“That’s great, Tyrell,” I said. “It must be great to be so tough. Two more questions. Where were you the night Lomax and Ayisha died?”
“Me?” Tyrell answered, still smiling, looking at the gun in his hand. “I was here.”
“Can you prove that?”
“Depends. You could see if my two cousins remember. I went to bed early. Coach say discipline make the difference. You got to be able to do what need to be done, whether you want to or not.”
“Uh-huh. You’re a model citizen, Tyrell. One more thing. Did you know Lomax was HIV positive?”
Tyrell shrugged, locked his gun back in the box.
“Did it bother you? Friend of yours, with a disease like that?”
“Uh-uh,” he said. “Don’t got no time to worry about C. He got his troubles, I got mine.”
I drove south, found Broadway, stopped at a tavern near the Bronx line. It was a half-empty place, the kind where dispirited old-timers nurse watery drinks and old grudges. In a scarred booth I lit a cigarette, worked on a Bud. I thought about Raymond, about the simple desire to do something, to try to help. About wanting justice, wanting what’s right.
Of course, that meant so many things. To Sweeney it could mean taking a taunting, slippery drug dealer out of the picture. To Tyrell Drum it could mean getting rid of a smooth-talking, dangerous distraction. To Lomax himself, it might have meant having the last laugh: not cheating death, but choosing it, choosing your time and your way and your pain. None of these kids had ever had a lot of choices. This was one Lomax could have given himself.
But I didn’t like it.
I had a couple of reasons, but the biggest was what Raymond had instinctively felt: Lomax wasn’t the type.
I hadn’t known Lomax, but the picture I’d gotten of him was consistent, no matter where it came from. Suicide is for when you give up. Lomax never gave up. Taunting cops. Trying to fast-talk Tyrell into his kind of life. Going up for balls he couldn’t reach and shooting shots he couldn’t make. That’s what the coach said.
Even after the bell.
I lit another cigarette, seeing in my mind the asphalt playground in the fading light, watching the kids charge and jump, hearing the sound of the pounding ball and of their shouts. I saw one fall — I knew now it was Raymond — roll to his feet, try to shake off the sling of the scrape on his hand. Then, immediately, he was back in the game.
Even after the bell.
Suddenly I was cold. Suddenly I knew.
Wanting justice, wanting to help.
There was something else that could mean.
The next day, late afternoon again. The same gray river, the same cold wind.
It would have been pointless to go earlier. I would have been guessing, then, where to look; at this hour, I knew.
I’d made one phone call, to Sweeney, just to check what I already was sure of. He gave me what I wanted, and then he gave me a warning.
“I’m giving you this because I know you’ll get it one way or another. But listen to me. Smith: Whatever road you’re heading down, it’s a dead end. The first complaint I hear, you’ll get a look up close and personal at the smallest cell I can find. Do I make myself clear?”
I thanked him. The rest of the day I worked on the Beethoven. It was getting better, slowly, slowly.
Yonkers West loomed darker, bigger, more hostile than before. At the front door I greeted the guard.
“You were here yesterday.” He grinned. “Go on, tell me you’re not a scout.”
“Practice in session?” I asked.
“Uh-huh. Go on ahead. I’m sure Coach won’t mind.”
I wasn’t. But I went.
The gym echoed with the thump of the basketball on the maple. The whole team, starters and bench, was out on the floor practicing a complicated high-low post play. They were rotating through it, changing roles so that each man would understand it in his gut, know how each position felt; but in play, the point would be to get the ball to the big man. To Tyrell. As many times as the play was called, that’s how it would end up. Tyrell shooting, Tyrell carrying the team’s chances, carrying everyone’s hopes.
Coach Farlow was standing on the sideline. He watched the play as they practiced it, following everyone’s moves, but especially Tyrell’s. I walked the short aisle between the bleachers, came and stood next to him.
He glanced at me, then turned his eyes back to his players. “Hi,” he said. “Come to watch practice?”
“No,” I said. “I came to talk.”
He looked over at me again, then blew the whistle hanging around his neck. “All right, you guys!” The sweating players stopped, stood wiping their faces with their shirts, catching their breath. He rattled off two lists of names. Four guys headed for the sidelines; two teams formed on the court. Raymond, on one end of the floor, caught my eye. I nodded noncommittally. The others looked my way, curious, but snapped their attention back to Farlow when he shouted again.
“Okay, let’s go,” he called. “Hawkins, take the tip. You and Ford call it.”
One of the guys who’d been on his way off the court chased down the ball. Another trotted over to take the coach’s whistle. The ball was tossed up in the center of the circle; the game began.
“You let them call games often?” I asked Farlow as he stood beside me, following their movements with his sharp blue eyes.
“It’s good for them. Forces them to see what’s going on. Makes them take responsibility. Most of them get pretty good at it.”
I said, “I’ll bet Lomax wasn’t.”
“Lomax? He used to tick them all off. He’d call fouls on everyone, right and left. Just to throw his weight around.”
“Did you stop him?”
Farlow watched Raymond go for a lay-up and miss it. Tyrell snatched the rebound, sank it easily. Farlow said, “The point is for them to find out what they’re made of. What each other’s made of. Doesn’t help if I stop them.”
“Besides,” I said, “you couldn’t stop Lomax, could you?”
This time his attention turned to me, stayed there. “What do you mean?”
“No one could ever stop Lomax from doing whatever he wanted. No matter how dangerous it was, to him or anyone else. He wouldn’t stop playing, would he?”
“What?”
“That was it, wasn’t it? He had AIDS and he wouldn’t stop playing.”
A whistle blew. Silence, then the slap of sneakers on wood, the thump of the ball as the game went on. Farlow’s eyes stayed on me.
“You couldn’t talk him out of it,” I said. “You couldn’t drop him because he was too good. You’d have had to explain why, and the law protects people from that kind of thing. He’d have been back on the court and you’d have been out of a job.”
“But you couldn’t let him keep playing. That could have ruined everything.”
Shouts came from the far end of the court as Tyrell stole a pass, broke down the floor, and dunked it before anyone from either team got near him.
“Could have ruined what?” Farlow asked in a tight, quiet voice.
“You’re going through the motions,” I said. “You know I have it. But all right, if you want to do that.”
I watched the game, not Farlow, as I continued. “If Lomax had stayed on the team there might have been no season. Some of his own buddies didn’t want to play with him. Guys get hurt in this game. They bleed, they spit, they sweat. The other guys were afraid.
“That’s what happened to Magic Johnson: He couldn’t keep playing after everyone knew he had AIDS because guys on other teams were afraid to play against him. Magic had class. He didn’t force it. He retired.
“But that wasn’t Lomax’s way, was it? Lomax felt fine and he was going to play. And if it got out he had AIDS his own teammates might have rebelled. So would the teams you play against. The whole season would have collapsed.