07-Shot

by Parnell Hall

  “Conversely, you say, ‘I was callin’ on this kid and I walked out of his building and that’s the last thing I remember till I woke up in the hospital.’ See, that’s a lie too, but it’s also simple and straightforward.

  “But you, no, you start in on one lie and right in the middle you switch to the other one. You throw in potholes and amnesia. What a fucking moron. Now, Reynolds didn’t go into it, ’cause it wasn’t important at the time, but whaddya wanna bet the next time he talks to you, he asks you for a list of the potholes you were gonna register? Whaddya gonna tell him, that you hadn’t found any yet?”

  That’s exactly what I was gonna tell him. Hearing MacAullif ridicule the idea didn’t exactly make my day.

  “No,” MacAullif said. “Here’s the problem. Your story’s so transparent I can see right through it. The pothole thing is bullshit. You made that up to cover the time you were working on something that had to do with Melissa Ford. The amnesia thing is also bullshit. You made that up because while the pothole thing gave you a good excuse for walkin’ around Harlem, you couldn’t figure any way to stretch it into a reason for being in that abandoned building. And you were in that abandoned building—the evidence is quite clear.”

  MacAullif drained his coffee cup, grimaced. “God, this is terrible,” he said. He waved his arm for the waitress to fill it up again. She did, and he dumped in milk and sugar, stirred it around.

  “What makes you so transparent,” MacAullif said, “is the fact you’re not a good liar to begin with. You’re not inventive, you always stick pretty close to the truth. Now the pothole thing, it’s not true, you weren’t out registering them. But you’ve photographed enough potholes in Harlem, so to you that seemed close enough to be true.

  “The amnesia thing is something else. You say you don’t know anything from the time you’re walking down the street till you wake up in the hospital. That, of course, is bullshit, but there’s a little bit of truth in it. I would imagine you don’t remember anything from the time you got shot till you woke up in the hospital. And that’s interesting, ’cause of where you got found.”

  MacAullif held up one finger. “Everything indicates that you were shot inside that building. Yet you were found in the empty lot. That leaves only two theories. Either you managed to crawl there before you passed out, or someone dragged you there. The way I see it, everything points to the fact that someone dragged you there.”

  I frowned. “Why?”

  “Like I said, ’cause you’re not that good a liar. ’Cause you made up the I-can’t-remember-anything-my-mind’s-a-blank story. And the way I figure, if you made it up, it must be partly true. I figure the part that’s true is you can’t remember anything since you were shot, which means you didn’t crawl out of the building.”

  “Interesting,” I said.

  MacAullif shook his head. “You are a major pain in the ass. Anyway, the way I see it, someone dragged you out of the building. Ten to one it’s the shooter. Why? Because I can’t imagine anyone else was there. And if that’s true, it’s interesting. Very interesting. ’Cause if you stay in that building, odds are no one finds you and you die.

  “But the shooter didn’t want you to die. The shooter wanted you alive.”

  “Why?”

  “How the hell should I know? I’m makin’ this all up from interpreting a pack of lies. But some people don’t like murder on their records. Or maybe the shooter doesn’t want to kill you, he just wants to send a message. You dyin’ in an abandoned building where no one finds you is a very poor message.”

  I frowned. “I see.”

  “But you alive, and knowin’ damn well you got shot for messin’ around in whatever you were messin’ around in, would be a very nice reminder to the parties involved to butt out.”

  I frowned again, said nothing.

  “If that were true, you would develop a very bad case of lockjaw, and become strangely unhelpful on the subject of your bein’ shot. And there would suddenly be a corresponding lack of interest on the part of the other parties involved.”

  MacAullif held up his hand. “Now, where the shooter fucked up here is in not knowin’ you weren’t workin’ for the parties involved. As a result, this Poindexter, instead of bein’ warned off by the shooting, just becomes all the more interested. But the shooter would have to be a psychic to anticipate that.”

  MacAullif put his hands on the table. “So you’re in a mess. A big fucking mess. You got the shooter pulling you one way, Poindexter pullin’ you another way, Reynolds pullin’ you another way and Thurman pullin’ you another way.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Now, me? Me, I’m just neutral. I got no stake in this. I’m just the guy who got fucked over. But of all those people, right now I’m probably the only one with the slightest chance of helpin’ you out. So whaddya say? How’s about we drop all the horseshit and talk turkey here?”

  I took a breath. “Richard Rosenberg has agreed to act as my attorney in this matter. He has instructed me to say absolutely nothing about this case outside of his presence.”

  MacAullif’s face hardened. “Well, that’s one way to go. It’s always advisable to get the advice of a reputable attorney.” (MacAullif’s rendering of the word “reputable” was one I was sure Richard would take exception to, if not find actionable.) “If that’s the route you wanna go, that’s fine, there’s nothin’ I can say.”

  MacAullif shrugged, took a sip of coffee, once again looked as if it had just poisoned him. He frowned, put the cup down, put his hands on the table again. “Only one problem with it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You gotta live with yourself.”

  37.

  ALICE WAS CRYING. And I could tell she’d been crying off and on all day long. No surprise there. Bad enough to have your husband get shot. Then to find he’s dug a hole for himself he can’t possibly get out of. That he’s some incredible chickenshit asshole. Yeah, I could see how that wouldn’t really make Alice’s day.

  “So what are you going to do?” Alice said. It was not the first time she’d asked the question.

  “I don’t know,” I said. It was not the first time I’d given that response.

  It was one Alice found somewhat less than adequate. “That’s no answer. You may feel that way, but that’s not true. You have to do something. You are doing something. Just doing nothing’s doing something, don’t you see?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “So, you see, you have to do something.”

  I took a breath. “Alice, look. You’re the one who said this had to end. You’re the one who wanted me out of it.”

  “I know that. So what?”

  “So that’s what I did. I’m out of it.”

  Alice stopped crying. Her face got hard. “So now you’re blaming me?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Yes, you are. You’re saying I made you do it.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m just saying, isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “What?

  “For me to be out of it.”

  Alice’s eyes widened in exasperation. “Of course I want you out of it. But take a look. Do you think you’re out of it now? All you’ve done is make things worse.”

  “Alice—”

  “No, really, do you call this being out of it?”

  “No, but—”

  “I didn’t say I wanted you to lie to the police. Did I say that?”

  “No, but—”

  “All I said was you got shot for nothing. All I said was you were working for an ungrateful woman and there was no reason for you to work for her anymore.”

  “You said more than that.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Well, you meant more than that.”

  “No, I didn’t. And if I did, all I meant was for you to leave it alone. Stop pushing, stop prying, stop investigating. That’s all.”

  I sighed. “Right.
”

  “We went over all this last night. Don’t you remember?”

  I remembered. It was one of the reasons I hadn’t wanted to come home.

  “And I told you the grand jury would make you feel worse, and the grand jury made you feel worse. And now everybody in the world is after you, and it’s like you took your problems and blew them up a hundred times, and what the hell are you going to do now?”

  If that sounds like where you came in, you’re lucky. As I said, we had reached this juncture many times.

  “Alice, I’m doing everything I can. I’ve put myself in the hands of an attorney.”

  “Richard.”

  “He’s an excellent lawyer.”

  “A negligence lawyer.”

  “That’s not his only field of expertise.”

  “Well, you’re trusting him with your life.”

  “Let’s not be melodramatic.”

  The phone rang. Alice picked it up. “Yes ... I’m sorry, he’s not in right now, can I take a message? ... Yes, I’ll tell him.” She hung up the phone.

  “Which one was that?”

  “New one. Officer Andrews calling for Sergeant Reynolds.”

  “The night shift.”

  “What if they stop calling and come and get you?”

  “Then I’ll call Richard.”

  “I don’t think he can help you.”

  “That’s my problem.”

  “And ours. What the hell do we do if you go to jail?”

  I reached for her but she pulled away. “No, I’m angry, damn it. You didn’t tell me what you were gonna do. You just went and lied to the cops. You took a risk you had no right to take.”

  “Maybe.”

  “No maybe about it. You’re now in a position where you could go to jail. You say you put yourself in the hands of an attorney. Yeah, you have. That’s what criminals do. And if the attorney is good enough, they don’t go to jail.”

  “Alice, what do you want me to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Instant replay, with roles reversed. Only Alice does know. It’s just I keep resisting her pitch.

  She makes it anyway. “Look, I know you don’t want to hear it, but I’m going to say it anyway. Go to the cops. Take Richard, if you have to. No, that’s not fair. Take Richard, he’ll be fine, he’ll be good at it. Take Richard, go to the cops and have Richard make a deal. The deal is that you want to change your statement. Or amend your statement. Or augment your statement. Whatever the hell it is lawyers say so they don’t have to out-and-out admit that you lied. And then tell the cops everything you know. Everything. And then you’re out of it. Then you’re off the hook. Then you can forget about it.”

  “Until the cops go after the son of a bitch and he comes looking for me.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “What, are you nuts? You think I just make a statement and that’s it, they lock the guy up? I gotta identify him. And they gotta make a case against him. And how can they do that, when I didn’t even see him shoot me? I mean, if he was stupid enough to keep the gun, maybe. Yeah, maybe then, they’d bust him and they’d get the gun and they’d have a case. But as things stand, no matter what I say, this guy’s gonna walk.”

  “If what you say is true, they haven’t got enough to pick him up at all.”

  “What, are you kidding? Of course, they’ll pick him up. They’ll pick him up and question him just to confirm my story. Or, disprove it. Anyway, to check up on it. You think I’ll make a statement and they’ll say, ‘Aw, gee, that’s not enough to convict, let’s just let this go?’ No, they’ll pick him up all right.”

  “What if they do?”

  “Alice, the guy shot me just for following him. What do you think he’ll do to me for having him arrested?”

  Her face twisted. “I know, but ...”

  “But what?”

  “But you have to do something.”

  I sighed. “Yeah.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  38.

  I SUBLIMATED.

  At least, that’s how I like to think of it. That’s how I like to put it. The other way would be to say I ran away. Which, of course, is what I did. But it’s hard to live with that. And I had to live with myself, as MacAullif had said. So “sublimated” seemed a somewhat better word to use.

  At any rate, that’s just what I did. I took a situation that I couldn’t deal with, and threw myself into a much less extreme situation that I could deal with, and occupied myself with that. I still wasn’t up to facing the Black Death, but I was up to handling Raheem Webb’s pusher. Heavy irony there—can’t deal with the big boys who traffic in drugs and carry guns, just the small-time neighborhood pusher with his gang of street kids. But at that point, any victory was better than none.

  And so I sublimated.

  I took a day off work, something I should have done anyhow. I mean, with my entire fate in the balance, did I really need eighty bucks so bad that I should spend the day racing around, jumping to the tune of the beeper, driving all over hell and back trying to get time and mileage on the sheet? Given the state of my finances, the answer was probably yes, but even so, I wasn’t up to it. I called Richard, told him to have Wendy/Janet take me off the roster for one day. One day, for Christ’s sake, what the hell. It would give me time to get my thoughts together, get my head together, do the things I wanted to do.

  Sublimate.

  At any rate, I got up and I told Alice that’s what I was gonna do. I took Tommie and dropped him off at the East Side Day School and drove back into our neighborhood and double-parked the car for the alternate side parking, leaving a sign in the window, of course, in case the person I was parked next to wanted to get out. Then I went up and told Alice where the car was, so she could move it back at ten-thirty in case I wasn’t home. Then I went into the bedroom to check myself out.

  My arm, I mean.

  It really wasn’t bad. I take it out of the sling, it hangs down at my side. It hurts, yeah, but I can move it. I don’t intend to move it, not much anyhow, but that’s good to see.

  I looked through my dresser drawers and found an old pair of shorts, cut-off jeans, actually, not the designer kind you buy precut, but an old pair the knees had worn out on and I’d cut off myself. Then I dug out an old T-shirt, red, slightly tattered, originally extra-large, but now shrunk to fit me fine. I pulled that on. Sneakers, no problem. I always wear sneakers when I’m not in my suit. I took my shoes off, put on white cotton socks and my sneaks.

  Next, the hall closet. I expected this to be difficult. It was. The object I sought was not there. I finally found it in the back of Tommie’s closet, underneath the Voltron castle and other long since unused toys.

  My basketball.

  As expected, it needed air. Also as expected, Tommie’s bicycle pump would have doubled quite nicely to pump it up, except I couldn’t find the needle. No surprise there. A basketball needle is one of those things no one has. It is the most infuriating piece of equipment ever invented. One small twenty-five-cent piece of metal without which you cannot play the game.

  Alice was no help on the subject, but surprised me by expressing no surprise that I was looking for it. All she said was, “Good idea.”

  I went out, walked up and down Broadway and eventually located a sporting goods store. The needle was seventy-nine cents. I found that encouraging somehow. Like I didn’t have to feel that I’d been thwarted for a quarter. I brought it home and pumped up the ball until it tested out to my satisfaction—when held overhead and dropped, it bounced between waist and chest high.

  I took the ball and went down to Riverside Park. I don’t have to tell you it had been a long time. I tried to think back, couldn’t remember if it had been before Tommie when I used to go down to Riverside Park and shoot around. Not on the weekends or late in the day—by then the courts were always jammed—but weekdays in the morning and early afternoon, I found I could always get on. In fact, in cooler weather, I was
often the only one there.

  It was that way now. I went into the park at 108th, walked down the hill and looked over the stone fence to discover the courts next to the highway were empty. Not a soul. Being paranoid, that usually gives me pause. You don’t want to get caught alone down there. And you usually have to stumble over a couple of homeless living under the steps to get down. Not a great place for a guy with his arm in a sling. But today I didn’t mind at all. The deserted court seemed a warm and friendly place compared to some of the other choices I had.

  I bounced the ball a couple of times, started down the steps.

  The thing I hate most about the public courts in New York is that they have no nets. I shoot for the net. I like to hear the ball go swish. See, if you bank it off the backboard, the ball comes back. But if you shoot for the hoop, the ball goes through clean, and with no net to stop it, it just keeps going. Your best shots are the ones you have to chase.

  The least of my worries.

  I bounced the ball, walked out onto the court. My left arm was still in the sling, but, what the hell. I shoot one-handed anyway. The left hand is just for guidance, to steady the ball. And even where my arm is in the sling, I can get my hand on the ball for that one split second in between the dribble and the shot, the transition move I need to be able to score.

  I started out slow. A few easy layups. A lazy, jogging pace. It’s been years, but it’s like riding a bicycle, you don’t forget. Layups are no problem.

  Jump shots are harder. Much harder. Try shooting one-handed jump shots some time, I mean with your other arm down at your side. It’s too awkward. Layups, yeah. Set shots, yeah. Jump shots, no way.

  I put the ball down, took my arm out of my sling. Too early. Way too early. The arm hung down. And hurt. Well, not the arm itself, but hanging it down hurt the shoulder. I was off painkillers by now, so it hurt pretty bad.

  A voice inside my head said, you deserve to hurt.

  I bent down, picked up the ball in my right hand. I gritted my teeth, raised my left arm, put my hand on the ball. I took a deep breath, blew it out again, the way the coach taught us to do to relax before each foul shot.