Playmates

17

I walked into Dixie Dunham's office in the gym on a March morning that felt like January. There was snow, and wind and a windchill factor. I had the lining zipped back into my leather jacket.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Dixie said when he saw me.

I put my gym bag down on his desk and took the game tapes out of it. I put them on the desk in front of him. They were the six games where Taft beat the spread. I took out a copy of the running transcript that Tommy Christopher and I had put together.

"Read that," I said, "and watch the tapes and you'll know that Dwayne Woodcock's influencing the point spread."

"Where'd you get those tapes? I didn't authorize those tapes to anyone."

"I showed the transcript to Dwayne and he couldn't read it," I said.

"I told you, you sonovabitch, I told you to stay away from my players." Dixie shoved his swivel chair back behind his desk and stood up.

"You trying to rig this goddamn tournament, come in here and fuck with my players' heads? You bastard, you're the one rigging the spread. I told you, I explicitly fucking told you ... "

"Goddamn it, Dixie," I said, "shut up."

Dixie was so startled that someone would say that to him that he shut up. For a moment. I charged into that moment. "You got a kid here, he's not just one of your players, he's also a real actual kid, and he's in trouble and you don't give a rat's ass about it. You're so goddamned busy being a coaching legend that you're going to let him slide right into the sewer."

Dixie's face was red.

"People don't talk to me that way," he said. His voice was tight as if he had trouble forcing it through his throat.

"People don't usually talk to you any way," I said. "You're such a goddamned windbag they don't get a chance."

Dixie came around the corner of the desk in a rush and threw a looping right-handed punch at me. It was like watching the slow curving swoop of a Frisbee. When it got close I turned my head to the left and let his fist soar majestically on past. Then I drove a left hook into his solar plexus, turning on the ball of my right foot and getting a lot of my weight behind it. Dixie said "oof," and he folded like a camp stool and staggered back against his desk trying to get his breath.

I didn't say anything. I waited. Dixie got enough wind in him in a short time to lunge off the desk at me again. As he came I took a quick shuffle step left and put a right hook into the same spot, pivoting this time the other way and getting even more weight behind it. Dixie staggered back, doubled over again, leaned against the desk and then slid slowly to the floor, his legs stretching out before him with no strength in them, a look of puzzlement on his face. I knew the feeling. Dixie sat there, his arms wrapped across his stomach, bent forward, trying to get air, for maybe a full minute, while I waited without saying anything. Finally he could breathe. He put both hands flat on the floor and supported himself while he sat straighter, still on the floor, and his eyes began to focus on me.

"You got a punch like a mule," Dixie said.

"Like the kick of a mule," I said. "Get it right."

Dixie nodded without speaking. Then he pulled his legs toward him and twisted and got them under him and rose to one knee, holding on to the desk, rested a minute and then boosted himself up onto both feet and stood there, leaning forward, his hands palm down on his desk, his shoulders hunched, his back to me. He breathed for a while and then finally rolled himself around along the desk edge until he had turned and faced me. He put one hand up, palm out.

"Ain't going to try again," he said. "Just getting my legs back."

I waited.

"Hoooeee," Dixie said.

"Yeah," I said.

"You warned me," he said.

"Yeah."

Dixie took a couple of deep breaths and arched his back. Then he went around his desk and got his chair and sat in it.

"Okay," he said. "What were you saying about Dwayne going down the chute?"

"Read the transcript," I said.

Dixie picked it up, opened his drawer, took out a pair of horn-rimmed half glasses, put them low on his nose and started to put his feet up. He stopped suddenly just after he started and put them back on the floor, and opened the folder and started to read. While he read, I looked around the room. It was classic gym cinder block, painted white. There was a picture of Dixie with Troy Murphy, who'd been an all-American point guard for Dixie and was now a star with the Portland Trail Blazers. But there weren't any others. No team pictures, no memorabilia. In the corner across from Dixie's desk was a big screen television set and a VCR on a yellow oak table. Three or four folding chairs leaned against the wall. I looked back at Dixie. He had one page flipped over and was reading the second one. I waited. Dixie flipped the second page. His face had no expression. Somewhere, faintly echoing off the cinder block, I could hear a basketball pounding on a floor.

Dixie finished the typescript. He put it down on his desk, reached out and assembled the videocassettes in a neat pile, stood carefully, and walked somewhat stiffly, carrying the tapes to the VCR. He arranged them in order, turned on the VCR and the TV, put a cassette into the VCR, punched PLAY and walked back, slowly, to his desk. He lowered himself carefully into his chair and leaned back and began to watch the videotape. I leaned on the wall and watched it too, for maybe the fifth time.

Dixie watched the tapes, the way he'd read the transcript. There was no expression on his face. He had no reaction. He didn't say a word. When the first tape was over, he started to push himself up.

"Stay," I said. "I'll run the machine."

Dixie settled back into his chair. I went to the VCR and changed cassettes. When the last one was finished, it was midafternoon. I picked all the cassettes up and put them into the gym bag. Dixie still sat. Neither one of us made a sound. I went back to leaning on the wall. After a while Dixie swiveled his chair toward me.

"Dwayne's shaving points," Dixie said. "Maybe Danny Davis, too."

I nodded.

"You see what you want to see, I guess," Dixie said. "You say he can't read."

I nodded.

"Shit," Dixie said.

I leaned on the wall some more. Dixie sat. The sound of basketballs bouncing had stopped.

"What we going to do?" Dixie said. "East regionals start next Saturday."

"I don't know for sure what we're going to do," I said. "But I've got some goals. One, the kid's involved with New York wiseguys and I want to get him unhooked from them. Two, I want to be able to preserve his future. Three, I want him to learn to read."

"If we turn him in, his future is zero," Dixie said. "Pros won't touch him."

"I know," I said.

"Means you're going to cover up for him?"

"Yeah, I guess it does," I said. "How about you?"

Dixie shook his head. "He's the best player I ever had. Better than Troy, even." Dixie jerked his head toward the picture on the wall.

I waited.

"People can't trust the score, any game goes to hell," he said.

I shifted shoulders against the wall.

"I don't know," Dixie said. "I don't know what to do,"

"Let's take it a step at a time," I said. "Let's talk with the kid. If he'll admit it, then we can move on the guys who rigged him to do it."

"What if he denies it?" Dixie said.

"You tell him you looked at the tapes, you know he did it. If he still won't admit anything, you sit him down."

"Sit him down?" Dixie said the words very slowly, with space between them.

"Yeah."

"For how long?"

"Until he tells us what's going on. Until he names names."

"Jesus Christ," Dixie said. "I got the East regionals next week. We get through those I got the tourney at Salt Lake. In about three weeks I could be playing for the national championship."

"I didn't say my plan was fun," I said.

"Fun, my God. Can't we use the tapes for proof?"

"Probably not in court, but even so, we don't want to go to court. And if we did, what have we got? The fact that Dwayne, maybe Danny Davis, is shaving points. We don't have for whom. And for whom is what we need if we're going to pull this off without screwing the kid."

"So what are you going to do if he does tell you?" Dixie said, "You say you don't want to ruin the kid, so you can't go to the cops."

"Dixie," I said, "you got to understand this kind of work. I don't have a game plan. I sort of feel my way along. When I run into something I don't know, I try to find out. When I find out enough, then maybe there's a way to figure out what to do. And maybe there isn't. You can't know until you find out what there is to find out."

Dixie rocked slowly in his swivel chair. His hands were folded across his stomach, and he seemed to be studying his thumbnails. Finally, without looking up, Dixie said, "I'll talk with Dwayne."

I said, "You want me around?"

"No."

"Okay," I said. "Let me know."

"Yeah, I will."

I picked up my gym bag and started out the door.

"Spenser," Dixie said.

I stopped and turned my head.

"I didn't know he couldn't read," Dixie said.

"Makes you wonder how he maintained a two point three average, doesn't it," I said.

"Maybe we ought to find that out too," Dixie said.

"We will," I said.