Murder at the Foul Line Read online

  Copyright

  The events and characters in this book are fictitious. Certain real locations and public figures are mentioned, but all other characters and events described in the book are totally imaginary.

  Copyright of the collection © 2006 by Otto Penzler

  Introduction copyright © 2006 by Otto Penzler

  “Keller’s Double Dribble,” copyright © 2006 by Lawrence Block; “Nothing but Net,” copyright © 2006 by Jeffery Deaver; “Bank Shots,” copyright © 2006 by Sue DeNymme; “The Taste of Silver,” copyright © 2006 by Brendan DuBois; “Fear of Failure,” copyright © 2006 by Parnell Hall; “Cat’s Paw,” copyright © 2006 by Laurie R. King; “Mrs. Cash,” copyright © 2006 by Mike Lupica; “White Trash Noir,” copyright © 2006 by Michael Malone; “Galahad, Inc.,” copyright © 2006 by Joan H. Parker and Robert B. Parker; “String Music,” copyright © 2006 by George Pelecanos; “Mamzer,” copyright © 2006 by R. D. Rosen; “Shots,” copyright © 2006 by S.J. Rozan; “In the Zone,” copyright © 2006 by Justin Scott; “Bubba,” copyright © 2006 by Stephen Solomita

  All rights reserved.

  Mysterious Press

  Warner Books

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  The Mysterious Press name and logo are registered trademarks of Warner Books.

  First eBook Edition: October 2009

  ISBN: 978-0-446-56953-8

  In affectionate memory of Evan Hunter

  And for his wife, Dragica,

  with thanks for making my friend so happy

  Contents

  COPYRIGHT

  INTRODUCTION

  KELLER’S DOUBLE DRIBBLE

  NOTHING BUT NET

  BANK SHOTS

  THE TASTE OF SILVER

  FEAR OF FAILURE

  CAT’S PAW

  MRS. CASH

  WHITE TRASH NOIR

  GALAHAD, INC.

  STRING MUSIC

  MAMZER

  SHOTS

  IN THE ZONE

  BUBBA

  INTRODUCTION

  Otto Penzler

  Basketball was a little different when I was growing up, which is just before James Naismith reputedly invented the game in 1891.

  First, most of the players were white. I don’t know if they could jump, but I do know they didn’t jump. Dunking was something you did with a doughnut and a cup of coffee. There was such a thing as a two-handed set shot. I’m not making this up. Hook shots were common, and soon some of the better players developed a jump shot. Foul shots were frequently taken underhanded, with two hands guiding the ball toward the hoop. Eventually, to help speed the game up, the twenty-four-second clock was invented.

  Second, players actually played by the rules, mainly because the referees called fouls and other violations. Traveling, for example, was called if a player carried the ball for two steps. Today it’s called only if he carries the ball to another city. Basketball was described accurately back in the Dark Ages as a noncontact sport. If you bumped into a player, you were called for a foul. Today the foul is called only if you hit someone repeatedly, generally with a blunt instrument.

  Also, players seemed tall but human. Today the guys who used to be the “big” forward (now known as the power forward) are the speedy little guys who bring the ball up the court. The big guys seem descended from another planet.

  Don’t get me wrong. I’m not some old fogey who thinks players were better when I was a kid. I’m an old fogey who thinks basketball players during the past quarter century or so are the best all-around athletes in the world. They just don’t play the same game. I’m not sure when it went from being a team sport to being a game played by five individuals to a side, but it was probably when ESPN’s SportsCenter started to show highlights every night and 95 percent of them were dunks (just as most baseball highlights on that show are home runs, and there’s nothing more boring than watching one long fly ball after another landing in the seats).

  But perhaps the biggest difference in the game is the level of criminal activity. One of the big crime stories of the 1950s was when some Manhattan College, CCNY, and Long Island University players conspired to fix games so that certain gamblers could make a killing. The scandal rocked the sport for years, and those teams, then national powers, never recovered.

  Today, of course, that would be looked upon as kid stuff. Now we’re really talking. Stars are commonly arrested for drug abuse, drunk driving, wife (and girlfriend) battering, barroom brawling, rape, and so many other acts of violence and criminality that it is difficult to keep track.

  There was a time when I thought Kermit Washington’s brutal punch of an innocent and unsuspecting Rudy Tom-janovich, caving in his face, fracturing his skull, breaking his jaw and nose, and causing a potentially lethal spinal fluid drip from his brain, was the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen on a basketball court, but that was before Ron Artest and fellow thugs on the Indiana Pacers brawled with fans in Detroit. Now, I’ll quickly concede that some guy who throws a cup full of beer into the face of a six-foot-eight-inch tower of muscle is so stupid that he probably deserves a good whipping, but still…

  Even this pales when compared with Latrell Sprewell’s attempted murder of his coach. Not merely in the heat of the moment, mind you. He grabbed P. J. Carlesimo, put his big hands around his throat, and choked him until he was pulled away. He left, came back about twenty minutes later, and did it again! (Well, Sprewell explained later, it’s not like he couldn’t breathe at all.) Because he’s a star athlete, he didn’t do a single day in jail. Instead, he got traded to the New York Knicks and became a crowd favorite. When he left the team as a free agent, he spurned a $29-million offer, explaining that it wasn’t enough, that he had to feed his family.

  Jayson Williams, a great basketball player and a charming man, was not convicted of killing his chauffeur.

  In a never-ending headline story, Kobe Bryant was arrested for rape but admits only to being stupid and an adulterer. Allen Iverson, who has all the charm of a Mexican snuff film, was arrested with illegal weapons—again. Charles Barkley cold-cocked a pencil-thin opponent in the Olympics for no discernible reason. There was a perfectly good reason for him to throw someone through a barroom window. He’d been hassled by the idiot. When asked if he had any regrets about the incident, Barkley said yes. He was sorry they hadn’t been on a higher floor.

  The notion, then, of mixing basketball and crime in this collection seems predictable—a natural combination, like ham and eggs, Laurel and Hardy, yin and yang. Or, to put it more darkly, it’s a predictably unnatural combination, like Michael Jackson and little boys, S&M, Paris Hilton and farm animals, and the team of buffoons (sorry, self-described “idiots”) known as the 2004 World Champion Boston Red Sox.

  It would be difficult to think that a group of fiction writers, people who make up stories, could find a way to write about crime and criminals in a way that surpasses the real-life adventures we can all read about in the tabloids, but the assembled team of top-notch mystery writers has done just that. This Dream Team of outstanding authors has put together a game plan that will keep you at the edge of your seat right to the last second. Here is the lineup of superstars:

  Lawrence Block has received the highest honor bestowed by the Mystery Writers of America, the Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement, and received the equivalent prize, the Diamond Dagger, from the Crime Writers’ Association of Great Britain. He has produced more than sixty novels, mainly about such series characters as the tough alcoholic private eye, Matt Scudder; his comedic bookseller/burglar, Bernie Rhodenbarr; and the amoral hit man who appears i
n this volume, Keller.

  Jeffery Deaver is the author of twenty novels, many featuring Lincoln Rhyme, including The Bone Collector, which was filmed starring Denzel Washington. Deaver has been nominated for four Edgar Allan Poe Awards and an Anthony and is the three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Reader’s Award for Best Short Story of the Year. Garden of Beasts won the 2004 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award by the Crime Writers’ Association of Great Britain for the best thriller in the vein of James Bond.

  Sue DeNymme has a rich bloodline of storytellers, embellishers, and exaggerators, including fishermen, pirates, and royalty. She has traveled extensively, studying language and culture, and has earned degrees from several prestigious universities. When she began writing, she immediately won a poetry prize. Now that she has decided to write the tallest possible tales, she chose mystery fiction for her career. In fact, she is in the process of writing a crime novel and cannot wait to read it.

  Brendan DuBois is the author of seven novels, one of which, Resurrection Day, is planned as a major motion picture. He has produced numerous short stories, three of which have been nominated for Edgar Allan Poe Awards and two of which have won Shamus Awards. His story “The Dark Snow” was selected for Best American Mystery Stories of the Century, edited by Tony Hillerman.

  Parnell Hall is the author of the critically acclaimed Stanley Hastings series about an inept and cowardly private eye, and the Puzzle Lady novels that involve crossword puzzles as clues, voted the Best New Discovery by members of the Mystery Guild. He has been nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award by the Mystery Writers of America and the Shamus Award by the Private Eye Writers of America.

  Laurie R. King writes stand-alone thrillers, a series about San Francisco homicide inspector Kate Martinelli and, most notably, a series about Sherlock Holmes and his wife, Mary Russell. Her first novel, A Grave Talent, won the Edgar and the John Creasey Awards from the (British) Crime Writers’ Association. With Child was nominated for an Edgar.

  Mike Lupica is one of the best-known and most accomplished sportswriters in America, a regular on ESPN’s The Sports Reporters, as well as the author of fifteen books of fiction, non-fiction, juvenile and mystery fiction. His first mystery, Dead Air, was nominated for an Edgar and was later filmed for CBS as Money, Power and Murder. His most recent novel, Too Far, was a national best-seller.

  Michael Malone has written three mysteries, Uncivil Seasons, Time’s Witness, and First Lady, as well as several mainstream novels, notably such modern classics as Dingley Falls, Handling Sin, and Foolscap. He was the head writer for various daytime drama series, including One Life to Live. His short story “Red Clay” won the Edgar and was selected for Best American Mystery Stories of the Century.

  Joan H. Parker is the coauthor, with her husband, Robert B. Parker, of Three Weeks in Spring, the moving story of her battle with cancer, and A Year at the Races, a pictorial journal of their adventures with horse racing. She and her husband also collaborated on several scripts for Spenser, the television series based on the Boston P.I.

  Robert B. Parker, acclaimed as the contemporary private eye writer in the pantheon of Hammett, Chandler, and Ross Macdonald, won an Edgar for Promised Land, the fourth in the series of instant classics involving Spenser, the tough, wisecracking Boston P.I. who was the basis for a network television series in the 1990s. Parker was recently named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.

  George Pelecanos, one of the most critically acclaimed crime writers in America, is the author of a dozen novels with several different series characters, most notably Nick Stefanos and the team of Derek Strange and Terry Quinn. Hell to Pay won the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and The Big Blowdown won the International Crime Novel of the Year Award in France, Germany, and Japan. He is currently a writer and producer of the HBO series The Wire.

  R. D. Rosen has written for Saturday Night Live and several CBS news shows, but he claims that his novels about Harvey Blissberg, a professional baseball player turned private eye, are closest to his heart. His first book, Strike Three, You’re Dead, won the Edgar in 1984 and was recently named “one of the hundred favorite mysteries of the century” by the Independent Booksellers Association.

  S. J. Rozan is one of the most honored mystery writers of recent years, winning two Edgars (for Best Short Story and Best Novel), as well as a Shamus, Macavity, Nero, and Anthony. Her series characters are Lydia Chin, a young American-born Chinese private eye whose cases originate mainly in New York’s Chinese community, and Chin’s partner, Bill Smith, an older, more experienced sleuth who lives above a bar in Tribeca.

  Justin Scott is the author of more than twenty novels, including such huge international best-sellers as The Shipkiller, The Widow of Desire, and A Pride of Royals. His humorous mystery Many Happy Returns was nominated for an Edgar in 1974. His most recent series of novels, recounting the adventures of Benjamin Abbott, a real estate agent in the charming Connecticut town of Newbury, includes HardScape, StoneDust, and Frostline.

  Stephen Solomita has received an extraordinary amount of critical acclaim, being compared to Elmore Leonard and Tom Wolfe (by the New York Times), to Joseph Wambaugh and William J. Caunitz (by the Associated Press), and to John Grisham (Kirkus Reviews). He is the author of nearly twenty books under his own name, many about Stanley Moodrow, a tough New York City cop, and under the pseudonym David Cray.

  So let the games begin. Oh, one more thing. While it is generally accepted that James Naismith invented the game of basketball in 1891 by cutting out the bottom of a peach basket and nailing it to a wall, in fact a very similar game had been played hundreds of years earlier. The object was to put a rubber ball through a ring. The stakes were pretty high, as it was possible that the captain of the losing team would be beheaded. Maybe we shouldn’t let this become common knowledge. Some of the thugs in the NBA might think it’s a good idea to reinstate the custom.

  —Otto Penzler

  January 2005, New York

  KELLER’S DOUBLE DRIBBLE

  Lawrence Block

  Keller, his hands in his pockets, watched a dark-skinned black man with his shirt off drive for the basket. His shaved head gleamed, and the muscles of his upper back, the traps and lats, bulged as if steroidally enhanced. Another man, wearing a T-shirt but otherwise of the same shade and physique, leapt to block the shot, and the two bodies met in midair. It was a little like ballet, Keller thought, and a little like combat, and the ball kissed off the backboard and dropped through the hoop.

  There was no net, just a bare hoop. The playground was at the corner of Sixth Avenue and West Third Street, in Greenwich Village, and Keller was one of a handful of spectators standing outside the high chain-link fence, watching idly as ten men, half wearing T-shirts, half bare-chested, played a fiercely competitive game of half-court basketball.

  If this were a game at the Garden, the last play would have sent someone to the free-throw line. But there was no ref here to call fouls, and order was maintained in a simpler fashion: Anyone who fouled too frequently was thrown out of the game. It was, Keller felt, an interesting libertarian solution, and he thought it might be worth a try outside the basketball court, but had a feeling it would be tough to make it work.

  Keller watched a few more plays, feeling his spirits sink as he did, yet finding it oddly difficult to tear himself away. He’d had a tooth drilled and filled a few blocks away, by a dentist who had himself played varsity basketball years ago at the University of Kentucky, and had been walking around waiting for the Novocain to wear off so he could grab some lunch, and the basketball game had caught his eye, and here he was. Watching, and being brought down in the process, because basketball always depressed him.

  His mouth wasn’t numb anymore. He crossed the street, walked two blocks east, turned right on Sullivan Street, left on Bleecker. He considered and rejected restaurants as he walked, knowing he wanted something spicy. If basketball depressed him, highly seasoned food put him right again. He thought it odd, didn’t
understand it, but knew it worked.

  The restaurant he found was Indian, and Keller made sure the waiter got the message. “You tone things down for Westerners,” he told the man. “I only look like an American of European ancestry. Inside, I am a man from Sri Lanka.”

  “You want spicy,” the waiter said.

  “I want very spicy,” Keller said. “And then some.”

  The little man beamed. “You wish to sweat.”

  “I wish to suffer.”

  “Leave it to me,” the little man said.

  The meal was almost too hot to eat. It was nominally a lamb curry, but its ingredients might have been anything. Lamb, beef, dog, duck. Tofu, shoe leather, balsawood. Papier-mâché? Plaster of paris? The searing heat of the cayenne obscured everything else. Keller, forcing himself to finish every bite, loved and hated every minute of it. By the time he was done he was drenched in perspiration and felt as if he’d just gone ten rounds with a worthy opponent. He felt, too, a sense of accomplishment and an abiding sense of peace with the world.

  Something made him call home to check his answering machine. Two hours later he was on the front porch of the big old house on Taunton Place, sipping a glass of iced tea. Three days after that he was in Indiana.

  At the Avis desk at Indy International, Keller turned in the Chevy he’d driven from New York. At the Hertz counter, he picked up the keys to the Ford he’d reserved. He carried his bag to the car, left it in short-term parking, and went back into the airport, remembering to take his bag with him. There was a fellow waiting at baggage claim, wearing the green and gold John Deere cap they’d said he’d be wearing.

  “Oh, there you are,” the fellow said when Keller approached him. “The bags are just starting to come down.”

  Keller brandished his carry-on, said he hadn’t checked anything.