by Harlan Coben
As he approached the elevator Myron heard a familiar, husky voice say, "If it isn't the Comeback Kid."
Myron looked over at Audrey Wilson. She was wearing her customary sports-reporter garb: dark blue blazer, black turtleneck, what they called "stone-washed" jeans. Her makeup was either light or nonexistent, her nails short and unpolished. The only splash of color could be found on her sneakers--bright aqua Chuck Taylor Cons. Her looks were completely unspectacular. There was nothing wrong with her features but nothing particularly right about them either. They were just there. Her straight black hair was cut short in a pageboy with bangs. "Do I detect the scent of cynicism?" he asked.
Audrey shrugged. "You don't really think I buy all this, do you?"
"Buy what?"
"Your sudden desire to"--she checked her notes--"weave your own legend into the lush tapestry of sports." She looked up, shook her head. "That Clip can sure talk some shit, huh?"
"I have to get dressed, Audrey."
"How about giving me the lowdown first?"
"The lowdown, Audrey? Gee, why not ask for a 'scoop'? I love it when you reporters say that."
She smiled at that. It was a nice smile. Full and open. "Kinda defensive, aren't we, Myron?"
"Me? Never."
"Then how about--to coin yet another cliche--a statement for the press?"
Myron nodded, put his hand to his chest in dramatic fashion. "A winner never quits, and a quitter never wins."
"Lombardi?"
"Felix Unger. It was on The Odd Couple, the one where Howard Cosell guest starred."
He turned and walked toward the locker room. Audrey followed. She was probably the top female sports reporter in the country. She covered the Dragons for the East Coast's biggest newspaper. She had her own radio show on WFAN in a coveted time slot with huge ratings. She had a Sunday morning roundtable talk show called Talking Sports on ESPN. And yet, like almost every other female in this male-dominated profession, there was something tenuous about her station, her career always a half-step from toppling over no matter how big she became.
"How's Jessica?" Audrey asked.
"Good."
"I haven't spoken to her in a month," she said with a singsong tone. "Maybe I should give her a call. Sit down and have a heart-to-heart, you know."
"Gee," Myron said, "that won't be transparent."
"I'm trying to make this easier on you, Myron. There's something strange going on here. You know I'm going to find out what it is. Might as well just tell me."
"I really don't know what you're talking about."
"First Greg Downing leaves the team under mysterious circumstances--"
"What's mysterious about an ankle injury?"
"--then you, his old nemesis, takes his place after being out of commission for the better part of eleven years. You don't find that strange?"
Great, Myron thought. On the job five minutes and already someone was voicing suspicion. Myron Bolitar, master of the undercover. They reached the door to the locker room.
"I gotta go, Audrey. We'll talk later."
"Count on it," she said. She smiled at him with a gentle mocking sweetness. "Good luck, Myron. Knock them dead."
He nodded, took a deep breath, and pushed open the locker-room door.
Showtime.
Chapter 6
No one greeted Myron when he entered the locker room. No one broke stride. No one even looked at him. The room did not go quiet like something out of an old Western where the sheriff pushes open the creaking door and sashays into the saloon. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe the door needed to creak. Or maybe Myron had to work on his sashay.
His new teammates were sprawled about like socks in a college dorm. Three of them were draped over benches, semidressed and seminapping. Two were on the floor, a leg being held in the air by assistants, stretching quads and calves. A couple others were dribbling basketballs. Four were hobbling back to their lockers after getting taped. Almost all were chewing gum. Almost all were also listening to Walkmans, the tiny speakers jammed in their ears and blaring so loudly that they sounded like competing floor models at a stereo store.
Myron found his dressing area pretty easily. All the other lockers had bronze plaques with a player's name engraved on it. Myron's did not. It had a piece of white adhesive tape above it, the kind used to tape ankles, with the letters M. BOLITAR scrawled in black marker. It hardly inspired confidence or spoke commitment.
He glanced around for someone to talk to, but the Walkmans were the ideal room dividers. Everyone was in their own private space. Myron spotted Terry "TC" Collins, the team's famed whining superstar, sitting alone in a corner. TC was the media's newest poster boy for the spoiled athlete, the guy "ruining" the genteel world of sports "as we know it," whatever that meant. TC was a hell of a physical specimen. Six-ten, muscular, wiry. His cleanly shaven head glistened in the fluorescent light. Rumor had it TC was black though it was hard to see any trace of skin through the work of his tattoo artist. The obscure ink images blanketed almost all available somatic sites. Body piercing too appeared to be more of a lifestyle with TC than a hobby. The man looked like a nightmare version of Mr. Clean.
Myron caught TC's eye, smiled, and nodded a hello. TC glared daggers and turned away. Making chums already.
His uniform was hung where it should be. His name had already been sewn on the back in block letters. BOLITAR. He stared at it for a moment or two. Then he quickly snatched it off the hanger and put it on. Everything caused bouts of deja vu. The feel of the crumbly cotton. The shoelacelike tie-string on his shorts. The slight elastic tug at the waist when he put them on. The slight tightness of the top as it went over his shoulders. The practiced hands tucking in the tail. The lacing up of his high-tops. It all caused pangs. It was getting harder to breathe. His eyes blinked something back. He sat and waited until the feeling went away.
Myron noticed very few of the guys wore jockstraps anymore, preferring those tight, Lycra shorts. Myron stuck with old dependable. Mr. Old Fashioned. Then he strapped a contraption onto his leg that was loosely labeled a "knee brace." Felt more like a metal compressor. The last thing he put on was his warm-ups. The bottoms had dozens of snaps up and down the legs, so a player could dramatically rip them off when called to go into a game.
"Hey, kid, how's it going?"
Myron stood and shook hands with Kip Corovan, one of the team's assistant coaches. Kip wore a plaid jacket that was about three sizes too small. The sleeves inched up to the forearms. The gut jutted out with great defiance. He looked like a farmer at the semiannual square dance. "I'm doing fine, coach."
"Great, great. And call me Kip. Or Kipper. Most people call me Kipper. Sit down, relax."
"Okay." Kipper?
"Great, happy to have you with us." The Kipper pulled over a chair, turned it so the back faced Myron, and straddled it. His pants inseam didn't look happy with the move. "I'll be honest with you, Myron, okay? Donny wasn't thrilled about this. Nothing personal, you understand. Just Donny likes to pick his own players. He don't like interference from upstairs, you know what I'm saying?"
Myron nodded. Donny Walsh was the head coach.
"Great, good. Donny's a straight guy though. He remembers you from the old days, liked you a lot. But we got a team heading for the playoffs. With a bit of luck we can lock up home-court advantage throughout the playoffs. It took a while to get the ducks all in a row. It's a balance, you know. Got to keep the ducks on an even keel. Losing Greg really knocked the wind from our sails, but we finally got those ducks back up. Now you come along, see. Clip doesn't tell us why, but he insists we add you to the roster. Fine, Clip is the big chief, no question. But we worry about getting our ducks back sailing straight, you see?"
The mixing of metaphors was making Myron dizzy. "Sure. I don't want to cause any problems."
"I know that." He stood, put the chair back with a sweeping motion. "You're a good guy, Myron. Always were a straight arrow. We need that now. A team-comes-first
kinda guy, am I right?"
Myron nodded. "A straight-sailing duck."
"Great, fine. See you out there. And don't worry. You're not going to get in unless it's a blowout." With that the Kipper hoisted his belt up over the gut and sauntered--almost sashayed--across the room.
Three minutes later, the Kipper shouted out, "Gather round the board, boys." No one paid any attention. He repeated this several times, tapping Walkman-entranced players on the shoulders, so that they would hear. It took a full ten minutes to get twelve professional athletes to move less than ten feet. Coach Donny Walsh strode in with great self-importance, took center stage, and began spilling out the tired cliches. This didn't mean he was a bad coach or anything. You play over a hundred games a season it's hard to come up with anything new.
The pep talk lasted a full two minutes. Some of the guys never bothered turning off their Walkmans. TC was busy taking off his jewelry, a task that took great concentration and a team of well-trained technicians. Another minute or two passed and then the locker-room door opened. Everyone removed their Walkmans and headed out. Myron realized they were heading for the court.
Game time.
Myron stood at the end of the line. He swallowed deeply. A cold rush swept through him. As he made his way up the ramp he heard a voice over the loudspeaker scream, "And nowwwwww, your New Jersey Dragons!" Music blared. The jog quickened into a full trot.
The ovation was thunderous. The players automatically split into two makeshift lines for the lay-up drill. Myron had done this a zillion times before, but for the first time he really thought about what he was doing. When you were a star or a starter, you warmed up casually, loosely, unhurriedly. There was no reason to press it. You had the whole game to show the crowd what you could do. The scrubs--something Myron had never been--handled the warm-ups in one of two ways. Some went all out, slamming reverse dunks, doing windmill moves. In a phrase: showing off. Myron had always found this behavior sort of desperate. Others hung around the superstars, feeding them the ball, playing the mock defender like a boxer with a sparring partner. Cool by association.
Myron got to the front of the lay-up line. Someone passed him the ball. When you're warming up, you are subconsciously convinced that all eyes in the arena are on you, though in point of fact, most people were settling in or chatting or getting food or checking out the crowd and those that were watching couldn't care less what you did. Myron took two dribbles and laid the ball against the glass and in. Sheesh, he thought. The game hadn't started yet and already he didn't know what to do.
Five minutes later the lay-up lines disintegrated and players began to free shoot. Myron glanced into the stands for Jessica. She was not hard to spot. It was like a beacon hit her, like she came forward and the rest of the crowd stepped back, like she was the Da Vinci and the rest of the faces were but a frame. Jessica smiled at him and he felt a warmth spread through him.
With something close to surprise, he realized that this would be the first time Jessica had seen him play in anything but pickup games. They'd met three weeks before Myron's injury. The thought made him pause. And remember. For a brief moment his mind dragged him back. Guilt and pain washed over him until a ball careened off the backboard and smacked him in the head. But the thought remained: I owe Greg.
The buzzer sounded and the players moved to the bench. Coach Walsh blurted out a few more cliches and made sure each player knew who they were covering. The players nodded, not listening. TC still glared. Game face, Myron hoped, but didn't really believe it. He also kept an eye on Leon White, Greg's roommate on the road and closest friend on the team. The huddle broke. The players from both sides approached the center circle, greeting one another with handshakes and hand slaps. Once out there, the players on both teams started pointing around, trying to figure out who was covering whom since no one had listened thirty seconds earlier. Coaches from both sides were up, yelling out the defensive assignments until the ball was mercifully tossed in the air.
Basketball is normally a game of momentum shifts, keeping things fairly close until the final minutes. Not tonight. The Dragons cruised. They led by twelve after one quarter, twenty points by halftime, twenty-six by the end of the third period. Myron started getting nervous. The lead was big enough for him to get in. He hadn't really counted on that. Part of him silently cheered on the Celtics, hoping they could stage enough of a comeback to keep his butt on the aluminum chair. But it was a no-go. With four minutes remaining the Dragons led by twenty-eight points. Coach Walsh shot a glance down the bench. Nine of the twelve players had already gotten in. Walsh whispered something to the Kipper. The Kipper nodded and walked down the bench, stopping in front of Myron. Myron could feel his heart beating in his chest.
"Coach is going to clear the bench," he said. "He wants to know if you want to go in."
"Whatever he wants," Myron replied, while sending out telepathic messages of no, no, no. But he couldn't tell them that. It wasn't in his nature. He had to play the good trooper, Mr. Team-First, Mr. Dive-On-The-Grenade-If-That's-What-The-Coach-Wants. He didn't know how else to do it.
A time-out was called. Walsh looked down the bench again. "Gordon! Reilly! You're in for Collins and Johnson!"
Myron let loose a breath. Then he got mad at himself for feeling such relief. What kind of competitor are you? he asked himself. What kind of a man wants to stay on the bench? Then the truth rose up and smacked him hard in the face: He was not here to play basketball.
What the hell was he thinking? He was here to find Greg Downing. This was just undercover work, that's all. Like with the police. Just because a guy goes undercover and pretends he's a drug dealer doesn't make him a drug dealer. The same principle applied here. Just because Myron was pretending to be a basketball player didn't make him one.
The thought was hardly comforting.
Thirty seconds later, it started. And it filled Myron's chest with dread.
One voice triggered it. One beer-infested voice rising clearly above all others. One voice that was just deep enough, just different enough, to separate it from the usual cacophony of fandom. "Hey, Walsh," the voice cried out. "Why don't you put in Bolitar?"
Myron felt his stomach plummet. He knew what was coming next. He had seen it happen before, though never to him. He wanted to sink into the floor.
"Yeah!" another voice crowed. "Let's see the new guy!"
More shouts of agreement.
It was happening. The crowd was getting behind the underdog, but not in a good way. Not in a positive way. In the most blatantly patronizing and mocking way possible. Be-Nice-To-The-Scrub time. We've won the game. We want a few laughs now.
A few more calls for Myron and then...the chant. It started low but built. And built. "We want Myron! We want Myron!" Myron tried not to slouch. He pretended not to hear it, feigning intense concentration on what was happening on the court, hoping his cheeks weren't reddening. The chant grew louder and faster, eventually disintegrating into one word, repeated over and over, mixed with laughter: "Myron! Myron! Myron!"
He had to defuse it. There was only one way. He checked the clock. Still three minutes to go. He had to go in. He knew that wouldn't be the end of it, but it would at least quiet the crowd temporarily. He looked down the bench. The Kipper looked back. Myron nodded. The Kipper leaned over to Coach Walsh and whispered something. Walsh did not stand up. He simply shouted, "Bolitar. In for Cameron."
Myron swallowed and rose to his feet. The crowd erupted in sarcasm. He headed for the scorer's table, ripping off his sweats. His legs felt stiff and cramped. He pointed to the scorer, the scorer nodded and sounded the buzzer. Myron stepped on the court. He pointed at Cameron. Cameron jogged off. "Kraven," he said. The name of the man Myron would defend.
"Now reporting for Bob Cameron," the loudspeaker began. "Number 34. Myron Bolitar!"
The crowd went absolutely wild. Hoots, whistles, screams, laughs. Some might think they were wishing him well, but that was not really the case. They were wishing
him well the same way you wish a circus clown well. They were looking for pratfalls and darn gone-it, Bolitar was their man!
Myron stepped on the court. This was, he suddenly realized, his NBA debut.
He touched the ball five times before the game ended. Each time it was met with cheer/jeers. He shot only once, from just inside the three point line. He almost didn't want to, knowing the crowd would react no matter what happened, but some things are just too automatic. There was no conscious thought. The ball went in with a happy swish. By now there were only thirty seconds left and thankfully most everyone had had enough and were heading to their cars. The sarcastic applause was minimal. But for those brief seconds when Myron caught the ball, when his fingertips found the groove, when he bent his elbow and cradled the ball half an inch above both palm and forehead, when the arm smoothed into a straight line, when the wrist flowed into a front curl, when the fingertips danced along the ball's surface and created the ideal backspin, Myron was alone. His eyes were focused on the rim, only the rim, never glancing at the ball as it arched its way toward the cylinder. For those few seconds there was only Myron and the rim and the basketball and it all felt very right.
The mood in the locker room was far more animated after the game. Myron managed to meet all of the players except TC and Greg's roommate Leon White, the one man he wanted to get close to most. Figures. He couldn't push it either; that would just backfire. Tomorrow maybe. He'd try again.
He stripped down. The knee began to tighten up, as though somebody had pulled all the tendons too taut. He slapped on an ice pack and fastened it with a stretch wrap. He limped to the showers, dried off, and was just finishing dressing when he realized TC was standing over him.
Myron looked up. TC had his various pierce-jewelry in place. Ear, of course. Three in one, four in the other. One in his nose. He wore black leather pants and a black cut-off mesh tank top, giving one an excellent view of the ring on his left nipple and the one in the belly button. Myron couldn't make out what the tattoos were. They just looked like swirls. TC wore sunglasses now, the wraparound kind.
