I got there before she did and had to wait in the hall, and I made up my mind right then if I was going to have to meet her that way, not knowing just when she’d get there, I’d have to have a key to the joint so I could go on in and make myself comfortable. She came along after a while and said, “Hi, Junior,” and we went in and had a drink, and she said, “I guess I’ll have to quit giving you drinks now that you’re playing basketball again,” and I said, “The hell you will! You just let me worry about the God-damn basketball,” and she said, “Well, you can start worrying about the game Saturday night, because Franzie Ketch says the wise money is going for you to win by eight points on your home court, but he figures it will be closer,” and I said, “How closer?” and she said, “The way he sees it, not over seven.”
Well, that’s how it was, the way we-settled it, and I started to get down to other business, and she said, “How the hell do you expect to keep on being a star athlete with the kind of habits you’ve got?” and I said she could damn well quit bothering herself about it, and after a while she did, and when I was finally ready to get on back out to Pipskill, I remembered about having to wait in the hall and said, “By the way, you better get a key made for me,” and she asked me what the hell I meant, a key, and I said, “A key to open the God-damn door with. You think I want to stand out in the lousy hall waiting every time you’re late?” and she said, “Well, of all the lousy damn brass I ever heard of, this takes the prize. I’ll just tell you, Junior, that you can wait in the hall or in hell or any place you damn well please, but if you think you’re getting a key to my apartment you can put it out of your little mind right now,” and I could see that she was really in an uproar about it for some God-damn reason or other, so I let it drop for the time being, but I didn’t put it out of my mind, like she said, but intended to come back to it later because I couldn’t see any sense whatever in waiting around for her in the damn hall.
I went back to the frat house and told Micky how it had been set, and he said, “It oughtn’t to be very hard to make it look good at seven points because this team’s supposed to be pretty sharp,” and I said, “Well, we damn well better make it look good because I’ve got a feeling old Umplett will smell something damn fast if we don’t,” and Micky said, “That’s for sure, and I don’t mind admitting that the son of a bitch gives me the creeps,” and I said that went for me, too, doubled in spades.
The truth is, we damn near flubbed it. It was the other team’s fault, really, the bastards, because they didn’t come through the way they were supposed to, and the way it was, they played sharp and fast the first half and kept within four points all the way, which was the widest spread we built, but then, the second half, damned if they didn’t grow all feet and thumbs and get as cold as a damn ice cube, and almost before we knew it we had a lead of twelve points. I got worried as hell, and that’s the truth, and during a time out I whispered to Micky to start missing some, for God’s sake, and he whispered back, “Well, damn it, it’s not so much our missing some as figuring a way to get those spooks to start hitting some,” and I had to admit to myself that he had a damn good point.
To make it worse, that God-damn Carboy had a good night and even hooked in a few, and Micky and I had to look so damn bad to make up for it that I got to worrying about old Umplett jerking us out of there, and then we wouldn’t have had any chance at all to fix the spread. In the fourth quarter, though, the other team got its eye back and began to move the ball better, and with the help of Micky and me they got the spread narrowed to six points with less than a minute to play, and it looked like everything would come out all right after all, and it was right then that the thing happened that looked pretty God-damn phony, and I’ll have to admit it.
The other team had the ball and took it downcourt and banged away at the basket and missed, and old Carboy went up and took it off the boards and passed it out, and we took it down in no hurry because we had the game on ice, and ordinarily we’d have just hung onto the ball until the gun. They were playing a man-for-man defense, though, and the guy on me got sloppy and dropped away, and old Carboy in the slot got the ball and popped it out to me, and there I was in the open with the God-damn ball and plenty of time to dribble in and lay one up that would have been as easy as hitting a bull with a spade. To tell the truth, I didn’t know what the hell to do, and so I wound up not doing a damn thing, and the spook who was supposed to be guarding me woke up and got in between me and the basket, and it looked pretty phony, like I said, and as a matter of fact it stank.
The gun went off then, and we went in the locker room, and when I came out of the shower and started dressing, old Umplett came out of his office and looked at me with his sour, sick eyes and said, “Why the hell didn’t you go in for that last shot?” and I’d been thinking he might ask me about it and had a reason ready for him, so I said, “Well, we were ahead and only had a few seconds to go, and I thought there wasn’t any use in it.”
He kept on looking at me, and his lips sort of curled back off his crummy teeth in a little smile that didn’t have any Goddamn humor in it at all, and pretty soon he said in this very soft voice, “Well, isn’t that just too God-damn touching for words! If there’s anything makes me want to break right out in tears, it’s a guy like you who has such a tender heart that he just can’t stand beating anyone any worse than’s absolutely necessary. I’ve been at this business a long time, and sometimes I get to feeling pretty low and thinking maybe it’s been a wasted life and I’ve never done anyone in the world any good to speak of, and then a fine, tender-hearted lad like you comes along and makes me feel ashamed of feeling and thinking that way. However, we got to remember to be realistic about things, and one of the things we got to remember is that there’s a time to hold the ball and run out the clock, and there’s a time when it’s better to take a shot, especially when it’s a dead cinch to make and not even enough time left for the other team to get the ball back downcourt. I don’t have to tell you this, though, because you’re a natural sharpie and know damn well when to shoot and when not to, and you knew you should’ve taken that shot tonight. I don’t know why you didn’t, except for the natural tenderness of your heart, and I don’t want to know, but I can God-damn well tell you that if you ever pull another phony trick like that while you’re playing on this team I’ll make you sorry you were ever born, and don’t you forget it.”
Well, I could see the son of a bitch didn’t trust me and was going to be suspicious of every lousy little thing I did, and I knew damn well I’d have to smooth it up and do better if I ever intended to get away with it and had just about decided to tell Francis Z. Ketch to blow it when I got a call from Candy to come downtown to her apartment and pick up something she had for me. I went down there in the Crosley to pick it up, and it was the payoff for fixing the spread, and as a matter of fact it was five hundred for me and three for Micky, and I got the extra two for setting it up and being the contact man, which was just adding sauce to the gravy, the way I looked at it, since the one I had to contact was Candy and she usually had something extra for me herself.
She gave me the money and said, “Well, how does it feel to be in the chips?” and I thought I might as well push it a little while I was at it and said, “It feels pretty damn good, all right, but Francis Ketch doesn’t need to think I’m going to keep on fixing points for any lousy five C’s per, and you can tell him from me it’ll have to go up a couple of C’s each time,” and she looked at me with her eyes wide for a few seconds and then said, “By God, you might be worth hanging onto, at that, if you can manage to keep living,” and I said, “Don’t worry about that, and while we’re on the subject of living, how about living it up a little right now?” and she laughed and shook her head and said, “Probably someday I’ll wonder why I was ever so damn crazy, but just the same I think you’re pretty cute, Junior, and I’m tempted to cooperate.” Which she did.