men.
I said, 'You can get off the car now.' The two men shuffled their feet in from the spread and stood straight and turned around.
'Let's discuss motivation,' I said.
The guy in the leather jacket had a Miami Vice two-day growth of stubble. The other guy was dressed against the weather in one of those oversized short jackets with lots of lapels and collars and cuffs and epaulets and doodads. The zipper was diagonal across the front.
'Whaddya mean?' he said.
'Why did you try to kill me?' I said.
'We was just going to talk with you,' he said.
'What about?'
The guy in the leather jacket said, 'We was told to talk to you about staying away from Dwayne Woodcock.'
'Who told you?' I said.
He looked at the ground. The guy in the fancy jacket looked at him.
Hawk said, 'We already dumped two of you. You think we going to have a lot of trouble going four for four?'
Fancy jacket shook his head.
'Guy from New York hired us, give us five grand, said to rough you up and tell you lay off Dwayne Woodcock. Said if you were stubborn, or we thought the warning wouldn't stick, we was to kill you. He left it up to us.'
I looked at Hawk. 'Twelve fifty apiece?'
He smiled and shook his head. 'That's embarrassing,' he said.
'It's humiliating,' I said. I looked back at the two hoods.
'Twelve fifty?' I said.
The one in the leather jacket shrugged. He was still staring at the floor. 'Why not,' he said.
'Why not?' I said. 'For crissake, think how I feel. Some guy thinks I'm only worth twelve fifty to whack? What kind of thing is that to learn about yourself.'
Neither one said anything.
'Guy from New York named Deegan?' I said.
'He didn't say his name. He just gave us the money, told us what he wanted.'
'How'd he find you?'
'Come into the bar where Frankie works, said he heard Frankie would do this kind of job.'
'Worked,' I said. 'Frankie doesn't work there anymore.'
'So Frankie says, sure, and he gets the rest of us and we come to do this.'
'Who told Dwayne to call me?' I said.
'I dunno,' Leather jacket said. 'Frankie just said you'd show up here around six-thirty. Said the New York guy told him.'
I nodded. 'Okay, beat it. You run into the New York guy tell him he needs to hire better than twelve fifty apiece.'
'We didn't know he'd be here,' the guy in the fancy jacket said. He looked at Hawk.
'If I knew you were in this price range,' I said, 'I wouldn't have bothered to bring him.' I jerked my head toward the Blazer. 'Screw,' I said.
The two of them turned and got into the Blazer and pulled away. Hawk walked to his jaguar, parked at the near end of the floor. He opened the trunk, put the shotgun in, closed the trunk, got into the car and backed out. He lowered his window.
'Thanks,' I said.
'Twelve fifty,' he said, and shook his head happily.
Then the window went up silently and the jag slid away down the ramp.
21
THE next day I went to see Dwayne. I found him at the field house. He had no classes and he was there with three other players shooting around.
I stood in the shadows at the top of the stands and looked down at him for a while. Two of the managers were there, retrieving balls, keeping the ball racks full. There was some banter, some hoots at a particularly bodacious jam. Davis, the point guard, was the butt of a lot of teasing.
'Hey, white shadow,' Kenny Green yelled, 'you stuff one.' He had a spare net he'd picked up and was holding it open at knee level. Davis went behind his back, drove toward the basket and pulled up for an eighteen-foot jumper, which he swished.
