by Mike Lupica
“Jimmy Carey the actor,” Marty said. “I do remember you, as a matter of fact. Where the hell were we? Elaine’s?” Taking a shot. “I was shit-faced, right?”
“We both were. It was Kennedy’s.”
Marty waited. They always had to do this at their own pace, the way they’d rehearsed it. Jimmy Carey the actor was just getting to it, by way of Kennedy’s.
“Are you there?”
“Present.”
“You’re not saying anything.”
“No, you’re not saying anything. You didn’t call to talk about old times.”
Jimmy Carey finally said, “I called to tell you about a rape.”
“I’m waiting.”
“You’re the first person in the media to hear what I’m about to tell you.”
“I’m still waiting.”
“I’m serious. A rape was reported this morning in Fulton, Connecticut. Do you know where that is?”
“Up near Westport. The Knicks train there, right?”
“The Knicks train there.”
Perez said, “Is this about the Knicks?”
“Yes.”
He reached into a side drawer of his desk, grabbed one of those long reporter’s notebooks, took a pen out of his pocket.
“Which Knick?”
“The cops won’t release the names, you know.”
“Names,” Perez said. “There’s more than one?”
“Two.”
“But you will.”
“What?”
“You’re going to give me the names.”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“I know the victim.”
“Who are they?”
“Richie Collins.” The guy paused, for effect, and Marty Perez knew.
Marty said, “Richie Collins and Ellis Adair.”
His door opened and Michael Cantor, the editor of the News, poked his head in. Marty waved him all the way in. Now he said into the phone, “You’re telling me that Ellis Adair and this other guy have been charged with rape?”
Cantor went back and shut the door. Then he sat down on the little sofa next to the door, picked up Marty’s other extension, and hit some numbers.
“Not charged. Accused.”
“Right,” Marty said. “You want to give me the woman’s name?” He wrote that down, and kept writing. He could hear Cantor talking to Burke, who did the front pages, telling him to forget about some subway train crashing into the station at Eighty-sixth Street, he wanted to see him in Perez’s office right away.
Marty heard Cantor say, “Why? Because I got myself a story all of a sudden that is going to singe your friggin’ eyeballs, that’s why.”
It was seven-fifteen when Cantor came back.
Cantor, looking happy, said, “You close?”
“Five minutes.”
“What’d the cops say?”
“I talked to some guy named Hyland. No comment, no names, no nothing.”
“But you said you got a confirmation?”
Marty stared at his screen. He deleted something, typed something in its place. Casual, not looking up at Cantor, but nodding.
“A guy I know at the Garden. The Japs brought him in when they bought the place.”
“Who?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“What did he say?”
Marty Perez shrugged. “What could he say? The greatest basketball player in the world, who works for them, might end up indicted in a rape case. Let’s just say the Japs aren’t breaking out the fucking champagne.”
“It’s Adair and Collins?”
“Yes.”
“The guy on the phone, he’s really her brother?”
“He’s the victim’s brother.”
“Alleged victim.”
Marty shrugged again. “He gave me his home number and his agent’s number. They both check out.”
“Agent?”
“He’s a struggling actor type. Says I met him one time at Kennedy’s, over on Second.”
Cantor said, “It’s a helluva good story.”
“A clean fucking hit.” Marty tapped the Send button.
Cantor slapped him on the shoulder, walked out the door, leaving it open, and back through the city room to his own office. Marty could hear him whistling.
He waited until Cantor disappeared, called the number at the Garden again. The secretary said, “I know it’s important, Mr. Perez, you’ve made that quite clear. I’ve been trying to reach him since the first time you called. His plane must have been delayed.”
Marty gave her all his numbers again, hung up the phone. He would’ve liked to have had the confirmation. But the guy was her brother. Somebody’s going to make up one like this about his own sister? Fuck that. It wasn’t just a good story, he was sure of it. It was a big story. If he waited a day, the whole world was going to have it. And he needed it. Needed it to show the whole world, to show the Harvard punk at WCBS. Needed it to show he was still Marty Perez.
Marty Perez stuck his head out the door, saw Burke standing over by the rim, looking at some page proofs. Marty walked over there to see what the front page would look like.
4
It was always a mistake to drive to practice with Richie, sometimes you couldn’t find his ass when you were ready to leave. Or needed to talk to him about something. Goddamn, Ellis needed to talk to Richie about all of this, but by the time he finished with Frank Crittendon, the old windbag looking like he might break down and cry right there in the gym, Richie was already gone from the locker room.
Probably off doing what he liked to do best after practice, which was walk around campus a little bit, casting for strange.
Which was Richie’s expression for strange pussy.
Richie liked to say, “The less you know about them, the better sports they tend to be.”
Ellis wished Crittendon had done it the other way around, the more he got to thinking about their conversation, told Richie and then let Richie come tell him about this fucked-up rape shit. It always worked best when Richie did the thinking for both of them.
That’s what Ellis should have done, just said to Frank Crittendon, “Deal with Richie.” It usually happened this way for Ellis, he’d get these brilliant ideas afterward, get around to understanding what he should have said. Richie didn’t ever have to wait, it always amazed Ellis. Richie had instincts, moves, even talking. He could see shit developing, even when you thought he wasn’t paying attention.
Other people thought they had juice with Ellis, but didn’t, not Crittendon, not even Donnie Fuchs, their agent, who thought he invented fucking juice. Richie said one time that Donnie was the closest thing to a real Sammy Glick, explaining right away that wasn’t a player, but some little Jew character from a play. Richie could explain things like that and not make Ellis feel like an asshole. It was another reason why Richie had always been the one, going all the way back, who had juice with Ellis Adair. Ellis got through Seton Hall because Richie got him through. Same as Richie got him through Lincoln High before that. Richie always said he should have gotten two high school diplomas and two for college.
Ellis’s and his own.
But Ellis always came right back at him with “You take the degrees, I’ll keep the money from those commercials I always make them put you in with me.”
And Richie would come back at him with something like, “Fresh, I’m the only one understands what a cagey motherfucker you are. Only one who ever understood.”
Ellis smiled now as he came out of the locker-room door and into the parking lot. Richie would know how to handle this, soon as Ellis could talk to him. It had always been him and Richie, Richie not just giving him the ball, but always giving him whatever else he needed. If it was sneakers when they were kids, Richie would figure out a way. A grade. A paper. Assists? Shit. Richie had always assisted Ellis Adair. That was the trade-off. The deal. Ellis got him into the games at Booker T. Washington—all those black
faces looking at him like he should have a sheet on at first—and in exchange Richie got him the ball. And after that, the ball and everything else.
“Richie Collins got into the game and dunks for Fresh Adair resulted immediately,” that was the way some guy had written it up in the Times. The two of them just went on from there, a team, the way they had always dreamed it up. There were a lot of point guards bigger than Richie, faster, better shooters, prettier games. But they didn’t have what Richie Collins had.
They didn’t have Fresh Adair.
“Remember me, Ellis?”
He’d been walking with his head down, remembering on things, so the girl’s voice made him jump a little bit. Richie Collins wasn’t around anywhere he could see, but here was this girl leaning against Richie’s black Jeep Cherokee in the parking lot reserved for the Knicks behind the gym. Cute with a body on her. Pink shorts, pink-and-white running shoes. Tight Knicks T-shirt, gray, with sweat showing between her breasts. Red hair in a ponytail coming out from the back of a white Knicks cap. Freckles and green eyes.
Remember me?
Richie would know her name right away, remember something about her, even if it was a birthmark. He could do that. There was always something Richie could use to mark them. Like he had some kind of filing system for strange. He would remember the one was saying they raped her, Ellis was sure of it.
Ellis had no idea, of course. How was he supposed to remember names when he couldn’t remember faces?
“You remember me, don’t you, Ellis?” she said, her voice sounding like this tiny growl.
He put his gym bag down, put his hand to his forehead, grinning, like he was trying to come up with a question on Jeopardy, which Richie liked to watch, show off how smart he was, after Love Connection. Ellis knew she had come by looking for Richie, waiting here like this by his Jeep, probably as surprised to see Ellis as he was to see her. Richie had either gone walking around or gotten a ride with someone. If he did, the keys were in the car, once Ellis got through dealing with Miss Whoever This Was.
“You waitin’ on Richie?” he asked.
She took off her cap now and reached behind her head, undid the ponytail and shook her head slowly from side to side, letting all this red hair, straight and smooth, fall to her shoulders.
“Waiting to see my two old friends from the Knicks,” she said. “You and Richie.” She tried to look hurt. “You really don’t remember me, do you?”
Ellis wasn’t in the mood for this. He looked around. All the other players were gone, there was just him, the Jeep, and this girl looking for it big-time. He said to the pouty girl, “You’re going to have to help me out. Coach beat us up today, and I’m still out of shape.”
“You weren’t out of shape last time I saw you.”
“Tell me your name at least.” He ducked his head a little, like he was embarrassed, giving her some of his Cosby-kid look. Looked up at her, trying to give her big, sad eyes. He didn’t want to piss her off in case she was special to Richie. Top-rated strange of some kind. Ellis said, “Tell me your name and we’ll go for ice cream.”
“No. Not till you remember.”
“What grade you in, you can tell me that, huh? You go to school here?”
She sighed. “Maybe a clue will help. I’m a sophomore now. University of Miami. Which is where we met, clue clue, Miami.” She went back into her pout. “My feelings are getting hurt now, you don’t remember with a clue like Miami.”
“I remember, though,” they both heard Richie say. Ellis turned around, saw him there, grinning, finishing the ice-cream cone he must have gone for after practice. Ellis wanted to talk to him right away about this rape shit, but knew there was no chance now, not with Whoever She Was leaning against the car.
Not with strange right there in front of them, wearing everything except a fuck-me sign.
Richie Collins liked to talk about their bangability.
“Amanda,” Richie said, giving her a bad-boy smile, looking like he was still sixteen, in a T-shirt of his own and baggy jeans and high-top leather sneaks with no socks, with his crew-cut deal, the sides shaved clean, trying to nigger up his hair, as Ellis told him, the way he’d spent his whole life trying to nigger up his whole outlook on things.
“Amanda of Amanda and Chelsea,” Richie said. “Am I right or am I right?”
“Long time no see, Richie Collins,” she smiled, sliding into the growl again.
“Need to talk at you, won’t take more than a minute, Rich, swear,” Ellis said. But Richie was on a roll now with Amanda, saying, “Last game of the regular season.”
“Pool of the Grand Bay Hotel,” Amanda said back. She waved a waggly scolding finger at the two of them. “You both seemed real uptight about the game, and there we were to relax you.”
Richie said, “I’m not sure relax is the word you’re looking for here, am I right, Fresh?”
Always bringing him into it. “Am I on it, Fresh, or what?”
“What word are we looking for then?” She leaned across the front right fender of the Jeep, put her hands inside the pink shorts, and pulled her T-shirt out of them, giving it a little shake. Cooling herself off.
Ellis, trying to sound interested, said, “Whatever happened to Chelsea?”
Amanda said, “She should be waiting for us at the hotel right now. The Marriott, over on Route 7.” Now she walked back to the door on the passenger side, talking to them over the roof. “The last thing Richie said to us that day in Miami, do you remember what it was?” Not waiting for an answer, she said, “The last thing was, ‘Come see us if you ever want some more.’ So here we are before we have to go back to school next week.” Tilting her head. “Couple of little Super Savers, looking for a fun-filled Connecticut vacation.”
Ellis put a hand on Richie’s shoulder, leaned down, and said, “No shit, before we get to the general situation here, we got some trouble we need to discuss, I just been with Frank,” but Richie shrugged him off. “You drive, Fresh,” he said, walking around, opening the back door, nodding in there to Amanda, then following her in, smiling all the way, not worried about whatever trouble Ellis wanted to talk about, just looking like the whole day was shaping up all of a sudden.
“We’ll pick up Chelsea at the Marriott, then go have a reunion back at the house,” Richie announced.
Ellis pulled his seat belt across him, clicked it in, put the key in the ignition, pissed now, wondering if the whole afternoon was shot because Richie had a hard-on. When Ellis adjusted the rearview mirror, he could see Amanda already working on the zipper to Richie’s jeans.
“You can go now, driver,” Richie said.
Ellis was driving the car, but he sure as shit knew he was really just along for the ride.
5
She had finally told Jimmy the night before. He thought she was kidding at first. When he realized she wasn’t, he started yelling at her, as though by keeping the secret all this time, she had turned him into the injured party.
“How could you keep something like this from your own brother?” Jimmy demanded.
“You know I’ve always been the secret-keeper in the family,” she said. “You’re the one who always had to tell everything.”
“You’ve got me there,” Jimmy said, knowing she was right. He’d come home from school, or from just being out, and go through his whole day for her, whether she wanted to hear or not. It was the same way when he smoked his first cigarette or when he got to first base with his first girl, and when he finally—Jimmy’s words—did the dirty deed. He was an open book. Partly because he truly thought that whatever happened to him was interesting enough to repeat to someone, partly because that act of telling somehow made things real, and partly because he just liked to talk and talking about himself was a lot easier than talking about anything else.
Hannah had always been different. Even when they were kids, Jimmy had always called her a woman of mystery.
“Who else knows?” he’d said then, ready to get mad all o
ver again if she’d confided in somebody ahead of him.
“You’re the first,” Hannah said. “Besides Beth …”
Jimmy said, “The world-famous therapist.”
He asked if she wanted company going up to Fulton. Hannah said no, this was something she wanted to do alone. When she got back, though, he was ready to take over. It was his idea to call Marty Perez. We’ve got to go on the attack, he said, making his voice go a little deeper, the way he did when he wanted to look like Mr. In Charge. He told Hannah he’d been giving it a lot of thought, the whole time she was up there with the cops. That one actually got a smile out of her. She loved her brother, still thought of him as this dear, sweet boy, but one thing he had never done in his life was give things a lot of thought.
Jimmy said he’d considered the Post, they could probably sex up the story a lot better, but he decided on the News finally, which meant Perez, who he said he’d met in a bar one time. It turned out that Jimmy had gone out with Perez’s ex-wife, some soap actress. Jimmy remembered a good line he got off that night, when Perez asked him what he thought of Madeline, which was the ex-wife’s name.
“I told him I thought she had all the qualities of a dog, except loyalty,” Jimmy was telling Hannah now.
According to Jimmy, they got a load on after that, and Perez said he was going to write a column about struggling actors like Jimmy, but never did.
Jimmy had met a lot of people in bars, and she could never remember one of them actually delivering for him. But it never seemed to bother him. She had watched him tell the story about Perez, fascinated as always at the way he threw himself into it, dragging everything out, more interested in playing the roles than getting to whatever the point was supposed to be. He hadn’t worked in six months, since the play about the Irish at that off-Broadway theater on Forty-second Street, right after you came out of the Lincoln Tunnel. Maybe this was a way of staying in some kind of shape, acting-wise; she’d never asked him.
Sometimes she liked him better in these roles he played. He seemed brighter, happier, like acting turned on some light inside him that wasn’t there in his real life.