leading up to the tipoff for the Kings home game against the LA Lakers. Hopes were high for a good result. This year’s team showed promise for a good playoff position.
Even the basketball commentators had been kind
to the Kings in their reviews of the team’s chances. The lower levels of the arena were filled and very few plastic seats didn’t have someone’s ass filling them.
Josh and Bob sat way up in the northeast wedge of the arena, three rows from the wall. Even these less popular, cheaper seats were occupied. Josh didn’t mind being this far away from the action. He’d offered the tickets to Bob more as an excuse to talk than to watch the game.
“Do you want a cold one from the vendor?” Bob
asked.
“No, I’m okay.” Josh felt cold. The temperature of the stadium seemed a degree or two too chilly for his liking.
Bob called to the overweight vendor. The middle
aged man, whose gut seemed genetically engineered to perfectly hold the tray of beverages, came over to Bob.
Bob relieved him of a cup of Coors Light and the vendor relieved Bob of an excessive amount of cash. The
vendor moved on to the next guy requesting his wares.
Bob looked at what his money had bought him.
“Shit, I’m sure they’re jacking the prices around here to pay players and coaches.”
“You know you’re going to be scalped in places like this,” Josh remarked.
“They should have a beer cap as well as a salary
cap,” Bob muttered.
The respective coaching staffs called the players to the benches. After several minutes, the starting lineups were announced and the players were met with a
rapturous chorus of cheers, whistles, applause and abuse—the abuse, of course, aimed in the direction of the Lakers players. Like the fans, Bob was on his feet, the overpriced beer spilling from the plastic cup. On his feet too, Josh clapped appreciatively, though not really party to the frenzy going on below him; not tonight.
The
crowd retook their seats in anticipation of the
tipoff and Josh and Bob took theirs. As they watched the action on the court as the game neared its start, Bob spoke endlessly about the players’ form, playoff chances, the NBA, who was hot and who was a waste of space. Josh listened, but said little.
The game began and Bob focused on the play.
“The cops came around this morning.” Josh sat with his legs apart, bent forward with his forearms resting on his knees and his head down staring at the litter strewn ground.
“Oh, yeah?” Bob said, not really listening. He was as alert as a prairie dog, twitching and shadow boxing with the flow of the game. “So they finally got around to talking to you about Mitchell?”
“No.”
“So what were they doing?” Bob cursed when the
Kings lost the ball and the Lakers gathered it up for an easy two points.
“They’re looking to prosecute me for threatening
some woman on the phone,” Josh said.
The crowd moaned in disappointment as the Lakers
made another basket. But to Josh it sounded like they were upset at his revelation.
Bob turned to Josh. “What woman did you threaten?”
“No one,” Josh said. “I have no idea who this
woman is who’s making the allegations.”
“You wanna find out her name?”
“I know her name, but I’ve never heard of her.”
“So what are the cops saying?”
“They said that someone made a call from my home
phone to this woman threatening to kill her. They have telephone records proving it was my phone.”
“Shit.”
“And because I’m the only man in the house, I’m
their prime suspect.”
“So what’s her name?”
“Margaret Macey.”
“That rings a bell,” Bob said.
“You know her?” Josh said in surprise.
“I don’t know. It’s just that the name sounds familiar for some reason.” Bob shook his head in failure. “Anyway, when did this threatening behavior take place?”
“That’s the thing. It happened around eight last Saturday night.”
“But you were having your birthday party.”
“I know. I think that’s the only reason that I’m not trying to post bail right now. They may want to make a recording of my voice for identification. That cop from the hospital has got it in for me. He didn’t believe me about Mitchell bouncing me into the river and he doesn’t believe that I had nothing to do with this threatening phone call.”
Recounting the events from earlier that day brought Josh’s fears back to the forefront of his mind. He felt he was going down for something, whether it was for his crimes or somebody else’s. Nervous excitement consumed him like a plague, the disease breaking down his immunity to stress until it destroyed him. He stared blankly at the players on the court.
Bob looked around him to check if people were listening to Josh’s excitable ramblings. The Kings fans
were concentrating on their team’s performance too avidly to notice their conversation.
“What cop?”
“Brady. Didn’t you meet him at the hospital?”
“No. I knew they were around, but I didn’t see
them.”
“Anyway, he’s got it in for me,” Josh said.
“Personally, you don’t have anything to worry about.
They can’t prove it was you who made that phone call.
Any one of us could have done it. And I think you’d have to be a special kind of stupid to threaten someone from your own phone. It’s all circumstantial. They’ve got nothing.”
“Yeah, but the cops think that’s what I did to cover my ass. They think I arranged the party just to have lots of suspects present.”
“Bullshit! They’re screwing with you because they’ve nothing better to run with. So they’re hoping you’ll do something stupid to give them a lead. From their point of view they know they’ve got a no-hoper.”
Bob made sense. If the cops had any evidence, they would have charged him. He could breathe easily, for now.
“Do they have a recording of the phone call?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“If they take a voiceprint from you, they can’t compare it. All they can do is play it to this …” Bob
snapped his fingers as he searched for the name.
“Margaret Macey,” Josh finished for him.
“I think a lawyer would have a fine time if the cops didn’t interview all the other possible suspects at the party. How have they left things?”
“Just that they would get in contact.”
“What about this voice recording?”
