Bob said to Lucas, “She travels with a basketball. She won’t let me deflate it. It’s the world’s biggest pain in the ass.”
Lucas looked at Rae for a minute, then asked, “Where’d you play?”
“UConn,” Rae said.
“Starter?”
“Last two years, anyway,” Rae said. Then, “You play?”
“I was hockey at the University of Minnesota,” Lucas said. “When I was checking out the weight room here, I noticed that this place has a little basketball court.”
Rae’s eyebrows went up: “This place does?”
“Yes. I suspect a person of your academic caliber never played any street ball, though,” Lucas said.
Rae said, “With that kind of insight, you could get a detective job in some broke-ass town in the Delta.”
Lucas: “Does Bob play?”
Rae looked at Bob, then back to Lucas: “Stumps don’t play basketball. Stumps wrestle.”
“I play basketball,” Lucas said. “Quite well, really.”
Rae slapped her hands together and stood up, a predatory ivory-white grin slashing her face. “Fifteen minutes, on the court. One hundred American dollars.”
—
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER,on the court. Lucas was only a half inch taller than Rae, but he was sixty pounds heavier. Bob had found a chair somewhere and sat at the side of the court with a happy smile as he did a running commentary.
“These people don’t like each other, I see the possibility for some really trashy action here, sports fans, it could get ugly...”
Lucas suspected Rae would be a better shooter than he was. Maybe a lot better: but he had the pounds and planned to use them.
“First rebound,” he said. “Play to eleven, win by two, you put up the shot, gotta hit the rim.”
“Brace yourself,” she said.
Rae put up a shot from behind the three-point line, with the two of them side by side. If it went in, she’d shoot over until they got a fair rebound on the first shot. The ball came off the right side of the hoop and they both went for it. Lucas gave Rae a hip to move her off the ball, took the rebound, dribbled out of the key, drove straight over her to the basket, scored.
With the ball again, he drove over her a second time. The third time she gave him a leg and he almost went down, lost the ball long. She brought it out and Lucas played too far off her, and she stepped behind the three-point line and stuffed it, tying at 2–2.
That set the game, Lucas playing rough and close, Rae struggling to get free. She had a beautiful stroke and, unless he kept her off balance, deadly.
Lucas, sweating heavily, took the lead at 8–7 and held it. At 11–10,he drove hard and with a last-second step to the left, made an over-the-head reverse layup and won, 12–10.
From the sidelines, Bob shouted, “Whoa! Whoa! The white boy rallies for the win! Ladies and gentlemen, this was totally unexpected...”
Rae scowled and said, “I got you figured out, white boy. One more game.”
“We gotta talk about Arnold,” Lucas said.
“Oh,nowwe gotta talk about Arnold.”
From the sidelines, Bob called, “Ladies and gentlemen, is the white boy a pussy? Is he gonna pussy out of the rematch? Did our viewers know thatpussycould be both a noun and a verb?”
One more game, Rae staying well back when she got the ball, running loose until she could shake free, slowing down, taking her time. She killed him, 11–7, and it wasn’t that close.
“I got you figured now,” Lucas said, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the bottom of his T-shirt. “I’ll have a hand inside your nose every time you make a fuckin’ move.”
