Don't Lose Her by Jonathon King Page A

approached, I watched him bounce the ball twice, then position it delicately in the web of his elongated fingers. With a fluid motion like the slow whip of a willow tree limb in the wind, he shot the ball in a parabola that I knew was too high for a standard free throw. Yet the orb rose with an exaggerated backspin, pierced the hoop without touching any part of the rim, and because of the spin, struck the macadam and bounced back perfectly to CQ, who had not moved from his spot at the free-throw line.
    I was three steps behind him, and he had not turned his head.
    â€œThat the way Pistol Pete Maravich did it, Mr. Freeman?” he said, still not turning, but again positioning the ball on the tips of his fingers and letting go another shot, exactly the same, with the same rotation and result.
    â€œSo I’ve heard, CQ,” I said. “He didn’t have anyone to rebound for him when he was a kid, so he developed that backspin so he wouldn’t have to chase the ball.”
    CQ shook his head.
    â€œOl’ school, man. But you do what you have to do, right, Mr. Freeman?”
    This time, he turned, cradled the ball in one hand, and reached out the other, offering it. The young man’s palm swallowed my entire hand like I’d slipped it into a manila envelope. And I do not have small hands. “Maravich was a legend,” I said, looking into CQ’s strikingly black eyes, the corneas so dark it was impossible to detect the color there. They made you stare into them a bit longer than was naturally polite.
    â€œTrue,” CQ said. “But can you imagine a guy playing in the NBA today with the nickname ‘Pistol’? Man, the press would crucify that dude.”
    I was still looking into the kid’s eyes, but felt myself smiling at his grasp of the world around him. “Probably true,” was all I said.
    Clarence bounced the ball a couple of times and let an awkward silence sit for three beats. “Y’all didn’t come to play, did you, Mr. Freeman?” he said with a smile of his own.
    â€œNo. I came to ask a favor, CQ, for me and for Mr. Manchester.”
    The statement caused the young man’s lips to seal and his eyes to avert for the first time.
    â€œOK,” he said, stepping toward the empty benches at courtside. “Let’s talk.”
    So what did I need from him? CQ asked. I just had to name it. Mr. Manchester was his friend. He’d been supportive from a distance, not like the others who wanted to be close just for the sake of prestige or spin-off money or any residual self-gain they could get from “knowing” CQ.
    â€œHe’s cool. And I met his lady once and she was cool, too. What do you think I can do to help?”
    I gave CQ the facts in low tones on the courtside bench. The other players had left us alone. I explained the kidnapping of Billy’s wife and the instant speculation that her case dealing with the extradition of a Colombian drug supplier had in all probability been the motivation.
    â€œWe think they’ll keep her close, hiding her until they think they can use her in some sort of trade to keep their man from going to court here in the States.”
    CQ had followed the logic. He was a college-educated twenty-one-year-old. In fact, he was smarter than a typical college kid because he knew both sides of the street: the campus and classrooms where he was learning macroeconomics, and the local corner where a more visceral form of business theory held sway.
    â€œSo you’re looking for Mrs. Manchester and because you think there are drugs involved, you figure I might have access to relevant information, being that I have such wide connections within the drug underworld?”
    Crafting his synopsis, CQ had discarded all hints of ghetto cant in his voice and diction. The metamorphosis was impressive, but I wasn’t sure if he was employing it because he was pissed at me for making assumptions, or to show