by Harlan Coben
Her eyes squinted. She looked intrigued and horror-stricken at the same time. “Perhaps,” she allowed.
“Yet you will not sleep with me. That, my dear, is hypocritical.”
“How so?” Thumper countered. “I’m an independent woman. I choose.”
“So you’ve told me,” Win said. “But why do you choose only Giants and Dragons?” When she hesitated a bit too long, he smiled and wagged his finger. “You should at least be honest as to why you made that particular choice.”
“You seem to know a lot about me,” Thumper said. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“Fine. You immediately announce this bizarre rule about Dragons and Giants and whatnot. You set limits. I do not. If I find a woman attractive, that is enough. But you need this random team affiliation. You use it as a fence to separate you.”
“Separate me from what?”
“Not from what. Whom. From so-called freewheeling sluts. As you just pointed out to me, you are not a prostitute. You choose, dammit. You are no slut.”
“That’s right, I’m not.”
He smiled. “But what is a slut? A woman who sleeps around? Well, no. That’s what you do. You wouldn’t criticize a fellow sister to the cause. So what exactly is a slut? Well, by your definition, there is no such thing. Except, of course, you needed to deny being a slut when I questioned you. Why?”
“Don’t make it out to be more than it is,” Thumper said. “Slut carries with it a negative connotation. That’s the only reason I got defensive.”
Win spread his hands. “But why should there be any negative connotation? If a slut is, by definition, a so-called loose woman, a woman who sleeps around, why not embrace the term with both legs? Why put up these fences? Why create these artificial limits? You use your team affiliations to announce your independence. But it announces the opposite. It announces that you are unsure and insecure.”
“And that’s why I’m a hypocrite?”
“Of course. Go back to my request to sleep with you. Either sex is a purely physical act, in which case my brusque behavior with you now should have no bearing on it, or sex is something more than physical. Which is it?”
She smiled, gave a quick head shake. “You’re an interesting man, Mr. Lockwood. Maybe I will sleep with you.”
“No good,” he said.
“What?”
“You’ll be doing it simply to prove I’m wrong. That, my dear, is as pathetic and insecure as what you are currently doing. But we are getting sidetracked. That is my fault, I apologize. Are you going to tell me about your conversation with Greg Downing, or do I destroy your reputation?”
She looked dazed. It was what he wanted.
“Of course there is option three,” Win continued, “which closely follows option two. That is, on top of having your reputation destroyed you face a murder charge.”
That made her eyes widen. “What?”
“Greg Downing is a serious suspect in a murder investigation. If it is discovered that you in some way helped him, that would make you an accessory.” He stopped, frowned. “But to be frank, I don’t think the D.A. will get a conviction. No matter. I’ll start with your reputation. We’ll see how it goes from there.”
Thumper looked at him steadily. “Mr. Lockwood?”
“Yes.”
“Go fuck yourself,” she said.
Win rose. “Undeniably a better option than present company.” He smiled and bowed. If he had a hat, he would have tipped it. “Good day.”
He moved away, head high. There was, of course, a method to such madness. She would not talk. He knew that almost immediately. She was both smart and loyal. A dangerous albeit admirable combination. But what he had said would jar her. Even the best amongst us would panic or at the very least act. He would wait outside and follow her.
He checked the scoreboard. Midway through the second quarter. He had no interest in watching any more of this game. But as he reached the gate, a buzz came over the loudspeaker and then a voice said, “Now coming in for Troy Erickson, Myron Bolitar.”
Win hesitated. Then he took another step for the exit. He did not wish to watch. But he stopped again and, still standing, he faced the court.
Chapter 26
Myron sat at the far end of the bench. He knew that he wasn’t going to play, but his chest was still wrapped in the steel bands of pregame jitters. In his younger days Myron had enjoyed the pressure of big-time competition, even when the jitters reached a level of near paralysis. They never lasted long after the opening tip. Once he had physical contact with an opponent or chased down a loose ball or shot a fade-away jumper, the butterflies flew off, the crowd’s cheers and jeers dissolving into something akin to office background music.
Pregame jitters hadn’t been a part of Myron’s existence for over a decade, and he knew now what he’d always suspected: this nerve-jangled high was directly connected to basketball. Nothing else. He had never experienced anything similar in his business or personal life. Even violent confrontations—a perverted high if ever there was one—were not exactly like this. He had thought this uniquely sports-related sensation would ebb away with age and maturity, when a young man no longer takes a small event like a basketball game and blows it into an entity of near biblical importance, when something so relatively insignificant in the long run is no longer magnified to epic dimensions through the prism of youth. An adult, of course, can see what is useless to explain to a child—that one particular school dance or missed foul shot would be no more than a pang in the future. Yet here Myron was, comfortably ensconced in his thirties and still feeling the same heightened and raw sensations he had known only in youth. They hadn’t gone away with age. They’d just hibernated—as Calvin had warned him—hoping for a chance to stir, a chance that normally never came in one man’s lifetime.
Were his friends right? Was this all too much for him? Had he not put this all behind him? He spotted Jessica in the stands. She was watching the action, that funny look of concentration on her face. She alone seemed unconcerned by his return, but then again, she had not been a part of his life in his basketball heyday. Did the woman he loved not understand, or did she—?
He stopped.
When you are on the bench, an arena can be a small place. He saw, for example, Win speaking with Thumper. He saw Jessica. He saw the other players’ wives and girlfriends. And then, entering from a gate dead straight in front of him, he saw his parents. His eyes quickly fled back to the court. He clapped his hands and yelled out encouragement to his teammates, pretending to be interested in the outcome of the game. His mom and dad. They must have flown in early from their trip.
He risked a quick glance. They sat near Jessica now, in the family and friends section. His mom was staring back at him. Even from the distance he could see the lost look in her glassy eyes. Dad’s eyes darted about, his jaw taut, as though he were summoning up a little extra before looking at the court straight-on. Myron understood. This was all too familiar, like an old family film coming to life. He looked away again.
Leon White came out of the game. He grabbed an empty seat next to Myron. A towel boy draped his sweat top around his shoulders and gave him a squeeze bottle. Leon guzzled some Gatorade, his body glistening with sweat.
“Saw you talking with Thumper last night,” Leon said.
“Yeah.”
“You get some?”
Myron shook his head. “I remain thump-less.”
Leon chuckled. “Anyone tell you how she got that nickname?”
“No.”
“When she gets into it—I mean, when she gets really fired up—she’s got this habit of thumping her leg up and down. Left leg. Always her left leg, you know. So she’s like on her back and you’re pumping her for all you’re worth and then all of a sudden her left leg starts bopping up and down. You hear thump-thump, get it?”
Myron nodded. He got it.
“So if she don’t do that—if a guy don’t get Thumper thumping—it’s like you haven’
t done your duty. You can’t show your face. You hang your head.” Then he added, “It’s a pretty serious tradition.”
“Like lighting a menorah on Hanukkah,” Myron said.
Leon laughed. “Well, not exactly.”
“You ever been thumped, Leon?”
“Sure, once.” Then he quickly added, “But that was before I was married.”
“How long you been married?”
“Me and Fiona been married a little over a year.”
Myron’s heart plummeted down an elevator shaft. Fiona. Leon’s wife’s name was Fiona. He looked up in the stands at the flashy, well-rounded blonde. Fiona began with the letter F.
“Bolitar!”
Myron looked up. It was Donny Walsh, the head coach. “Yeah?”
“Go in for Erickson.” Walsh said it like the words were fingernail clippings he needed to spit out. “Take the off guard spot. Put Kiley at the point.”
Myron looked at his coach as if he were speaking Swahili. It was the second quarter. The score was tied.
“What the fuck you waiting for, Bolitar? For Erickson. Now.”
Leon slapped his back. “Go, man.”
Myron stood. His legs felt like strung-out Slinkys. Thoughts of murder and disappearances fled like bats in a spotlight. He tried to swallow but his mouth was bone dry. He jogged over to the scorer’s table. The arena spun like the bed of a drunk. Without conscious thought he discarded his sweats on the floor like a snake changing skin. He nodded at the scorer. “For Erickson,” he said. Ten seconds later, a buzzer sounded. “Now coming in the game for Troy Erickson, Myron Bolitar.”
He jogged out, pointing to Erickson. His teammates looked surprised to see him. Erickson said, “You got Wallace.” Reggie Wallace. One of the game’s best shooting guards. Myron lined up next to him and prepared. Wallace studied him with an amused smile.
“SWB alert,” Reggie Wallace called out with a mocking laugh. “Goddamn SWB alert.”
Myron looked at TC. “SWB?”
“Slow White Boy,” TC told him.
“Oh.”
Everyone else was breathing deeply and coated with sweat. Myron felt stiff and unprepared. His eyes swung back to Wallace. The ball was about to be inbounded. Something caught Myron’s eye and he looked up. Win stood near an exit. His arms crossed. Their eyes met for a brief second. Win gave a half nod. The whistle blew. The game began.
Reggie Wallace began the trash talk immediately. “You got to be kidding me,” he said. “Old-timer, I’m gonna make you my woman.”
“Dinner and a movie first,” Myron said.
Wallace looked at him. “Lame retort, old man.”
Hard to argue.
Wallace lowered himself to a ready position. He shook his head. “Shit. Might as well have my grandma cover me.”
“Speaking of making someone your woman,” Myron said.
Wallace looked at him hard, nodded. “Better,” he said.
The Pacers inbounded the ball. Wallace tried to post Myron up under the basket. This was a good thing. Physical contact. Nothing unclasped those steel bands like battling for position. Their bodies bounced against one another with small grunts. At six-four, two-twenty, Myron held his ground. Wallace tried digging back with his butt, but Myron held firm, putting a knee into Wallace’s backside.
“Man,” Wallace said, “you are so strong.”
And with that, he made a move Myron barely saw. He spun off Myron’s knee so quickly that Myron barely had time to turn his head. Seeming to use Myron for leverage, Wallace leaped high in the air. From Myron’s vantage point, it looked like an Apollo spacecraft heading straight out of the arena. He watched helplessly as Wallace’s outstretched hands grasped the lob pass at rim level. He seemed to pause in midair, then continue rising as though gravity itself had decided to freeze frame the moment. When Reggie Wallace finally began to descend, he pulled the ball behind his head before throwing it through the cylinder with frightening force.
Slam dunk.
Wallace landed with both arms spread for applause. His taunting chased Myron up court. “Welcome to the NBA, has-been. Or never-was. Or whatever the fuck you are. Oh, man, was that pretty or what? How did I look going up? Be honest. Bottom of my sneakers look sweet, don’t they? I’m so pretty. So very pretty. How did it feel when I slammed it in your face? Come on, old-timer, you can tell me.”
Myron tried to tune him out. The Dragons came down and missed a quick shot. The Pacers grabbed the rebound and headed back up court. Wallace faked going back inside and popped way out past the three-point circle. He caught the pass and shot in one motion. The ball went in with a swish. Three pointer.
“Whoa, old man, did you hear that sound?” Reggie Wallace went on. “That swish? There is no sweeter sound on earth. You hear me? No sweeter sound at all. Not even a woman crying out in orgasm.”
Myron looked at him. “Women have orgasms?”
Wallace laughed. “Touché, old-timer. Touché.”
Myron checked the clock. He’d been in for thirty-four seconds and his man had scored five points. Myron did some quick math. At that rate, Myron could hold Reggie Wallace to under six hundred points per game.
The boos started soon after. Unlike his youth, the crowd sounds did not fade into the background. They were not one indistinguishable blur of sound, a home-court cheer to perhaps ride upon the way a surfer picks up a wave. Or a boo in a rival’s arena—something you expect and even thrive on in a perverse way. But to hear your own fans boo your specific performance, to hear your home crowd turn against you—Myron had never experienced that before. He heard the crowd now as never before, as a collective entity of derision and as distinct voices making ugly catcalls. “You suck, Bolitar!” “Get that stiff outta there!” “Blow out your other knee and sit down!” He tried to ignore them but each catcall punctured him like a dagger.
Pride took over. He would not let Wallace score. The mind was willing. The heart was willing. But as Myron soon saw, the knee was not. He was simply too slow. Reggie Wallace scored six more points off Myron that period for a total of eleven. Myron scored two off an open jumper. He took to playing what he used to call “appendix” basketball; that is, certain players on the floor are like your appendix—they’re either superfluous or they hurt you. He tried to stay out of the way and hit TC down low. He kept passing and moving away from the ball. When he saw a big opening and drove the lane near the end of the quarter, the Pacers’ big center swatted the shot into the crowd. The boos were thunderous. Myron looked up. His mom and dad were still as two statues. One box over, a group of well-dressed men were cupping their hands around their mouths and starting a “Bolitar Sucks” chant. Myron saw Win move quickly toward them. Win offered his hand to the cheer’s leader. The leader took it. The leader went down.
But the odd thing was, even as Myron stunk up the joint, even as he continued to get beaten on defense and play ineffectively on offense, the old confidence remained. He wanted to stay in the game. He would still look for an opening, relatively unshaken, a man in denial, a man ignoring the mounting evidence that a crowd of 18,812 (according to the loudspeaker) could plainly see. He knew his luck would change. He was a little out of shape, that was all. Soon it would all turn around.
He realized how much that sounded like B Man’s description of a compulsive gambler’s rationale.
The half ended not long after that. As Myron headed off the court, he looked up again at his parents. They stood and smiled down at him. He smiled and nodded back. He looked toward the group of well-dressed booers. They were nowhere to be seen. Neither was Win.
Nobody spoke to him at halftime, and Myron didn’t get in the rest of the game. He suspected that Clip had been behind his playing. Why? What had Clip been trying to prove? The game ended in a two-point victory for the Dragons. By the time they got into the locker room and began changing, Myron’s performance was forgotten. The media surrounded TC, who had played a brilliant game, scoring thirty-three points and grabbing eighte
en rebounds. TC slapped Myron’s back when he walked past him but said nothing.
Myron unlaced his sneakers. He wondered if his parents were going to wait for him. Probably not. They would figure he would want to be alone. His parents, for all their butting in, were actually pretty good at knowing when to make themselves scarce. They’d wait for him at home, staying up all night if they had to. To this day, his father stayed awake watching TV on the couch until Myron got home. Once Myron put the key in the lock, his father feigned sleep, his reading glasses still perched at the end of his nose, the newspaper lying across his chest. Thirty-two years old and his father still waited up for him. Christ, he was too old for that anymore, wasn’t he?
Audrey peered tentatively around the corner and waited. Only when he signaled with a beckoning wave did she approach. She stuck her pad and pencil in her purse and shrugged. “Look at the bright side,” she said.
“And that is?”
“You still have a great ass.”
“It’s these pro shorts,” Myron said. “They really mold and hold.”
“Mold and hold?”
He shrugged. “Hey, Happy Birthday.”
“Thanks,” Audrey said.
“ ‘Beware the Ides of March,’ ” Myron pronounced in dramatic fashion.
“The Ides are the fifteenth,” Audrey said. “Today is the seventeenth.”
“Yeah, I know. But I never skip an opportunity to quote Shakespeare. Makes me look smart.”
“Brains and a good ass,” Audrey said. “Who cares if you have no lateral movement?”
“Funny,” Myron said, “Jess never complains about that.”
“At least not to your face.” Audrey smiled. “Nice to see you so chipper.”
