John D. MacDonald
The Plunder Five
Chapter One
Scrap-Iron Team
Jad Harrik stood in center court of the old gym, his scowl black, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. The place was silent except for the slap and squeak of rubber soles on the hardwood, the bounce of the ball, the sighing of winter wind around the eaves.
He blew hard on his whistle and the ten men panted to a stop, breathing hard. Jad found it hard to believe that this was almost the same squad with which he had taken the conference crown the previous year and played the invitation game at the Garden.
Almost the same squad. Only Henry Martinik was gone — Henry of the fabulous one-hand jump shot, the lightning pivot. Gone also was his twenty points per game, his dogged competitive sense.
“You went downcourt that time like a lot of firehouse clowns,” Jad said in a bitterly quiet tone.
He glared at his center, Stalk Coogan, product of the Iowa high-school basketball mill. A yellow-thatched six foot seven. Originally the nickname had been Cornstalk.
“Coogan, on that formation you’re the floating decoy, and I don’t want you to work yourself loose. I want you to keep the defensive guard occupied.”
Coogan shuffled his feet and said, in a low tone, “Okay, coach.”
Jad switched his glare to Ryan Zimmerman. Zimmerman was an even six feet, a hard-muscled boy with endless bounce. Jad made his tone wheedling. “Please Mister Zimmerman, in that formation your job is to head in toward the basket, cut two steps back out again and screen the defensive guard. The purpose of the move is to create a pocket behind you so that Ricard can sift in, half pivot and take the pass from Bobby Lamb. Is that too much to ask?”
“No, coach,” Zimmerman said.
Jad wheeled on Frenchy Ricard and roared, “And where were you, if I may ask? You weren’t three feet out of position, or even six. You were twenty feet away! You want them to stand there and wait for you?”
“I guess not,” Frenchy said uneasily. He was a lean, dark, nervous boy, with quick sure hands.
“Well, it’s up to you, all of you. We can keep running that sequence from now until the cows come home. When you’re doing it right, we’ll try something else.”
Jad took the ball, called the two centers over and threw it up for the tap. King Miller, the second-string center, got the tap and fed it over to scrappy little Harlan McGuire, the second-string forward. Jad Harrik moved over to the sideline and watched moodily. The play roared up the floor with Ryan Zimmerman diving onto a bounce pass, stealing it, forking it over to Frenchy who dribbled down, pivoted, passed it out to Lamb who got it away fast to Stalk Coogan floating outside. Stalk took a set shot and the ball whispered down through the strings.
Taken one by one, or collectively, it was a good squad. Chunky Ben Cohen and the phlegmatic, unemotional Bobby Lamb were the guards, fast with the ball, canny on defence. Bouncy Ryan Zimmerman and dark Frenchy Ricard were forwards who could think on their feet, on the way down the floor. Stalk Coogan, at twenty-two, had eleven years of competitive play behind him, and could shoot with effortless ease from any contorted, off-balance position. All of them were seniors except Cohen, a junior, and the proof of the merit of Stalk, Lamb, Ricard and Zimmerman was the way the pro scouts were nosing around, hoping to get another Henry Martinik out of tiny Nyeland College.
Jad Harrik groaned inwardly as he realized, anew, how much he missed Henry.
But a man had to make do with what was available. He watched them, weaving the endless patterns of offense on the floor. They called Jad Harrik the Giant Killer. Little Nyeland had killed the chances of many giants of the court circuit. Harrik’s constant goal was fluidity — flexible offense plus a Combination zone and man-for-man defense — plus that ‘cuteness’ that could only be reached by tireless practice.
He frowned again. What was the answer? When he had known that this season would be played without Henry, he hadn’t felt too badly about it. It hadn’t been one of those squads built around a stellar performer, greased and oiled to make one man shine. With Henry it had been a compact and joyous unit, doing battle with gusto. Jad hadn’t felt that it would be too hard to work Coogan into Henry’s position. Stalk was as natural a player as Henry, equally fast, lacking only Henry’s almost frightening will to win.
But here, at mid-season, with the schedule so stiff that it would have been wiser to schedule the lightest of workouts, he has having to pace them as though the season had not yet started.
The conference title was not yet lost, but it was fading. The quintet had played raggedly. He knew they were trying hard — possibly too hard. Eleven of the wins had been by a one- or two-point margin. And one of the losses had been by twenty-one points, the worst beating any Jad Harrik team had taken in the past three years.
There was no consistency about them. For four minutes they would rack up the points, stealing the ball beautifully, hooking the backboard bounces, attacking with blinding and bewildering speed, bringing heavy-throated from the crowd, and then, as soon as it had come, it would fade away and they would turn sucker for the clumsiest feints, make awkward fouls, permit themselves to be sucked out of position.
He watched them work themselves into the pattern, coming down the floor, for the screen play again. This time Frenchy slid into the vacuum, took the pass from Bobby Lamb and went high with a beautiful one-handed hook shot that dropped clean.
He blew the whistle. “Coogan, Cohen, Lamb, Zimmerman and Ricard, call it a day.” They walked tiredly off the floor. He heard Lamb and Cohen laughing as they went down the corridor to the shower room and pool.
He bounced two more balls out. “Miller and McGuire, go down to the other end and work on set shots.” King Miller, the second-string center, was the weakest of the lot. Scrappy little Harlan McGuire, sophomore, would be first-string forward next season, and a good one. Jad was working him into the games whenever he could. The other second-string forward was Dandy Ames, a casual, lethargic, handsome boy who always seemed to float rather than run. The guards, Angus Petrie and Bill Jones, were competent workmen, without brilliance.
He stared at them for a moment. “You three practice your passing, two at a time with the third man guarding. Alternate every once in a while.”
Jad walked over to the first row of benches where his assistant, Paul Frieden, sat. Paul was young, lean, serious. He worked hard, made few comments, but when he d id speak, was to point. Jad sighed as he sat down.
“What do you think, Paul?”
“They’ll have to do better tomorrow night against Western. That’s for sure.”
“What’s wrong with ’em? Can you figure it?”
“No.”
“They should be good. Tops.”
Paul shrugged. “They aren’t a team, that’s all. But they want to work as a team. Nobody wants to shine or build up a national rating.”
Jad stood up and glanced at his watch. “Keep ’em moving until quarter to six and then call it a day.”
Jad Harrik turned his overcoat collar high against the bitter wind and trudged across the campus, his head bowed, his gray eyes bleak. The street lights came on as he crossed the icy ruts of the Faculty Lane and turned in at his front walk.
Martha heard him come in and came from the kitchen into the front hallway. The look of her always lifted some of the burden. He kissed her. “Hello, girl.”
She cocked her head on one side and studied him. He had to grin. “Still no answer?” she asked.
“I wish my legs hadn’t quit on me. I wish I was back running myself to death with the pros, honey.”