Half Court Press

by A. J. Stewart

  “My current situation?”

  “Graffiti on your locker?”

  “You think those girls did that?”

  “I have absolutely no idea. I’m not putting the puzzle together yet. I’m still trying to figure out how many pieces there are. So who are they?”

  She looked at the group. “Girls I knew in high school.”

  “Friends?”

  “I guess. I mean, not close. I went to elementary school with a couple of them, and I was close with one, L’nita. But we drifted apart in high school.”

  “Why?”

  “Why does anyone? I guess our interests diverged.”

  “You guess? You can do better than that.”

  Tania turned to me. “Is this relevant?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, she didn’t think much of all the time I spent on the court, training. She thought my mom was driving me too hard and I was missing out.”

  “Missing out on what?”

  “Smoking and drinking.”

  I nodded. I got it. I’d seen plenty of kids go that way when I was in high school. Some came back and ended up being decent people, but others never made the return journey. They blamed the world for all that was wrong with their lives, always looked for the shortcuts, always lamented the advantages they perceived other people got. It was funny how often those advantages coincided with hard work, but the kids who ended up moaning in dive bars or hanging out in front of malls didn’t see that part.

  “You want me to walk you in?”

  “No, of course not. I’m not afraid of them—it’s not like that.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “I was just wondering how many more times I’ll come here, once I go to Atlanta.”

  “It’s home, isn’t it?”

  “The mall?” She shot me a cheeky grin.

  “You leave places behind, you leave people behind. It’s part of life. But the important ones stick. Trust me on that.”

  I slipped her a business card. I was as surprised as anyone that I was able to lay my hands on one, but Ron had clearly left a stash in the console, so I stuffed a few in my wallet.

  “Call me if you need to.”

  “For what?”

  “Anything. A ride, a chat. Something doesn’t feel right. Whatever.”

  She looked at me with a slight frown, as if she were studying the lines on my face. That was like reading War and Peace.

  Then she turned without a word and got out of the car. I watched the girls eye her as she crossed the forecourt.

  “Hey, baby,” called one of the girls. I pegged her for the leader. There was always a leader, and they always spoke first. She was in her early twenties and wore long hair with a purple streak through it, and her long fingernails reminded me of Wolverine. If Wolverine went for bright pink.

  “We ain’t seen you ’round,” said the girl.

  “Busy,” said Tania. She didn’t stop walking.

  “Too busy to hang with the girls?”

  “Got training.”

  “You not forgetting where you come from, are you, girl?”

  I saw Tania shake her head. “Never,” she said. “See you round.” She pulled the heavy door open and stepped into the mall.

  I didn’t move. I watched the girls turn their gaze from the disappearing Tania back to me. The girl with the purple streak put her hand out and one of the others stuck the lit cigarette into her fingers, and she puffed away.

  But she didn’t take her eyes off my car.

  I’d seen this kind of thing before. It’s like two moose eyeing each other off. There’s a lot of staring and grunting, each trying to prove it’s the top moose. I’d done it plenty myself, especially from the pitcher’s mound. Some batters liked to dig in and get about their business, but others liked to engage me, give me the evil eye, spit their tobacco into the clay and jut out their chin like this girl was doing to me now. Back in the day I took it on, every single time. Some days it was a stare, some days it was shaking off the call from the catcher, some days I just threw one at the batter’s head. Some days I came out king of the moose, and some days I got smacked out of the ballpark.

  I got out of the car. I put my hands in my pockets and ambled over to the girls. I tried to look non-threatening because that wasn’t my point, but I figured my shirt and shorts did most of the work for me.

  “Look, girls, Tania got herself a butler,” said Purple Streak. It got the forced giggle that was required from the girls and half a grin from me. I didn’t drop the grin. I just looked the girl in the eye as if I found something amusing about her.

  “Say butler, you got some love for L’nita?”

  I said nothing.

  “What’s wrong with your face?”

  I still said nothing. I was still grinning like an idiot.

  L’nita frowned. “What the hell is wrong with you, man?”

  I moved my eyes from L’nita to each of the other girls, pausing long enough on each to take in their faces completely and to make them uncomfortable. Then I returned my focus to L’nita and I dropped the smirk.

  “You Tania’s agent?”

  “What business is it of yours?” I said.

  “Come on, agent man, show some love for L’nita and Keisha.” She didn’t look at any of the other girls, but the one next to her with a pink flash in her hair nodded slightly to tell me she was the Keisha worthy of mention.

  “You got twenty bucks?” asked L’nita.

  “Of course I do,” I said. “I work for a living.”

  “I could do with twenty bucks.”

  “Go earn it.”

  She didn’t seem to like that idea and frowned at me.

  “You should give L’nita a job, agent man.”

  “That right? What do you do, exactly?”

  “I could be Tania’s posse.”

  “I don’t think one person constitutes a posse.”

  “I could arrange her calendar. You know, get her tickets to stuff.”

  “Tickets? Like the movies? I think she’s got that covered.”

  Now I got a snarl. She wasn’t digging me.

  “When you a big shot, you need help, agent man. You can’t just go to Forever 21. You need people for that.”

  “That your experience, is it? Well, let me share mine. Tania will spend most of her time working. She’ll be training, she’ll be playing, she’ll be traveling between the two. The organization will supply her training gear and playing uniforms. She won’t have a hell of a lot of need for Forever 21, or a fashionista.”

  I knew I was coming at it all wrong. Tania would probably want to travel in something other than team clothing, but I was recalling my own experience. When I arrived at University of Miami, I’d been given training clothes, plus T-shirts and shorts and even a Hurricanes cap. I wore them constantly. I never bothered to buy anything else. It was part of the reason I ended up with the moniker of Miami. I was like a walking, talking billboard for the school.

  “You know what I’m thinking?” asked L’nita. “You need someone to protect her reputation. Lots of people on social media might want to dis our girl, you know? She need someone to look out for her rep.”

  I nodded and gave my that might be a good idea face. I was impressed at how rapidly L’nita had moved to the protection-racket end of the spectrum. I wondered how that might link to graffiti in a locker, or a letter under a door. Certainly an old school friend, even one that had drifted apart, would know where Tania lived. And she could wander around the Boys and Girls Club without raising the eyebrows that Ronzoni did.

  “So you can protect her reputation?”

  “You got it. And I can protect her, too. There’s a lot of bad people out there wanna piece of our girl.”

  That was becoming self-evident.

  “And if she doesn’t want your help?”

  “It’s not about want. It’s about need, you know?”

  I nodded.

  “Tell you what, she needs your help, we�
��ll call.”

  “Who’s gonna look out for her? You? White guy just after his payday like everybody else.”

  I turned and walked away. L’nita called after me.

  “She might be in the NBA now, but she can’t forget her friends.”

  I was going to reply but thought better of it. I got in my SUV and drove away with one thought on my mind.

  Tania was rapidly finding out who her friends really were.

  Chapter Seven

  I stopped off at the office. Ron was out. Ron was often out. A lot of what Ron did fell under the business category of entertainment. He met people at golf clubs and yacht clubs and Palm Beach parties, and every now and then one of those people came to him on the quiet with a job. We got more work from that than from Google, so I considered it a good investment.

  Lizzy had me sign a few checks and some piece of bureaucracy from the city. Then she gave me one of her looks, a steely stare from beneath her jet-black bangs.

  “You don’t look so good,” she said.

  That stopped me in my tracks.

  “I don’t? What’s wrong with me?”

  “There’s something wrong with your soul.”

  “I thought we figured that out years ago.”

  “I don’t mean your lack of faith. I mean there’s something dark going on with you. Inside.”

  “You think I’ve got diabetes or something?”

  “You shouldn’t be so flippant when it comes to the matter of your soul.”

  I nodded. She was probably right about that.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “No bad feelings or mean reds.”

  “When was the last time you saw Danielle?”

  “Ten days. But I’m going down there now.”

  “Ten days is too long.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t disagree, but that’s the hand I’ve been dealt.”

  “Fold and get a new hand.”

  “Folding’s not always an option.”

  “Then change the game, change the rules.”

  “If I could . . .”

  “It’s your game, Miami. If I could is just an excuse for inaction.”

  I put up my hands. “Okay, down, girl. I’ll give it some thought.”

  “Thinking is your problem. Don’t think, do.”

  I nodded as I walked into my office.

  “Thank you, Yoda.”

  I sat at my desk for a moment trying to figure out what the hell had put a bee into Lizzy’s bonnet. I came up blank, which wasn’t anything unusual, so I made the call I stopped by to make. I wanted to know more about the world that Tania had gotten herself into, and I wasn’t going to learn about it wandering the streets of Riviera Beach.

  I made my appointment for the following day, and then I looked around the office. The sofa sat vacant, the window was closed, and no breeze flowed in. I could hear a clock ticking somewhere, even though I had never bought a clock in my life.

  Lizzy was typing when I walked back through and made no move to engage me, so I let sleeping dogs lie. I wandered down to the parking lot and over to my car. For a moment I stood looking up at the massive edifice that was the Palm Beach County Courthouse. It was the beating heart of the ecosystem that lived around it—lawyers and law enforcement and bail bondsmen and investigators. Even the parking lot existed to house the vehicles of all the people who passed through the courthouse doors. It seemed a hell of a thing to base a village on.

  I cruised down I-95 with the speed of a man with someplace to be but no particular time to be there. It was one of those South Florida days, a handful of clouds giving the eye something to focus on but otherwise a bright blue sky, the spring breeze offering a warmth that eluded the winter, but keeping at bay the heat that would envelop us within weeks. It was the kind of day convertibles were made for. I had owned one once, but when it got destroyed, wiser heads suggested I needed something a little more incognito. I opened the sunroof on the Caddy but it didn’t produce the desired result. All I got was freeway noise.

  The traffic got heavy in Lauderdale and I crawled the last few miles, arriving at the apartment just before six. It was a nondescript block of eight apartments, four up, four down, four one-bedders and four studios. The grass out front looked in need of a drink, despite having just survived the winter. I strode upstairs and opened the door with my key.

  I expected to find the apartment stale and breathless, but it smelled like jasmine. It was dark even when I flicked the light on. The living room held a television and a sole sofa that was ceding space to the kitchen, which had room for a bar fridge and a two-burner cooktop. There was a dying flower in a vase on the two-seater café table. On the other side of the so-called living room was the bed. It had been hurriedly made, and women’s underwear was thrown haphazardly across it.

  It was the room of a single woman.

  When Danielle had started doing long shifts in Miami that promised not to end anytime soon, we decided to invest in a small crash pad so she didn’t have to constantly make the drive to and from Singer Island. Neither of us had foreseen it becoming her primary residence, but that was what it felt like it had become.

  I looked in the fridge and found a few condiments and cans of sparkling water, but no beer and nothing else of interest, so I wandered outside. Her next-door neighbor was fussing with his keys at his front door, and he looked up and offered me a nod. He was a recently divorced plumbing fixtures salesman who had cheated on his wife and found himself in a studio dump with twice-monthly visits from his kids. I offered him a nod back, but I didn’t stop for a chat.

  The apartment was in a hardscrabble neighborhood between the ballpark and Little Havana. Spring baseball was done and the season proper hadn’t started, so I headed the other way. Little Havana was a lively spot that had nothing in common with the part of the United States I had grown up in, except the occasional use of the same currency. Latin rhythms pumped onto the streets along with the scent of grilling meats and onions. The pulsing nature of Little Havana usually put a pep in my step, and after my weird conversation with Lizzy, I needed the rhythms to do their work.

  I stopped at a small market and bought a six-pack and a prepackaged Chinese chicken salad. I carried my dinner home in a thin plastic bag as the sun fell away and the street lights offered their tepid alternative. I ate at the small table while watching a basketball playoff between two teams I couldn’t have cared less about. I drank two beers and opened a third but it was sitting untouched when the key turned in the lock a couple of hours later.

  Danielle knew I was there. She was an investigator for the Florida version of the FBI after all. My car was parked on the street below, so it wasn’t a Holmesian deduction.

  She smiled as she stepped through the door, and I got up from the dining table.

  “You’re alive,” she said.

  “Depends who you talk to,” I said, and kissed her.

  She tossed her keys into a bowl on the kitchen counter.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “A few hours.”

  She looked around the room, which didn’t take long, and her eyes came to rest on the dining table, with the empty salad container and two vanquished beers.

  “What have you been doing?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Went for a walk and then came back. Wasn’t sure what time you’d get in. You hungry?”

  “A little. I’ve got a yogurt.”

  “In the fridge?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t think so. There’s no real food in there.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “I must have eaten it.”

  “You want to go out?”

  She looked at me. She was sizing me up, getting into my head. I knew she was doing it because she was always doing it. It wasn’t so much a woman thing as a law enforcement thing. I was used to it, and besides, getting into my head was alternatively like wandering into a big dark cave or dropping into a vat of glue.

  “I’m pretty beat,” she said.
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  “Sure,” I said. “I can run out and grab you something.”

  “You don’t need to do that.”

  “Why don’t you grab a shower, and I’ll nip out quickly.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Danielle headed for the bathroom and I walked back out in the direction of Little Havana. I didn’t go back to the store. I knew I had snaffled the last salad in a plastic clamshell, so Danielle was going to have to make do with real food. I stopped in at a Cuban place that had a restaurant but did most of its trade through a tiny window in the wall. I ordered an ensalada mixta with a lime vinaigrette and a couple of beef empanadas. The smell coming out of the window was like grilled onion heaven.

  Danielle was still in the shower when I returned, so I put the food on the table and cracked open a beer and took it to her. The small bathroom was like the steam room at the Jewish Community Center—I had to put my hand out so I didn’t walk into the vanity.

  “Beverage?” I asked.

  I heard the shower door open and I fumbled around until I found her hand, and I closed her grip around the bottle.

  “Thank you,” said the voice from the ether.

  “Dinner’s ready when you are.”

  I stepped back out and found my shirt damp to the bone, and I picked up my long-forgotten beer and took a hot sip. It was warm and moist, just like me.

  When Danielle came out trailing a cloud of steam she was wrapped in a towel, her wet hair dripping down her back.

  She sat down and ate. Her salad looked better than the thing I had eaten, and it was gone in short order. I was hoping she would be too full to be interested in the empanadas, but they lasted only minutes longer. She had a real appetite for someone who wasn’t hungry.

  “How’s work?” I asked.

  “Busy.”

  “What are you working on?”

  “Child abduction.”

  “That doesn’t sound fun.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not.” She sipped her beer. “What about you?”

  I told her the basics of the extortion threat against Tania.

  “You think she’s in danger?”

  “I don’t know. My gut says no, but these things can escalate.”