B00BSH8JUC EBOK (14 page)

It was the semifinal round. Alie’s opponent was Maria Lopez, another young player ranked in the Top 10 with a dazzling array of shots.

Maria served first and began the match with a blistering ace. On the next serve, Alie cracked off a clean winner. It was quite an exchange of calling cards, and the crowd was humming. This one was going to be a sizzler.

Maria and Alie had beautifully contrasting styles. Alie had that classic serve-and-volley game, and Maria had the pinpoint passing shots to challenge it. Their rivalry had the potential to last for years, and so neither one was willing to concede anything, even in a dinky little tournament that didn’t count for anything in the rankings.

The first set went to a tiebreaker. The winner of it would be the one who got to seven points first, except she had to win by two, and neither player was having any luck coming up with that much of an edge. The score went to 7-7, then 8-8, 9-9 and 10-10, the crowd howling on every point.

It was so intense, with the referee pleading for quiet to no avail, that maybe the two cops near Papa de Ville could be excused a little for being surprised when a burly figure barreled around them and launched himself recklessly at Papa de Ville, getting his hands around Papa’s neck in a choke hold that meant business.

This was it! Every cop and security guard in the place became focused on the man grappling with Papa—everyone, that is, except me. An uncommon realization came over me, that maybe this was it, or maybe this was just a diversion and the real target was...

Alie.

I climbed over the low wall separating me from the tennis court. Alie and Maria had stopped playing. Alie stood transfixed, watching the attack on her father. I was running toward her as fast as I could, running even before I saw the two men charging toward her with a head start that would get them to her before I could.

Alie had her back to them, and there was no way she could hear any shout of warning in all of the pandemonium.

I changed directions, sprinting now not to reach Alie but to intercept the men if I could. It was the only chance I had to save her. I had my gun, but it was useless. If they got to her before I did, she would be a human shield and I couldn’t fire. Anyway, there was too much risk of shooting someone in the crowd.

I ran fast, fast, fast, faster than Alie’s assailants, angling in behind them as they stormed toward her. I lunged, catapulting my entire body into the air, smashing against the back of the knees of the one who was a little farther behind. He stumbled heavily against his accomplice, and the two of them fell clumsily to the ground. A stray, very absurd thought flashed through my mind, that I had brought them down with an illegal clip. Well, I would deal with the fifteen-yard penalty later.

I scrambled to my feet before they could, drew my gun and aimed it at them in the pose they teach you in the police academy.

“Move and I’ll blow your motherfucking heads off!” I screamed.

I don’t know whether they heard me in the suffocating noise, but it didn’t matter. In seconds I was surrounded by other cops, assuring me everything was okay, crushing knees into the backs of the two thugs and handcuffing them. All around me cops were mouthing the Miranda rights like a mass telling of the rosary.

I was actually out of the picture, until Alie came racing for me like a doe in flight. She was crying hysterically as she flung herself against me. “Kotter, Kotter, Kotter, Kotter!” she beseeched me.

I held her tight. I don’t know what I said—whatever came into my head—to try to calm her down. Her tears wet my cheek and collar.

After a time, some of the cops came and gently separated us. We wound up in different police cars, the sirens screaming in the night.

Everything was a blur until I found myself in Randie’s office with the door closed, just her and me, and I stopped gasping for air and began simply breathing again.

By the time I got to Randie’s office, every single television station seemed to be showing the footage of me slicing into Alie’s attackers with my unsportsmanlike blocking, while in the background a small army of cops was wrestling with the goon who jumped Papa de Ville.

They showed it in real time. They showed it in slow motion. They followed it with the newly made mug shots of the three thugs we had under heavy guard in the cells in the basement of the police station.

The stories they broadcast along with the footage were unusually accurate, thanks to the legwork Jonnie Penn had done for them.

The three low-lifes we had in custody were indeed members of Papa de Ville’s schoolboy gambling ring with a grudge to settle. The reason the detectives hadn’t found them is they had gone out of town to set up a daring escapade of revenge.

Their names were Angelo Clemente, Nick Schultz and Myron “Moose” Moore. Clemente was the one who went after Papa de Ville in his seat, and the other two were the ones I intercepted.

They confessed quickly. They hated Papa. Years ago, when they were kicked out of school, the four of them turned to small-time crime together. They pooled their take, which included a couple thousand dollars from the gambling ring. Then Papa got ambition. He phoned in an anonymous tip to the police, ratting out his cronies, stole the stash and lit out of town. Clemente, Schultz and Moore did time while Papa lived it up on their ill-gotten gains. When it was gone, he alternated between petty crime and dead-end jobs until he struck it rich with his miracle glue.

Life grubbed along for Clemente, Schultz and Moore. They spent most of it in bars, some of it in jail and all of it dodging ex-wives and creditors. Then they heard Papa de Ville was coming back to town with his tennis tournament.

“We didn’t plan to hurt nobody,” Moose Moore said in his confession. “We just thought de Ville owed us a little something, and he wouldn’t miss it none. Nick and me went to talk to him the night of the banquet, just friendly-like, but he got mean and started shoving us around. That’s when we beat him up.

Papa recognized them, all right, but he didn’t want anybody to know he did, because he didn’t want his past dredged up. Jonnie Penn would fix that for him, though.

The three confederates weren’t ready to give up. They tried to loosen Papa up by sending the threatening note about Alie, but that didn’t work, either, so they decided to try something desperate. They figured they would kidnap Alie right off the tennis court.

Clemente would attack Papa to distract everyone. Then Schultz and Moore would grab Alie. They knew Clemente would get nabbed, but once they had Alie, they would demand his release. Then they were going to ask for a car to take them to the airport, a plane and a pilot and three million dollars in cash. Once they got the plane, the pilot and the money, they planned to leave Alie behind and head for the wild blue yonder.

They had scouted out an abandoned airstrip in northern New Jersey, where they had a car waiting. Once they landed, they expected to make their way to New York City and lose themselves among its millions of people.

It was just about crazy enough to work. It might have, if they had managed to grab Alie.

Their story was sensational. It was flashed around the globe, making a disgrace of Papa. Meanwhile, the police station was bedlam. As if we didn’t have enough to do, sorting out the most electrifying crime in Hillsboro’s history, we were overrun by FBI agents, local politicians trying to horn in on the glory and enough media types to cover a presidential campaign.

The chief and the mayor held a press conference, and I got dragged into it. Suddenly I was their best pal, when just the day before they were ready to part me from my badge. I sweated in the hot camera lights and said as little as possible, giving one- or two-word answers if I couldn’t avoid a question. I was the sardonic cop if ever there was one.

I beat it out of there as soon as I could—which was fine with the mayor and the chief, who were quite content to have the limelight to themselves. I wasn’t done, though. Randie brought me to The Rathole, where she had parked Jonnie Penn.

“He’s entitled to a little more than a press conference,” Randie said. “After all, he cracked this case.”

I had never done an interview before. I had never wanted to do one, because I always figured if the press wanted to talk to me, it would be because I had done something really bad. I never dreamed of being a hero, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be.

Still, if Randie wanted me to talk to Penn, I would do it. She stayed to help, and between Randie and Penn, they drew out of me what Penn needed for a heart-warming story of a local kid who became a cop, thanks to the Police Softball League and a coach who cared.

It would be all over the newspaper the next day—the interview, a picture of me standing over Schultz and Moore with my gun pointed at them, and even an old photo of the championship softball team that Randie let Penn borrow. There I was, kneeling in the front row, the only white kid and the only one not smiling.

Finally, my part of the sideshow was over. I was safely tucked away in Randie’s office, sipping coffee and trying to get my bearings again. “Where’s Alie?” I said.

“Sam took a statement from her and then took her back to the College Inn. She’s in her room. My guess is she’ll be leaving in the morning. The rest of the tournament’s been canceled, as you can well imagine.”

“And Papa?”

“Holed up in his condo, hiding from the press and refusing to talk to us until his lawyer shows. I’d like to see the son of a bitch arrested, but the statute of limitations ran out long ago on anything he did when he lived here.”

“Well, the press will get him.”

“Yeah. They should make his life miserable for a long time to come,” Randie said. “But the hell with him. How are you doing, Kotter?”

“I don’t know. This doesn’t seem real.”

“You’re a genuine hero, you know.”

“Not me. I’m not the type.”

“It’s not something you get to choose. Other people do it for you.”

“Randie, I swear, I was just scared to death of fucking up out there.”

She chuckled then. As usual, the mirth went right through to my soul. I closed my eyes and sighed for the ages, and then Randie pulled me from the chair and gave me a hug I could live on for the rest of my life.

“Do you want to stay with Julie and me tonight?” she said.

“I don’t know. I can’t seem to make any decisions. Let me get my things from the inn and think about it.”

“Whatever you want, Kotter. If you decide to come over, just give us a call. It doesn’t matter how late it is.”

“Thanks, Randie.”

“Kotter?”

“What?”

“I love you, you know.”

“Yeah. God knows why. And I love you back.”

***

I ran into Sam Van Doren in the lobby of the College Inn. “Aren’t you off this detail yet?” he teased.

“I think I am. I’m just getting my things.”

“I guess we’re all pretty much done with security. After all, the crooks are in jail. There’s just a few of us hanging around in case some crazy decides to try something with Alie. You heading home?”

“Probably. But I’m so tired, I’m liable to fall into that bed up there and not bother.”

“You did good, Kotter.”

“Thanks, Sam. It means something coming from you.”

I went upstairs to my room and started shoving stuff into my bag. The telephone rang, and I really didn’t want to answer it, but I figured I better, in case it was Randie.

It wasn’t. “Kotter, get over here,” Alie said.

I was worn out. I didn’t want to see her. I didn’t want to see anybody, but she hung up before I could say anything. I went across the hall and pushed open the unlocked door.

She was lounging in the front room in a long robe of pink silk, which draped her as exquisitely as a goddess. I stopped and swayed as though I’d been hit by lightning. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. The last time I saw her, she was crying like a child.

“Kotter, I hurt my shoulder in the match tonight. I can’t unhook my necklace. Will you do it?”

She wasn’t fooling anybody with that line about her shoulder, but I didn’t particularly care. I went behind her, fingered the clasp to her gold necklace and deliberately fumbled with it. I had a wonderful vantage point, and I took my time admiring the view, gazing at the breasts I could see all the way to their nipples inside the folds of the pink silk robe.

By and by I unhooked the necklace and let go of it, watching it slither between her breasts and puddle there. Slowly I slid my hand after it, but as I got to Alie’s chest, she reached up and stopped me. She took my hand and drew me around in front of her, then used my arm to draw me in and offered me her upturned lips.

We kissed, the pent-up passion exploding between us and sending wave after wave of erotic shocks through my body. I was drowning in this. My hands slid down the silk to her waist, but she broke off the kiss and pushed me away.

“Just use your mouth on me,” she said feverishly. She stood up, and the gold necklace fell to the floor. She undid her silk sash and held it out. “Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

There was too much of the cop in me for that. “No,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, the word seductive and—God help me— irresistible. “It’s not for real, Kotter. It’s only a game. I won’t tie it tight. I promise.”

“All right.”

She looped the sash lightly around my hands. The robe fell away from her, showing me the perfect form I had craved since the moment I saw her standing on the curb outside the airport terminal. There was not a blemish upon her. Her cheekbones, collar bones and rib cage were delicate structures beneath the smooth skin that was so much silkier than any robe. Her muscles were cords of majesty, her stomach as flat as her hips were curved. My eyes roamed everywhere, but I stared longest and hardest at the inviting triangle of light and curly hair.

“Come here,” she said as she sat back in her chair.

Once again we kissed, and now that I could not touch her with my hands, my lips searched her out in wild hunger. Maybe there was something to this sash around my wrists, after all.