Murder at the Foul Line (10 page)

“That’s absolutely right.”

“Okay, my question is—since the loss is five million and I’ll only have three million income this year, can I carry the other
two million loss forward and offset most of
next
year’s income too?”

“I’ll have to check. But I’m pretty sure you can.”

“So basically,” Washington summarized, “I’ll hardly be paying the IRS any tax for two years.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, now, that’s good to hear.”

The accountant said, “It’s still a bummer you had to lose all that money to get out of paying taxes, though.”

“A damn shame, Jerry,” said the ballplayer, and hung up, thinking: Well, it
would
be a shame except that the five million, which he’d hidden in a second locker at the gym before he gave the duffel bag to
Grimsby, was currently earning sweet interest in an offshore banking account he’d opened years ago in his and his mother’s
names.

Of course he’d known from the minute that little weasel Andy Cabot approached him in the gym more or less what the scam artist
had in mind. The two-guard had foreseen the plan unfold as clearly as he could anticipate a 1-3-1 offensive alignment against
a 2-3 zone defense.

Somehow I just know things on the court before they happen. Like knowing when somebody’s going to foul me. Or knowing, when
I throw the ball, whether it’ll be a miss or it’ll be nothing but net.

He looked at his battered Casio. Five minutes until game time. He made one more phone call—to the men’s detention center in
downtown New York, where Andy Cabot and T. D. Randall and those coconspirators who couldn’t post bond—which was most of them—were
awaiting trial.

The chief night guard snapped to attention immediately when Washington identified himself. The player and the guard chatted
about a recent game, then Washington said, “Can you do me a favor?”

“Sure thing, Danny, anything you want. Everybody down here, we’re all big fans of yours.”

“Make sure the prisoners watch the game tonight.”

“We don’t usually let ’em watch TV after six but I’ll make sure it’s on. Just for you.”

“Thanks.”

That night, toward the end of the game, Danny Washington found the moment he’d been waiting for. He’d just got possession
of the ball from his center, who’d fired him a distant lob after a rebound from a missed shot by the Pistons. All alone, Washington
jogged fast toward the net and could’ve gone in for an easy dunk but he suddenly braked to a stop outside of the arc. Turning
toward the nearest ESPN cameraman filming him, he glanced into the lens of the camera, offered a
faint smile and pointed toward his right eye. Then he sank down real slow, leapt high into the air and let fly a long trey.
The instant the ball left his hands, he looked away from the hoop and jogged back down the court to take up his defensive
position.

Sue DeNymme

M
anny swallowed the last drop of tequila and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. So his wife was going to kill him, what else was
new? He couldn’t afford to worry about it now. He couldn’t afford much of anything after last night’s game. Besides, he didn’t
have the energy. His drinking binge had made him ill, and the wife would be home any minute. Time to get the hell up and cover
his ass.

He stumbled to the toilet and heaved, then heaved again, his insides swirling like water down the drain as he sank to his
knees in front of the bowl and prayed for the room to stop spinning.

Then it came to him, the only way out.

He pushed himself off the tiles and shuffled to his wife’s dressing bureau. Undergarments slipped through his fingers until
he worked his hands to the far corner of her lingerie drawer where she’d hidden the last valuable thing in the apartment:
a costly diamond bracelet recently inherited from her grandma’s estate.

As he inspected the glistening band that his wife had cherished,
his forehead felt damp and hot. His heart throbbed in his chest, and his palms felt clammy, but he took a deep breath and
swiped the bracelet anyway.

Even if Becky could forgive him for losing their nest egg on last night’s basketball game, she’d definitely kill him for this.

He crammed the heirloom into the pocket of his jeans, slinked across the hall and slipped down the stairs of the walkup where
they lived.

Scanning the street for any sign of his wife, he clutched the bracelet in his jacket and headed toward the river. There was
always a chance that he could plead for mercy and beg his way out, but that would be up to Tony the Ear.

Every basketball season, which in New York meant whenever there wasn’t actually snow on the ground, the Ear sat courtside
at Riverside Park, watching the talented local kids play hoops with such concentrated energy you’d think their lives depended
on it. With a notebook and pen at the ready, he liked that spot on his favorite bench, and everyone knew where to find him.
His tiny feet were planted on the ground, sun warming the back of his neck.

“Tony.” Manny caught his breath. “I have to get my money back from last night’s bet.”

Tony didn’t say a word. His eyes were fixed on the kids shooting, running, passing and banging bodies.

He was dressed, as usual, in an old satin New York Knicks jacket that probably predated the Walt Frazier, Willis Reed glory
years, when the Knicks still played in the old Madison Square Garden at Fiftieth Street and Eighth Avenue. His jeans last
saw soap and water a decade before he got the jacket, and his sneakers belonged in the Smithsonian.

“Tony,” Manny said again, a little more urgently, but the
bookie never moved, never took his eyes off the game. He knew Tony could hear perfectly well with his one good ear, but he
didn’t turn around and didn’t answer.

Manny tried not to stare at Tony’s strange left ear, but he could never get used to the pea-sized lobe that popped out from
that indentation where his ear should have been. The story was that an overeager doctor had torn off his ear with the forceps
as he wrenched Tony out of the birth canal. Then the doctor smoothed it all over with skin from the right side of his face,
and that’s why his nose was slanted and his mouth was scrunched to the right, so that he always looked as if he were speaking
in asides.

Finally, he stepped directly in front of the Ear. “Tony, I need my money back.”

“What are you talking about? You bet, you lost, game over. Get outta my way. I’m watching a game here.”

“Listen,” Manny pleaded. “Can’t you just forget it? I mean, pretend I never made the bet? Give me my money back?”

“Sorry, kid.” Suddenly, he jumped up to get a better view of the court as a cornrowed kid in a lime-green T-shirt stole the
ball and led a fast break. “Run,” he screamed, “move your damn ass.” Probably since his lips were permanently sphinctered
on his right cheek, Tony spoke with a lisp. He turned to look Manny in the eye. “I really am sorry for you.” He nodded and
looked at the ground. “Maybe you should borrow some money. You got friends.”

“Whose friends have that kind of cash? Besides, they only laugh when I ask.” Manny watched one of the players score from the
charity line. “My own wife pushes for Gamblers Anonymous.”

“I know.” He smirked out of the side of his mouth. “I used
to get that line myself.” Tony peered around Manny’s torso, and Manny turned to see the same kid take two huge steps from
the foul line and dunk over two taller kids without shirts.

Manny stumbled, still a little tipsy from his self-pity binge. “Why don’t you give me back the money I bet? I’ll never ask
again.”

Tony sat down. “I don’t have it, pal.” He ran a hand over his filthy jeans. “You wanna play? You gotta pay. Ain’t that our
deal?” Tony raised a finger. “Have you hit up your mother?”

“She won’t give me a dime. I already owe her forty grand.” He put a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “You gotta help me. I’m desperate
here.”

Tony brushed away Manny’s hand. “What you need is a shower and a shave… and brush your stinking teeth because you smell like
a goddamn dump.”

“Give me a break.” Manny shrugged, palms in the air. “I’m dying.”

“Did you see that shot?” Tony shouted and pointed at the court. “Unbelievable.”

Manny snorted and clenched his fists. “You don’t give a fuck about anyone but yourself.”

“What do you mean?” He pointed at the home team. “I bought their uniforms.”

“What? A dozen T-shirts?” Manny shoved a finger in his face and poked out the words. “Give me back my cash.”

“Take it easy, pal,” Tony yelled. Palms up, he motioned him back. “Relax.”

Manny wiped Tony’s spittle off his cheek. “I don’t want to relax.” He pushed Tony back down to the bench. “You think I’m gonna
go easy because you’re some kind of cripple? I oughta do you a favor and kick that mouth back to the other
side of your head where it belongs.” He fisted Tony in the chest. “You, pal, are gonna give me back my money. Now.”

Tony reached into his jacket and pulled out a pocketknife.

“What the fuck is that?” Manny’s eyes skittered from the blade to the basketball decal on the handle, then back to Tony’s
face.

“What we’re gonna do”—Tony waved the knife like a nun waving a ruler—“is sit the fuck down and take a minute to sort things
out.” He patted the seat with the blade. “You want to turn your luck around or you want to stand there whining like some kinda
pussy?”

One of the players missed a bounce pass, and the ball popped off the court and hit Manny in the back of his head.

“Sorry, Tony!” A sinewy Puerto Rican kid scooped up the ball and dribbled back to the game.

“Hopeless.” Tony took an apple from the brown paper bag on the bench.

“I can’t believe my rotten luck.” Manny crumbled to his seat and leaned his forehead on his hands. “When did you get a knife?”
He rubbed his neck and asked, “And when did you start pulling it on your pals?”

“You take yourself too serious.” Tony shrugged and cut into the apple. “I can’t stand the sight of blood.” He stuck his chin
out and took a deep breath. “I was only making a point.”

“What point?”

“Listen up, ’cause I’m the smartest guy you know. I everything goes in one ear and stays there.”

Manny chuckled. “You’re nuts.”

Tony offered him a slice of fruit. “You want your money back. Well, it’s all a zero-sum game. Somebody has to lose for somebody
else to win. So what are the odds for you, my friend?”
Tony chewed a slice and swallowed. His Adam’s apple rose like a ball in his throat. “The odds are nil if you’re out of the
game. Am I right or am I right?”

Manny nodded, pretending to understand.

“You got no hope if you’re out of the game.” He swallowed again. “If you’re out, it’s your own fault. Luck has nothing to
do with it. So you gonna die by the odds here? You gonna let them slaughter you or will you jump up swinging?” He paused for
effect. “And here’s the most important piece of advice you will ever get in life. Never ever let the odds get you down. You’re
gonna die by the odds or you’re gonna live by the odds.”

“That’s your big tip?” Manny clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He sprung to his feet. “You gotta be kidding
me.”

“Where do you think you’re going?” Tony wiped his crazy mouth with a paper napkin. “I can help you make back your losses,
but what you really want is college money, right? Have you thought about that?” Tony flicked the knife closed and stuck it
into his pocket. “You gotta act like a man now that you’re playing with the big boys.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“Then you gotta think like Casanova. You know? The greatest lover in the world had it all figured out, see.” Tony turned his
face toward Manny. “Know how Casanova won at gambling?”

Manny shoved his hands into his pockets. “How?”

“If Casanova lost, he redoubled his bet until he won.” He tapped his finger on the bench. “So that’s Casanova. Now, who the
fuck are you?”

“I just want to get back what I lost.” Manny shook his head and scanned the park, seeing everything and nothing at once.

“Sit down here.” Tony nodded at the bench. “You’re out of the game now, right?”

Manny nodded and sat.

“Well, how can you win if you’re out of the goddamn game?” Tony paused. “Now, what do you say?” He leaned toward Manny with
the only ear he had. “You got nothing to say. So sit the fuck down.” Tony cleared his throat. “You want a chance to get that
money back?”

“I have to get that money back.”

“I’m telling you how to get your money back, kid. That’s all. You got a pretty wife, new baby. You’re young and you got your
health. Everything to live for. I can help you. Your timing is right on the money, believe it or not.” Tony leaned toward
Manny and grinned. “So.” Tony wiped his hands on his pants. “You wanna be a loser for the rest of your life or do you wanna
win big this time? It’s up to you.”

Manny stared at his squashed-up mouth. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You know basketball. You know the line on tonight’s game at the Garden, right?”

Manny nodded.

“Go double or nothing tonight.” Tony crumpled the empty bag and made a nice arcing shot into the can.

“You’re kidding.”

Tony chuckled. “Serious as cancer. Listen to me. I’m the smartest guy you know, remember?”

Manny spat on the ground. “What if I lose again?”

“Tonight’s the Connecticut game, and everyone loves that team, right? Well, the competition’s gonna shoot the lights out.
Think of the odds.”

“Not a chance.” Manny shook his head. “UCLA’s been shooting bricks for years now.”

“So what? You think life’s random? It all runs in cycles, kid, even the NCAA tournament. I do the charts. It’s a technical
analysis, see? It’s all in the cycles. Let the cycles call the shots and you can bank on them like you can bank on the stock
market.” Tony raised a brow and stared Manny in the eye. “Now, you know this and I know this, but nobody else knows this.
I even put a grand down for myself.”

“This is my house we’re talking about. The down payment on my house.” Manny kicked the dirt. “I can’t.”