by Robert Greer
Forced to decide between suffering the consequences of rolling on a third-rate drug pusher or possibly having a real-life mobster to deal with, Sandy said, “And then you'll leave me alone?”
“Depends on what I find out. If it turns out you were involved in Shandell's murder, believe me, we'll settle up.”
“I told you I wasn't!”
“So you did.” Damion's face was suddenly expressionless. It was a look Sandy knew well, a look Damion had never failed to summon when it was crunch time and the game was on the line. “Now, how about calling Hawkins and telling him you'll meet him at the usual spot in Five Points tonight at eight-thirty.”
“Right now?”
“Time's a-wastin’.”
Sandy hesitated for several seconds before unclipping his cell phone from his belt and punching in a phone number. Moments later, with Damion staring down his throat, Sandy responded to the gruff-sounding voice of Leotis Hawkins. “Leotis, it's Sands up at CSU.”
“Long time no see,” said Hawkins as Damion, taking in Sandy's side of the conversation, rolled his index finger in a tight director-style circle that called for action.
“Been busy,” said Sandy. “Suppose you've heard about what happened to Blackbird.”
Hawkins's response was an unsympathetic “Yep.”
“Any chance we can get together this evening? Same place as always. We need to talk before the cops start snooping around. Synchronize our stories, if you know what I mean.”
“Might not be a bad idea, Sands. Got a time in mind?”
With Damion hanging on his every word, Sandy said, “How about eight-thirty?”
“Works for me. And you're right about one thing, homes, we do need to talk.”
“Eight-thirty, then,” Sandy said, looking relieved.
“I'll be there.” Without another word, Hawkins ended the conversation.
Gripping his cell phone tightly in a left hand that was shaking, Sandy said, “All set. You're on for eight-thirty.”
“Good.”
“Maybe not. I don't know a whole lot about Hawkins, but I do know from what Jackie's told me that he's done time in Canon City. Twice!”
Damion smiled. “Maybe he enjoys the amenities of our state pen.”
“Might not be so funny if he slits your throat, Madrid. He's the kind that prefers knives to guns. I know that for a fact. I've seen what he carries.”
“Appreciate the heads-up. Now here's one for you. Don't call Hawkins back to tell him we're trading places tonight. If you do, the people I'll send to deal with you won't be drug-pushing punks—they'll be pros.”
Uncertain whether Damion was bluffing but deciding it was in his best interest to steer clear of the Denver mob, Sandy wiped away a rivulet of sweat that had worked its way down his sideburn. “Do you think Hawkins might've killed Shandell? Blackmail gone bad, maybe?”
“Seems like a possible reason to me,” said Damion.
“But why kill your golden goose?”
“Maybe no more golden eggs were forthcoming.”
“Bad shit any way you slice it,” said Sandy with a shake of the head.
“Real bad, and it's gonna get worse once the cops show up on your doorstep, my friend. Happy trails.” Damion rose from his seat and offered the shrunken, pitiful-looking trainer a final parting comment. “I'll find out who killed Shandell, Sandy. Even if it means that you get to end up in the same place as him. So keep your stories straight when the cops show up, because I'll have Mario watching. And while you're at it, don't let those freshman recruits wear you down. Later.”
It was several minutes before Rodney Sands summoned up the mental energy to head back to the athletic training facilities. For half that time he simply sat at the old picnic table, staring blankly up at the sun and thinking about where he had been and where he was going.
He'd spent the past eight years on the athletic department staff at CSU after coming home from four years of service as an army paratrooper. Two of those years had been spent suffering through brain-numbing winters at an outpost in Korea. He'd ultimately earned a degree in kinesiology, scored the CSU job, and worked his way up from wiping the noses of pampered jocks to his present lead trainer's position. During his tenure at CSU, he'd doctored the records of out-of-control athletes, wiped out their DUIs, helped get half-a-dozen date-rape accusations dropped, steered his charges to Mickey Mouse courses that a third grader could have passed, and on rare occasions even taken their tests for them. He'd kissed the asses of coaches, played gofer for a string of ego-inflated athletic directors, manipulated unsympathetic, jock-hating tutors into seeing things his way, and even held the hands of heartbroken coeds who'd discovered all too late that they weren't the only one. In all that time, he'd rarely missed when it came to judging who would go along to get along. He'd seriously miscalculated, however, when it had come to Shandell Bird, misjudging Shandell's stoic, soft-spoken, introverted persona for weakness when in fact it had been his strength.
He'd simply been looking for a short-term drug-hauling mule when Shandell, in need of money before his NBA ship came in, had signed up for the job. That choice, he could now see, had been a bad one. One that could end up costing him his job. He had high-level administrative connections and a cadre of admirers among students, faculty, and staff, but if Damion Madrid kept pressing—or even worse, showed back up on his doorstep with a new set of questions—or if he was forced to square off with some eager-beaver cop, he wasn't certain what he'd do. It all seemed somehow unfair since he'd never used or distributed the steroids, the uppers, or the hGH he'd given Shandell to take down to Denver. He'd simply been a middleman, effectively uniting supplier and buyer. He'd hooked up Blackbird and Leotis Hawkins, and that had been it. If the cops or Madrid needed to finger someone, Leotis Hawkins was their man. He'd have no problem rolling on Hawkins if it meant saving his own hide. But for the moment, he'd keep his head down and wait for the clouds to clear, and when everything was said and done, at least he'd still have a head. That was more than he suspected Hawkins would leave Damion Madrid when the two of them met that evening.
Leotis Hawkins's intimidating tone had the desired effect on Jackie Woodson, who now sat shaking in the front seat of his car as he listened to Leotis over his cell phone. “You fuckin’ sawed-off little turd. No wonder the NBA didn't want you after your junior year. You've got the brains of a pissant. First you talk to Madrid about things you shouldn't, and then you sic him on that clueless white bread of a weak sister, Sands. When I talked to you this morning, I thought we came away with an understanding. It's a good thing Sandy can understand English a whole lot better than you.”
“We do have an understanding.” Jackie's response was a near whisper.
“My ass we do. And speak up, you fuckin’ wimp. I just talked to Sands. I'm sure that blond-headed piece of shit would roll on me in a second if he didn't figure I'd drive up there to Fort Collins and kick his ass or slit his throat. Now, before I head up there and kick yours, and maybe break a few bones and rip apart a few knee ligaments that'll keep you out of the NBA for good, we need to get us a better understandin’. What's your trainer boy Sands up to, and why does he suddenly wanta see me down in Five Points tonight?”
“I'm guessin’ he talked to Madrid and he wants you both on the same page.”
“And you spoke party line like we agreed on earlier?”
“Yes.”
“You better not be lyin’ to me, you little fucker.”
“I've got no reason to,” Jackie said, knowing that on the contrary, he had a very important, career-dependent reason to lie to anyone he talked to about the Shandell Bird and Paul Grimes murders, including Hawkins.
Hawkins shook his head, unconvinced. “I don't know why in the hell I ever got in bed with a retard like you, Jackie. I should've known better than to hook up with some paratrooper throwback outta some northern Indiana rust bucket. Don't matter, though. I'll just have to make a minor adjustment this evenin’.”
; “What's up, then?”
“Nothin’ you need to know about, dumbass. How close are Madrid and Sands anyway?”
“Not close, really.”
“Think they'd try and come down here to Denver and tag-team me?”
Jackie smiled, aware that things couldn't have lined up any better for him. He had Hawkins nervous about both Damion and Sandy. “Maybe.”
“Yeah, I think you're right. Think maybe they would. Especially with Madrid bein’ all college educated and thinkin’ he's slick, and Sands scared shitless. But I'll have somethin’ for ’em if they do. Trust me. The same thing I told Blackbird I'd have for him if he ever fucked up. And the same thing I got for you if you mouth off to the cops. You with me?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. ’Cause we're floatin’ in the same boat here, Jackie.”
“Yeah, we sure are,” Jackie said with a grin as he tried to imagine what Hawkins might have in store for Damion and perhaps even Sands.
“And since you're insinuatin’ it was Sands and not you who tipped off Madrid to me, I'm thinkin’ you won't need to be checkin’ the rearview mirror nearly as much as Sands. Right?”
“Right.” Before Jackie had a chance to say another word, the phone went dead. Concerned that he hadn't completely dropped his Leotis Hawkins problem on Sandy's doorstep, he muttered, “Shit!” and glanced into his rearview mirror, thinking that he now had not one but two potentially life-threatening problems to contend with.
Chapter 8
The seventy-mile drive south down I-25 to Denver gave Damion plenty of time to reflect on where he'd head next with what Flora Jean would surely have referred to as a “snoop and probe” job. Before leaving the CSU campus, he'd gone back by Jackie Woodson's apartment in the hope of getting more information about Leotis Hawkins. Having no luck there, or later at two of the mouthy point guard's favorite campus haunts, he'd swung by the athletic offices and talked briefly to his clearly shaken former coach, Russ Haroldson.
The normally buoyant fireplug of a man was having a difficult time dealing with the fact that the greatest player he'd ever coached had been murdered and after a strained fifteen-minute conversation, Damion had left Haroldson the way he'd found him, looking despondent. Never once had he mentioned what Sandy had told him about Shandell, and he'd promised to keep Haroldson abreast of funeral arrangements. Since Haroldson had helped Shandell navigate the rigors of college as much as Damion had, making certain Shandell went to class, stayed out of girl trouble, and showed up at endless sessions with tutors, Damion reasoned that the man who'd played the role of a father figure to Shandell didn't deserve to have a bombshell dropped on him right then.
Cruising along at 75 and shoving thoughts of insipid trainers, mouthy point guards, and performance-enhancing-drug dealers aside, Damion watched the High Plains landscape roll by. When he suddenly found himself thinking about the very first time he and Shan-dell had taken a trip up north to the “cow country” and CSU, he found himself smiling. At the time they'd both been heavily recruited by colleges across the country, and he'd pretty much settled on going to North Carolina to become part of that school's legendary basketball program and strong academics. Shandell, however, who'd never felt comfortable much beyond the boundaries of the Mile High City, much less Colorado, had wanted no part of Chapel Hill.
When he'd pushed for Shandell to take a look at North Carolina, insisting that he needed to broaden his horizons, Shandell had responded, “No way.” Punctuating the comment with a tinge of anger, he'd added, “Ain't goin’ nowhere I ain't wanted. It's the goddamn South, Damion, are you crazy? I don't want no pretentious, syrupysoundin’ Southern belles in my face for four long years, and I don't wanta see no rebel flags flappin’ in the breeze neither. The one thing you ain't never been and ain't never gonna be, Damion Madrid, is black. So you can save your North Carolina for NASCAR nuts and rednecks.”
In the end, they'd both landed at CSU after Damion, on the strength of a 1525 SAT score and a 25-points-per-game high school scoring average, garnered both full-ride academic and athletic scholarships—something no other institution, including North Carolina, was willing to pony up. Shandell, a first-team Parade magazine high school All-American, on the heels of four full-court-press recruiting visits from Coach Haroldson and the encouragement of his mother, announced in a long-awaited Denver Post exclusive, “It's CSU for me. I'm stayin’ home.” A week after the two of them signed letters of intent in front of flashing cameras at the Pepsi Center, home to the Denver Nuggets, sports pages across the region were touting the fact that CSU had unbelievably, and some claimed inexplicably, corralled two of the best prep players in the country.
That all seemed a lifetime ago as Damion, teary-eyed and with his head bent in sorrow, accelerated past an empty cattle trailer wobbling its way toward Denver. As he watched the semi jiggle, he recalled what CJ had once told him about the despondency he'd had to suffer through after coming home from two navy tours as an aft-deck patrol-boat machine gunner in Vietnam. He suspected that like CJ, he'd have to contend for a while with some dark, unsettling times.
As he neared the interstate's Dacono exit, where the highway widened from two lanes to three, he heard the blare of a horn. Realizing that while lost in reflection he'd slowed to less than 55, he moved into the far-right-hand lane to let a gravel-hauling semi rumble by. As the truck pulled away he found himself thinking about Jackie Woodson and wondering whether Jackie could possibly have killed Shandell.
Jackie had arrived on campus the year Damion and Shandell were sophomores, soaring onto the scene as a highly touted, slightly overweight, deadly perimeter shooter but a surprisingly poor defender. A loudmouthed, womanizing, directionless kid full of braggadocio, Jackie had come from a dying Midwestern steel-mill town with less than five dollars to his name and only two changes of clothes. To some extent he'd matured, but in many ways, in spite of the benefits of three years of college and Coach Haroldson's wisdom and tutelage, Jackie remained the same unpolished East Chicago, Indiana, wannabe street thug he'd been when he'd first come to CSU.
During Jackie's first semester he'd done nothing but attend basketball practice and play cards. It had been Shandell who'd convinced him to stop spending his free time trying to be a hustler and Shandell who'd ultimately sold him on the fact that he had an NBA future. It was that fact that had Damion confused about how things now seemed to have been turned on their heads so that the teacher had somehow become the student and Shandell had ended up playing Jackie's game.
He couldn't understand how someone like Jackie Woodson, a onetime East Chicago gang-banger who spent half his off-court time on the hustle for either an extra dollar or some exquisite piece of ass, could've sucked someone who was destined to become an instant millionaire into a drug-dealing and possibly even a point-shaving scam, or how fast-talking former paratrooper Rodney Sands could've convinced Shandell to be part of such stupidity.
Perplexed that not only Jackie but Rodney Sands had been able to turn the tables on Shandell, Damion realized he'd have to do a lot more digging if he expected to sort things out and pin the tail on Shandell's killer before the cops. He'd have to find out why, if in fact Sandy was telling the truth, Shandell had risked everything—his reputation, his career, and ultimately his life—for what in the long run would have been mere pocket change to him. It seemed as nonsensical as the fact that Shandell was dead, or that ignoring Flora Jean's explicit instructions to him to simply gather facts, later that evening he was going to hook up alone with Leotis Hawkins. Concerned that a desire for revenge, fueled by his often blind competitiveness—something his mother had always claimed would be his undoing if he didn't learn to control it—might in fact be overshadowing his reasoning, Damion suddenly found himself thinking about what he had to lose. At least for the moment, it seemed that, just like Blackbird, he had it all. Medical school was in the offing, he'd had a storybook college basketball career, and he had a supportive family that included everyone from a mother who ch
erished him to a powerful, once high-profile gangster who constantly bragged about him as if they were related by blood. Even so, he knew there was something missing—something he, CJ Floyd, and Shandell, all men who'd grown up in fatherless households, had discussed more than once. It was the same thing that had driven Shandell and him to master a child's game until they were the very kings of it. The same thing that had pushed him to cram his head full of often useless information in the pursuit of sterling grades and admission to medical school. And the same thing that had made CJ Floyd chase bond skippers, wife beaters, and dope dealers across the Rockies for thirty-five years. When you came right down to it, he suspected that the thing they were all chasing was self-worth. They needed it so much because something essential was missing from their lives, and no matter how well they might appear to have adjusted to its absence, he knew that when you netted it all out, as Flora Jean was fond of saying, what they were each saying in their own way was “Look at me—fatherless or not, I'm a man.”
As he exited I-25 and headed east onto I-70 for Aretha Bird's house, he had the feeling that in his haste to once again scream, “I'm a man!” he'd taken the wrong tack with Rodney Sands. Manipulation, not intimidation, was the strategy he suspected he should have employed. Shaking his head and thinking, You make mistakes at any game when you're a novice, he slowed down for the York Street exit that would take him into the heart of Five Points. Cruising through neighborhoods that were now all black, he found himself thinking about concepts that his mother had once told him couldn't be measured, concepts such as good and evil, life and death. Less than two blocks from Aretha's house, with those thoughts still filling his head, he remembered something CJ had once told him about the killing machine that was war. “Sometimes when I lost a friend on the battlefield, I wanted to kill everything in sight—not just the VC but the trees, the grass, even the dirt under my feet,” CJ had said. “But in time it passed. It had to or I'd’ve ended up closer to being a wild animal than a human being.”