Half Court Press

by A. J. Stewart

  When it was done I poured it into a tall glass. There was a little extra, as there always was, so I poured the rest into a second glass and carried them out to the patio. I noticed that I had left the sliding door slightly open, and I heard Camille talking.

  She was on the phone. She stopped talking and started nodding and listening. I waited at the door; eavesdropping was all part of the business.

  “You’re not hearing me, Mark. I think she’s changing her mind.” She listened again, and then, “Exactly. Somebody just threw a brick through my car window. Yes, right through the windshield. What? No, I don’t know who, but you’re missing the point. We’ve got people looking after her, making sure she’s protected, but these threats, they’re having an effect.”

  She listened. “That’s what I’m saying, Mark. I’m not happy about these threats, but they’ve happened, so we can use them. I’ve just spoken to her. The brick through my windshield has her spooked. I think she’s changing her mind about playing, so you need to get up here with a contract. When’s the deadline? Day after tomorrow? Come on, Mark, we need this done. It will be worth your time.”

  Camille listened again and then said, “Why are you in Huntsville tomorrow?” She frowned. “I don’t care about some soccer player. I just don’t feel like you’re committed, Mark. Yes, I hear you saying it, but where are you, Mark?” She nodded. “Okay, then. Day after tomorrow. Bring the contract. It’s cutting it close, but we’ll get this thing done.”

  She didn’t say goodbye. She just hung up. I waited a few moments before pulling the door open.

  If Camille was surprised she didn’t show it. I placed the fuller of the two glasses in front of her and sat down. Her phone was on the table.

  “You find those photos?” I asked.

  She frowned and picked up the phone and started flipping across her screen.

  “Hope you don’t mind, there was some left over.”

  She glanced at my glass but said nothing, and then she picked hers up and tasted it. She stopped mid-sip, like she was considering whether I was poisoning her or not, and then she took a longer sip.

  Then she nodded and gave what I could only describe as her mildly impressed face. I sipped mine. It was good, and I could feel the antioxidants and whatever the hell else I was supposed to feel coursing into me.

  “I watched Tania train the other day,” I said. “She’s good.”

  “They didn’t pick her number one for her looks.”

  “But they could have. She’s a good-looking kid, and a damned hard worker.”

  I might have seen a hint of a smile on Camille’s lips, but I wasn’t sure if it was for the good looks or the hard work comment. It didn’t matter—both were true.

  “She loves the process, that’s for sure. You must have sacrificed a lot for her.”

  “It’s what a mother does.”

  “Sometimes, if their kids are lucky.”

  She sipped her smoothie.

  “I saw Miami made the Sweet Sixteen last year,” I said.

  “Because of Tania.”

  “Still.”

  “University of Connecticut won it all.”

  “Fair enough, but Tania went number one anyway.”

  “More good luck than good planning.”

  “I don’t think so. I told you, I’ve seen her work. I know what it takes, and she’s got it. With her talent and work ethic, and your determination to see her succeed . . .”

  I sipped my drink and remembered that I wasn’t there to make Camille feel good about things—at least not yet.

  “Why didn’t she declare for the draft last year?”

  “She wanted to finish her degree.”

  “That’s smart, but it’s not the reason.”

  “If you know the reason, why are you asking me?”

  “Because I don’t know. I know it wasn’t to finish college, or at least, that isn’t the whole truth. I want to know what the whole truth is.”

  “What difference does it make now?”

  “Because people are threatening her, and you have a smashed windshield, and knowing why people did things in the past helps me understand why people do the things they do in the present.”

  I watched her sip her smoothie but she didn’t answer.

  “So, why didn’t she declare? Why hasn’t she jumped at the chance to play overseas?”

  “Ask Draymond.”

  “He doesn’t know the reason, but you do.”

  “He is the reason.”

  I nodded and waited.

  “Do you know what it’s like to give everything you have and get nothing in return? I raised Tania, I took her to games and training, and I healed her wounds, and I held her when she cried because her father didn’t show up.”

  “I heard you cut off visitation.”

  “I did.”

  “Draymond had to go to court to see Tania.”

  “He did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because sometimes no father is better than a bad one.”

  I watched her as she spoke and saw the muscles in her face drop. It wasn’t anger; it was sorrow.

  “He drank?” I asked.

  She looked at me. “You know about that?”

  “I know what it feels like, to lose a father to that.”

  Camille sighed. “I took her for a visit one weekend, not so long after the divorce. Tania was about eight or nine. I found him drunk asleep on the sofa, an empty bottle on the floor. I took Tania out, told her that her daddy was sick and I never took her back. In his sober moments he got upset about it, but he wasn’t my responsibility anymore. Tania was. I knew it hurt him, but I didn’t care about that. I knew it hurt Tania as well, and that hurt me. I know she blames me for keeping her away from him, but I did what I had to do to protect her. He had to sober up before he got to see her again, and I made him prove it to the court. It took a long time. There were years when Tania saw very little of him.”

  “And she missed him.”

  Camille shrugged. “I did everything for her, but it’s him she misses.”

  “You know why. She doesn’t miss you because you were there for her. He wasn’t. Don’t go reading more into it than there is. It isn’t a question of love or preference. It’s a binary choice, a simple yes/no thing. You don’t miss what you have, but that doesn’t mean you don’t value it.”

  She sat for a while, maybe thinking about it, maybe not. Then she spoke. “So why is this happening? What are these threats about?”

  “There are two options, as I see it. It’s about someone wanting money, or someone wanting her to play.”

  “I want her to play.”

  “I know you do, but even if it makes her unhappy?”

  “She’s a child. She doesn’t know what will make her happy yet.”

  “She’s twenty-three years old.”

  “And she doesn’t know what she doesn’t have. But one day she won’t have basketball.”

  “I know old men who play basketball.”

  “Not for a living—not at their best. She’s young and healthy but she won’t be forever. This is not an opportunity that will wait until she figures out what makes her happy.”

  I knew what she was saying was true. Some things wait, but other moments must be seized. Tania certainly loved being on the court, and she didn’t have the benefit of years to know how fleeting her time would be. Regret was the greatest poison known to man. It ended more lives than cyanide or uranium or weed killer. I knew it and Camille knew it. The question was: Was she so desperate to save Tania from regret that she would threaten her own daughter? Had she tried everything else and failed? She could certainly have made up the story behind the letter. But how she would have gotten into Tania’s locker was a question I couldn’t answer, and I didn’t see her as a SneakyChat kind of a person.

  “Tania’s locker at the Boys and Girls Club. Did you buy her the padlock?”

  “The what?”

  I realized I hadn’t told her about
the graffiti on the locker, so either she didn’t know or she had to pretend she didn’t know.

  “The padlock,” I said.

  “No, I didn’t buy it. It was her agent. He was worried about kids getting into her stuff now she was famous.”

  I looked at my empty glass. It was a good smoothie but I longed for a beer.

  “Camille, does Tania miss her father enough to scupper her own career?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, is it conceivable that she’s behind these threats? To give her a good reason not to have to go overseas, or even to Atlanta?”

  Camille frowned at the thought. “She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.” She thought some more. “She can’t have left the letter I found. She was training, at the gym. I left her there before my lunch.”

  “She could have gotten a cab or something.”

  “No, I remember her agent, Mark Kressic was there. He’d know if she left. Besides, it’s crazy, what you’re saying. She was in the house here when the rock was thrown.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Out here on the patio.”

  “And the other girl, Sheryl?”

  “She was with Tania, I guess.”

  “And how does Sheryl fit into the scene?”

  “She’s a second cousin of Tania’s. She came down to comfort her.”

  “About the windshield?”

  “No, about the threatening letter.”

  “How does she even know about it?”

  “I may have mentioned it to some family, and the grapevine took over.”

  I nodded. Grapevines were like that.

  “What happened to Rami?”

  Camille pursed her lips. “She’s in and out. I don’t know.”

  I heard the door slide open and found Ronzoni standing there. I told Camille that I would take her empty glass inside and I nodded to Ronzoni as I walked in and he walked out.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I washed the glasses and left them on the counter, and then I wandered into the living room. No one was there, so I walked down the short hallway that led to the bedrooms. I assumed Camille’s was at the end, toward the front of the house, behind the garage. I stopped outside the first bedroom I came to. The door was open, and I saw Tania sitting on her bed, legs crossed. Her second cousin, Sheryl, was sitting on a large, seventies-style orange chair that she swiveled from side to side. If she steepled her fingers, she would have looked like an evil mastermind.

  I poked my head through the doorway. Sheryl looked up and gave me a face like a foul wind had wafted in. Tania gave me half a smile.

  “Sheryl, would you mind getting me some iced tea?” she asked.

  Her cousin made to protest, like she wasn’t sure she should leave Tania alone with me, but she relented and stood. She made sure to give me the evil eye as she wandered out. I let her go and then took her seat. The chair wrapped around me and was surprisingly cozy, and I could see why evil geniuses liked them so much.

  “I got a text,” said Tania.

  “Another threat?”

  “No, from Jemma.”

  “Your old roommate?”

  “Yes. She said you accused her of being behind these threats.”

  “I didn’t really accuse her of anything. I just asked her some questions.”

  “Jemma has nothing to do with this, so leave her alone.”

  “Look, Tania, this is how it works. I make a list of every single person who could be threatening you—however unlikely they might seem—and then I check them off the list until I have only one name left.”

  “Well, that name isn’t Jemma. She’s in Miami. She certainly can’t have thrown a rock into Mom’s car.”

  “No, she can’t. But someone did.”

  Tania sighed. “This is getting serious.”

  I nodded.

  “If I play in China, do you think it will stop?”

  “Why would it stop?”

  “I’ll get the money and put a stop to it.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “To stop it?”

  “To play in China.”

  “I just don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  I watched her. She was a stoic, made of pragmatic and stern stuff, but the same tenderness that made her homesick—the tenderness she tried so hard to hide from the world—was surfacing now. I could see moisture in her eyes. If she was behind the threats, then she was a good actor. Or, I considered, things were not quite going to plan. I nodded toward the kitchen.

  “Is this one of the long-lost cousins coming out of the woodwork?”

  Tania nodded.

  “She lives in Jacksonville. The last time I saw her was about four Thanksgivings ago.”

  I considered the timing.

  “Where were you when the windshield was smashed?”

  “In the living room, I think. Yeah, I heard something—it wasn’t as loud as I figured something like that would be.”

  “Hurricane-proof windows,” I said.

  She nodded like that made sense. “But we definitely heard something because we went out to see what it was.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Me and Sheryl.”

  “You heard the windshield smash?”

  “Didn’t I just say that?”

  “You did, but I’m curious about what you heard, exactly. Or more specifically, whether someone else heard it first and brought it to your attention.”

  “I think I heard something, I really do.” She thought about it for a moment. “Well, Sheryl came out of the bathroom and asked if I heard something, and I thought that I had, so we went to take a look.”

  “Sheryl was in the bathroom?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is that?”

  “Down the hall, door before Mom’s room.”

  “So you went out together and found a rock through the windshield?”

  Tania yawned, and then said, “I think it was more like a brick, but it was still stuck in the glass.”

  “And then you came in and told your mother?”

  “I think Sheryl did that. I don’t remember, but it wasn’t me.”

  She rubbed her eyes and I could see that she was tired. All that training had to take it out of her, and the stress of whatever was happening here was only adding to it. I told her to get some sleep. She nodded like this was a good idea, so I stepped out and closed the door gently.

  I wandered into the living room and sat down on the pristine sofa. The sun had fallen and the last of twilight clung to the horizon. I could see Ronzoni sitting outside with Camille but they didn’t appear to be talking. Sheryl walked in from the kitchen with an orange juice in her hand.

  “Tania’s gone to sleep,” I said.

  Sheryl stopped and looked at me, and then down the hallway toward the bedroom. Then she glanced at the orange juice, apparently unsure what to do with it now.

  “I’ll take it,” I said. What I really wanted was a beer, but a good OJ was always a boost to the immune system.

  Sheryl frowned like she hadn’t gone to all the trouble for me, but she mustn’t have come up with a better idea, because she dropped it onto the coffee table in front of me.

  “They didn’t have any iced tea,” she said, by way of explanation.

  I sipped it. It was poor—that concentrated, pulpless stuff that gets shipped around in tanker trucks. Fresh-squeezed orange juice from actual fresh-picked oranges shared nothing more than the color of this insipid liquid. My mentor and friend, Lenny Cox, had loved the stuff—fresh, concentrate, or otherwise. He said it reminded him of home, even when he was in Florida, and I was never completely sure if he was referring to California, where he had grown up.

  “What’s your deal?” Sheryl asked.

  “I’m doing my job,” I said. “What about you?”

  “Me?”

  “You’re Tania’s cousin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Second cousin.”

  “Somethin
g like that. Family, anyway.”

  “And you just happened to be passing by.”

  She shrugged.

  “From Jacksonville,” I said. “What is that, four hours?”

  “Longer on the bus,” she said. “But Aunt Camille told me Tania needed help. I’m family, so I’m here to help.”

  “Seems to be a lot of people turning up to help, all of a sudden.”

  She looked at me but said nothing.

  “So what is it you’re helping with, exactly?”

  “We’re the same age,” said Sheryl, “but Tania’s like a kid inside. She’s afraid of the big bad city.”

  “The big bad city?”

  “Atlanta, the whole thing. She needs a chaperone.”

  “And you’re that chaperone, are you?”

  “Who else is gonna do it? You?”

  “She got through college without a chaperone.” I thought about her roommate, Jemma Price, and wondered if Tania had been chaperoned all along.

  “This is different. This is serious. It’s her career.”

  “What is it you do, Sheryl?”

  “I’m between jobs.”

  I nodded.

  “You think I’m here for money? What about you? Why are you here?”

  “I told you, I’m doing my job.”

  “Who’s paying you?”

  “My client.”

  “Well, no one’s paying me. I’m here for Tania.”

  “So, what do you know about Camille’s car?”

  Sheryl frowned.

  “You accusing me of something?”

  “Not at all. Just curious how a car gets smashed in a gated community where everyone gets checked in and out, all shortly after you happen to arrive from Jacksonville—what did we say it was, four hours away?”

  “I was here with Tania. Where were you?”

  “I was working,” I said, although technically I’d probably still been at Longboard’s when the car was damaged. “I have an alibi, not that I need one.”