Night Hoops (13 page)

The following night we played again. It was the last night Mom and Scott would be away. All in all, I was glad they were coming back—the house was lonely without them—but Mom wouldn't let me play basketball late into the night, the way I'd been doing, and I was going to miss that freedom.

Something was wrong with Trent, though. He was edgy, fouling me more and scowling when I called him on it, acting a little like the Trent of old.

Around ten o'clock, right when we were going at it hard, the gate opened. I picked up my dribble and squinted into the darkness. "Who's there?"

Zack's voice rang out. "Come on, Trent, let's go."

I could hear Trent breathing in the still air. "Where?"

Zack's voice was commanding. "You know where. Now come on."

For a second, it was like being back at Canyon Park in the summer. Zack shows; Trent goes. Only this time Trent didn't go. "No. I'm playing basketball."

Zack took a couple of steps forward. He patted the pocket of his jacket. "I got them."

Trent dribbled the ball once, then held it. "I don't care. I'm playing basketball."

Zack came right onto the court. "You promised me."

Trent faced him down. "I promised nothing."

For a long moment there was silence. Then Zack was gone, out of the yard. Seconds later the Corolla roared off into the night.

"What was that all about?" I asked.

"Nothing," Trent snapped. He bricked a jumper off the front rim. "Let's just play."

He tried to get going, but his game was way off. Pretty soon he stopped entirely. "I've had enough," he mumbled.

"Come on," I said. "A little longer."

He shook his head, picked up his sweatshirt, and headed off the court. No liter of Pepsi, no talk.

Inside, I took a shower. Then I went down to the kitchen and made myself a peanut butter sandwich. I was sitting at the table, looking out into the night, when I heard the first siren. After that there were three more, each one screaming down 104th toward Main Street.

I slipped into the front room and looked across the street to the Dawson house. Nothing. Totally dark. But something kept me from going upstairs to bed. I sat down on the sofa by the window and waited.

I didn't have to wait long. Within ten minutes a police car roared up the street. The tires squealed as it came to a halt in front of the Dawson house. One officer popped out of the car and raced around to the back. The other one was up the walkway and onto the porch, his hand on his gun. Seconds later another police car pulled up behind the first.

I heard the knock all the way across the street—that's how loud it was. "Police! Open up!" For a while there was nothing, then the Dawson's front door opened and Ericka Dawson stepped onto the porch, pulling the door closed behind her. She talked to the policeman for a moment. He showed her something, then she stepped aside as he crossed the threshold into her house.

The house had been dark, but within minutes every light was on. After what seemed like forever the policeman came out, alone. A little while later the first police car drove off. The motor on the second turned over, but instead of driving off, the car inched a hundred yards or so up the block, then came to a stop in a dark spot between streetlights. It was still sitting there an hour later when I finally went to bed.

Early the next morning Scott and Mom returned. She'd bought some San Francisco sourdough bread at the airport, and we went into the kitchen and talked and ate. Scott unrolled a poster of whales from the Monterey aquarium, and he showed off the third-place medal he'd won at the jazz competition. "We got called back for two encores. It was awesome."

"That's great," I said. "Congratulations."

Then Mom started. She described the auditoriums, the audiences, the cheering. "Everywhere you turned there was music. The whole city was alive with it. Oh, I wish you could have been there!"

They ran out of things to say just about when the bread was gone. There was a stretch of silence, then Scott stood. "I'm going to call Katya."

"Scott, you spent every minute on the trip with her. Give the girl some room to breathe."

"I told her I'd call. I can't not do it."

Mom frowned, then took her suitcase to her bedroom. I wandered out to the front room, dropped onto the sofa, pulled the curtains back a bit, and peeked out across the street. The police car was gone, but in its place was another car I'd never seen on our block, a large, dark Chevy. A man was sitting inside reading a newspaper.

A moment later Scott came downstairs. "That was quick," Mom said, coming out of her bedroom.

"She wasn't home," Scott replied, worried.

"So she went someplace," Mom replied. "She doesn't have to ask your permission, does she?"

"But we were going into Seattle today. To Gameworks."

"Give her a few minutes and call again. Only I'm warning you. You'll suffocate her if you don't give her some privacy."

Scott went upstairs as Mom sat down in the chair across from me. "How about you? What did you do with yourself while we were gone, besides paint the bathroom? It looks great by the way. Thank you."

"Nothing much. I watched some TV, read a little, shot some hoops."

"Did your father come by?"

I hadn't thought about him at all. "No, he didn't."

She didn't say anything, but I could tell she was angry. I stood. "I'II be in the back," I said.

"That basketball court has turned out to be a pretty good thing for you, hasn't it?"

"Yeah, it has."

I shot hoops for an hour or so. When I came back inside, the big Chevy was still parked up the block, and Scott was still moping around. "Has the newspaper come?" I asked him.

"Yeah. Mom brought it in. It's on the table."

Mom laughs at the
Eastside Journal.
She says that if a bomb exploded in their own office, the
Seattle Times
would have the story first. She subscribes only because I read the sports section cover-to-cover.

I pulled off the rubber band. The paper unrolled in front of me. I'd intended to go right to the sports pages to see if they had the scores from the Victoria tournament, but the headline jumped out at me.
BOTHELL YOUTH SHOT ON TRAIL
. Quickly my eyes raced through the paragraphs. "Mom," I said as I read. "Scott. Come here."

There must have been something in my voice that drew them, because they both came immediately.

"What is it?" my mother said. "What's happened?"

I pointed to the headline. "It's Michael Ushakov. He's been shot."

It was as if an earthquake had rocked our house—everybody was reeling. Mom grabbed the newspaper from me, put a hand to her mouth, then dropped it, saying, "Oh my God."

Scott went straight to the phone.

"Don't bother," Mom said. "I'm sure she's at the hospital." Mom turned to me. "Does it say where they took him?"

I snatched the newspaper from the ground. "Yeah, here it is. University Hospital."

"We can be there in half an hour. Poor Mrs. Ushakov."

Scott grabbed his coat. Mom looked around for her purse for a moment, found it, then turned to me. "Are you coming?"

I shook my head. "I'd just be in the way."

She didn't argue. "All right, but you're on your own. I don't know when we'll be back."

A minute later she and Scott were gone. I stayed inside for maybe ten minutes, working up my courage. Then I opened the front door and walked out to the strange car. The man inside was reading the newspaper. I tapped on the window. "Are you a policeman?" I asked when he rolled it down.

"What do you want, kid?"

"I think I know something about what happened last night."

He put the newspaper on the seat next to him and motioned toward my house. "You live there?"

"Yeah."

He pulled out his wallet, showed me his identification. "I'm Officer Tomlinson. How about if I come in and we talk?"

I thought I knew so much, but I was finished in a couple of minutes. "Let me see if I've got this right," he said, looking over his notes. "You were playing basketball with Trent Dawson last night. Around ten, Zack Dawson came up. He seemed to have gotten hold of something, something Trent knew about. They argued a little, and then Zack left. Is that it?"

I nodded.

"But you didn't see what he had inside his coat?"

"No."

He tapped his pencil against his note pad. "How long did Trent stay with you once Zack had left?"

I felt my chest tighten. "A while."

"How long is 'a while'? Two minutes ... thirty ... an hour?"

"At least ten minutes," I said. Then I added: "Probably more like twenty."

He closed his notebook.

I screwed up my courage. "Was it Zack? Did he shoot Michael?"

"I can't answer that," he said, standing. "But we'd sure like to talk to him. In fact, we'd like to talk with both Dawson boys. So if you see either of them, or they get in touch with you, you tell them that. And then you call us right away. You understand? Right away."

He left, and not more than a minute later the telephone rang. I raced to pick it up, thinking it was Mom, but it was Luke. Earlier in the day I'd been hoping he'd call, but now the basketball team seemed as if it were part of a world I'd left.

To him it was everything. I asked how Victoria had been, and his voice bubbled with excitement. "Great. We had tea at this huge old hotel, the Empress. I know it sounds stupid, but it was fun, like being in England. And there's this Miniature World where all the big battles from the two world wars are set up. There's another place called..." He rattled on and on, with me saying "Yeah" or "Sounds great" every thirty seconds or so. Finally he stopped.

"How'd you do in the tournament?" I asked.

He groaned. "We lost all three games. None was even close. We were totally squashed." He paused. "That's the bad news. The good news—for you—is how we lost. Fabroa got himself in foul trouble every game. And Chang just isn't quick enough to play point guard. The first night he got double-teamed and couldn't handle it. After that every team doubled him as soon as he touched the ball. Turnovers, fouls, sloppy defense. You name it; we did it. O'Leary was going absolutely crazy on the bench."

"That's too bad," I said.

"Yeah, yeah. For the team. But not for you. With a couple of good practices, you'll be starting Thursday against Lake Washington." He paused, waiting for me to show some excitement. When I didn't, he noticed. "Something wrong, Nick?"

I should've told him about Michael Ushakov, but I couldn't bring myself to, maybe because I kept hoping that somehow it would all go away. "No," I said. "Nothing's wrong."

Mom came home at six carrying a bag of groceries. "Michael lost a lot of blood," she said as she set the bag on the kitchen table and began unpacking it. "They took a bullet out of his chest, three inches from his heart. But he's going to make it." Her voice caught, and she stopped to blow her nose. Then she was all business again. "I'm going to make some spaghetti and bring it over to the Ushakovs. I'm sure they haven't had a decent meal all day. Scott's over there now with Katya. He'll probably stay and eat with them. You and I can get something later. Okay?"

"Sure," I said. Then, as she turned on the burner under the big pot of water, I asked the question I'd been afraid to ask. "Do they know who did it?"

She nodded in the direction of the Dawson house, her eyes filling with tears. "It was Zack," she whispered. Then she cut open the package of spaghetti and broke the long strands in half. Watching her fight back tears made my eyes well up. If I'd stayed there I'd have been bawling like a baby, so I went up to my room and turned on the radio.

Mom brought the spaghetti over to the Ushakovs and then phoned to say she wouldn't be home until late. I ended up eating a ham sandwich alone at the kitchen table. Afterwards I tried to watch television, but I couldn't get interested. Around eight the telephone rang again. This time Dad's voice was on the other end of the line.

He started out by grilling me about what had happened. After I'd told him everything I knew, there was a long pause. Then came the lecture. If I saw Zack, I was to call the police. "But don't give your name. Just say where he is and then hang up. You understand?"

"Dad, there's a police car parked in front of his house. They don't need me looking for him. If he comes around here, they'll see him."

"You don't know that." His voice was sharp. "Now do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Yeah, I understand."

"Good. And from now on, as far as you're concerned Trent Dawson doesn't exist. You see him, you treat him like he's a ghost. I don't want you to have anything to do with him. Not play basketball with him, not talk to him, not even nod hello to him. Stay completely clear."

"But Trent didn't do anything," I said. "He was with me when it happened."

"I don't care if he was with the president of the United States. You're to have nothing to do with him. Am I making myself clear?"

"Yeah," I muttered.

"Okay then. That's settled." There was a long pause. "Is your mom there?"

"No, she and Scott are at the Ushakovs."

"Well, you tell her I called. And you tell Scott what I said about both Dawsons, because the same things go for him."

"Okay."

Again there was a long pause. Then he took me by surprise. "I love you, Son," he said. "I don't mean to yell at you. I just want you to be safe."

"I love you too, Dad," I said.

After I hung up the phone, I sat on the sofa and stared at the design in the carpet, that big lump back in my throat. Then, out of nowhere, I got mad. If he loved me so damn much, why did I only hear from him when he wanted to give me orders or criticize what I was doing?

I went downstairs, turned on the television, and watched half an hour of some college game on ESPN. I couldn't tell you what the score was or which teams were playing. I had too much nervous energy to stay still, so I flicked the TV off, climbed upstairs to my room, dug my basketball from the closet, and went outside to shoot around.