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She stared at me steadily. A sheet of old newspaper brushed the sidewalk as it blew up to us, and then swirled past.
“Get out of my way,” Nora Day said. She cut around me, strode down the block.
I kept pace, said nothing, until finally, without slowing, she asked, “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have nothing.”
“That’s not true. My fault, I didn’t check you out the first time around, but I did today: you have a permit for a Smith & Wesson.38. The one they found has no numbers, but still, where’s yours? Could you produce it if you had to?”
She wheeled on me, glaring.
“And your car,” I said. “Everyone in New York knows you don’t go up to the house in Co
“You’re bluffing.”
“I have a witness. A kid who was considering jacking your car, until he saw you walking toward it. About two a.m.”
“It’s still nothing. All of this, it’s nothing.”
“That won’t take you far. The police can see what I saw, once they look. They’ll figure it out, too.”
I said that, but I wasn’t sure it was true, if I didn’t point them in the right direction. Nora Day’s face stretched into a cold smile. She turned, walked away without looking back. I stopped where I was, watched her stride, arrow-straight, down the empty sidewalk. I wondered what it felt like to know, absolutely know, what the right play was.
I never found out. At the diner the next morning I heard the news: in the middle of the night, on her way to her secluded Co
IN THE ZONE by Justin Scott
Scottie Pippen elbowed him in the grill when the ref wasn’t looking, busted him so hard that Shorty felt tears swarming into his eyes like he was still a little kid playing B-ball back in the projects.
“Wha’d you do that for?’ Shorty yelled, but the pack was already kickin’ downcourt and Pippen never heard. Must have been an accident. Scottie was his friend. Besides, who played for blood in a charity National Basketball Association All-Star Game at Madison Square Garden?
They were all his friends. All the stars. Chris Webber, Shaquille O’Neal, Karl Malone, Allen Iverson, Kevin Garnett, John Stockton, Allan Houston, Latrell Sprewell. The top of the top, the best of the best. ESPN called them the finest ten players ever in one game. Webber, O’Neal, Malone, Iverson, Garnett, Stockton, Houston, Pippen, and Shorty O’Tool, who had come a long, long way from hooping ratball in the hood.
Some guys bitched about wasting their downtime on charity. Said they needed the rest. Who wanted to tear his ACL or bust a finger for nothing? But their agents said do it, their business managers said do it, and their publicity guys said do it. Even Shorty’s mother said do it: take folks’ minds off the gambling thing.
Besides, All Stars got tons of TV face time; and di
Loose ball! Shorty floated through the pack, scooped it like an orange in his huge hand. Too far out to shoot? Think so, Latrell? He faked right, like he was heading in. Think so, Chris? He faked right again, like he was fading back.
Psyched ’em out so far away,
Two by two, like Dr. J.
Sprewell and Webber were still guarding air when Shorty powered off the floor. Jumper. In!
Karl Malone banged him on the butt. “All right, kid!”
They called him kid-not because he was the littlest, not at seven feet two inches-but the youngest. Always the youngest. Always all-world game. Youngest varsity at Clinton, youngest starting center at St. John’s, youngest captain of the Knicks, youngest All-Star ever.
He took a pass from Karl, passed to Allen Iverson, drove toward the basket, and went up to meet Allen’s pass back to him. In!
“All right, kid!”
Youngest and dumbest. No denying Shorty O’Tool was newjack. The gamblers knew. They’d seen him coming.
What did people expect? Seeing his daddy gu
Dirty yellow Electra 225 ghetto sled rolling up. Driver doing a gangsta lean, low over the passenger seat. Shoulda known. Shoulda warned Daddy. But he was too busy boasting how the teacher said he was so good in school. Besides, the scarface in the Buick’s backseat wasn’t even wearing shades. No cap, no skully, nothing covering his face. Looked like just another permafried crackhead gri
Daddy holding his hand. Tec-9 sprays bayaka-bayaka. Still holding Shorty’s hand when the slugs thud into him, shaking his huge, hard body like kicks and punches. Still holding Shorty’s hand as he starts to fall.
The scarface sees Shorty’s seen him. Opens up again to spray the kid, too. Bayaka-bayaka. Slug plucks Shorty’s sleeve. Another sears his cheek. But Daddy’s pushing him down, falling on him hard and heavy, protecting him under his chest.
Bayaka-bayaka. Daddy twitching and shaking, taking the bullets until the thunderous boo-yaa of a Mossberg twelve-gauge slams him to pieces like an earthquake.
What’d you see? said the boys in blue.
Nothin’, he saw nothin’, says Shorty’s mother.
“Yes, I did! I saw him, Mama, I saw him.”
The cops get a lady with a computer and when Shorty tells her what he saw, damn! the scarface is staring from the screen like he was looking out his window.
Everybody sees them come home to Grandma’s in the police car. Grandma says, “Don’t you worry, child. You’ll be safe. God will protect you on angels’ wings.”
“Like they protected his daddy?” Mama cries, bent over the table, her face all wet.
Grandma puts him to sleep on her couch, hugs him close and explains. “Your mama’s very sad. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. Don’t you listen to her. You listen to me and listen hard. God will protect you on angels’ wings.”