webber’s ears went hot. “Are you nuts, Emerson? Get out of here. Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a match?”

Emerson’s eyes skittered nervously. “Hell with the match, Bobby. There’s serious danger here. She’s got her eye on you. I can see.”

Webber tracked Earl’s gaze to the dark, hulking woman in the first row. Large jet-lensed glasses masked her eyes, and a bright scarf bound her head like a giant wasp’s nest. Sun sparks sprayed off the knitting needles that clicked with startling rapidity in her leathery hands. Blood-red yarn snaked up from the canvas tote bag beside her, and a beard of taut, even stitches stretched beneath the needle like a spreading wound.

“Take your crazy hokum nonsense and get the hell away, Earl. I’ve got a game to win.”

Emerson touched his pocket, checking for the lace. Then he backed away, peering anxiously over his shoulder. “Sure, Bobby. You just go on ahead and play. I’ll see she don’t get a-hold of the strings. Don’t you worry yourself one bit.”

“Go, Earl.”

Webber’s heart was stammering. Damned Earl Emerson was forever hanging around, running at the mouth; and breaking his concentration. It had started as soon as Webber showed up at Beaumont Academy six weeks ago. Before he got his duffel bags unpacked, there was Earl, grinning and gawking, drawling his endless stream of irritating trash.

Webber still remembered Earl’s first words, drooping off his lazy tongue like tar. “Stick with me, Bobby, and I’ll show
you what’s what. Real soon, you’ll be a genuine bayou-blooded southern boy, N’awlins to the bone.”

Fat chance.

Webber had explained in picture-book terms that he was a bagel-blooded, Yanks-addicted Brooklyn boy to the bone, and glad of it. He had come to Beaumont for the tennis program, which regularly set its number-one player on a fast track to world-class prominence. His plan was to take the number-one seed from Roy Duchamps, then play ball and reap the juicy benefits. With any luck, by this time next year he would be back in civilization, enrolled at Columbia or NYU, armed with a Beaumont degree and the academy’s powerful contacts.

But Emerson refused to listen. Kid was determined to convert Webber to Creole, jambalaya, and moonshine. Damned Earl was thick as gator hide and stubborn as a tick. And he was still standing at courtside, casting his slouchy shadow over Webber’s shining moment in the sun.

“Go on, Earl! Get lost.”

Stupid kid just stood there. “There’s danger, Bobby. Real serious. You got to listen.”

The umpire scowled. “Ready, Mr. Webber? This is a tennis court, not a chat room.”

“Ready, sir.” Webber took up his racquet and hurried onto the court. Earl’s warnings echoed in his head.
She’s got her eye on you. Serious danger
.

Waiting for Duchamps to serve, Webber’s gaze drifted toward the woman on the bench. He imagined her staring at him behind those great black glasses, leaking lethal poison from her eyes.

Suddenly, Duchamps arched back, flung the toss, and
looped his racquet with dislocating speed. The ball exploded across the court, sharp and low.

Webber charged in, racquet poised, but the shot whizzed past at a crazy angle as he swatted madly at the torpid air.

“Fifteen–forty,” came the call.

Grim-faced, Webber trudged back to the line. The mosquito dove in, emboldened, so Webber had to slap his own cheek hard to thwart the assault. Smarting, he peered at his adversary. He could sense Duchamps settling down, gaining confidence.
Damned Earl and his superstitious crap
.

Webber shook his head to clear it. He would not think about murdering Earl or his stinging cheek or how badly he ached to beat Roy Duchamps. He would not think about the spooky woman on the bench. Her face was turned his way now, mouth pressed in a grim, stingy line.

Suddenly, Webber heard a crack followed by a grunt from Duchamps. The ball streaked into the service box before he could react.

“Thirty-forty.”

Coach Hardeman howled like a stuck beast. “Tune in, Webber. Focus, for the love of Pete!”

Webber tried. He fixed on Roy Duchamps, unblinking. When the next serve came, he was all over it and then some. His return took off as if he’d launched it. He heard Duchamps chuckling as the ball sailed overhead and kept sailing well out of bounds.

“Dang if that ain’t a home run,” Duchamps drawled.

“Deuce,” called the ump.

From there, Webber made a long, slow slide downhill. His timing was off, everything was. Known for his incredible gets, he now failed to reach easy obvious shots. When he did get his
racquet on the ball, he either overhit or smashed the return into the net. His limbs felt leaden. Bats of doubt swooped in his mind, broad wings flapping.

Duchamps took full advantage. He battled back stroke by stroke, game after humiliating game. Soon the score was tied, and then Roy claimed the lead. At some point, the crowd arced over into his camp, heaping their collective energy on the swamp rat. Eventually, even the umpire seemed to slide toward Roy’s side of the lopsided equation, handing him close calls and encouraging comments.

Webber had all he could do to finish the match. When it was mercifully over, he forced himself to shake Duchamps’s damp, calloused hand and trade a brave grimace for the swamp rat’s twisted smile. “Good game,” Webber mumbled without feeling.

“Was, wasn’t it?” Duchamps crowed.

Webber spotted Earl Emerson in the departing crush and rode a burst of fury to catch up with him. His voice quaked with rage. “Goddamnit, Earl. You cost me the match. You broke my stride with that superstitious crap and made me lose.”

“Hush, Bobby. Watch out. She’ll hear.” He tipped his head toward the edge of the straggling crowd, where the dark woman from the bench was lumbering toward the parking lot.

The Beaumont campus had been carved from an old plantation in the French Quarter, hard by the Mississippi. The boys crossed a sprawling green flanked by iron-terraced guest quarters that had been converted to classroom space and the main house, which now held the chapel and administration offices. Earl refused to speak again until they reached the senior dorm, a two-story tomblike building of indeterminate origin, which
was rumored to have served as a dungeon and torture chamber for recalcitrant slaves.

Outside Webber’s room, Emerson peered up and down the dim corridor. Slipping inside, he double-locked the door. “Wish it was crap, Bobby. Honest.”

Webber hopped on the bed with his hands behind his neck. “I’m listening, and it better be good.”

Slumped on the desk chair, Earl shook his head miserably. “Can’t talk about it. I do, and I’m toast.”

“You don’t and I’ll toast you, Emerson. Now shoot.”

Desperation pinched Earl’s tone. “Smarter not to say anything. Honest. Never can tell who could be listening. What they might do.”

“Maybe not. But you can imagine what I’ll do, dickhead. Now, talk!”

Emerson sighed mightily. “All right. I’ll say what I can, but you got to promise not to tell anyone you got it from me.”

“Shoot, Earl. I mean it. I’m running out of patience fast.”

Earl raked through his spiky hay-toned hair. “That old witch calls herself Maman Mechant. Means nasty mother in French, and that’s just what she is. She does voodoo. Works these real nasty spells.”

Webber snickered. “No problem. I’ve got a drawer full of kryptonite. Never leave home without some.”

“Can’t blame you for figuring it’s bunk. But trust me, Bobby. Be a shame for you to learn it the hard way. Like me.” Emerson rubbed the wormy web of scars between his right thumb and forefinger.

Webber sat and pitched forward. He had been dying for an opening to ask about Earl’s deformity. “Are you saying she had something to do with that?”

“Caused it.”

“Yeah? How?”

Earl rubbed harder at the scabrous flap of skin. “Back in ninth grade, I was on the team. Not just a gofer like now. Had me a real good serve. Killer lob and a wicked net shot. Gave old Roy a run for his money a time or two. Came precious close to beating him, which Maman Mechant didn’t like one bit.”

“What’s it to her?”

“Way I hear it, she and Roy’s folks go way back, used to be neighbors over in Slidell. Lived right on the bayou and got from here to there on those flat-bottom boats called pirogues. One time, Roy’s daddy saved Maman’s youngest boy from drowning when he fell overboard trying to catch a fish, so she believes she owes Roy. If anyone threatens to get in his way, Maman fixes it so they don’t.”

“Do you honestly expect me to believe that old woman hurt your hand with some spell?”

“I’m telling you what is. This one day, I had Roy near beat. All sudden like, it started raining something fierce, so the ump said we should pack it up and finish the next morning.

“That night, I went down to dinner. It was still pretty nasty out, so I went to get myself a nice hot mess of gumbo from the crock. I was holding the bowl in one hand and spooning with the other when out of nowhere I get this monster cramp in my gut. Next thing I know I’m flat on the floor and my right hand is burning like crazy, screaming pain. Doc checked me out head to toe, found nothing wrong except the burn. But that was more than enough. Thing wouldn’t heal for the longest time, and then it scarred over all weird and knobby, like you see. That was it for me and tennis. Can barely hold a racquet
with this ugly mitt.” Emerson’s chest heaved. “Used to fancy I’d maybe be a tennis star someday. Pretty rich, huh?”

Webber cradled his own right hand protectively. “That sucks, Earl. But what makes you think the old woman had anything to do with it?”

“Maman told me so, that’s what. I’m walking after class a couple of weeks after the accident, and she comes up right out of nowhere.
No one goes after my boy
, she tells me.
You stay away from Roy, or I’ll tie you up way worse than the belly cramps next time. Worse than you can imagine, boy. You hear?”

Webber sniffed. “So she found out you had a cramp and she decided to spook you. Doesn’t prove a thing, Earl. How gullible can you be?”

“Hear me out, Bobby. I heard tell there were other kids she’d hurt. Back in first grade, there was this boy named Freddy Fenold. Dorky kid with a temper, he was. Anyway, he got into a fight with Duchamps over something or the other. Next day, Freddy trips in a gopher hole and breaks his back. Spent six months in the hospital, strapped to a frame. Poor kid’s still all twisted up, I’m told. Can’t hardly walk.”

“Sounds like a rotten accident, Earl. Nothing more.”

“Maybe so, but after that was Stevie Krulwich, who accused Roy of cheating on a spelling test and got a ruptured appendix for his trouble. Then came Pete Cady a couple of years later.”

“The deaf kid?”

“Wasn’t always,” Earl said gravely. “Pete couldn’t abide Roy for some reason, picked on him something awful. This one afternoon, he goes into town to buy himself some gum. On the way back, he kicks at a lump of dirt at the side of the road. Turns out to be a live grenade. Nobody knows how it got
there, but
Maman
let Pete know he had her to thank. Of course, Pete couldn’t hear anymore after that grenade blew up in his face, but he could read her lips, clear as day.”

Webber hunched behind hard-crossed arms. “It’s nothing but talk, Earl, rumors. Every school has stories like those. I bet that old lady is harmless.”

“There’ve been others, Bobby, plenty more. Kids just don’t get sick like that, one after another, sick and hurt.”

Webber sniffed. “That’s it? That’s your whole stupid story?”

Emerson caught his lip behind a fence of chipped, yellowed teeth. “I said way too much already.”

“You said plenty of nothing. You’ve got some major nerve costing me a match over that.” Webber rose to leave. He crossed the floor in three long strides before he realized this was his room after all. “Get the hell out of here,” he ordered. “Being around you is giving me worse than a cramp.”

The chair squealed as Earl got to his feet. “That’s fine, Bobby. You go on and be mad as you please. Just be careful is all I’m asking. Craig Sichel wouldn’t listen. And now…” Earl’s voice sank to a mournful plaint as he headed out the door. “If only he’d taken it serious, like I begged him to.”

“What are you talking about, Earl? Who’s Craig Sichel? What happened to him? Get back here and tell me!”

The door thwacked shut, and Emerson’s flat footsteps slapped away down the hall. Webber thought to follow and wring the story out of Earl’s chicken neck, but he had a better idea. If you wanted to know the facts about anything around here, there was only one place to go.

Darwin Fassberg, a wiry, weasel-faced boy, lived one floor up at the end of the hall. His room was triple the size of Webber’s
and boasted a pond view, kitchenette, and private bath. Normally, the prime space was assigned to a resident dorm counselor or faculty member, but Fassberg was a very special case.