Read Online No Show of Remorse by David J. Walker - Free Book Online

mix of Asian and African-American, with skin the color of dark gold, and long, straight hair dyed auburn. She was very pretty, despite the scars—two thin parallel tracks, a quarter-inch apart—that ran from her left ear to her chin. She didn’t smile, though, and the look in her eyes said she didn’t take shit from pimps or anyone else.
    Careful not to make her mad, I went out the door and down the stone driveway, dragging the Lady’s Hoover with me.

CHAPTER
    11
    I SPENT HALF THE NEXT MORNING suffering through a workout with Dr. Sato, the sensei. The other half I spent at the Steinway, working on “Moon River,” a tune I hate, but one the drinkers can’t get enough of.
    Just before two o’clock, I parked the Cavalier beside a No Parking sign outside the Ralph Ellison Community Center, a tired-looking brick building on the corner of an old, neglected block in Englewood, on the south side. Rain had been predicted all day, and now an ominous wind had risen up and thunder rumbled in the distance. Inside the center, just beyond a small lobby, was a gymnasium barely large enough for one basketball court. It was warm and damp in there, smelling like perspiration and mildew, and the white paint on the old metal backboards had long ago turned yellow.
    The players racing up and down the floor looked to be in their teens and early twenties—all of them African-American, two of them females. They whirled this way and that—sometimes haphazardly, it seemed—yelling, waving their arms. They were drenched in sweat, most of them panting as though they’d been at it too long. I stood there for several minutes and didn’t see the ball go through either hoop. Then a skinny kid wearing goggles lofted a desperate one-hander from the top of the key. The ball caught the rim, bounced high in the air, then dropped through with a swish of the net.
    Everyone clapped and cheered. Everyone. Both teams.
    â€œWay to go, Randy!” Jimmy Coletta was clapping too. “Okay, everyone, it’s late. Go home and shower up. See you Tuesday!”
    The players, all of them in wheelchairs, whooped and exchanged high fives, then propelled themselves toward the far end of the gym, where family members and friends were waiting. A smiling Randy was still pumping one fist high in the air. His other hand was strapped down, with the fingers spread over the buttons of his chair’s control box.
    Coletta spun his own wheelchair around, his eyes bright with tears. When he saw me he faked a sneeze and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Allergies,” he said. He wore running shoes that had no laces, and dark blue shorts, and his legs were in pretty good shape, considering the muscles weren’t able to function on their own. The slogan on his T-shirt said: YES, I CAN! ’CAUSE I GOT JESUS IN MY CORNER!
    â€œMal Foley,” I said, stepping toward him.
    â€œRight.” He didn’t stretch out his hand to me.
    â€œSeems like a great group of kids.”
    â€œYes.” He frowned, more to himself than at me. “Sometimes I think I push them too hard. Mostly, though, people don’t push them hard enough.”
    The gym echoed with laughter and raucous talk, as the players struggled to get into jackets and get their legs covered up—the ones who had legs—for the trip home. Then, without warning, all the lights went out and it was very dark and suddenly silent … and then came the deafening crash of nearby thunder. The lights flickered on, then off, and finally on to stay, and the rain came—in a million tiny pellets, blasted by the wind against the frosted glass of the high windows. The players clapped and cheered like patriots at a fireworks display.
    â€œLooks to me like they love it,” I said. The muscles in Coletta’s upper body, even through the T-shirt, were well-defined. “Looks like you work yourself pretty hard, too,