The Plunder Five

Chapter Three Two-Point Poison

There silence in the room. “Just what do you mean by that, Martinik?”

“Don’t get sore, coach.”

Martha gave a forced laugh. “He’s pretty sensitive these days, Henry.”

“Henry,” Jad said, “for a minute there you sounded like George Lion.”

“Jad, you want to learn what the trouble is, don’t you?” Henry asked.

“I certainly do.”

“And you’re willing to listen to anybody who might have a reason?”

“Of course, Henry.”

“Then don’t get sore at me, coach. Because if you get sore at me you won’t listen to me, and if you don’t listen, you might never find out why you’ve got wonderful material and no team.”

Jad sat down across the room. “I’m listening.”

“When I first came here to Nyeland, coach, you scared me. Honest, you really gave me the shakes.”

Jad frowned, puzzled. “I don’t get it.”

“Now I got to get personal. You’ve got a tough look, coach. You don’t smile. You’ve got a hard eye on you. To top it off you’ve got a complete knowledge of the game and you can do anything you tell the kids to do, plus a national reputation. Right?”

“I don’t see what that’s got to do—”

“Let me tell you in my own way, please, Jad.”

“Go ahead.”

“Do you remember my sophomore season?”

“Of course. That was the first year I was here. I thought you’d never live up to what I’d hoped. You played erratic ball, all right,”

“Do you know why? I’ll tell you. Because you scared me and at the same time I had a heck of a lot of respect for you. I wanted so bad to do what you told me to do. I’d pull off something that looked all right, and then I’d look at you. I’d get the old stony eye. So I’d figure it wasn’t good enough for you. So I’d try harder. Next thing I’d know, I’d be falling over my own feet trying to be superman. It got the other guys the same way. We started that year in a pretty sad fashion, and we didn’t end up so well, either.”

“Nobody has any reason to be afraid of me, Henry.”

“Do they know that? In the junior year I got to know you. And it was just by accident, too. That was when my father was here. After he saw you he came all smiles over to my room and told me that you’d told him that I could maybe be the best in the country that season. Then I knew what you were thinking. You still gave me the stony eye all the time, but I knew that underneath you liked the way I was working. It made a difference.”

“When they do a good job, I tell them.”

“Sure you do, coach. You tell them all together and you say it like your mouth hurt. You see, I understand you now. I’ve talked to the pros you played with. You’re a perfectionist. Everything has to be just so. And even if the squad turned in a hundred to nothing game, you’d worry about how Zimmy was slow on a pivot in the second half. You know basketball as well as any guy in the country, but you don’t know to handle the team.”

Jad jumped up. “Don’t know how to handle the team! How do you account for last year?”

Henry gave him a mild, shy smile. “Well, it was like this. When what dad told me made me feel good, I figured it would work with the other guys. I hung around you enough to make it look good, and then I would go to the other guys one at a time and tell them things you said. Some of them you did say. The rest I had to make up. Why, I’d tell Ben Cohen that you said he was one of the toughest defensive men in the conference. Then I’d get Zimmy aside and tell him that you said he was the finest rebound artist you’d ever seen. The same with all the other guys. I made a joke out of it, sort of. You’d peel the squad after every game and then later I’d fix it up by quoting you on the good plays they made, whether you’d said it or not.”

Jad shoved his hands into his pockets and kicked at a log on the fire. “But I don’t... I mean, I recognize the good plays when I see them and—”

“And that’s all you do. The guys are all right. They’re just trying too hard and they don’t hear any compliments any more. The harder they try, the worse they get. It isn’t hard to figure out, once you know what I was doing the past two years. It’s like a good racehorse. The owner feed it perfectly, give it the right exercise, bring it up to a peak — but unless there’s somebody to talk to it and show some affection, that horse is never going to put out the best it has.”

Martha said, “I should have known.”

Jad spun on her. “How would have known?”

Her smile was wry. “Darling, you are not what I would call affectionate. I have to imagine, most of the time, that you’re still in love with me. I’m not complaining. It’s just the way you are.”

“What are you going to do about it, coach?” Henry asked.

“But... I... I can’t go to them and spread a lot of butter around. I can’t hear myself doing anything like that.”

“Why not?”

“Well... I—”

“You’ve got Penn College coming up Wednesday. Ohio nosed them out by a point. Look what Ohio did to you. Penn will do it too unless those guys hear what they’ve been wanting to hear.”

“A player should have confidence in his own ability,” Jad said. “Nothing I do or say should be able to destroy that confidence.”

“One out of a hundred is good, knows it, and doesn’t give a damn how the coach acts. The rest of us have to have a little confidence fed to us with a spoon once in a while. If you hadn’t broken down and told my father what you actually thought of me, Jad, I’d never be playing pro ball right now, and you would never have racked up that conference championship, believe me.”

He wrote it out, corrected it, and then memorized it so well that he could say it as though it were a casual speech. He flushed as he said it to his mirror. He had never had any stomach for flattery, given or received.

The squad room had about it a pre-game flavor of defeat. Coogan was listlessly tightening his shoelaces. Crowd noises filtered into the room, muffled and distant.

Jad Harrik took a deep breath. “Uh — fellows,” he said. They all stared at him in surprise at the forced joviality. Jad flushed. “I... ah... I’ve decided that there’s no point in the usual briefing. This is as good a time as any to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed working with you so far this season. Penn has some able boys. They haven’t any top performers to match you, man for man, Coogan, you’re one of the best. Ben, I know you’ll do your usual outstanding defensive job. And Frenchy, it’s a pleasure to watch you work out there. I don’t know whether I get more kick out of watching you or Zimmerman. Bobby, you’ve got a wonderful knack for smelling out the offensive thrust and getting to the right place at the right time. And the rest of you, Miller, Petrie, Jones, McGuire, Ames — I just want to say that there’s darn little to choose between you and the starting lineup. A lot of you will be my starting lineup next season, and I’ll be proud to put you on the floor. Now let’s make a game of it tonight.”

He turned in the heavy silence and walked out. At the end of the corridor he met Henry. Henry said, “How did it go over?”

“Like a concrete balloon. They just sat there, all of them, with their mouths open. They looked at me as if I were carrying my head under my arm. No, Henry, you guessed wrong. I could tell by the surprise that it wasn’t something they’d been expecting, or needing. Even Paul gaped at me as if I’d gone crazy. This is another slaughter.”

The little red-headed cheer leader went through her gyrations mechanically, without interest. George Lion had predicted a Penn win by eighteen points. Penn’s conference rating was just below Ohio’s, With slippery, agile, six-foot-ten Hoagy Parr at center, with an average so far of 20.6 points per game, and with four fast converted centers from high-school star teams at the other four positions, Penn had hopes of upsetting Ohio in the playoffs. Sam Denver and Cleet Mannis were the forwards with Louis Antonelli and Jack Angelus at guard.

Henry sat beside Jad and said, “They look looser out there tonight.”

“Glad you think so,” Jad said quietly. “Okay, here we go.”

Stalk Coogan and Hoagy Parr went high after the tap, neither getting it away cleanly. Ricard and Jack Angelus jumped for it and Frenchy snatched it away, pivoting and slamming it across to Ryan Zimmerman. Ryan dribbled it down the sideline, weaved his body toward the inside, and as the man on him took a wrong step, Ryan scooted down the sideline on the outside. He crouched, within paydirt distance, faked the set shot and passed it to mid-court to Coogan coming down the middle. Coogan, feeling himself smothered, made a half pivot and hung the ball for Bobby Lamb’s easy push-up.

The ball circled the rim. Louis Antonelli, with a sizzling skyscraper leap, brushed it away with his fingertips. Coogan was close enough for the rebound, but off balance. Hoagy Parr swiped it and slung it downcourt to Sam Denver. Cohen had dropped back. With a burst of speed be passed Denver and turned, arms outspread. Denver, barreling along, had to stop so abruptly to keep from crashing Cohen that the ball slithered out of his hands.

Ben Cohen batted it over to Ryan Zimmerman who was floating up the sideline. Ryan faked a cross-court pass to Coogan and then flipped it ahead to Frenchy. Frenchy went in fast, pivoted and fed it out to Cohen. As Cohen went up with it, Cleet Mannis batted it away, right into Bobby Lamb’s hands. Bobby missed his shot and Hoagy Parr pounded down the floor with the ball. Two hook shots were batted away and then Jack Angelus sank a set shot from five feet outside the foul line.

Jad slowly grew conscious of the crescendo of noise behind him. Nyeland was seeing a rejuvenated team, a hard fighting team, reckless of energy, expending it in bursts of dazzling speed, flipping the ball around.

“See what I mean?” Henry yelled.

Ben Cohen rifled it out to Frenchy on the sideline. Cleet Mannis was all over Frenchy, nailing him there. Frenchy faked a high overhand toss, then scooted the ball low under Mannis’ left arm as he lifted it instinctively. Coogan took it at a full hard run, dribbling down to the foul circle, making a full spin there, faking twice during the spin, then slanting it over to Bobby Lamb who was coming in fast from the corner. Bobby dropped it neatly for the 2–2 count.

Penn College came back with endless bounce, weaving a pattern of bewilderment inside the edge of the scoring zone, then knifing in for the deuce. Frenchy fouled Cleet Mannis to make it 5–2. Then, on a dive at a bounce pass, Jack Angelus stole the ball, flipped it deep, took the feedout and sank it. It was 7–2.

“It was good while it lasted,” Jad said. The Nyeland rooters had sunk into apathetic silence, but they came awake again with a great roar as Coogan stole the ball from Hoagy Parr, and Ricard and Zimmerman went deep criss-crossing halfway in from the foul circle to tie up the defense enough to shake Ricard free. Hoagy slammed the ball at Frenchy’s head and Frenchy put it on a high hook for Ben Cohen coming out of the far corner.

Back under the Nyeland basket, Stalk smothered a rebound, flipped it ahead to Zimmerman who, forced into a corner, whirled free and sank it from there.

Then big Sam Denver delayed too long and was smothered at the center-court sideline and Coogan won the tap, feeding it into Ryan Zimmerman’s hands. Zimmerman, free for the moment, dribbled a slow diagonal while Cohen and Ricard raced down. But Frenchy misjudged his distance and Antonelli sunk the foul shot. It was 8–6.

Moments later Cohen slung a high wild one from midcourt. Three men went high at the basket, but it was Stalk who put the necessary correction on the ball to lift it in.

Penn raced back down the court with it, compressing the defense, flipping it back and forth, seeking an opening. Sam Denver found a vacuum to the left of the hoop, but Bobby Lamb, on a frantic dive, got his hand on the ball. It rolled clear and Ryan Zimmerman scooped it up, underhanded it to Coogan, raced ahead, took the flip over his shoulder, relayed it on to Ricard and then, taking the handoff in midair, continued on up, rolling it off his fingertips to build the tally to 10-8. Penn called time.

Jad realized he was half-standing. He sank slowly back onto the bench. Henry was pounding his shoulder, yelling, “Like that? You like that?”

The Deuces caught fire. They played all-out ball, yet not forgetting the intricate patterns of deception, not forgetting to think on the run, not forgetting how to take advantage of a Penn step in the wrong direction, a moment of hesitation.

“They can’t last,” Jad muttered. “They can’t last at this rate.”

On and on the score climbed. The Deuces played with flushed abandon; the Penns worked grimly, switching defensive styles, changing assignments. Ben Cohen got hot and they began to smother him. So Ben made a series of beautiful feed shots, just where and when they weren’t expected. After a time the Penns began to keep a tight rein on the potential receivers, and so Ben opened up again with deadly eye.

Nyeland kept tipping them off balance. In the last half, with four minutes to go, it was 58–46, and every Deuce had played a thirty-six-minute game. But Jad could see the legs slowly turning to putty, and he knew well the great hard pain from waist to heart, the cotton in the mouth, the anguished sucking of wind that was never quite enough.

It wouldn’t have happened if tall, yellow-topped Coogan’s reflexes hadn’t been impaired by weariness. He was cutting fast down the middle when Sam Denver tripped and dived at him. Coogan tried to writhe his body out of the way, but Denver hit him solidly in the groin with his shoulder. Coogan hit hard and lay still. Time was called and the trainer went out. They got Coogan on his feet and he came slowly of the floor, leaning heavily on the trainer.

“Better take him on back,” Jad said.

“Not a chance, coach,” Stalk said through pain-whitened lips. “I gotta see the rest of this.”

Three minutes and forty seconds remaining. Jad filled the slot with King Miller, then turned to Henry and said, “The foul shot makes it fifty-nine to forty-six. Now we see if they make thirteen points in the time that’s left.”

King Miller started out with a lot of bounce. He always reminded Jad of an airdale puppy, full of life but always confused.

Stalk’s loss ripped the heart out of both the offense and defense. Nyeland screamed as they saw their team’s lead being whittled down. Twice Miller was faked out of position and the lead dropped.

Then Ryan Zimmerman, on a brilliant fake, took it all the way. But with two minutes remaining, the Penns made three goals in a minute and a half. They whirled out again, stole the ball, carried it down and Jack Angelus hooked it in. Fifteen seconds to go, and the score 61–58. The Deuces were leg-weary. Mannis, on a foul by Cohen, was awarded two shots and made them both perfect. Five seconds. Hoagy Parr tapped it over to Sam Denver, and Denver was going down with it. Every man was in motion toward the Nyeland basket. Three seconds — two seconds — Denver stopped, planted himself, shot. The ball arced up, floating endlessly in the glare of the lights, reaching the highest point of the curve. Jad’s eye automatically extended the line of flight and knew that it was in. But up, up, up — a leap to an incredible height, and a leap that was timed to perfect and uncanny accuracy — up went gaunt lean King Miller and the reaching fingers brushed the ball. It hit the rim, deflected by the touch, bounced, came straight down and hit the rim again, and fell outside the strings. The game ended, 61–60, as King Miller whipped the ball upcourt at nobody in particular, his grin so wide that it looked as though he could tie it at the back of his neck.

“I’m old before my time!” Jad yelled into Henry’s ear — and then the frenzied fans had hoisted him roughly onto their shoulders and were marching him around the court.

By the time he could fight his way into the dressing room, some of the squad were already dressed.

He stared at them for a moment, at tired and contented faces. There were a lot of things they had to be told. Ricard’s ragged pivoting. Ryan Zimmerman’s bad underhand flips.

“This game,” he said, “showed up a few things that need correction.” His voice was hard and grating. He looked around again. For a moment he thought he heard Henry’s voice, even though Henry had already gone back to the house. He cleared his throat.

“What I mean to say is, we can fix up any little things we did wrong at some other time. It was the sort of contest I knew you could make. I’m proud of you. Take care of things, Paul.”

They were laughing and the room was a babble of talk before he got the door shut behind him. He frowned. It did seem better than walking out in the usual deathly hush that followed his after-game comments.

At the breakfast booth, Jad and Henry played the game over, time and time again. Together they marveled at King Miller’s frantic, perfect save in the last second of the game. Martha listened to them, smiling to herself.

“I don’t know how to thank you, Henry,” Jad said, his voice humble. “Maybe now I can go ahead and be a coach. I can even learn how to sound sincere when I tell them they’re good.” His voice strengthened, “But I’m going to stamp down hard when I see sloppy play.”

Henry grinned. “Sure you are, and it will do them good. But they’ve got to see both sides of the coin. Speaking of coins, I’ll bet you that with the outfit you’ve got right now, you can make up lost ground and squeak into the playoffs. If you do, those kids will be at a pitch that’ll get you the conference championship again.”

Jad leaned back in the booth. He said softly, “Yeah! You know it might work out that way. It just might.”

He glanced at Martha. She was taking a sip of coffee.

“You’ve got the right angle,” Henry said. “I’m going to hack at the pro game for a few years, as long as I can stay on top, and then I want to get into coaching too.”

In an even voice Martha said, “This is a nice life, though next year I imagine, if the team is now all you say it is, we’ll be at a much larger school.”

“That’s right,” Jad said jovially. “Big-time. A real organization. A lot of talent to draw on.”

Henry raised his eyebrows. He stirred his coffee. “I don’t know, Jad. I think you get the best deal in the small places. You don’t make so much, but it doesn’t cost you as much.”

“Jad wants a big school,” Martha said.

There was something odd about her tone. Jad looked at her curiously. She didn’t meet his glance. He shrugged.

“Oh, those kids had it tonight. Just like old times, Henry. Wasn’t it? They pulled stuff I never knew I’d taught ’em. And that Miller!” He frowned. “You know, next year I might be able to work some judgment into that boy. My first string will have to be Miller, Petrie, Cohen, McGuire and Ames. I think I can wake Ames up. We might—”

“Won’t that be someone else’s problem, dear?” Martha asked sweetly.

Jad started with surprise and then laughed. “I almost forgot I wasn’t going to be stuck here forever.” His laughter died on a sour note. “That’s funny. Yesterday I was dying to get out of this place. Now, when it looks like I’ll be able to make it, I feel — a little upset.”

Martha’s fingers bit into his wrist. “Look around, Jad darling,” she said, her voice low and tense. “Look at what we have here! Where else in the world could the two of us be as happy?”

There was confusion in his tone. “But it’s a... a little place.”

“If bigness means the same as goodness, Jad,” Henry said, grinning, “then your pint-sized wife is a pretty miserable sort of woman.”

Jad frowned. “You know... maybe I might stay right here.”

He looked at Martha. Her eyes were swimming with unshed tears.

Henry said hurriedly, pushing his way out of the booth, “Well, I guess I’ll turn in, folks.”

As Henry went into the guest room he sighed heavily. There had been hopes of one day holding down the coaching slot at Nyeland.

It looked as though the job was filled. For keeps.