It was that new kid, Rome, one guy said, nobody liked him but everybody knew it, damn punk, ball hog, head case, but shit, he could play. Knicks should have grabbed him up when he came into the league two years ago, they’d have their rings by now. Grabbed up an asshole like him, what are you, crazy? said someone else. What they’re paying him, they could have gotten three veterans, guys who want to play ball more than they want to see their name in the papers. A third guy said, Ah, Rome’s just the spark plug anyway, he just embarrassed them, they’ve been riding Nathaniel’s coattails for too long and now he’s hurt they’ve all got to step up, play the game for a change. Nathaniel, by him being so good he might actually be bad for the Knicks, anyone ever thought of that?
But you can’t knock Nathaniel Day in a bar in New York without half a dozen guys telling you you’re full of shit. Day’s the franchise, one guy said, and another said he’ll be back next year and the Knicks can’t go anywhere without him, watch, they’ll fold in the playoffs. The anti-Nathaniel guy downed a handful of peanuts and said, Hell, they been folding in the playoffs for eight years with him, and come on, a guy who’s coached by his sister?
But the sister thing didn’t fly. Everyone knew it was Nora Day, five years older than Nathaniel and barely three inches shorter, who’d gotten him through Christ the King as an All-American, through Seton Hall as the most draftable center in the college game, through his first, stunning season with the Knicks, when he was unanimous choice for Rookie of the Year. From then on, Nora had sat courtside, with a shrewd eye to what was missing from the Knicks’ game and how she could coach Nathaniel to provide it: rebounding, foul shooting, the fade-away jumper that made him as big a threat from the outside as the inside. She made him indispensable and she made him the franchise; the coaches organized the offense around him and he did the work, pre- and postgame practices, offseason conditioning, weight training, whatever it took, with his sister his personal coach. And, one of the pro-Nathaniel forces said, and you know he wouldn’t have without her pushing him all the time. Natural talent like that, but too nice a guy for his own good, you see it all the time. No killer instinct, that guy. I had that kind of skills, catch me helping other teams’ players back up, after I knocked ’em on their ass. You had any skills at all, another guy said, you wouldn’t be sitting here right now on your ass. Yeah, well, you watch, the guy without skills said, she’ll have him in rehab the minute the cast comes off, he’ll be better than ever next season.
That was the way of it and everyone knew it: Nathaniel was who he was because Nora was who she was, and Nathaniel was the first to say so. Nathaniel could afford to be a nice guy, easygoing, because Nora was driven. Nora didn’t take vacations, Nora didn’t spend time in the country until the off-season-though Nathaniel had bought her a house, because she liked gardens-and as far as anyone knew, Nora didn’t date. Nora had a full-time, overtime, all-the-time job, and that was Nathaniel.
The other thing everyone knew was that Nora Day would have been twice the player Nathaniel was if there’d been a woman’s pro game when she left college. But there wasn’t and hey, one of the beer drinkers said, that’s how it goes, too bad for her, but guess Nathaniel and the Knicks lucked out, huh?
The anti-Nathaniel guy just shook his head and drank his beer. Still, someone said, be something if the Knicks finally got their rings in a season with Nathaniel on the bench. Yeah, well, you got that right, someone else said. It’s a damn shame, almost, and a worse shame we were gonna have to be grateful to a trash-talking, cornrowed, skirt-chasing asshole like Damon Rome. And another guy said, Yeah, but he’s our asshole now. Everyone laughed, and the commercial ended, and the Giants snapped the ball.
I didn’t see the Knicks game and I didn’t hear who won, and I didn’t hear until I hit the diner for breakfast the next morning that after the game was over, after the fans had all filed out and the players had left and the Garden was deserted and silent, someone who was not grateful had stepped in front of Damon Rome on an empty New York street and put a bullet through Damon Rome’s heart.
I read about it in the papers and talked about it with the other guys at the diner counter as I drank my coffee, with the waitress as I ordered eggs and, as I paid my check at the register, with the owner, a Greek who’d first learned English from baseball radio broadcasts forty years ago. I talked about it, but I didn’t get into it until, on the street on my way home, my cell phone rang.
“Smith.” I stopped in the cold, clear light, moved closer to a building to get out of the way.
“Tony Manelli, man. How you doing?”
It had been maybe a year since I’d heard from Tony Manelli, longer since I’d seen him, but that didn’t mean anything. Young, sharply muscled, an ex-marine, Tony had worked for me years back. He was working investigation because he needed the state license, but his goal was protection; I’d worked both and gave him what help I could. In the years since, our paths sometimes crossed, more often didn’t, but the few times I’d needed someone to fill out a security detail I’d hired Tony and had no reason to complain.
Right now, on this bright December morning, his voice sounded strange to me: tight, strained. “Hey, Tony, long time,” I said. “I’m okay, what’s up with you?”
“I’m in trouble,” Tony said.
Twenty minutes later I was giving my name to a receptionist who gave me back a practiced, impersonal smile, and a minute after that, I was being led through the high-rise maze of a Midtown law firm to a partner’s glassed-in office. The paralegal who’d brought me closed the door and retired with the gravity of a butler.
Tony and his lawyer, a dark, quick man named John Sutton, both stood when I came in, shook my hand, thanked me for coming. Tony was blond and broad-shouldered and usually looked better than this: his face was ashen under his skier’s tan, the skin around his eyes tight, like a man trying hard to focus because he didn’t understand what he was seeing. Tony was shorter than I and Sutton was shorter than both of us, jacket off, shirtsleeves rolled up, ready for some serious work here. He pressed a button on his desk, asked someone to bring us coffee, and I found out what the work was about.
“Damon Rome,” Tony said. He leaned back in his chair, crossed one leg over the other, uncrossed it right away. “You heard about it?”
“I heard. Everybody in New York heard.”
“Yeah,” said Tony. “Well, until last week, I did his security.”
I glanced from Tony to Sutton. “You’re not saying you think that makes you responsible?”
“Christ, no.” Tony shook his head, sounded despairing, as though I’d missed the point entirely, might be no use after all.
Sutton leaned forward on his big glass desk. “Tony’s about to be arrested for Damon Rome’s murder.”
A young woman came in with a coffee beaker, mugs, cream and sugar. She left them on a space Sutton cleared on his desk. We each took our coffee, did what we wanted to it, sat back again.
“Did you kill him?” I asked Tony.
“I don’t want-,” Sutton began.
But Tony said, “Jesus, John,” and then to me, “No. Goddammit. No. Good enough?”