Jump (23 page)

It wasn’t for Collins’s benefit, it was for Houghton’s. The cutting-edge boy who thought he ran Marty’s life.

Richie Collins said, “Are you hard of hearing, Perez? Yeah, Sherlock, I’m telling you Ellis is out of here.”

Marty said, “Tell me.”

“I wrecked my ankle about a half hour before practice ended and was over having it X-rayed. At Fulton College, you have to go next door. When I got back, Ellis was gone. I talked to Boyzie Mays. One of our guards? He said Ellis was all upset about something in the parking lot. Said he heard him talking about the test in the parking lot before he got into his car and got out of there. We usually come together, but today we took separate cars, I was supposed to go to a signing, over in Fairfield.”

“When you say test,” Perez said, “you mean the DNA test?”

“Got to be.”

“But why would that make him go nutso? It was
good
news.”

“You’re the guy with all the answers,” Richie Collins said. “Why don’t you tell me something for a change?”

Marty said, “Nobody but me knows he’s gone?”

“So far.”

“I gotta get this on the air,” Marty said. Then, as an afterthought: “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Collins said.

Marty hung up the phone, took his cigar out of the ashtray in front of him, took his time relighting it, knowing Houghton was still there in the doorway.

The cutting-edge boy couldn’t wait anymore. “Did I hear you correctly?” he said. “Ellis Adair is gone?”

Marty said, “He’s gone, kid. But
I’m
here.”

Ted Salter, Frank Crittendon, Richie Collins and DiMaggio sat in the Knicks locker room on the fifth floor of the Garden, court level, the other end of the hall from Salter’s private screening room. Salter and Collins looked like they wanted to be anywhere except here, with each other. DiMaggio figured it was just another day at the office for Frank Crittendon, his office being wherever Salter told him it was.

The Knicks had announced in the morning they were breaking camp at Fulton College a day early. Before they did, they issued a release that said Ellis Adair had left the team for personal reasons, even though DiMaggio wondered what the point of that was since Marty Perez had broadcast the whole thing over television the night before. The release said that Adair’s absence from the team was unrelated to what were described as “recent off-court developments.” Crittendon was quoted as saying he fully expected Adair to be with the team for the start of the regular season in two weeks, the first Saturday in November.

It was all bullshit, DiMaggio knew that. When he got to the
Garden he found out that even Richie Collins had no idea where Ellis Adair was.

Collins had been the last to show up, wearing a hooded Knicks sweatshirt and jeans. Only his white sneakers looked new. He hadn’t shaved yet, and his eyes were bloodshot. DiMaggio knew the look, from all the clubhouses and locker rooms like this one. A catcher who’d played behind him one time in the low minors, Franklin Roosevelt Jarrett, DiMaggio never forgot him, out of the Robert Taylor projects in Chicago, over near Comiskey Park, used to talk about “misbehavin’ situations.” Richie Collins had come from a misbehavin’ situation, DiMaggio was sure of it.

Maybe he went out and got laid to take the edge off of Ellis making a run for it.

Collins also looked scared. Why not? Ellis was gone. Maybe Donnie Fuchs, agent and lawyer, was on his way, but he sure wasn’t there yet. Ted Salter, the one who signed the checks, was into it now. Richie Collins, for the first time, didn’t look so project tough.

“Does he have to be here?” Collins said when he saw DiMaggio.

“Sit down, Richie,” Salter said. “Next time we throw a party, we’ll let you draw up the guest list.” He sipped some coffee out of a plastic cup. “Maybe you’ll even find a way to show up on time.”

Richie Collins, a little whiny, said, “Mr. Salter—”

“Jesus, sit down, will you?”

Collins sat down in front of his own locker. Maybe it was force of habit. He looked like he wanted to get all the way inside, just hide in there until all this was over. Salter was across from him, in front of Adair’s locker. Maybe it was for effect. Crittendon was next to him, in a folding chair.

DiMaggio said, “Where’s Ellis?”

Collins turned his head toward DiMaggio, as if he wanted to move right in and say something smart. But he stopped himself, making a little calming motion with his hands, like he was telling himself he was in enough trouble already.

“I told Frank first thing. I told Mr. Salter last night, when he called and told me to be here.” Collins shook his head and said, “I have no idea where he is.”

“Has he ever done anything like this before?” DiMaggio said. “In all the years you’ve known him?”

Collins said, “You mean disappear during a rape investigation? Shit, yeah. He can’t stop himself.”

It almost made DiMaggio smile. Collins not being able to stop
him
self.

“Richie,” Ted Salter said. “Listen to me because I’m going to tell you this one time, and then we’ll all move on here. This situation we have here, this is not a situation where you want to come in with an attitude. I am tired of you. I am tired of your problems. I am tired of
your
problems being
my
problems. When Mr. DiMaggio asks you a question, it is the same as me asking you a question or Frank asking you a question. I cannot force you to talk about what did or did not happen with this woman. Your legal rights are your legal rights. I’m not going to piss all over them, as much as I would like to, believe me. Because I know the minute I do, you tell your lawyer and he calls the Players Association and then I’m up to my eyeballs in grievances.” He closed his eyes. “I get a migraine just thinking about it. But Ellis disappearing, that is
not
a legal problem. It is a goddamn fucking
team
problem. Which you are going to help solve in any way you can. Are we clear on that?”

Collins looked down and mumbled something that no one could hear, so Salter repeated, “Are we clear?”

“We’re clear,” Collins said.

All along, DiMaggio had wondered if anybody had any real juice with these bastards. Crittendon didn’t. The curly-haired dude coach, Gary Lenz, clearly didn’t. The players seemed to go through all of it, life and ball, like they were bulletproof. But not this afternoon. Not in here. DiMaggio had the feeling that if Salter told Richie Collins to bark like a dog, Collins would bark like a dog.

Salter said, “I believe Mr. DiMaggio asked if Ellis had ever done anything like this before.”

“Ellis isn’t the type for something like this. Ellis was never carefree. You understand? Never impulsive. He didn’t do anything—how would you put it?—spontaneous. Whether he was feeling fucked-up or not. Even when we were kids. The only place Ellis ever takes any chances is up in the air, when he’s got a ball in his hands.”

Richie Collins said, “It’s why he was made for basketball, and not just ’cause he has such a talent for it. Ellis likes the regularless of it, or whatnot. Practice at this time, playing that time. Bus will be at five-fifteen. Bus leaves forty-five minutes after the game. He’s very deep into that shit.”

DiMaggio just watched him go, impressed. Whatever else he was, he wasn’t stupid.

“Let me tell you something about Fresh Adair,” Collins said. “Him alone and the two of us together. If it wasn’t me, it would have been somebody else. He likes to be told. He
wants
to be told.”

“You’re saying you’re worried,” DiMaggio said.

Collins looked straight at him. “Fuck yes.”

Salter said to Collins, “Why’d he go? Frank talked to Boyzie this morning. Why’d the DNA test set him off?”

“He’s been acting even more squirrelly than usual the last few days,” Collins said. “If it hadn’t been for my ankle, I would’ve been
with
him.” He looked around at all of them, as if trying to make them understand how important that was, had always been, Collins being with Ellis Adair. “But I wasn’t with him, and he snapped out on us.”

DiMaggio watched him, fascinated, not recognizing this Richie Collins, wondering whether these were real feelings or whether this was another pose to get him over with Salter.

Collins put it to Salter now: “We’ve got to find him. Maybe nobody outside of me understands this, or could ever, but Ellis Adair hasn’t got any talent for fending for himself.”

“Where does he have places besides the city?” DiMaggio said. “Weekend homes or whatnot?” Jesus, he was starting to sound like them.

“We got condos, right next door to one another, at the Polo Club in Boca. But he isn’t there, I checked already, with the guy takes care of them for us. Ellis couldn’t show up there without the guy, Eddie, knowing.”

DiMaggio said, “I thought I read that he’s got some place out in California, too.”

“No, he just stays at La Costa. Out in the desert? I checked there, too. They haven’t seen him.”

“Ellis likes warm places,” DiMaggio said.

“Ellis likes anyplace he can golf,” Collins said. “You believe that shit? Ellis Adair, out of the projects?” Collins smiled. “All he wants to do when he goes out there is put on a pair of green slacks and go play goddamn golf. Play golf or go ride that blue bike of his.”

DiMaggio said, “A
bike
?” He tried to see the Ellis Adair he’d watched in practice, the one who could fly, riding around on some bicycle.

Collins nodded. “Remember that movie with the kids on the bicycles?
Breaking Away
? Came out a long time ago. Me and Ellis saw it once when we were kids. And one of the kids in it, I forget which one, had this blue bike. Or Ellis decided it was blue, afterward, I can’t even remember anymore. He said to me when he came out, ‘One of these days, I’m gonna get me a blue bike, and I’m gonna ride until I come to some place like in that movie, with trees and green grass and everybody smiling at everybody else.’ I told him, ‘You want to end up in
Indiana
?’ But he didn’t care where it was, as long as it wasn’t the projects. Finally, when we were in high school, some guy came over from the city, wanted Ellis ‘n’ me to play on his summer team. And he says to Ellis, ‘What’s it gonna take?’ Meaning money. But Ellis says, ‘A blue bike.’ I pulled him aside and said, ‘Fresh, we got a chance to
score
here.’ But he didn’t want to hear anything like that. He wanted his blue bike. Which he got.” Collins smiled in this sad way. “Which got fucking stolen about a week later. Ellis wouldn’t talk about it. I said, ‘You can get another bike.’ He said, ‘Won’t be
that
bike.’ Then a few months ago, all this time later, he shows up with one just like it. I went looking for it last night. I don’t know where Ellis went, like I told you, but wherever he did, he took that goddamn bike with him.”

DiMaggio said, “Let me ask you something: Does he have any relatives left in Jersey City?”

“His Aunt Mary was the last one, but she died a couple of years ago.”

“He ever go back?”

Collins shook his head no. “The last time I can remember us being over there was Ellis’s rookie year. Aunt Mary’s birthday. She was the one who ended up raising him after his mother died. Ellis’d end up
moving her down to Hilton Head, a nice house he built for her with some of his signing money. But the house wasn’t ready yet, so Ellis rented her this house over on Garfield Avenue. That’s where the party was.”

Richie Collins smiled again. “Funny what you remember? Aunt Mary said she wanted us to stay the night, which we did. We went to bed. About three o’clock in the morning, you know what wakes me up? Bounce of a ball. I look out the window. There’s a court down the hill from the back of Aunt Mary’s rented house. And there’s Ellis, in his gym shorts and the sneakers he wore over, shooting around, looking happy as happy could be. I go down there and say, ‘What the hell you doing out here in the middle of the night?’ Three o’clock in the morning it was. You know what he says? He smiles at me and goes, ‘Rich, maybe things wasn’t so bad here.’ ”

DiMaggio said, “I think I want to take a ride over there.”

Collins said, “Take the Holland Tunnel.”

Maybe it was a reflex, DiMaggio thought, Richie Collins snapping back into being a punk this quickly.

“I want to take a ride over there with
you.
”

“Right.”

Salter leaned forward, but DiMaggio held up a hand. “Let
me
explain something to you, Richie,” he said. “You’re going to help me out on this sooner or later. Because sooner or later you’re going to figure out there’s no percentage for you in
not
helping me. You’re going to figure out, all by yourself, like a big boy, just how shitty this is all starting to look, especially for Ellis. You don’t know where he is? Well, okay, then nobody does. But if he’s not in Florida and he’s not in California, maybe the best place to start is at the beginning.”

Collins said, “It’s going to be a waste of time is all I’m trying to tell you. Just ’cause Ellis shot some baskets over at Garfield one night doesn’t mean he’d go over there to disappear himself.”

“Humor me,” DiMaggio said. “Wasting time is pretty much all I’ve been doing since I got to town.” He turned to Frank Crittendon. “You said Gary Lenz decided to move practice into the Garden?”

“We didn’t tell the press, but they’ll go at six.”

DiMaggio looked at his watch. “That gives Richie and me about four hours.”

“Do what you have to do,” Salter said. “Even if he has to miss practice, I’ll square it with Gary.”

“Now wait a fucking—” Collins tried to stop himself, but it was out there already.

“No,” Salter said in his calm voice. “
You
wait, Richie. You don’t know where Ellis is, fine, you don’t know. But if Mr. DiMaggio thinks there’s even a chance that taking a ride over to Jersey might help find him, then you take the ride.” Salter smiled and said, “Would that be all right with you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Salter said to DiMaggio, “My car’s right outside. Where you came in. Call me if you need anything else.” He went for the door, saying “Frank?” over his shoulder. The two of them walked out of the locker room.