Angels in Heaven

laughed at me.
    “J. J. Hill,” I said. “Milwaukee Bucks. Power forward.” He nodded, pleased. “Maybe the Lakers this year,” he said.
“It all depends.”
    “On what?”
    “On what happens the next few weeks,”
he said. “I’m out here like on trial so Coach Riley can get a good look at me
and see how I fit in before the season starts.”
    “When is that, Mr. Hill?”
    “Shee-it,” he said, waving one big
paw. “I’m J. J. to everyone, including my kids. Not till November, but we’re
workin’ out already, sort of like spring training, you dig?”
    I said I dug. Then I said, “Well, I
hope you make it, J. J. They are one hell of a team.”
    “Only the world champs,” he said, “is
all. I figure I got a chance if I lose a few pounds and polish up my de-fense.
You ever play?” He took out a pack of Juicy Fruit and popped two sticks into
his mouth.
    “A little,” I said. A little is
right. I played a couple of years at high school, but then I changed schools,
and as the one I changed to was in the Illinois State Juvenile Correctional
System and it only had one netless hoop, that was about it.
    “I’d have a better chance,” J. J.
said around the gum, “if I didn’t have this other thing on my mind.”
    He seemed disinclined to go on, so I
said, “Hell, J. J., out with it. I can’t help you if I don’t know what it’s all
about.”
    “Ain’t that the truth,” he said,
taking a deep breath. “Well, here ’tis.” He took a postcard out of his pocket
and tossed it on the desk in front of me. “I got this last week.” I looked it
over. On one side was a stock shot of cars on an L.A. freeway at night, taken
with a long exposure so all the car lights showed up as streaks of color. On
the reverse it said, on one side, “Mr. J. J. Hill, c/o The Lakers, The Forum, Inglewood, L.A., Cal.,” and on the other scrawled with a ballpoint, “Congrats, J. J.
Hope you make the team. Yore old pal, Pete.”
    “So what’s the problem in some old
pal wishing you well?” I said.
    “The problem is,” J. J. said, “if
it’s the Pete I think it is, he is not an old pal, he is a fucking bookmaker I
once was fool enough to do business with in my younger days.”
    “What kind of business?”
    “Point shaving,” said J. J. “When I was
at college.”
    “Ah,” I said. “That kind of business.
Where was this?” He told me. To protect the institute of higher learning
involved and also my own ass, as there are such legal niceties as slander,
defamation of character, and the like, I will only say that J. J.’s old
university was somewhere between three-quarters of an hour and an hour from my
door if you went southwest via the Golden State, Ventura, and San Diego
freeways.
    “Who else was involved, J. J.?” I got
out my memo pad again.
    “You gotta know? I don’t want to get
them involved after all this time.”
    “Highly unlikely,” I said. “But
sooner or later I’ll have to have a word or two with your old pal Pete, and the
more I know about it the better.”
    He told me the names of three other
teammates who had also been involved. “But hell, I haven’t seen any of them for
years.”
    “How many years?”
    “I been out of college three years.
Since then.”
    “Tell me about Pete,” I said. “Pete
who?”
    “Pete Berry,” he said. “They usta
call him Goose. Little guy who was always around. He ran a book and had
something to do with fruit machines or something, I don’t recall exactly.”
    “What was your cut?”
    “Five hundred bucks a game,” he said.
“Shee-it. Can you believe it. But don’t get me wrong—we never blew a game, just
kept inside the spread.”
    “Local guy obviously,” I said. “The
card was posted from here and you never heard from him in Milwaukee, but as
soon as you show up back here, the postman comes a-calling. What do you figure
he’s after?”
    “B-R-E-A-D,” said J. J.
    “Well of course bread,” I said, “but
how? Does he want you to do the same thing again, holding your past
misdemeanors over your head as a threat, or does he just want a payoff or he’ll
write another souvenir postcard, this time to Coach Riley?”
    “Either way,” he said, “who needs it?
Just the thought of that jive-ass running around loose out there is startin’ to
get to me.” His face brightened briefly. “But what if he’s bluffing, man? What
if he ain’t got no proof and is just trying it on?”
    “Oh, he’s probably got proof of some
kind,”