Playmates (11 page)

"Get him in here, Dixie. I'm now covering up point shaving and accessory to attempted murder for him. I need to find a handle on this thing or I'm going down with him."

"You didn't report the attempt to the cops?"

"No," I said. "I couldn't figure out how to do that and not get Dwayne dragged into it. What were you doing in the garage? Why did you agree to go there? Why did these guys want to hit you? Cops aren't dumb. Cops been lied to a lot in their career. They know about that."

"And if they find out it was you and you didn't report it?"

"Pretty well eliminates my chances for the gumshoe hall of fame," I said. "Get him in here."

Dixie nodded. He rose and walked past me to his office door and stuck his head out.

"Vicki," he said to his secretary, "tell Dwayne I want to see him, please."

Dixie came back around his desk and sat heavily in his swivel chair.

"Goddamn," he said. "Goddamn."

We were quiet while we waited for Dwayne. When he came in he filled the room. It was always startling to see Dwayne up close. When I wasn't with him, I forgot how big he was and tended to think of him in normal-sized terms. But in shorts and a tank top, with a towel draped over his shoulders, he was startling in his size. And more startling in his athleticism. He moved as gracefully as any corner back, and he was built like a good middleweight boxer, except that he was six feet nine inches tall. As he moved the muscles bunched and rolled under his skin.

"What's happening, Coach?" Dwayne saw me but didn't look again.

"Come in, Dwayne, close the door, sit down."

Dwayne did all three and looked at Dunham. Dixie put his hands behind his head and laced the fingers. He leaned back against the spring on the swivel chair and took in a breath and let it out.

"Dwayne," he said, "you gotta help us."

Dwayne's eyes shifted to me when Dixie said us and shifted back to the coach. He nodded. "Sure," he said.

"Dwayne, you got to tell us what the hell is going on."

"I don't know what you mean, Coach."

"Yeah, you do. You been shaving points. Last night you set this man up to be murdered."

Dwayne's head was shaking back and forth in denial all the time Dixie talked.

"You called him," Dixie said, "you told him to meet you in a parking garage, and instead of you, when he got there he found some people with guns."

Dwayne's head continued to shake.

"They weren't ... He said they wasn't . . ."

"Who?" I said to Dwayne.

Dwayne shook his head some more.

"Goddamn it, Dwayne," Dixie said. "Think a bit. This man is trying to help you. I'm trying to help you. Now, goddamn it, how we going to help you if you won't tell us what's going on?"

Dwayne was still shaking his head. He wasn't looking at Dixie anymore. He was looking down.

"You got a responsibility, Dwayne," Dixie said.

Dwayne didn't raise his eyes. His head was still now, and he gazed steadfastly at the floor. "Dwayne, you got a responsibility to this program, to me, to the other guys on the team." Dwayne was motionless.

"You owe it to yourself, Dwayne."

Dwayne raised his head and looked at Dixie. "I can't, Coach," he said.

"Why not?" Dixie said.

The connection between Dwayne and Dixie was real and concentrated. I got a hint of why he was a great coach.

"I got other responsibilities," Dwayne said.

"Responsibilities? Who the Christ to?" Dixie was outraged.

Dwayne shook his head.

"More important than the program, Dwayne?"

Dwayne looked at the ground again. We were all quiet. In the outer office we could hear Vicki typing. I watched the quartz clock on the wall for a while. The second hand jerked around the dial in one-second increments.

"Dwayne," Dixie said, "I'm going to have to sit you down."

Dwayne's head raised slowly until his eyes were on Dixie's face.

Their eyes held each other. I was entirely extraneous.

"You got to help us to help you, or I can't play you," Dixie said.

"Tournament startin'," Dwayne mumbled.

"Yeah," Dixie said.

Dwayne looked at him some more. Then slowly he stood up. He looked down at Dixie, for a full breath cycle.

"I got to go," he said.

"You change your mind, Dwayne, you know where I am," Dixie said.

Dwayne nodded and turned slowly away. He carefully didn't look at me. He opened the door and went out and closed it carefully behind him. The silence in the room was majestic. Dixie slammed his open hand flat on his desktop.

"Damn," he said.

"Yeah," I said.

We sat some more.

"What's your chances in the NCAA Tournament without him?" I said.

"Slim and none," Dixie said.

"What are you going to tell the press?" I said.

"Nothing," Dixie said.

"They'll be all over you," I said.

"Like ticks on a bird dog," Dixie said.

WE were at my place. Susan was taking a bath and I was in bed reading Roger Angell's new book. It was ten o'clock on a Friday night. The door was locked, my gun was on the bed table, the television was playing with the sound off. All was peaceful. Susan came from the bathroom wearing a large blue towel and drying herself with it as she walked. "Is there a wonderful movie we can watch on cable?" she said.

"No," I said. "I think we'll have to make love."

"And have a late supper after?"

"We had supper," I said.

"No, we had dinner," Susan said.

"Of course," I said.

"Well, if 'tis to be done," Susan said, "better it be done quickly."

She dropped her towel and dove onto the bed. I dog-eared the page and put the book on the bed table beside the gun.

Susan made her bubbly little laugh, which, in a less stately woman, might have been construed as a giggle. She pulled the covers part way back and wiggled in under them.

"Oh good," she said. "The sheets are clean." She pressed against me.

"And," she said with her near-giggle lurking under the words, "I think you're glad to see me."

"You shrinks," I said, "you don't miss a thing."

"Some things are easier to miss than others," she said.

"I beg your pardon," I said, and she inched her body up a bit against mine and pressed her open mouth against mine.

All smiles ceased.

Susan's energy was limitless. She worked out every day, often twice a day. Her body was strong and very flexible. I was in pretty good shape myself.

When it was over we lay pressed together, our bodies wet with perspiration, our breaths coming in big heaves, our lips still touching. Susan's eyes were closed.

"I never remember how strong you are," Susan said with her lips touching mine as she spoke, and her eyes still closed.

"It's because my heart is pure," I said.

"Bullshit," she said.

"Good point," I said.

We lay like that for a bit, quietly. Then Susan rolled away from me and sat up without using her hands and got out of bed and walked across to the bedroom closet, where she kept a robe.

Eat your heart out, Paralegal.

She put on her robe of many colors and got one out for me. It was black, with a hood. I looked like Darth Vader in it. But Susan liked it. She draped it over the foot of the bed. "What's for supper?" she said.

I put on my Darth Vader robe and went to the kitchen.

When Susan came out of the bathroom I was peeling an avocado.

"That looks encouraging," she said. She came and sat at the counter on a high stool with a fluted back. I put a glass before her and poured in some Cristal Champagne. She smiled.

"To us," she said. We both drank some. "You have always had wonderful taste in champagne and women," she said.

"The taste in women is instinctual," I said. "I learned the champagne from Hawk."

I finished the avocado and sliced it over endive leaves. I added some mango slices and put over it a dressing of first-press olive oil and lemon juice and honey. I put one plate in front of Susan and the other at my place and came around the counter.

Susan poured herself half a glass more of champagne and took a small bite of the avocado.

"Yum, yum," she said.

"It's only the beginning," I said.

"How is it going with Dwayne what's-his-name?" Susan said.

"Woodcock," I said. "It's going very badly." Susan took a crescent of mango on her fork and dabbed it in the dressing and ate it in two small bites. Slowly.

"Tell me about it," she said when she was through chewing.

I did.

By the time I was through I had sliced some cob smoked turkey onto a plate with some tomato chutney. I checked the whole wheat biscuits in the oven.

"There needs to be a reason," Susan said. "Everything he cares about is pressing on him to act differently and yet he won't."

"I'm wondering, the kind of kid he is, is there some kind of jock ethic here?"

Susan clicked the rim of her champagne glass against her bottom teeth gently. I checked the biscuits again. They were golden. I took them out and put them on the counter to cool.

"Are you suggesting that he sees this gang of gamblers as his new team?" Susan said.

I shrugged. "Chantel says he thinks very highly of them. She says he needs white approval though he won't admit it, even to himself."

"Maybe why he's such a good player," Susan said. "Lot of white approval there."

"It helps that he's six feet nine and quicker than I."

"That quick . . ." Susan said. "Of course it helps. But there must be other people that tall and that quick who are not as good as Dwayne."

"I imagine."

"If so," Susan said, "won't Coach Dunham benching him change that?"

"Because Bobby Deegan and his outfit won't be so nice to Dwayne when he's riding the pines and can't help them shave points?" I said.

"Yes," Susan said.

I put the biscuits into a basket and put the platter of turkey and chutney on the counter. I got out some cranberry conserve that we had put up together last fall and set that next to the biscuits.

"I'm hoping for that," I said.

"But even if Dwayne turns against them finally," Susan said, "and tells you enough to put them out of business, how can you do it without exposing Dwayne?"

"I don't know," I said. "I was hoping if I drank enough champagne with you, I'd think of something."

"What you normally think of when you get drunk," Susan said, "will not do Dwayne any good at all."

"At least I'll be consistent," I said.

SUSAN went with me the next morning to Taft. It was a day when she didn't see patients, and she cancelled the class she taught at Tufts to join me.

"What is it exactly we're up to?" she said.

"We're going to look into the matter of Dwayne being a senior and unable to read," I said.

"And why are we doing that?"

"Because I don't know what else to do," I said. "Dwayne can't read and he's tied up in some kind of gambling scam. They're probably not connected, but since I don't know what to do about the gambling thing, I may as well look into the other thing."

Susan nodded.

"Better than doing nothing," I said.

Susan nodded again. "And where is Hawk?" she said.

"Around," I said.

"So how come I don't see him?"

"I don't know how he does that," I said. "But he can disappear if he needs to."

"But you know he's there," Susan said.

We were walking along a wide, hot, top path that curved up to the administration building.

"Yes."

"Because he said so?"

"Yes."

"And if those people try to kill you again and he's not there you're very likely dead."

"He's there," I said.

"Yes," Susan said.

We went up the wide granite steps and in through the Georgian entry of the administration building. There was a reception desk in the rotunda area and a long corridor that went straight through the building. We went past the desk and went halfway down the corridor and took some stairs to the left up to the second floor. Toward the back of the building on the second floor was Madelaine Roth's office.

Her door was open. She was at her desk talking on the phone. When she saw me she waved us in and gestured at the chairs in front of her desk.

"All right, Judy," she said. "Seven o'clock. Yes. Bye-bye."

She hung up and leaned forward over her desk and smiled at us.

"Dr. Roth," I said. "This is my, ah, associate, Dr. Silverman."

Madelaine stood and leaned across the desk and put her hand out. Susan half rose to take it. They shook hands and both sat down. Professional courtesy.

Madelaine sat back in her chair and put her palms together, making a steeple out of her fingers, and touched her lips with her fingertips. She said, "What is it today, Mr. Spenser."

"I'm still looking into the matter of Dwayne's illiteracy," I said.

She nodded, patiently, this is my job, I have to put up with exasperating people.

"How'd he get this far?" I said.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you," Madelaine said. "I am his academic adviser, but he has never been a student in a class with me. What strategies he employed to conceal the truth from us . . ." She turned her palms up and shrugged.

"What were his SATs like?"

"I don't really recall," Madelaine said. "It is, of course, confidential information."

I looked at Susan. "Confidential," I said. "Isn't it always?"

I looked at the three degrees on the wall. B.A., Georgetown. M.A., Ph.D., Queens College, New York.

"Do you have Dwayne's class schedule for this year, and previous ones?" I said.

"Of course," Madelaine said.

"May I see the schedules?"

"What on earth for?"

"I am still looking for an answer. I am not getting anywhere with you. I thought I'd talk with his teachers."

"With his teachers?"

"Yeah."

"You can't do that," Madelaine said.

"Confidential?" Susan said.

"No, but, I mean you can't just walk around the University asking all Dwayne's teachers about why he can't read."