“How do you know all this?” Holly said to Nick.
“I read the sports pages,” he said.
“Sports pages are boring,” Holly said.
“Only to the unenlightened,” Nick said. “Anybody believe your story?”
Jamal shook his head.
“White girl,” he said.
Nick nodded.
“And a black boy with cornrows and tattoos,” Nick said.
“It’s my look, man. It’s Jamal Jones, and I gonna be Jamal Jones and fuck anybody don’t like it.”
“Temperate and well spoken as well,” Nick said.
“You raggin’ me, man?” Jamal said.
Nick nodded. “A little,” he said.
“Nick rags everyone a little,” Holly said. “But there’s a point there.”
“I didn’t come here to take no shit,” Jamal said.
Lotta times you could give a white guy the angry-brother look and he get scared. Nick didn’t seem to.
“Thing is you look like Whitey Suburban’s worst nightmare,” Nick said. “You’re black. You look black. You sound black. Of course you’d feel up a white coed at a party.”
“Fuck you, man,” Jamal said.
“So what’s your side of it?” Nick said.
“Huh?”
“What’s your side of the story?” Holly said.
“I got no side, except I didn’t do it. Nobody believes it. Soon as the A.D. heard the story he had Coach suspend me. They takin’ ’way my scholarship. I don’t get money I can’t go to school. I don’t go to school I got no shot in the pros.”
“Kids your age are playing in the pros,” Nick said.
“Sure, like LeBron. Well, I ain’t no LeBron. I’m pretty good, but I’m not ready yet and I know it. Couple years, Division I, make a name for myself, I be ready.”
Everyone was quiet. Nick and Holly looked at each other.
“Okay,” Nick said. “You didn’t do it, we’ll prove it.”
“You gonna represent me?”
“Yep.”
“I ain’t got no money.”
“Pay us when you make the pros,” Nick said. “Besides, Holly’s rich.”
“We have money,” Holly said. “We do this because we like to.”
“You know what you doing?” Jamal said.
“Nick was a police detective for twenty years,” Holly said. “I was a prosecutor.”
“You a lawyer?” Jamal said.
“Uh-huh.”
She looked so hot Jamal couldn’t imagine her being something.
“So how you get rich?” he said.
“My daddy,” Holly said.
“Your daddy give it to you?”
“In a trust fund.”
Jamal wasn’t entirely sure what a trust fund was. It was a white thing.
“How you gonna help me?” Jamal said.
“We’ll go over it,” Nick said.
“Tha’s it?” Jamal said. “You gonna go over it? You got a ghetto black man accused of feelin’ up Miss White Sorority Prom Queen. And you gonna go over it.”
“You were at the party?” Nick said.
“Yeah.”
“Anyone see you do it?”
“Course they didn’t see me do it,” Jamal said. “I didn’t do it.”
“And it’s pretty hard to find somebody who saw you not do it,” Nick said.
Jamal gave Nick another hard look. Was Nick putting him down?
“Jamal,” Holly said. “Getting tough with Nicky doesn’t work. It has no effect on him. It’s like he doesn’t notice.”
Jamal looked at her. She smiled. He almost smiled back before he caught himself. She was money for sure. Everything she wore was probably silk.
“Hell,” Holly said. “Even I don’t scare him.”
Jamal nodded. She was something.
“So it’s your word against hers,” Nick said.
Jamal nodded.
“And you don’t know why she would lie about this?”
“No, man. I don’t even know the bitch.”
“Okay,” Nick said. “We’ll talk with her. Here’s what I need from you. You go home. You stay there. You don’t get drunk or do dope or get laid or have a fight or do anything but homework and sleep.”
“I be keepin’ the low profile,” Jamal said.
“The best kind,” Nick said.
The sun flooded into the atrium breakfast room. It intensified everything. The orange juice in the emerald glasses. The yellow plates and cups. The persimmon chairs and the green glass table. Nick’s shirt was whiter than possible. Holly’s hair was bright gold. She was sipping orange juice and looking at a notepad. She put down her glass.
“Okay,” Holly said, “here’s what I found out in a mere three days.”
“I was hoping someone would find out something,” Nick said.
“I can find out anything,” Holly said.
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Jamal is a communications major,” Holly said. “Two point seven grade point average.”
“That’s like what, B minus?” Nick said.
“Uh-huh. No trouble in school. No police record. Same for high school.”
“He Muslim?” Nick said.
“Apparently.”
Nick nodded. He helped himself to some shirred eggs from the sunflower-yellow serving dish.
“What’s on these eggs?” he said.
“A reduction of sherry finished with butter,” Holly said.
“My mother used to give us Pop-Tarts,” Nick said.
“We’ve never doubted that you married up,” Holly said.
“I’ll say. Three days and already you know his grade point average.”
“What do you know?” Holly said.
“Jamal’s the oldest of seven kids. Father’s whereabouts unknown. Mother is a court officer. Jamal’s a point guard. His coach says he doesn’t see the floor well enough yet, and he needs to work on his outside shot. But he’s six feet four and strong and quick and works his tail off. The coach thinks he has a legitimate shot at the pros if he stays in school.”
“Does his coach think he did this?” Holly said.
“Coach is staying low,” Nick said. “I think it wasn’t his idea to suspend the kid, but Coach is a team player.”
“How about the other players?” Holly said.
“They claim he doesn’t drink.”
“He has a Muslim name,” Holly said.
Nick shrugged. “ Lot of sexual groping is alcohol-driven,” he said.
“I’ve noticed,” Holly said.
“Mine is hormonal,” Nick said.
“Uh-huh. What else from the teammates?”
“He’s a good guy, a good teammate, a winner, blah, blah. It’s pretty much see no evil, say no evil. They’ve obviously been told to shut up.”
“And they obey?”
“They have a lot at stake,” Nick said, “and they’ve had team player drilled into them since grade school. What about Tricia Clark?”
“Sophomore at North Atlantic University. Honor roll last year. Member of Omega Omega Nu sorority. No record of trouble. Parents divorced, father has money.”
Nick broke the end of a croissant and ate it. “Nothing wrong with a rich father,” he said.
“You should know,” Holly said.
“We’ve never doubted that I married up,” Nick said.
“You married me for my money?” Holly said.
“Your ass, actually,” Nick said. “You talk with Tricia?”
Holly shook her head. “I tried but we couldn’t seem to get a time.”
“Talk to anyone?” Nick said.
“I talked to the president of Omega Omega Nu.”
“Every time you called?”
“Yep.”
“Odd,” Nick said.
“What do you know about sororities?” Holly said.
“As little as possible,” Nick said.
“The prez says Tricia’s in seclusion. Have you talked to the campus police?”
“They seem to be in seclusion too,” Nick said.
Holly put some lime marmalade on the end of her croissant and took a bite. “So we don’t have a transcript of her interview with campus police?”
“No. All I know is what I read in the papers.”
Holly nodded. There was a glisten of lime marmalade on the corner of her mouth. She wiped it carefully away with her pale yellow napkin. Behind her in the atrium window the cityscape stretched to the water.