Break Point Down Read online

  “If I want your help I'll ask for it, Wynne.”

  The little room was filled with a heavy silence. She sat down on a stack of boxes, crossing her legs and leaning back against the window frame, and stared at him. Kind of like Kaz, he thought, when she was about to pounce on an insect.

  “So Jeff told you.”

  “Jeff told me.”

  “And what else did big brother tell you? Did he happen to mention your run of bad luck with ROCA and TEN-PRO?”

  “Don't tell me you engineered that, too.”

  “Oh, not I. Your sainted brother did. All in the interest of family values.”

  “Give me a break, Wynne. Jeff couldn't have—”

  “Couldn't he? You told him all about your little life and your little plans. And he would pat you on the back and tell you he was proud of you, and he turned right around and phoned his pals. And suddenly, pow! ROCA forgets they have a deal with you. TEN-PRO decides your name won't sell rackets after all.”

  “Jeff didn't have that kind of pull anymore.”

  “His friends did.”

  “Jeff was motivated by money. He wouldn't have done all that just to be mean.”

  “Far be it from me to delve into the motives of the pure in heart.”

  “There was nothing in it for him.”

  “They were betting on your return, you fool! Double or nothing. There were millions in it for Jeff!”

  “He wouldn't have set me up like that.”

  “Like he wouldn't have cheated you out of a fortune?”

  For a few moments they stared at each other, like adversaries in a fifth-set tiebreak, he thought.

  “You kept quiet all this time,” Kitt said slowly, switching the direction of the conversation. “So why tell me now?”

  “Because I want you to stop moping over Jeff. Get mad and get even!”

  “Surprise me. You want me to be a real man and play myself rich, right?”

  “It wouldn't hurt.”

  ”How do I know you weren't behind all this and now that Jeff is dead, you're just laying it all on him?”

  “Who knew about the specifics of those deals, Kitt? Who do you think told me about your scholarship applications—when and where and how much? Jeff, that's who.”

  He had told no one else the details. Would Jeff have screwed him for another long shot?

  “All right, let loose with the righteous indignation. Here, chew on this one. You know about their little gambling ring, right? Did he tell you they were betting on horses? You were stupid, Kitt. Plain stupid.”

  “I suppose you are about to educate me.”

  ”After all that'd happened, you still believed what big brother told you. Well, they weren't betting on horses. They were betting on you.”

  “Oh, come on!”

  “Jeff messed up big-time, Kitt, and you're still the dense little brother. For years they bet on your matches—aces, points on serve, break points converted, break points against your serve, unforced errors per set and per match and per tournament, specific results against specific opponents. In the beginning Jeff even set you up.”

  ”How?”

  “You were just a kid, and you weren't suspicious when your rackets weren't strung right. And they ‘lost’ your court shoes so you'd have to wear new ones, and at least once they put junk into your food to make you sick. They played you like a cello.”

  “They knew I'd still play my game. None of that made a lot of difference.”

  “Didn't it? When your rackets were off, how many aces did you hit? They got tired of straight-up-and-down betting on results that were way too predictable. They wanted to make it more sporting. When you were playing in Sydney with food poisoning you threw up on the court and everybody counted on a pullout. But you hung in there, and Jeff knew you would, so he bet on you. He made a killing that time.”

  “And who are these mysterious buddies?”

  “Henry Warner. Senator McBane. I don't know all the names. They drew in more and more people and they stopped the tricks because it was getting too risky and it had got so big it was sporting enough by itself. Jeff got in way over his head.”

  “And just like that he told you everything.”

  “I told you, I have connections. When you turned student, they'd already taken in bets through the next U.S. Open. They not only had to refund those, Jeff had a deal where he got a percentage off the top and paid off at one and a quarter in case of a pullout, and that was some pullout. So he did what the true gambler does. Staked it all on the big one. Double or nothing.”

  “And the big one?”

  “Getting you back by a deadline. The Master's Cup, the Australian, whatever.”

  Kitt jumped to his feet and started pacing back and forth. Much as he hated to admit it, her words had a ring of truth. Disjointed images flashed through his mind. The stringing problems in the French Open, when he'd won the final without a single ace. The wrong shoes at the Open the year before, the lost rackets in Florida. The car that had sideswiped his and made him late for the semifinal at Wimbledon four years ago so he almost had to forfeit. Jeff's unsurprised calm through all of it—

  Another scene scrolled through his memory. Page after page of columns on Jeff's computer—statistics of matches, listing aces, break points converted, unforced errors, results tabulated by tournament, by opponent, by court surface. For your memoirs, Jeff had said.

  He leaned his head against the door frame. Wynne tried unsuccessfully to sound sympathetic.

  “They played games with you. They figured if they could make life miserable enough for you on the outside, you'd come running back and they could salvage something from the mess.”

  “Like you.”

  “As you wish. They'd put together a few big bets to recoup. A few words to the big shots at ROCA and at TEN-PRO, and your deals were off. Warner owns some of the tabloids. He put in the headlines that were supposed to get you riled up, although I never understood how that would help. Wake up, Kitt. You've been playing against the big boys and losing.”

  He turned and stared at her.

  “And why would they tell you?”

  “They don't know that I know most of this.”

  “You found all this out through your banking connections? I don't think so, Wynne. Just so I finally get the picture straight—how do you know? And the vandalism and the hit-and-run—was that part of the game, too?”

  “I don't know anything about that. It may have been. Jeff was getting vindictive.”

  “Some of it came after Jeff died. Who else would have kept this thing going? They'd had their fun and by then the bets were lost. Warner is a jerk but this isn't big enough to keep him interested. So where did that come from, Wynne?”

  “I'm a thug now? “

  He ignored her, and mused aloud, as though he was talking to himself.

  “When you came in you knew Thor was dead. I haven't told anybody. How did you know?”

  “I didn't see him around. He wasn't in the yard when I got here and he's not inside, so I figured you got rid of him. I didn't know he was dead, and I'm sorry. I know you were fond of him.”

  “Most dogs would have gulped down meat but Thor was funny. Only a few people knew that Thor liked cheese better than meat. You knew. And the poison came in cheese.”

  “You're crazy. You think the dining habits of a mutt would register with me?”

  “Who else even knew I had a kitten, Wynne, a kitten who never went outside?”

  “How should I know? And why would I want your animals killed?”

  “For the same reason everyone else wanted me to fall flat on my face.”

  “I resent that. I did what I thought was best for you.”

  “For me?”

  “Yes, for you!”

  Throbbing with rage, he kept his voice cold and calm.

  “Get out of my life, Wynne.”

  He turned his back and strode away blindly till he reached the edge of town, and kept walking as though he had
someplace to go. The early calm had evaporated, and when he knelt down by the mound under the high cliff he smashed his angry fists on the rocky surface.

  “Rotten jerk!”

  Jeff had been sitting there at the visiting room table, telling him about Wynne's little tricks. Shaking his head at her betrayal. So sympathetic. I wouldn't stab my own brother in the back, Kitt! Bragging about sacrifices he'd never made, trying to guilt him into returning to tennis. And his open-mouthed surprise at the troubles that kept popping up. Gambling on the horses—right. He bet on my matches. My brother. My stinking, lying brother.

  Wynne knew more. She'd told him just enough to regain the offensive. Lay it all on a dead man. She knew details from years back and she'd said nothing. Saving it up for when she might have use for the information.

  What about Thor and Kaz? Had Jeff arranged that, too? A posthumous slap in the face? He couldn't have. Someone had known about Kaz. Wynne knew. Wynne knew about Kaz and about the cheese, and she knew they were gone before she got there. Why hadn't he made her tell?

  Because you wanted to stop yourself before you choked it out of her?

  The picture reeled around his mind, and he rested his head on his fists trying to get a grip on the anger that poured out of him like lava searing a mountainside. A landslide of mud and rocks that crushed and cremated his brother's soul.

  The wind picked up again and he heard a far-away frenzy of barking somewhere above him. He clambered up the short, steep cliff wall, finding small footholds and clinging to irregularities in the surface. When he hoisted himself over the cliff's edge and scrambled to his feet he scanned the mountainside, every waving, whipping blade of long, tough mountain grass a moment of exhilarating expectation. His eyes searched for movement on the bleak, rocky wall above and the green slopes below. He stood and whistled, a sweet, sharp, urgent whistle, and the wind whistled back.

  The barking had stopped.

  Thor is dead. You buried him.

  His anger echoed off the cliffs, bouncing and boiling back to him.

  “You scum! You lying scum!”

  He ignored the veterinarian's advice, and tormented himself. When Dr. Howard called back to report that the little chunk of cheese could have brought down an elephant, he went to the library and read up on the effects of the poison and tried to imagine what Thor must have suffered, the agony and the dying, and Kitt not there to make it right. A hundred times over he pictured how Kaz had come running on hearing footsteps, ready to play, and then the crunch of the little neck. How fast had she died? Had she felt the pains of hell before she'd been thrown out the back door like a piece of trash?

  He'd moved out of the little house now, and in the evenings he took his sleeping bag into the mountains not far from Thor. At night he lay, unable to relax, sleeping fitfully, his mind eddying around the same questions. Who? Why? His restless sleep was cut short by terrifying nightmares of Jeff teetering at the edge of an icy crevasse, howling and reaching for his brother's hand and then slapping it away as he fell, with a hellish laugh, into darkness. Thor was in his dreams almost every night, twisting and writhing in interminable anguish till all was still and silent except for the cracking of Kaz's tiny bones. The worst was his vision of Kari one night, dragged by a beat-up old truck while she screamed for help and Kitt stood there as though paralyzed, with Jeff grinning maliciously from the driver's seat.

  Disoriented and sweating, he flung off the covers and sat, half awake, shivering in the cold night air. He got up and started running till he dropped. After a while he got back to his feet and dragged himself to the Suburban.

  George had worked him into an assistant's job. It was only a few hours a day, and didn't pay a lot, but it gave him keys to the field house, and a chance to take a shower. Nights and days became a blur of numbing efforts to forget the mess of his life. Surprisingly, his tennis was superb. During practices he fell back into the routine of absolute focus and shook off his thoughts for a few blessed hours. In class he found himself unable to concentrate, and he walked about in a haze of rage and depression. With difficulty he pulled out passable grades for some of his classes, but he flunked some others, and Dr. White was angry when he summoned Kitt to his office.

  “You keep this up through finals, and you won't be back,” he promised Kitt.

  Danny, who was skipping the European clay court season because of an injury, seemed shocked to see his friend when he dropped in at the field house on his way to the Northwest to see his folks for a surprise visit.

  “You look like you've been on a ten-day drunk,” he greeted Kitt. “What's up?”

  “Just studying late.”

  “Okay if I hang out with you a couple of days? Thought we might play some matches on grass.”

  Kitt calculated quickly. A motel for a couple of days, and eat, too. This was going to take an advance. Stop in at the personnel office and check that out.

  “How can I help?”

  “Just work out with me a little, some grass-court stuff. You know.”

  “Let me tell George I'm leaving.”

  His forehead furrowed in thought as he walked to George's office. If Danny planned on staying here to train, what was he going to tell him? That he was broke and living in his truck? That someone poisoned Thor and killed Kaz and he was losing it? That he lost his job, he was flunking out of school and he might have to go back to pro tennis just to pay the rent?

  Go on, feel sorry for yourself.

  For the first hour he was able to forget his worries as he threw himself into his game and a year and a half of frustration fell away. For ten years he had dominated the grass courts, rarely giving up a set to the greatest players in the world. These were the lush lawns of first-week Wimbledon, and he flew around the court, making impossible volleys and blasting rockets to the farthest corners. For a few moments his joy was too big to contain.

  Between sets, some club players asked for autographs and he could hear the whispers. That's the Cannon—remember him? Used to be a champion. Outside the fence, passers-by stopped to watch. A small brunette stood with her back to him, talking to a few friends, and for an instant his heart jumped in his throat. She turned around and he stopped short. When a man with a large tan-colored dog jogged by the fence he abruptly turned away. Danny gave him a quizzical look when he double-faulted twice in a row and started spraying his shots and framing a few balls in frustration. A step slow and an inch off. So who cares? It doesn't matter anymore.

  After he lost the set Danny called across the net, recognizing something wrong.

  “Wanna go home now?”

  “Three out of five, that was the deal.”

  He double-faulted the first game away, and never got back into it. In the end he failed to convert on three break points that would have got him back on serve. He merely shrugged off Danny's probing looks.

  “In the first set you play like a demon. Then you sort of go away. What gives?”

  “Guess I've been out of the game too long.”

  They showered at the lodge, and Danny ordered dinner. Kitt chuckled when the meal was brought in. If Danny knew how long it had been since he'd eaten like this! Not that he cared that much. Gourmet food wasn't his thing, and he wasn't starving.

  He decided to break the news of his living arrangements during dessert. He could hardly invite Danny to share the back of his truck. What if he just finished the semester and then packed up? Get a job, maybe a small apartment. A place for Kari to come home to.

  Who was he kidding? She'd been gone five months. She wasn't coming back. That kind of life—who could tell whether she was alive or dead? What was there to keep him here? On the tour, he'd be losing some matches at first, been out so long. But he'd be winning some, and then some more, and once back in the top ten he'd have the money to start over with his plans. So things didn't pan out—which was more stupid, to cop out or to keep trying?

  Keep the spark alive. That's all it was right now, a spark in the middle of dinky jobs and hours on t
he streets, grieving more for his dog than for his brother. He was no closer to finding answers for his questions.

  “Do you believe in God, Danny?”

  Half-choking on a piece of steak, Danny stared at him.

  “Where did that come from?”

  “Just wondering. We used to talk about it, but we never settled it.”

  “Ah—the meaning of life. I thought you and I had decided to leave the unknowables alone.”

  “Yeah, but it's a copout.”

  “Probably.”

  “So do you?”

  “I guess so. I mean—well, I don't know. I haven't thought a lot about it. Do you?”

  Kitt frowned.

  “I wish I could be sure. It's one of the things I was hoping to figure out, you know, when I quit the tour. Time and tranquillity were going to settle everything. Stupid idea.”

  “No progress?”

  “Some. There's a lot out there, eternal stuff, you know, that's beyond my comprehension for now. We haven't even got the language to express it in. Our language is based on limited experience, and we're trying to formulate the unlimited, the eternal. So you get a lot of speculation and because-I-said-so's.”

  “So how do you go about finding out?”

  “Wish I knew. Study. I drop in at one church or another. Some I like, some turn me off. What I try is put all the argumentation aside, pro and con. Not let my quote unquote faith come from dead-end rationalizing or from some dogmatic crap. Sort of be open to whatever glimpse I can get. It happens sometimes. It's where I start.”

  “Do you pray?”

  “I've tried. A couple of times, it seemed sort of right. Other times I feel stupid, like I am talking to myself. All I know is I've got a kinda-sorta basic belief that there is a God. Who exactly he is, and what he expects—not a clue. I don't even know if the Bible is a book of prophecy or just some legends and history and the ramblings of some ancient mystics.”

  Danny laughed.

  “That sounds downright sacrilegious.”

  Kitt remained serious.

  “I don't mean to be. It's just so hard to know. Some people seem to find all their answers there. I don't. I'm not saying they aren't there, but they're not that easy to find. Been looking at some commentaries, and that does help. But I still don't know.”