No Way Out

facts about the case itself. She realized that notwithstanding the time-honored lawyer jokes, Alex was all too human and this in turn impressed upon her that there were limits to how predatory she could be in her own chosen vocation.

It was only after that, and because of this softening in Martine’s character, that the relationship between them really started to develop. And even then it was a relationship at a distance, which tended to stunt its growth. She was based in Los Angeles; he in San Francisco.

“I’d like to put one in your pot babe,” the redneck called out, as he swaggered to the bar to get a refill.

“Why don’t you can it,” said Alex turning round again.

“Wanna step outside and settle it?” the man challenged.

“Why don’t you both can it!” Martine snapped. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

By this stage, the referee could no longer hope that the situation would play itself out without his intervention. He called a couple of bouncers to escort the redneck off the premises. The redneck was all set for a punch up, when his friends hauled him off and convinced him that it wasn’t worth the hassle.

Martine turned back to the table and — taking a deep breath to regain her composure — potted the black and then another red. She had come to the table with four points and eight frames on the board against her opponents 61 points and eight frames, after a nail-biting battle of safety shots. Her opponent, a petite blonde, had missed a two-cushion escape from a tricky snooker and this gave Martine a final chance to save the match on this final frame.

But only if she made every shot.

Keeping her cool she made another black and then a red. But this time, the cue ball drifted towards the balk end of the table and she had to settle for a pink instead of a black. She knew that there were no more chances. After the pink she had to pot the last red and get on the black. She sank the pink and came a little too far on the final red. Not that she couldn’t pot the red. It was an easy shot in itself. But if she just rolled it in she would be on the wrong side of the black.

She had to play it with pace and come off three cushions in order to get back down the table to the black. But if she played it with pace, she also had to play it with deadly accuracy.

She took the shot with pace… a lot of pace.

The red ball was still rattling in the jaws when the cue ball came off the first cushion and moved at pace to the balk end. Still in a tense state after the would-be punch-up with the redneck, Alex held his breath and prayed…

The ball dropped into the pocket to shriek’s of delight from the crowd. And to top it all off — the crowning glory — the ball came to rest with perfect position to pot the black one final time before the clear up.

From there it was almost an anticlimax as Martine cleared up, yellow, green, brown, blue pink, red and black. But when the frame ended, there was thunderous applause. She had made a break of 58 and a frame-winning score of 62.

The crowd loved it when a match came down to the wire, however nerve-racking it might be for the players. Consequently, Martine found herself having to sign many autographs before she finally got to talk to Alex.

“You were great,” he said.

“Do me a favor,” she replied, “Don’t ever do that again.”

“What’d I — ”

“You know what I’m talking about. I don’t need you to get into fights for me. You don’t have to prove anything.”

“But he was — ”

She held up her hand.

“Let’s go grab a bite.”

Friday, 5 June 2009 — 15:15

“The reason we got a drug problem is ’cause the Man flooded the ghetto with cheap cocaine!” the black militant shouted into the microphone. “And the reason things haven’t changed brother Elias, is because we’ve still got Uncle Toms like you blaming the Brothers for what the white man did to us!”

The audience broke into loud spontaneous applause, especially the large group of the black militant’s own supporters.

Elias Claymore was enjoying himself, as the white supremacist on the other side of the studio struggled above the roar of approval to make his answer heard. It was guests like these who made Claymore’s ratings. The militants might get the anger off their chest, but it was Claymore who’d make more money.

Claymore was just as black as this militant guest of his. Now in his late fifties, of average build, his colorful life had run the gamut from left-wing radical to Islamic fundamentalist to neo-conservative and born-again Christian.

This was meant to be a three-way debate between secular black militants, black Muslims and the Klan. But the black militant had turned the debate on conservative blacks, including Claymore himself, and made the white supremacists in the studio — who had raised the drug issue in the first place — largely irrelevant.

“What they did to us is no excuse for what we’re doing to ourselves brothers!” Claymore replied. “We have to stop blaming others. We used to be slaves to the white man. Now we’re slaves to the white powder. I say it’s time for us to break the chains and set ourselves free once and for all!”

Again the audience burst into thunderous applause, except the small cadre of militants. Claymore looked around and saw the approval on the faces of most of the audience, black and white. The black militant had almost won them over, but Claymore knew that with a few well-chosen words he had won them back.

Then a man wearing a suit and a bow tie with a crescent on it spoke up.

“If you think that joining the white establishment is a solution, then you’re as big a fool as he is.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Claymore sneeringly.

“I mean you’ve jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. You’ve betrayed your people twice over.”

He was a tall, slim, dapper figure and he was known to be Claymore’s arch-enemy. The man was a leading member of the Nation of Islam. Claymore had once belonged to his sect, but had later become disillusioned with it after he fled to Libya while on the run from the police.

“Would you care to elaborate?” Claymore challenged.

“I’m talking about Islam, the religion of the black man, the religion you turned your back on when you became an apostate.”

“An apostate to Islam or an apostate to the Nation of Islam? The two are not the same. For example Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam but never turned his back on Islam. Yet that didn’t save him from getting murdered.”

This was one of his favorite challenges to his former sect. Malcolm X had left the Nation of Islam in disillusion both at its policy of separatism and at the practices of its leader. His disillusion became even more pronounced after making the Hajj — the pilgrimage to Mecca — and learning about the universal nature of true Islam. To Malcolm X — as to the Prophet Mohamed — all Muslims were part of one “Umah” … one community. Indeed it was the act of “Islam” — submission to the will of God — that had united the feuding tribes of the Arabian Peninsula, ending the “Jahilya” — the dark age that preceded Islam.

But Malcolm X had also become disillusioned with Elijah Mohamed personally, over the NOI leader’s sexual exploitation of teenage girls. The trouble was that in speaking out so frankly, Malcolm X created enemies. And in response to his outspoken criticism, Louis Farakhan, a loyal follower of Elijah Mohamed, made inflammatory statements about Malcolm X. Two months later, Malcolm X was assassinated by members of the Nation of Islam.

But the well-dressed man in the audience was not going to be drawn into a debate about who killed Malcolm