Murder At the Foul Line

The Knicks began a road trip the next day, three games in four days, and I saw the games, watched them lose two of the three, pull the last one out as a squeaker against an under-.500 team they hadn’t lost to in three seasons. I wondered whether the NYPD sent cops along to question potential suspects or just waited for the team to come back to town, because at what these guys were being paid to play they weren’t much of a flight risk. I wondered how the young detective, Mike Beam, was doing under the ferocious glare of Dan Wing. The day the Knicks came back to town I called him, to ask.

“You’re not a guy I’m happy to hear from,” he told me.

“I’m feeling guilty.”

“Why? Your guy did it and you’re ready to give him up now?”

“He didn’t. But I know Wing worried a long investigation would make the players lose their focus and I’ll bet you’re even less popular at the Garden right now than I’d be in your squad room.”

“That would be a toss-up.”

“You getting anywhere?”

“You call just to give me a hard time?”

“No,” I said. “You may not buy this and there’s no reason you should, but this thing is eating me. Nobody liked the guy and the only ones who miss him are Knicks fans, but somebody walked up to him on the street and shot him. It wasn’t Tony Manelli but I’d like to know who it was. If I can help, let me know.”

in a guarded voice he said, “I have the report you gave Manelli’s lawyer. You know anything that’s not in it?”

“No.”

“Then you’ve been enough help, thanks.”

“Sorry.”

“Listen,” he conceded, “you could be right. Rome seems to have let down a lot of people on a lot of fronts. When I find the one fed up enough to kill him, that’ll be my guy. Your guy’s not out of the ru

“Yeah,” I said, “I figured. Okay, just thought I’d call.”

We hung up, neither of us sure what I’d wanted. Beam went back to the business of investigating Damon Rome’s murder and I went back to the business of doing other things. That night when the game came on I didn’t go down to Shorty’s. I poured myself my own bourbon and sat on my couch and watched the Knicks take on Houston. It was no contest; they were disorganized, had no rhythm, nothing worked for them, and by halftime they were getting slaughtered. The cameras showed Wing glowering, Nathaniel on the bench shouting and pounding chairs. Nora Day, behind him, silently followed every play, as usual. Luke McCroy had stepped up and was playing well, and so were Shawan Powell and a couple of others, but it wasn’t enough. The dancers, led by an almost frantic Holly March, tried to get the crowd into it, but the crowd saw what I saw and wasn’t having any. I watched the start of the third quarter, the miscommunicated passes and the turnovers, heard the boos from the crowd at the rushed shots that wouldn’t drop, the easy layups missed, and all of a sudden, in the kind of shift that makes figure become ground, ground become the sharp center of focus, I knew what had happened.

It wasn’t what I’d been told and it wasn’t what I’d said. Damon Rome hadn’t been killed because of what he didn’t do. He’d been killed because of what he did.

I didn’t sleep well that night. The next morning, I went back to the list I had of things I hadn’t done yet, people I hadn’t spoken to. Carefully, I started doing some of those things. I checked more gun registrations, went and talked to more doormen, more garage attendants, prowled the streets near Shots and near the Garden again. I talked to winos and losers and cold-eyed kids looking for the main chance. I was hoping to be wrong but I was right. That night I watched the game, and when it was close to finished-the Knicks again in the hole-I grabbed my jacket, headed to the Garden.

Once there, I didn’t go in; I set myself at the players’ door, the place where autograph hounds wait, missing the end of the game for a chance to get near their heroes.

About an hour after I got there the heroes started to come out. Powell, McCroy, the others who’d played. Nathaniel, with his cane, surrounded by the largest crowd. Because of what had happened to Rome, security was tight, but each player had the chance to sign autographs or refuse to, to talk to his fans or duck into a waiting limo. I watched them make their choices according to their nature, watched guys sign a few and then wave as they left, or scowl and walk right past their fans, while Nathaniel stayed and signed as long as there were fans who wanted him.

When the crowds thi

Nora Day, six inches taller than I, pushed through the deserted doorway and strode quickly along the sidewalk. Dawdling and daydreaming were not part of her game; she’d been tall for a point guard but magically fast in sizing up situations, creating plays, making opportunities for her teammates where you’d swear none could be found.

She did that now: I was the situation, and she sized me up, fixed me with that icy glare as I stepped into her path. “What do you want?” she asked, but I was sure she already knew.

“Team’s not doing well,” I said. “Championship shot seems to be gone this year.”

“They never had one. Not without Nat.”

“That’s not true, is it? They had a damn good shot without him and that was the problem.”

Nora Day’s eyes flashed. “What the hell do you want?” she asked again.

“Were those Damon’s last words?” I said. “Did he say, ‘Nora, what the hell do you want?’ just before you shot him?”

She regarded me silently. When she finally answered, it was in a voice as cold as the winter night we stood in. “No. No, he said, This team’s mine. You and your gimp brother ought to be looking around for someplace else to play.’”

“And that’s it? You were afraid Damon would replace Nathaniel as the Knicks’ go-to guy?”

“Afraid?” From her height she looked down at me as she always had at the world. “No, I wasn’t afraid. New York loves Nat. When he comes back no one will remember Damon Rome ever existed.”

“Then why?”

Nora Day looked up at the darkened Garden, out at the empty street. “That ring is Nat’s,” she said. “For eight years we’ve been promising New York a championship. We’ll deliver.”

“You’ll deliver.” I nodded. “Not Damon Rome.”

“That ring is Nat’s,” she repeated.

“He’d have had one if they’d won this year. He’s a Knick, playing or not.”

“He wouldn’t have earned it. He wouldn’t have been the one to bring it home.”

“And New York would have known that. Everyone would have known the Knicks could do it without Nathaniel.”

Lights in the stairwells of the Garden began snapping off, now that the players and the fans were gone. I hunched into my jacket; a wind had come up. Nora Day said, “Everyone? You really think I care about everyone and what they know?”

I didn’t answer. A car rolled by; at the end of the block a drunk staggered, not sure where he was going. Nora said softly, “Nat would have known.”

“Would have known what? That other people can play the game, too? I got the feeling he knows that already. It doesn’t seem to bother him.”

“He would have known,” her words came slowly, “that he was expendable.”

I looked at her eyes. In my mind I saw those eyes, over the years, fixed on the weaknesses in the Knicks’ offense, the holes in their defense. I thought about how, over each season, those weaknesses had been covered and those holes filled by skills Nathaniel polished up.

“You were a great player,” I said. “A legend. But when you came out of school, you had nowhere to go.”