Otto Penzler - Murder At the Foul Line

“You want me to stay on it?” I asked. “I’ve got a list of things I didn’t do yet, stuff I’d have gone into deeper if I’d been looking to solve the case, not just muddy the waters.”

“I’ll let you know, but I don’t think so. I don’t really care what they find as long as they don’t come back at Tony again. We embarrassed them, let’s leave them alone for now. Go ahead and send your bill.”

“Forget it. Professional courtesy, for Tony.”

“That won’t make him happy.”

“Someday I’ll need him, he can do the same.”

When I hung up I did some paperwork, cleaned up some loose ends on other cases. About eight I went down to Shorty’s, sat at the bar, drank bourbon and listened to the talk. The Knicks game, on the TV over the bar, was the topic, and the opinion of everyone was the same: they stank.

They were at the Garden, playing Indiana. They wore black ribbons on their shirts and Dan Wing wore one pinned to his lapel. The dancers, including Holly March, wore them on their spangled leotards. I wondered if Sam Landau and Randall Lee were wearing black, too.

The Knicks were bad. They fell apart. Some of the fans wore black ribbons or black armbands, and one of the guys at the bar wondered aloud if those were for Damon or for the Knicks. The team had been built around Nathaniel Day, guys pointed out to each other, and they hadn’t had much trouble learning to feed Damon Rome and get out of his way, but now they had no star and Wing’s adjustments, his furious coaching, the players’ hunger, it just wasn’t enough. Without a franchise player they didn’t know what to do; they were lost, and it showed.

I didn’t know what to do either; I was lost, too.

It wasn’t good enough, this business of finding other people with as much motive and opportunity as Tony Manelli had. Good enough for Tony and his lawyer; they just wanted Tony free. And good enough, it seemed, for most of the people I’d spoken to. None of them seemed particularly bothered about the question of who’d killed Damon Rome. His death had consequences in everyone’s life and they were all handling those as they had to, but no one had liked Damon enough that they were burning with a need to know what had happened to him.

I hadn’t known him, and I probably wouldn’t have liked him. But I didn’t like walking away in the middle like this.

Not your job, Smith, I told myself. I sipped my drink, tried to settle back, tried to watch the game. I saw the Knicks falter, surge forward, fail. They were never really in the game; they lost. I finished my drink, said my good-byes, went upstairs.

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 running, by the way.”

“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 thinned out I stepped forward. Not to speak to Nathaniel, who, with the famous smile, climbed into a white limo and was gone. The fans drifted away then, and the players’ door opened again, and I was left alone with the person I’d come to see.

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.