Edenville Owls by Robert B. Parker Read Free Book Online Page A

said.
    “Then it’ll be down with yours,” Nick said.
    “Don’t get caught fouling him,” I told him. “We got nobody else, remember. You foul out and we’re screwed.”
    Nick nodded.
    “And if he wants to pass, let him,” I said. “What we want is the ball out of his hands.”
    “I’m on him,” Nick said. “He’s a dead man.”
    We brought the ball in at midcourt. I got it to Manny in the corner, who passed into Russell, who shot over his man with a little turn around. We were within two.
    Number 22 normally brought the ball up, and when Alton passed in to him under their own basket, Nick was right up on him, in a crouch, arms extended, eyes focused on the middle of 22’s stomach. It’s nearly impossible to fake with your stomach. It has to go where you go. Number 22 tried to go around him, and Nick kept his feet moving and stayed in front of him. He tried the other way, dribbling with his left hand. Nick stayed with him. Number 22 got frustrated and ran straight into Nick, and the referee called him for charging and we got the ball.
    I brought it up, and when we got to the top of the key, we went into a four-man weave without Nick. Nick was staying next to 22. Which meant that 22 had to guard him, so the rest of us were four on four. Billy put up another set shot. It rimmed out, and Manny got the rebound and put it back up, and we were tied.
    And that’s how it stayed. Back and forth so that with two minutes left we were still tied. Number 22 had not scored in more than five minutes, and he was clearly tired. During breaks in the game he would stand bent over with his hands on his knees. Nick bothered him so much that Alton had someone else bring the ball up. Nick stayed up on 22. Once 22 tried to cut to the basket without the ball and Nick blocked his way. Then 22 shoved him. Nick stepped away smiling.
    “Now, now,” he said.
    Number 22 took a swing at him. And missed. Nick backed away, still smiling, with his hands raised, palms forward. The referee stepped in between them and threw 22 out for fighting. Nick, grinning, waved bye-bye to him as he went to the bench.
    Nick hit both his foul shots, and, without 22, Alton folded. We won the game by eight points, and when it was over, we charged Nick, all the Owls. I got there first and hugged him and then we all piled on him, hugging him, pounding him on the back.
    In our run for the tourney we were two and oh.

CHAPTER 19
    IT was late afternoon on Saturday. I was in the town library reading The New York Times. I’d never been to New York. But reading the Times allowed me to feel like I knew something about a world of excitement I had never seen. I could read box scores for the Yankees and the Giants and the Dodgers. I could read about famous actors in plays I’d never seen, and famous singers and comedians in nightclubs I’d heard about on Manhattan Merry Go Round. I could read about Toots Shore’s, and Jack Dempsey’s, and the Stork Club, and fights at Madison Square Garden and St. Nicholas arena. I knew what Tammany Hall was. I knew where Billie Holiday was performing, and Duke Ellington. I knew who was at Carnegie Hall. I knew about Greenwich Village.
    Joanie came in and sat down at the library table beside me.
    “What are you reading?” she said.
    “New York Times,” I said.
    I liked telling her that.
    “You ever been to New York?” she said.
    “Not yet,” I said.
    “But you will,” she said.
    “Sure,” I said. “I’m not staying in Edenville the rest of my life.”
    “You want to move?” she asked.
    “No. But even if I stay here to live,” I said, “I want to travel and stuff.”
    “What kind of work do you want to do when you’re, you know, a grown-up?” Joanie said.
    “I want to be a writer,” I said.
    “Like for a newspaper or something?”
    “No,” I said. “I want to write books.”
    “Books?”
    “Yes.”
    “Wow,” Joanie said. “I never heard of anybody wanting to write books.”
    “Well, now you have,”