Blackbird, Farewell

by Robert Greer

  Aware that Shandell had been wired a little differently, Damion asked, “Where'd you get your info about the drugs?”

  “A good source.”

  “Where, Jackie?” Damion demanded, annoyed by Jackie's attempt to sidestep the question.

  “Where's not important, Blood. What's important is that Blackbird was pushin’ performance-enhancin’ drugs to kids from his very own neighborhood, kids who wanted to grow up to be just like him. You ask me, that's what got him killed.”

  Damion stroked his chin thoughtfully as he eyed his arrogant, intelligent, but intellectually lazy former teammate and wondered how Jackie might fit into the Blackbird murder equation. Aware that Jackie would never have stooped to hang out in Five Points, or for that matter have concerned himself with what Shandell was doing when he was back home, he wondered how Jackie had suddenly become so knowledgeable about Shandell's off-campus activities. The idea that Shandell could have been selling performance-enhancing drugs to Five Points kids without someone in Five Points knowing it and blowing the whistle seemed ludicrous.

  “You're lying, Jackie,” Damion said boldly.

  “No, I'm not. Your boy was selling steroids, hGH, and lots of other shit.”

  Damion leaned across the table until his face was inches from Jackie's. Flashing the same stern, unforgiving look he'd given Jackie scores of times on the basketball court when, because of lack of concentration, the smaller man had made a mistake, Damion said, “I want a straight answer, Jackie. Who's your source?”

  “Okay, okay. I got it from Sandy, and the info didn't just bubble up today. Sandy's known about what Shandell was doin’ for a long time,” said Jackie, hoping to hold Damion at bay with a half-truth and never mentioning Leotis Hawkins's name.

  Rodney Sands, the CSU basketball team's longtime trainer, known affectionately to players and the coaching staff simply as “Sandy,” had been close friends with Shandell. Knowing that Sandy had been the one largely responsible for keeping the six-foot-eight-inch giant running the court and his temperamental body clicking on all cylinders for four years without serious injury, Damion asked, “When did he tell you all this?”

  “Damn, Blood. You sound like a cop.”

  “When, Jackie?” Damion slammed an open palm down on the table loud enough for the elderly couple in the next booth to react with a start.

  “This mornin’, right after I told him Shandell had been murdered down in Denver.”

  “Did he seem surprised?”

  Jackie shrugged. “Not really.”

  Running his tongue along the inside of his lower lip the same way he had since childhood whenever he was stumped, Damion leaned back and checked his watch. “It's almost one. I'm thinking Sandy's in the weight room working out freshmen and red shirts about now.”

  “That would be my guess too,” Jackie said with a nod. “You gonna drop in on him?”

  “Sure am.”

  “He'll tell you the same thing he told me, Blood.”

  “So I'll hear it a second time. You got a problem with that?”

  “Nope.” Jackie sat back in his seat and swallowed hard.

  Sensing that Jackie was nervous, Damion said, “Strange that somebody with millions of dollars in hand and millions more on the horizon would have risked it all by selling performance-enhancing drugs to kids. Stranger still that I wouldn't have known about it.” Damion shot Jackie a look that said, You better not be lying, before he slipped out of the booth.

  “Sometimes you don't know as much about people as you think,” Jackie said, following Damion out of the booth.

  Damion nodded. “Maybe.” However, the look on Damion's face was meant to make Jackie Woodson realize that he was thinking not about knowing Blackbird but about knowing him.

  Chapter 7

  The two Colorado State University freshman basketball players pumping iron in a weight room that smelled of sweat and mildewed towels had no idea who Damion was, especially since he was dressed in street clothes and had a full head of hair instead of the shaved head he'd sported throughout the NCAA tournament. As far as they were concerned, he was just another earringless, tattooless, wannabe jock there to ogle. The player who was standing, counting out reps to his workout partner, was black. He had long, knife-edged sideburns, and although he was about Damion's height, he was decidedly more muscular. As Damion stopped to watch the workout, he couldn't help but think that a year earlier he and Shandell had been the ones pumping iron—the ones pushing themselves to the physical brink, hoping to get an edge on the competition.

  Suddenly he found himself thinking not about the camaraderie and the exhilaration of winning but about the chastisement he'd received from teammates for not putting an exclamation mark on his dunks and for choosing to fly beneath the sports-hoopla radar. Some in the inner circle of college sports had accused him of being haughty and above it all, claiming that he didn't have what it took to handle the rigors of the NBA.

  Shandell had never been forced to suffer the same kind of criticism. Although standoffish to a fault, he'd had the tattoos, three, in fact, the earrings, one at least, and the bling. Although Shandell's college-period bling consisted of no more than a couple of cheap gold rings, purchased from a local pawn shop, and a fake Rolex watch, he'd had no trouble fitting the superjock mold expected of him by fans, his coaches, and his peers. Shandell had understood what it took to sell himself to the public, while Damion didn't really care.

  As Damion stood drinking in the familiar surroundings, the dark-skinned freshman stopped counting and watched his teammate set aside his weights before asking Damion, “Help you with something, homes?”

  “Nope, just looking for Sandy.”

  The fact that someone who looked as if he didn't belong in their inner sanctum, even though he was six-foot-five, knew enough to call Rodney Sands by his nickname caught the iron-pumping freshman by surprise. “He was here a little bit ago. Whatta you want with him?”

  “Just need to ask him something.”

  Annoyed that his workout had been interrupted, the ballplayer who'd been pumping iron said, “Hey, man, you need game tickets, this ain't the place. Try Ticketmaster.” Eyeing his teammate, he punctuated the remark with a snicker and a hand slap.

  Damion, more in tune with jock-fraternity protocol than the two novices guarding the frat-house door could have expected, said, “Seen Coach Horse around? I was hoping to catch him too.”

  Stunned that the intruder would have the nerve to refer to their coach by the nickname affectionately bestowed on him by players because of his long face, wide-set eyes, and flaring nostrils—a name that only a team captain or a player on his way to the NBA dared utter—the weight lifter took a step back. “He's in his office. Just got back from a recruiting trip back East.”

  “That where the two of you are from?” Damion asked. There was a clear implication in the way he phrased the question that perhaps it was the two of them, not he, who didn't belong.

  “Hey, man, I think you better …”

  Before the rep counter could finish his sentence, a pasty-faced blond man with piercing blue eyes and a crew cut came jogging across the room toward them. With each step, he called out, “Blood, Blood,” louder and louder until he was on top of Damion and the two freshmen. Looking unrested and shaking his head as if he couldn't believe his eyes, Rodney Sands, half a foot shorter than Damion, grabbed him in a bear hug. “I had a feeling you'd show up. Poor Bird. What a tragedy. The whole damn athletic department's flyin’ at half mast.”

  The two freshmen stepped back almost in unison as the suddenly glassy-eyed Damion slipped out of Sandy's bear hug and patted the longtime CSU trainer on the back.

  Realizing that the two freshmen had to be wondering who the hell the foreigner in their midst was, Sandy winked at the two young ballplayers and said, “The man you're looking at here, my boys, all dressed up in street clothes, with a full head of hair, and on his way to medical school, could fire the pill like nobody else. Meet Damion Madrid, t
he ‘Blood’ in last year's Blood-and-Blackbird front-court combination that took us to the NCAA championship game. If you didn't meet him during one of your recruiting visits to campus last year, you should have. But then maybe you missed him because you were busy gawking at Blackbird while Blood here was probably in chemistry class.”

  Looking unimpressed but with a sudden hint of recognition in his eyes, the player who'd been lifting weights said, “Yeah, the guy who passed on bein’ picked fourth in the NBA draft this year. We heard about him.” Nodding at his teammate, he added, “Dumb-as-hell move if you ask me.”

  Ignoring the comment and recognizing that he was yesterday's news, Damion eyed Sandy. “Shandell was the reason we went to the finals. No need to hype me.”

  “Yeah, Blackbird was the reason all right,” the iron-pumping freshman said. “Hear he got hisself killed last night. Shame.”

  “Shit, man. What a waste,” added his teammate. “Never got a chance to spend one penny of them millions of his.”

  Remaining silent and biting back his anger, Damion seemed to stare straight through the young ballplayer. Sensing what Damion was thinking and hoping to keep the two freshmen from making any more stupid remarks, Sandy said, “Madrid here chalked himself up a CSU triple-double record that won't be matched in fifty years. Averaged twenty-two bones a game, eleven rebounds, and ten assists. Trust me. Half a century from now nobody'll eclipse that.”

  Aware that the two freshmen were barely paying attention, Damion smiled and said, “You got a little time to talk, Sandy?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Sandy checked his watch. “But we gotta make it fast. I'm sorta swamped.”

  “Let's go outside. The fresh air might make us feel good.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Sandy said, sounding a bit out of sync. As he and Damion headed toward the exit, Sandy turned back and called out to the two freshmen, “Twenty more minutes of incremental reps and add forty pounds on the half mark.” Winking at Damion, he said, “That should keep ’em busy.”

  Looking displeased, the rep counter called back, “Forty?”

  “Yeah,” said Sandy, smiling at the two disgruntled-looking ballplayers. “Coach's orders. Horse wants you both chasing that triple-double record I just told you about.”

  Sunlight arced from between puffy banks of scattered clouds as Sandy and Damion made their way from the weight room and across a grassy knoll to a weathered picnic table and rickety bench that languished beneath a hundred-year-old cottonwood. As they approached the spot where Damion and Shandell had spent untold hours talking basketball strategy during their college careers, Sandy, sensing that they were walking on hallowed ground, asked, “So when's the funeral?”

  “Don't know yet, a couple of days probably,” said Damion, trying his best to gauge the genuineness of Sandy's concern.

  Sandy nodded and stared at the ground. The better part of a minute passed before Damion spoke again. “Need to ask you something about Shandell. Something Jackie Woodson told me about him.” Damion took a seat on the bench.

  “When did you talk to Jackie?”

  “Before I came over to the weight room.”

  “So what's the something you need to ask me about?” Sandy asked as he also sat down.

  “Jackie claims that Shandell was pushing performance-enhancers to kids back in Denver—down in Five Points. He said you knew all about it.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “You see me here asking, don't you? Now, was he or wasn't he?”

  A vein running along Sandy's right temple began to pulsate. Staring down at the grass, he said, “Yeah.”

  “Mind giving me the lowdown?” Damion's tone was calm but insistent.

  “Didn't Jackie do that?”

  Damion shook his head, deciding it might be best to keep the rest of what Jackie had told him to himself.

  “Okay. Here's what I know,” said Sandy, slightly red-faced. “During your last year here at CSU, Blackbird was making himself a little extra money selling performance-boosters down in Denver.”

  “You positive?”

  “Sure am. Even know the guy he used as his supplier. A three-hundred-pound Jabba-the-Hutt-sized brother out of Five Points named Leotis Hawkins.”

  “Don't recognize the name. Mind telling me how you found out what Blackbird was doing?”

  When Sandy didn't answer, Damion leaned into Sandy's space until he and the now thoroughly red-faced trainer were almost face to face. “Wanta answer me, Sandy?”

  Squeaking his words out, Sandy said, “Jackie knew because he was using the stuff, and …”

  “And you were in it with him, weren't you, Sandy?” Damion said, contemplating Sandy's unfinished sentence and smiling insightfully. He was well aware that Jackie and Sandy, who'd become thicker than thieves during Blackbird's senior year at CSU, had barely been on speaking terms prior to that. Looking at Sandy as if he might pick him up and shake him, Damion rose from his seat to tower over the suddenly pathetic-looking trainer. “So you recruited Shandell to peddle your garbage to a bunch of hungry-for-fame Five Points kids you knew idolized him.”

  “I didn't have to push too hard,” Sandy said defiantly.

  “I don't believe you. Shandell wouldn't have bought into something like that. Besides, I would have known about it.”

  Sandy sat back and smiled. “Bullshit. When you weren't on the court, you had your head buried in some book, and if you weren't studying, you were back home in Denver either hanging on to your mama's skirt or following that bail bondsman friend of yours around like a lapdog. Hell, the whole team and coaching staff knew it. You and Blackbird were roommates, all right, but you didn't really know him like you thought. If you had, you would've helped him steer clear of the mess he got himself into.”

  Damion took a deep breath as the bottom suddenly dropped out of his stomach. First Jackie Woodson and now Sandy, of all people, had accused him of not really knowing Shandell. He was on the verge of telling Sandy to fuck off when he remembered something his mother had once told him about searching out the truth right after CSU had suffered a disappointing loss to archrival Wyoming and the team was going through a period of dissension about who was to blame. She'd said that as a team captain he had the responsibility of never losing his cool, never resorting to finger-pointing, and never calling out a teammate in public. “Save it for the locker room,” she'd said. “And try your best to act like a lawyer in front of a jury. Trust me, I've learned over the years that any other behavior is bad for business, and it speaks volumes about your skills to the rest of the world.”

  With Julie's words resonating in his mind, Damion suppressed his anger and in as calm a voice as he could muster said, “What was in it for you, Sandy?” When Sandy didn't answer, he said, “Don't test me, Sandy. You might find out I'm not the mama's boy you've always thought I was.”

  “What else? Money.”

  “How much did you make?”

  “About ten grand.”

  Damion shook his head. “That's all Shandell's life was worth?”

  “Hey, I didn't have anything to do with Blackbird's murder! And besides, what makes you think he was killed because of our deal? Could be something else Blackbird was into that got him shot.”

  In light of the fact that an investigative newspaper reporter had also been killed, Damion realized that Sandy might be right, but with frustration setting in, he decided to run a quick bluff. “Sure hope you're giving me the straight scoop here, Sandy, because you know that old Italian guy who always came to our games? The one who liked to boast that he was my godfather? Well, as it turns out, he's the kind of godfather Hollywood loves making movies about. The kind that can make someone insignificant like you disappear.”

  Uncertain whether Damion was feeding him a line, Sandy nonetheless understood that the man Damion was talking about, Mario Satoni, a onetime mafia don and a longtime friend of Damion's extended family, probably did have the juice to have him killed. He knew that Satoni and Blackbird had also been th
icker than thieves. Trying his best to mask any fear, he said, “Are you crazy, man? I told you, I didn't have anything to do with Blackbird buying it.”

  “What about Jackie?”

  In a suddenly quivering voice, Sandy said, “Can't speak for him.”

  Recognizing that his bluff had paid at least a partial dividend, Damion broke into a half smile and shrugged. “Guess I'll have to go back and talk to Jackie again. But before I do, how about giving me a Denver address for that supplier contact of yours, Leotis Hawkins?”

  “Don't have one. I always hooked up with him at the Twenty-ninth and Welton light-rail stop in Five Points.”

  “What about a phone number?”

  “He always called me.”

  “I see.” Damion cocked a suspicious eyebrow. “Is Hawkins still operating down on the Points?”

  “As far as I know, yeah.”

  “You still doing business with him?”

  “No way. I got out of the business the day Blackbird played his last game. High risk and not enough reward. I wouldn't be telling you about it right now if I wasn't sure the cops aren't but a few steps behind you. No skin off my teeth giving you a head start. I liked Blackbird, and when word leaks out about what we were doing, I'll probably lose my job anyway.”

  Damion stroked his chin thoughtfully as he tried to determine his next move. “Guess what?” he said, his eyes lighting up. “You're back in business—and Sandy, I'm thinking you do have a phone number for Hawkins. I want you to call him and say you need to talk to him about what happened to Shandell. Tell him you're nervous about the possibility of being linked to a murder and that the two of you need to meet face to face.”

  “No way!”

  Damion smiled. “You can talk to Hawkins or talk to Mario Satoni. Your choice, Sandy.”

  Sandy flashed Damion a dumbfounded, deer-in-the-headlights look. “You wouldn't sic a mobster on me, Blood. Come on.”

  Aware that his featherweight bluff now had the weight of an anchor, Damion said, “You know, Sandy, you're right. I wouldn't. Besides, Mario wouldn't dirty his hands with the likes of you. He'd send one of his people. Bottom line is, one way or another, you'd be dealt with.”